After the public backlash to last Monday’s Commander Banned & Restricted List update and the following threats to members of the Commander Rules Committee, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) announced that the Game Design team for Magic: The Gathering will take over the management of the Commander format.
The article states that while the ownership of the format is changing from the community-run Commander RC to official game designers at WotC, the format will still be community focused and members of the community will still be involved. More details will continue to come from the new Discord channel, the #Commander_News channel in the official Magic Discord, and on tomorrow’s Weekly MTG stream at 10 AM PT on the official MTG Twitch channel.
Statements from the Commander RC
The Commander RC made a group statement about the handover that pointed directly to “the threats last week against RC members” and stated that “it has become impossible for us to continue operating as an independent entity.”
Jim Lapage, one of the five members of the Commander RC, posted a message on social media regarding the decision for the RC to give the format to WotC to manage. Lapage cited the excessive number of threatening messages that he and other members of the RC received as the final push to contact WotC and to transition the management of the format to the company that makes Magic.
Commander RC member Toby Elliott also released an individual statement declaring, in part, “When you can’t make difficult decisions without worrying about your safety and well-being, you can’t run a format, especially one with a nontraditional point of view.”
A third Commander RC member, Olivia Gobert-Hicks, issued a short preliminary statement describing herself as “devastated”; “so sad, empty”; and “hoping I didn’t fail the memory of my friend”, the last an allusion to the late Commander RC member and foundational figure of Commander as a format, Sheldon Menery.
The Future of Commander Power Levels
WotC’s announcement also offered a new model for classifying the power level of Commander decks, with certain cards dictating what makes a deck the strongest or weakest in terms of acceptable power. The article also states the safety of the members of the RC is WotC’s top priority at the moment.
Read the official announcement from WotC.
