Hello readers! I hope your day is awesome! Today, I want to look at a few cards on the banned list for the format Commander that I'd consider removing if I were to be given the power to do so for a day, by fiat. You can find the list here.

Now, many of the cards I will argue for below are ones that I am making a case for their unbanning, but I am unsure of where I would actually fall in some cases. I do think the cards rated 1-3 on this list are very unbannable and fixable (in two cases), and the #1 card is one I'd go to war over how silly it is being banned. If you asked me to unban just one card with the wave of a hand, that would be it. I'm leaning towards the unbanning of #4, and then I am on the fence for the latter two.

Some cards have no chance at making the list, like Black Lotus or Karakas. I only have 5 cards and 1 Honorable Mention on my list so I am keeping my normal Top Ten list at bay since I don't see 10+ cards to make the case for.

Formats need to keep as small a Banned and/or Restricted list as possible to keep the format from bogging down. It was one of the issues with the casual format Five Color. Even if no one would play it (cough...#2...cough) it's not worth putting on your list. It's pretty minor. There are a few tricks the committee does to make the list smaller and better to read, like combining all Ante cards into one link and the cards banned by WOTC's June 10, 2020 decision in another link so that they keep their banned list better looking. Good job!

Now... let's turn to my list!

Honorable Mention - Shahrazad

Shahrazad is an odd card! You play a subgame of Magic with libraries as the new library for your game, and then the losers of the game wind up losing half their life in the real game, so it has consequences. I've had a few of these cast on me over the years, and played sub games, and I've also had one Fork'ed not once but twice, and that was an epic night of gaming at the local card store. This thing is a lot of fun! And fun cards should not be banned in formats that aren't designed for tournament table play. It would likely be banned in cEDH as it takes too much time for the subgame, but it's amazing at kitchen table Commander play. There is another limitation for this card from the first expansion set. It's on the Reserved List and it costs more than $500, so there is a real dis-incentive to grab one for your next Commander night; but, if you do, shouldn't you be able to play this fun thing? I think so!

5. Prophet of Kruphix

I can still remember when Prophet of Kruphix was banned, and I'm still wondering why. I'd never broken it myself in my decks and I'd never seen it broken by others. There are hundreds of cards that are equally as abusable that have never had action taken against them, like Deadeye Navigator or Ad Nauseam. It's a slow 5-drop creature and requires two colors of mana to cast. It's a 2/3 and easily answered by Lightning Bolt effects, Swords to Plowshares effects, Murder effects and counters. It's a fun card that a lot of folks really enjoyed playing! I played one in my iconic Equinaut Commander brew. You can read my 10-year-old primer here. The key concept of the deck is to self-bounce your stuff over and over again and use cast (Equilibrium), arrives to the battlefield (Aura Shards), bounce triggers (Azorius Aethermage) and taps (Opposition) to do a number of things with your one creature that just arrives at instant speed like Fleetfoot Panther that bounces itself. I like it a lot! (Here's an update in 2016). Prophet of Kruphix is worse than Ad Nauseam and Deadeye Navigator and many other cards that have not had action taken against them, and it should be unbanned.

4. Sylvan Primordial

I understand why Primeval Titan was banned. Primetime was a 6-mana 6/6 trampler that was on curve, evasive, and brought two lands of any kind, not just basic, to the battlefield with him. And he netted you two more each time he swung for the future. I get why he was banned and I won't argue that he should return to the format. But this guy? What happened here? First, he's just a 7-drop with a 6/8 body and reach as his ability. No evasion. He's a bit small for the cost in Green. On arrival to the battlefield, he'll destroy one non-creature for each opponent you control, so you can destroy anything, like an Acidic Slime, for each opponent, except he can also destroy planeswalkers, unlike the Slime. For each permanent you destroyed? You ramp yourself for a Forest and that's... it. Not any land. The worst case is he destroys three lands, one for each foe, and ramps three duals for the player who cast it. Why the hate? I have no idea how this guy, who's just a going wide Acidic Slime for two more mana, that nets you Forests is good enough to ban. He should be unbanned.

3. Chaos Orb AND 2. Falling Star

Two for the price of one! Since these could be read as the same number, I added an Honorable Mention to the list. Like the aforementioned Honorable Mention, these are on the reserved list with very high secondary market rates. The Orb is well past $500 for the cheapest Unlimited one over on eBay and the Star is around $150 English. These are pricey options, and they are tons of fun! Want to add some fun to your casual day? Add these to your format! Now the reason they are banned is really twofold and we'll look at each aspect in turn.

• Reason 1 - Logistics - When they are seen in someone's hand or cast, then people rearrange their boards to make sure that they are less likely to be hit by the card in question. There are two ways that you can handle this. The first? Let it happen! It's fun to move your things around to limit the destruction of the Orb in particular. The other option? Errata for Commander that would prevent someone from moving their stuff around as soon as these two cards are announced on the stack. Five Color allowed both with that erratum and it was a ton of fun to play!
• Reason 2 - Flip is Physical - Some people are physically unable to flip a card like Falling Star or Chaos Orb and would be precluded from doing so at the table, thus making this duo a feel bad moment for them. Sure thing! I totally understand, and we want to make MTG welcoming for all! As someone with Huntington's Disease for 10 years now, there are things I am unable to do, like drive. I get it! It takes me an additional 30-45 minutes to write an article with all my mishits than it used to. This is definitely a bigger strike against the cards, but I'm unsure whether its enough to merit banning them entirely from the format. Something like this should definitely fall under Rule 0.

And that's why I think these two cards should be unbanned with errata. It's okay to have format-specific errata that helps to enable a pair of cards that are chaotic and loads of fun! And it drops your banned list by two cards.

1. Coalition Victory

Let's take a look at Coalition Victory! We have a number of alternate victory cards that are legal in the game. From poison counters to Test of Endurance, this is the only one that is banned. Why? Well, let's look at the argument for banning. You are going to run this is in a Five Color deck. You can control your leader easily enough because that's castable. With all the dual lands and Triomes running around you can easily get all 5 land types from non-basic lands, so you don't need to control even 5 basic lands. And then you cast the Victory and win! It's a very easy path to victory that only needs the Victory, your leader, and a few lands. Shouldn't it be banned?

Nope! Let's look at why.

First , every color has an answer to Coalition Victory, and can do so at instant speed while it's on the stack. Let's review them in turn. The vulnerable points of this combo are multiple lands, a creature, and an eight-mana sorcery.

• Blue: Blue has the most prolific answers at instant speed. It can counter Coalition Victory easily enough. It can destroy the five-color Commander with instant creature removal like Pongify. It can steal the creature at instant speed with things like Dominate. It can either bounce the creature or a key land at instant speed with things like Recoil or Capsize. It has a ton of commonly played answers.
• White: White has a lot of commonly played answers for creatures. It can exile the leader with the most commonly played White card in the format - Swords to Plowshares or similar additions to decks. It can destroy the creature (or a land if the creature has hexproof or shroud) at instant speed with Generous Gift. It also has instant capable mass creature removal that won't target like Rout.
• Black: Black has a ton of creature removal both destroying like Murder or exiling like Baleful Mastery. Black also has proactive discard prior to eight mana can also help to ensure that it won't be cast.
• Red: Red has a few commonly played answers. It can burn the creature with removal. It can also Chaos Warp the creature or a key land, or it use stuff like Fissure to do the same. It can also proactively use land destruction to stop a future Victory. Coalition Victory is Blue and anti-Blue counters like Pyroblast are also pretty commonly seen in the format. Its answers are almost as diverse as Blue.
• Green: Green has less the fewest instant answers to a creature or a land, but it does have the heavily played Beast Within.
• All Colors: There are instant speed answers that are often run in colors. Every color has access to Scour from Existence which can exile a land or a creature. You can also answer a land with an untapped Wasteland or Strip Mine or similar land.

Now, what if they add in cards like, say, Lightning Greaves on their leader so you can't answer it? Well, folks, that is a 5-card combo to win the game. That's not something that should be banned, right? Consider this:

Consider this three-card combo including a Commander that will win the game. You drop Garth One-Eye and soulbond him to the Navigator. You tap him for Black Lotus with the haste of Fires (or any other haste-giving effect). Sacrifice the Lotus for Blue. Spend two to self-exile Garth with the Navigator and net a mana. He returns, taps for another Black Lotus and repeats. Then, after you've collected 20,000 Blue mana, you tap and Braingeyser every foe to draw 5000 cards and win the game. Three cards to win the game, and one is a leader. Is Deadeye Navigator getting banned? The key card in this combo is much better and cheaper than Coalition Victory, so is it bannable? I don't think so (not for this combo at least, maybe for other reasons).

There are also many two card combos that win the game.

Here's one! You control an 11/11 infect Colossus. You give it unblockable with Artful Dodge and then swing and now someone dies with 11 poison counters! Are we banning Blightsteel Colossus? And this combo has an even better card than the sorcery speed and easier to answer Artful Dodge - Rogue's Passage - a harder to answer land! And the Colossus cannot be answered by nearly as many things as the creature in a Coalition Victory with its indestructible, Green cannot answer it without access to exiling creatures or artifacts, and red has to be running something like Into the Core and Black's common destruction won't answer it either. Why is Coalition Victory banned when harder to answer combos that require fewer cards are allowed? I don't have a good answer at all to said question!

And there we go! What did you think of the cards that I'd unban. Anything in here that you agree or disagree with? Any cards I missed? Just let me know!