The Commander Rules Committee, the general governing body for the Commander/EDH format, received a lot of backlash on social media threads after announcing that they were banning three fairly valuable cards from the format.
The three valuable cards banned from the Commander/EDH games were Jeweled Lotus, Dockside Extortionist, and Mana Crypt. The CRC also banned Nadu, Winged Wisdom, but fans seemed to welcome that announcement as Nadu had already been causing problems in other formats (see “Shakes Up ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Formats“). Prior to the banning, different versions of Mana Crypts were selling on eBay for $160 to $180, Jeweled Lotus cards were around $100, and Dockside Extortionists around $70. Since the banning, these cards have been selling for less than half. Jeweled Lotus was hit particularly hard because it has text that essentially limits its usage to the Commander format.
The fan backlash on social media was overwhelming negative, ranging from “Jesus, you guys are a joke” to more articulate comments like “This is incredibly bad for player trust, these cards should be handled with rule 0…You can’t have players loosing 100s of dollars and expect it to be a good thing.” One comment seemed to hit at the core of the issue for many collectors and players alike: “This is ridiculous, you used Lotus and Crypt to sell Masters and Ixalan; probably made sure the warehouse was real empty first, eh?” This comment was clearly referring to the fact that Wizards of the Coast had recently reprinted Jeweled Lotus as a chase card in Commander Masters (see “‘Magic: The Gathering – Commander Masters’“) and Mana Crypt as a chase card in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan (see “‘Magic: The Gathering – The Lost Caverns of Ixalan’“), and now the cards can’t be used in the format they were popular in anymore.
These bans also have a potential impact on retailers selling singles. Mana Crypt, Jeweled Lotus, and Dockside Extortionist, as mentioned previously, all had significant value, and now may be destined to sit in retailer’s inventories as they now, in some cases, carry a market price less than their previous Buy List numbers.
Source: ICV2
