Key Takeaways
- Wizards of the Coast now controls Commander, and the cost of recently banned cards has skyrocketed as a result.
- Although WotC has said that reversing the ban is not a priority, the market is still reacting to the announcement.
- Many of the banned cards are crawling at low prices.
Some of the recently banned Magic: The Gathering Commander cards have increased in value following Wizards of the Coast's announcement that the game's design team will be taking on the Commander format.
Over a week ago, the independent Commander Rules Committee (CRC) banned several cards in Commander format: Dockside Extortionist, Jeweled Lotus, Mana Crypt and Nadu, Winged Wisdom. The cards' market value plummeted shortly thereafter, reflecting the new illegal status of Magic's most popular format.
A lot has happened in the week since that announcement, the most notable of which is that Wizards of the Coast is now in charge of Commander. This transfer was made to protect the safety of the members of the Command Rules Committee who received death threats after their orders were issued. These individuals are invited to serve as independent design consultants within Wizards of the Coast.
Market Rebound
In their deck text, Wizards of the Coast introduced the concept of tier brackets – a way to categorize the power levels of cards within the format. There was a brief mention of Commander's current ban list, which has over 80 cards.
“We will also evaluate the current banned list with the Disciplinary Committee and the community. We will not ban any additional cards as part of this evaluation. If the discussion about the banned list has started, changing the list quickly is not our priority,” the post said.
Although this language does not directly state that a card will be returned, it does not prevent it either. This announcement has pushed prices up for some of these cards as hopefuls buy at lower prices in preparation for the unlikely return of the ban and subsequent price hikes.
According to Cardmarket data, Dockside Extortionist sold for €80 ($88) before the ban and €18.50 ($21) after the ban. The price is back to about €28 ($31). Other banned cards followed a similar path; Mana Crypt: from €155 ($171) to €48 ($53) and back to €86 ($95). Lotus Jeweled: from €110 ($122) to €21 ($23) and up to €56 ($62). Nadu's recovery is smaller but it appears to be growing.
Wizards of the Coast has made it clear that correcting the ban list is not a priority, so hopeful buyers may have to wait a little longer to see if their gamble paid off.
