If you’ve made it to this page, chances are you’re looking for the MTG Commander banlist. This format’s chunky decks and titular commanders mean keeping up with what’s legal can be extra important, with new releases regularly offering new potential for banned cards.
With a trading card game as large and long-running as Magic: The Gathering, game-breaking combos are inevitable. That’s where the MTG banlist comes in. Wizards of the Coast updates its various banlists frequently, so it’s worth checking regularly to see what’s changed – especially after new MTG sets arrive, packed with new potential MTG commanders. After all, nobody wants to rock up with their prize new deck, only to find out they can’t legally play.
Here’s all the details on the MTG Commander banlist in 2023:
MTG Commander banlist
- Ancestral Recall
- Balance
- Biorhythm
- Black Lotus
- Braids, Cabal Minion
- Chaos Orb
- Coalition Victory
- Channel
- Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
- Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
- Falling Star
- Fastbond
- Flash
- Gifts Ungiven
- Golos, Tireless Pilgrim
- Griselbrand
- Hullbreacher
- Iona, Shield of Emeria
- Karakas
- Leovold, Emissary of Trest
- Library of Alexandria
- Limited Resources
- Lutri, the Spellchaser
- Mox Emerald
- Mox Jet
- Mox Pearl
- Mox Ruby
- Mox Sapphire
- Panoptic Mirror
- Paradox Engine
- Primeval Titan
- Prophet of Kruphix
- Recurring Nightmare
- Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
- Shahrazad
- Sundering Titan
- Sway of the Stars
- Sylvan Primordial
- Time Vault
- Time Walk
- Tinker
- Tolarian Academy
- Trade Secrets
- Upheaval
- Yawgmoth’s Bargain
MTG Conspiracy cards
25 cards with the Conspiracy type are banned in Commander, as they’re banned in all constructed formats. The full list of Conspiracy cards banned in MTG Commander is:
- Adriana’s Valor
- Advantageous Proclamation
- Assemble the Rank and Vile
- Backup Plan
- Brago’s Favor
- Double Stroke
- Echoing Boon
- Emissary’s Ploy
- Hired Heist
- Hold the Perimeter
- Hymn of the Wilds
- Immediate Action
- Incendiary Dissent
- Iterative Analysis
- Muzzio’s Preparations
- Natural Unity
- Power Play
- Secret Summoning
- Secrets of Paradise
- Sentinel Dispatch
- Sovereign’s Realm
- Summoner’s Bond
- Unexpected Potential
- Weight Advantage
- Worldknit
MTG ante
Nine cards that reference ‘playing for ante’ are banned in MTG Commander. The banned MTG ante cards are:
- Amulet of Quoz
- Bronze Tablet
- Contract from Below
- Darkpact
- Demonic Attorney
- Jewelled Bird
- Rebirth
- Tempest Efreet
- Timmerian Fiends
Offensive MTG cards
The MTG Commander banlist includes cards that are racially or culturally insensitive. This is a universal ban that applies to sanctioned tournaments in all formats, and their images were removed from Wizards of the Coast’s database in 2020. The seven cards currently included in this ban can be found here.
Source: Wargamer
