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The Commander format has a surprisingly small banlist. Outside of cards banned in every format, there are only 41 cards officially banned in Commander. Thanks to the Game Changer system, you will very rarely have to worry about cards being fully banned. The cards that are banned are banned for a good reason, and the banlist is only for the most egregious of cards.
Banlist Category 1: The Power Nine
The Power Nine refers to nine cards released in Magic’s first set Alpha and are among the best cards ever printed. As such, expect them to be banned in most formats. Commander is no exception. The only Power Nine card legal in Commander is Timetwister, which is widely considered to be the weakest of the nine.
The Moxen
The first set of the Power Nine is the five Moxen. Each one costs zero mana and can tap for one respective color. These consist of Mox Emerald, Mox Jet, Mox Pearl, Mox Ruby, and Mox Sapphire. These cards are essentially an extra land drop. Mana is so important in Magic, so if these were legal, you’d be able to basically play another land for free. Not only that, you can use these with artifact support, giving them an extra boost in power. You literally don’t have to pay anything to cast them, which is why they’re banned in Commander (and most other formats except Vintage).
The Blue Cards
As for the two Blue cards, it’s easy to see why Ancestral Recall and Time Walk are bannable cards. A card that only costs one mana to let you draw three cards is great, and you can cast it at instant speed no less! Likewise, Time Walk only costs two mana for an extra turn, something that normally costs at least five mana to do. Both of these cards are so undercosted that if they were ever legal, it’d make Blue the best color in Commander by far. Neither of these cards has a downside, and they only bring positives to your deck. Their auto-include nature is why they’re on the banlist, and will always be on the banlist.
The Best Card
The final card in the Power Nine on the banlist is the famous Black Lotus. It is widely considered to be the best Magic card ever printed, and no card really comes close to its power level. Magic is built around limited resources in regards to mana, so having a card that gives you three mana for free is going to be broken. In Commander, you can even loop it with certain cards that you recast permanents from your graveyard to generate infinite mana easily. There are too many combos with Black Lotus to list; it’s the most broken card in the game’s history and will never, ever come off of the Commander banlist.
Banlist Category 2: Equalizer Cards
You have another subset of cards on the banlist that are too good at equalizing the battlefield. Balance is the strongest in this lot. As the name implies, casting it makes sure you and everyone else have the same number of cards and permanents. For two mana, this does way too much for you to ever be legal. It stalls out games and just encourages you to play passively.
Limited Resources is a Stax piece that is just way too good at stalling the game. You can cast it for just one mana, and prevent anymore than ten lands from ever being on the battlefield. It’s good late game as mass land removal, and it’s good early-game to shut down everyone else. You can pair it with ramp cards so that only you have access to lands and no one else.
The last in this category is Upheaval. A board wipe that returns all permanents to hands might not seem too good at first glance. What makes it strong is that you can float all your mana before casting it, which lets you play your spells afterward to get far ahead of everyone else. Everyone is negatively affected, but you will always come out on top.
Banlist Category 3: Easy Mana
In Commander, being able to cast your commander and play your spells before everyone else can set up is vital. You need your deck to be fast, and some cards are just too good at doing that. Both Jeweled Lotus and Mana Crypt provide you with mana for free. Mana Crypt has a “downside,” but losing three life when you start with 40 is hardly a cost. Not to mention you only have a 50% chance of actually losing that life.
Channel is one of the best cards ever printed. You can turn life into mana, and with 40 starting life you could do this a bunch of times. If you have a lifegain engine, you could easily generate infinite mana for tons of different combos. Fastbond is one of the best ramp cards ever. It lets you play as many lands as you want at the price of one life. This cost is trivially low, and puts you at an advantage over everyone else. With it only costing mana, you can play it turn one to have way more lands than everyone else.
Banlist Category 4: Control
There is nothing wrong with Control/Stax. However, sometimes it is a bit too strong and just creates unfun play patterns. They just are too good at doing what they’re meant to do. Iona, Shield of Emeria can completely shut down mono-colored decks. If someone is playing a Mono Blue deck, you can name Blue with Iona to lock them out of the game. It might cost nine mana, but it can be cheated out and creates very bad play patterns against any mono-colored decks. Similarly, Karakas can lock someone out of playing their commander. You can just bounce any legendary creature, and this can be used both offensively and defensively. All commanders are legendary, meaning Karakas will never be a dead card and you can always bounce an opponent’s commander.
Sundering Titan is on the banlist for its ability to constantly destroy lands. If you blink it, you can keep destroying multiple lands. Reanimate, blink, any way to keep triggering its effect can lock your opponents out of any lands at all. This is especially true for multi-colored decks. Erayo, Soratami Ascendant is a card you can play in the command zone that’s easy to flip and becomes a static counterspell. There are no restrictions on what it counters, letting it counter the first spell cast every time. It’s trivial to flip, and since it can be your commander, easy to cast, especially at only two mana.
Banlist Category 5: Combo Cards
There will always be combos (both infinite and game-ending) in Commander. While you might think combos are natural in Commander, sometimes, combos are a bit too consistent and just create awful play patterns.
Uninteractable Combos
Two combo cards that are nearly uninteractable are Flash and Recurring Nightmare. What makes Recurring Nightmare so strong is that there isn’t an opportunity for you to react to its effect. It doesn’t have a trigger when it enters, so no one ever has a chance to remove it since it returns to hand for cost. So long as you have infinite mana and creatures, you can abuse Recurring Nightmare as much as you want.
Flash is a little more in-depth. Cheating out a creature isn’t too much of a problem, but it is when that creature is Protean Hulk. When it dies, you can get a sac outlet (Carrion Feeder), a creature that returns when it dies (Lesser Masticore with Melira, Sylvok Outcast), and a way to deal burn damage (Disciple of the Vault). This is just one of many combinations, and with Flash, it can be done as early as turn one.
Long Combos
A few cards on the banlist enable combos that, while technically stoppable, last way too long. Most infinite combos can be looped, but combos with Paradox Engine and Nadu, Winged Wisdom have to be played out. They may whiff on a card and have to stop their combo, but the majority of the time, you win the game when you combo with them.
With Paradox Engine, so long as you have cards to cast, you can keep untapping all your mana rocks like Sol Ring to easily generate pseudo-infinite mana. Just tap all your mana rocks and dorks before you cast a spell to generate a ton of mana. You do need some kind of engine to ensure you don’t run out of spells to cast, something that Song of Creation can do. Paradox Engine doesn’t have a win condition attached to it, so a turn that takes multiple minutes can lead to just passing. Even without the combo enabling, Paradox Engine is just a flat-out good card for ramping, and is too good for Commander.
Nadu, Winged Wisdom is infamous for breaking Modern, and it was broken in Commander, too. It combined with Shuko gives you a free way to trigger Nadu every turn. You just need Springheart Nantuko or any other card that makes a creature when a land enters to constantly use Nadu’s effect. This puts a ton of lands on your battlefield and cards in your hand, and takes a long time to fully finish, and it can whiff, so you can’t take any shortcuts with it.
Untap Abuse
A handful of cards are fantastic, and can be untapped to keep using their effects. These include Time Vault, Tolarian Academy, and Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. In the case of Tolarian Academy and Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary, it’s trivial to make infinite mana. With Time Vault, you can chain extra turns constantly.
All you need to enable these cards is anything that can untap a permanent, such as Vizier of Tumbling Sands, Kiora's Follower, and Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner. Just one untap can lead to massive turns with how much mana they generate (or in Time Vault‘s case, infinite extra turns to lock everyone out of the game).
Banlist Category 6: Value Engines
If you’re not familiar, a value engine refers to an engine that keeps generating advantage, be it card advantage or mana generation. There is no shortage of value engines in Commander, but some are just too efficient at what they do. These cards do too much for too little that they found themselves on the banlist.
Card Advantage
The first subset of value engines is those that generate a ton of card advantage. One look at Griselbrand and it’s easy to see why it’s banned. With 40 starting life, paying 7 life for 7 cards is the easiest deal you can make. Likewise, Yawgmoth's Bargain is the same situation. It doesn’t matter that you don’t get your draw step when you can just draw most of your deck (or your entire deck if you have a lifegain engine).
Leovold, Emissary of Trest provides a ton of value, locking everyone else out of card draw and drawing you cards if any permanent (or you) is ever targeted. It being legendary is what makes Leovold so good, as its ability to be run as a commander and always have access to its effect is what is so good. If banned as commander was still around, it’d be perfectly fine in the 99, but as that doesn’t exist anymore, it’s got to stay banned for how much value it provides. Even someone trying to remove Leovold nets you card draw, always going one for one, generating a ton of value.
Golos, Tireless Pilgrim is unique in that its value comes from putting cards directly onto the battlefield. Its effect can be done as many times as you want, so any infinite mana combo means you can play out your entire deck. You don’t even have to wait to use Golos, as it doesn’t need to tap for its effect. As a commander, you have all five colors to play all the best combo enablers and payoffs.
Mana Value
In Commander, generating mana is vital to come ahead of your opponents. With three other players, you need to be able to generate mana quicker than them, or risk falling behind. Dockside Extortionist is one of the most infamous cards for this. Blinking Dockside could net you dozens of Treasure tokens, and with how easy it is to cast, you could get a ton of mana available ahead of everyone else. It severely punishes your opponents for playing artifacts, one of the most played permanent types in Commander.
Both Primeval Titan and Sylvan Primordial have very similar functions. Every time Primeval Titan attacks, you get two lands of any kind. These can be utility lands, dual lands, whatever you need for any given point in a game. It also triggers when it enters, so you immediately get value from Primeval Titan when it hits the battlefield. In the case of Sylvan Primordial, it destroys permanents and gets you Forests. These don’t have to be basics, so you can get dual lands and triomes. Sylvan Primordial both ramps you while destroying any noncreature permanent. This includes lands, so if you keep blinking Sylvan Primordial, you can destroy everyone’s lands while you have a plethora of Forests.
Prophet of Kruphix is one of the strongest untap effects out there. During everyone’s untap step, you get to untap both your creatures and lands. This, on top of giving all your creature cards flash, allows you to constantly be playing creatures out of turn. Prophet of Kruphix enables so much mana generation and board presence, so long as you’re drawing creatures. In any creature-heavy deck, Prophet of Kruphix just constantly spits creatures onto the battlefield. It mixed with something as simple as Beast Whisperer is enough to run away with the game with a large battlefield, all while being able to have mana for counterspells.
Situational Card Draw
There are two cards that have situational ways to draw cards, but are still way too good to ever be legal. Library of Alexandria is one of the best lands ever printed, banned in every format, and restricted in Vintage. It’s a utility land that can be used as a regular land, and be tapped to draw a card. While you do need exactly 7 cards in your hand, you’ll always have 7 cards in your hand at the start of the game. With card draw, you can constantly get extra cards for no cost whenever you have 7 cards. It might seem situational, but once you play one game with Library of Alexandria, you’ll see how many cards it winds up drawing for you.
Trade Secrets is unique because it is a card that benefits you and one opponent. You basically both agree to let the two of you draw your entire decks, and turns the game into a two-player game. You and whoever you chose to draw with gets so far ahead of everyone else, that the odds of the other two catching back up are close to zero.
Banlist Category 7: Miscellaneous
This last category in the banlist is cards that are very powerful, but don’t quite fit into any of the other categories. To start, one of only two cards ever pre-banned in Magic, Lutri, the Spellchaser. It’s not an absurdly powerful card by any means, but is a free card for every Commander deck. If Lutri, the Spellchaser fits with your commander’s color identity, it’s an extra card for no cost.
Hullbreacher was banned for its interaction with Windfall. Other effects are legal that prevent extra cards from being drawn, but what makes Hullbreacher too powerful is that it’s the only one that converts those cards into ramp. You get so many Treasure tokens from Hullbreacher for little cost, especially when paired with Windfall and similar effects.
The Best Toolbox
If you have Tinker, you can convert any artifact token or cheap artifact into any artifact you want from your library. It’s an amazing toolbox card that gets you whatever you need at any given time. It can grab Portal to Phyrexia, The One Ring, or whatever else you want. The card is banned in every format but Vintage for a reason. It’s so easy to abuse and to get an artifact to sacrifice that the cost is trivial.
Just Unfun Cards
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is banned more because of its unfun play patterns rather than because it’s too strong. You can play it as a commander, and if you can keep recasting it, you take an infinite number of turns. This card protects itself from nearly every relevant card played in Commander and has annihilator 6, making it even more miserable to play against. If it weren’t legendary, it might be fine in the format; however, having such a powerful card in the command zone is why it’s banned.
Lastly, there is Biorhythm. It’s a game-ender after you play a board wipe that destroys everyone’s creatures. You only need one, and so long as no one else has any creatures, you can take everyone else out of the game. Biorhythm is banned for its “all or nothing” nature, as having it go off is not a particularly fun play pattern. It’s not broken by any means, but it only adds an unfun win condition that makes the game end on more of a whimper, and is in many cases a “win more” card.
In Conclusion
The Commander banlist is very useful in keeping cards that create unfun play patterns out of the format. Some cards are strong, but not banworthy, which end up on the Game Changers list. The cards on the banlist are for the most egregious of offenders, and in many cases, are cards that shouldn’t ever be taken off the banlist.
