A few weeks ago, the Commander Rules Committee announced it would be disbanding after facing major community backlash stemming from controversial Banned & Restricted decisions, and in doing so, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) assumed full control of Magic: The Gathering’s most popular format — Commander.
Today, WotC has announced the next step in moderation for the format – the formation of the Commander Format Panel (CFP). At its inception, the CFP will be made up of 17 individuals from around the world with a common goal of ensuring a variety of perspectives and opinions are weighed when making major decisions for the format. The panel is as follows:
- Attack on Cardboard
- Bandit
- Ben Wheeler
- Charlotte Sable
- DeQuan Watson
- Deco
- Gavin Verhey
- Greg Sablan
- Ittetu
- Josh Lee Kwai
- Kristen Gregory
- Lua Stardust
- Olivia Gobert-Hicks
- Rachel Weeks
- Rebell Lily
- Scott Larabee
- Tim Willoughby
- Toby Elliott
According to Principal Magic Designer, Gavin Verhey, the first step in the panel’s formation was extending offers to those who were part of both the Commander RC and Commander Advisory Group (CAG), and from there, the panel branched out to recruit members with different “preferred levels of Commander play.”
Magic is a diverse, global game, and Commander is especially popular with players who play for many different reasons. I really wanted to bring in players from other places in the world who have different preferred levels of Commander play.”
Despite the leadership change, Verhey emphasizes that the CFP intends to build off of the strong foundation laid by the community’s many dedicated years of hard work, and has no intention of making major changes.
Ultimately, WotC will be making the final call on each future decision involving Commander, each of the 17 CFP members will have the opportunity to provide their thoughts and be heard both internally as well as publicly. To that end, Verhey states that CFP members are encouraged to share their thoughts through their various social platforms, regardless of whether they agree or disagree with WotC’s final decisions.
According to Verhey, CFP members will be serving a year-long tenure, at which point some members are expected to depart and make room for new members. Ideally, this rotation will help ensure that the panel maintains a healthy balance for decision making and will likely take place annually between October and November.
While the CFP plans to take things slow during the initial months, the first order of business will be to expand on the Commander bracket concept announced at the end of last month, but emphasizes that by no means will it be something that they expect every player to abide by. Additionally, Verhey disclosed that the CFP is working on another initiative that was initially planned to be beta tested this weekend at MagicCon: Las Vegas, but will be delayed until more CFP members have a chance to weigh in.
Read the original article from WotC.
