Hello dear Leviathan players to the october banlist update. During the third quarter, we decided to look at the data collected from 12 months of tournaments to see which commanders shaped the meta. Additionally, thanks to the help of Re-Spark Squad members, we were also able to test several cards on the ban list to see how they would affect the current meta. After no changes in Q1 and Q2, we have prepared a lot of changes for you. We invite you to read.
Banned as Commander
Winota, Joiner of Forces
Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
Banned as Card
Field of the Dead
Glacial Chasm
The One Ring
Wash Away
Unbanned as Card
No canges
Experimental change
Emrakul, the Promised End
Leveler
Loyal Retainers
Natural Order
Further Explanation
One of the strongest commanders from the aggro archetype. He has been with us since April 2020. At the beginning, it slowly showed that it had a place in our format, but last year, after the banning of Shorikai, for example, its popularity and power skyrocketed. Over the past year, she has repeatedly proven her strength and dominance in the aggro archetype. Her ability to insert attacking creatures from the top of the deck allows her to bypass counterspells, inserting a large number of creatures, and thus generating a huge amount of damage in one turn. Her presence in the format is like a double-edged sword - on the one hand, it is necessary, but on the other hand, her presence does not allow other commanders from this category to surface. For these reasons, we came to the conclusion that it was time to say goodbye to her.
Yuriko is the second best aggro commander in the archetype (subtype: tempo). Similarly to Winota, he can generate a very large amount of "damage" in this case of life loss. He owes this to both of his abilities. The first ninjutsu allows her to constantly bypass the Commander Tax rule no matter how many times she is sent to the Command Zone, which is rather unfair towards other commanders. Her second ability is what gives a very fast pace in the game, because even a small damage from Ninja 1/1 can result in taking 8-10 lives from the exposed card. Moreover, Yuriko puts these cards in her hand, which means that it cannot be stopped with cards such as Narset, Parter of Veils. Over the last year, Leviathan dominated the meta with Winota as the top 2 commanders, so we came to the conclusion that it was also time to say goodbye to her.
The card has been a format definer for many years. Some strategies in particular have been successful basically playing around it like Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, many other decks have included Primeval Titan in their lists just to play with Field of the Dead. And the pattern proved to be even more problematic because several reports demonstrated that decks that wouldn't take much advantage of it initially changed their mana bases just to include it. The ability to constantly produce zombies for little commitment of resources, giving multiple strategies a frequent inevitability in long-running games, proved to be very solid, possibly even
too much.
Another land that can drastically changes the state of the game when it hit the battlefield. Additionally extra 10hp that we have in our format let you pay some additional Cumulative upkeep cost. Thanks to this it can be longer on the battlefield which let you negate all dmg by few turns longer. It punish aggro archetype so much. It's mainly used in land archetype decks and combo decks. With cards like Crucible of Worlds let you replay from grave without too much loss of life. It can create a toxic situation.
Card that was created for 20hp formats in Mind. It gives you protection from everythink until your next turn on cast. Which helps against some combo and especially against aggro decks. It's main power lies in card draw ability. It can draws you cards every turn and every turn it will be one more card. For example in 2 turns you draw 3 cards for only 1 DMG. That's really small drawback even for the long run(1 turn - 1 card - 0dmg, 2 turns - 3 cards - 1 dmg....8 turns - 36 cards - 28 dmg). The advantage and disadvantage is that it is a colorless artifact, which allows it to be used in any deck in the format. For the same reason, this is a minus because
this card started to dominate the meta by being
everywhere.
Wash Away let's you counter spells not cast from hand for only one mana. In the commander format where games revolve around name sake commanders that's great effect. So it's really good and mana efficient counter in our format. Players can't play around this 1 mana counter as they could around Mana Tithe or Force Spike or even Daze making him a hard counter. It's Cleave alternative cost additionally let's you change it to a 3 mana counterspell for any spell. This instant is very good and versatill fo his mana cost.
Experimental change
It's a new category in which We will unBan cards for a quarter to gather more data if they should be permamently unBanned or should return to banlist.
Our beloved Spaghetti Monster was once considered too strong thanks to his "mindlsaver" ability on his play and protection against instant. Currently, its protection is not a big problem thanks to the large amount of removal, e.g. in enchantments. However, his ability to control the opponent can help midrange and ramp archetypes against Control decks.
This is a character that was only used in one deck in the past as a combo element. Together with the Re-Spark Squad, we came to the conclusion that we should give him and The Beamtown Bullies another chance.
This creature has been on our banlist from the very beginning of our format. However, we decided to check whether this is justified. Our playtests showed that this character, in addition to providing 3-mana revival on legendary creatures, can allow for the creation of new combo decks in the format, such as Saffi.
In creature heavy decks trying to abuse Craterhoof Behemot Natural order is strong, but it also requires a decent amount of set-up without being disrupted. Even in matches vs aggro cards without too much interaction the Natural Order was not opressive to the point of always winning.
With this We would like to give some option to some midrange and swarm archetype decks e.g. Elves or tokens.
Announcement Date: October 2, 2023
Date of entry of changes: October 6, 2023
Date of next announcement: January 8, 2024
As always, we are looking forward to your feedback.
Your comitee:
Wojciech Kopański, Meng Du, Leonardo Leal, Asia Kopańska.
And Your RP:
Diego Paredes, Mengshi Guo, Nacho Monzo, Justo Chacon, Diego Rivera, Marcos Mayora, Pawel Dziewulski.
I don't get why would you ban wash away (one mana in the best cenario) instead of FON or FOW (always 0 mana). It's a shame that you prefer to ban a very accessible good counterspell instead of a really expensive always excelent counterspell.
Im a land player and this announcement makes my deck practically unplayable, aggro decks can now easily bypass us and the winning condition of fiel of the dead is no longer a posibility, we have lost so much consistency that we re no longer a competitive deck
nothing new that the committee always wants to favor Control decks
As a land deck player, I have to say that banning Field of the Dead and Glacial Chasm at the same time is very tough. I can pass the first one because of how oppressive it is, but the Glacial hurts, that was the shield against the fast aggro decks and gave us time to breathe, there is not even a bad replacement for it (Maze of Ith doesn't count, it doesn't protect against wide strategies)