The recent banning of four cards in Commander – Magic: The Gathering‘s most popular format – happened against the advice of MTG publisher Wizards of the Coast, former Commander Advisory Group (CAG) member Josh Lee Kwai has said.
The September 23 decision to add Dockside Extortionist, Jeweled Lotus, Mana Crypt, and Nadu, Winged Wisdom to the Commander banlist resulted in a major fan backlash – allegedly including threats of violence directed at Rules Committee members – and, one week later, a mutual decision to hand management of Commander to Wizards itself.
Now, Commander insider Josh Lee Kwai, host of the Command Zone podcast and member of the rules committee-supporting CAG until his resignation on September 26, says Wizards actively warned against making the controversial bans.
“I’ve talked to people inside Wizards, I know for a fact they said ‘do not do this’,” he says in the latest Command Zone episode, published on Thursday (watch it below).
The guidance – summarized by Josh Lee Kwai as “Don’t do these bans” was reportedly specifically against banning all four cards at once.
“Wizards’ advice to the Rules Committee was like: don’t do this,” he says. “I don’t know if they said ‘hey, just do Nadu and Dockside’ or what, but they were like ‘this full decision, please don’t do this’.”
And the CAG would have advised against the bans, he says: “many of the Commander Advisory Group would have said ‘don’t do this’… don’t do it like this’.”
It’s a torrid and complicated situation for the number one MTG format, as expert commentators like Josh Lee Kwai and Command Zone co-host Rachel Weeks (also a CAG member) attempt to deconstruct what went wrong in this unprecedentedly unpopular decision, without condoning further abuse towards the Commander rules committee – part time volunteers who did their jobs for love of the game.
Like MTG head designer Mark Rosewater did last week, Command Zone condemned the abusive online reactions to the bans, with Rachel Weeks calling out “completely inappropriate responses that led to credible threats of violence against the rules committee, and harrassment”.
“If you’re making threats against people online, you’re a jerk and you’re a bad person,” Josh Lee Kwai says in Thursday’s podcast. “Those people – and they were a small percentage of it – they have no place in this game or this community.”
“To the people making the threats, you suck – get the hell out, we don’t need you,” he added.
Wargamer has reached out to Wizards of the Coast for comment on the alleged advice, and we’ll update this story with anything we learn.
In the meantime, check out our picks of the best MTG Commanders around, catch up on what’s coming next for Magic in our MTG release schedule guide, or learn some history with our guide to all the MTG sets ever made.
Alternatively, bookmark our MTG news page and follow Wargamer on Google News for daily updates.
Source: Wargamer
