The New Game Changers in Commander

When a card gets banned, its price tanks. Pretty simple, right? Fewer people play it, which means fewer people buy it, which all causes the price support to erode as sellers undercut each other in order to capture the ever-shrinking market of people looking to pick up the banned card.

But what happens when a card gets put on a watch list for being banned? Well, Wizards of the Coast has just done something kind of like that for a whopping 40 cards in Commander, so let’s take a look. 

What exactly are game changers, and why do they matter?

Game Changers: An Introduction

It’s been a few months now, but Wizards of the Coast has finally made their first move since taking over the Commander format after the substantial fallout from the now-defunct Commander Rules Committee’s disastrous bannings in September of 2024. 

First teased earlier this year, Wizards has announced a bracket system for Commander. Effectively serving as an introduction to the Rule Zero conversation (the pregame social exchange wherein players figure out what power level of Commander they are about to play), this bracket system comes with two parts: effect-based restrictions and single-card restrictions.

The effect-based restrictions for the bracket system are just descriptive enough for players to get a general sense as to what falls in each category, but they are by no means as comprehensive as, say, the Magic rules or the Banned and Restricted list. Examples of effect-based restrictions include Bracket 1’s limitation of “no mass land denial,” “no extra turns,” and “few tutors.” What counts as land denial and or a tutor is up for debate, as well as that pesky word “few,” but the overall guidance is legible: play casually, play slowly, and let players do fair things.

The second type of restrictions, however, are far more straightforward: Game Changers, a new list of cards curated by Wizards. Cards on this roster are wholly legal in Commander overall, but the quantity a deck contains sets its Bracket. For example, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV - one such Game Changer - cannot be run in a Bracket 1 deck, as Bracket 1 prevents players from running any Game Changers. So, if you’re playing a Grand Arbiter Augustin IV deck, then you’re automatically playing in Bracket 3 - the first tier in which Game Changers in any number are allowed.  

So, while Game Changers are legal in Commander, they do come at a premium. For players paying attention to this new system, not only do you have to consider if you really want to be in a higher tier in order to run your favourite Game Changer, but also you have to consider which select few Game Changers you will afford your deck - unless you want to jump to Bracket 4 and 5, but for many players the difference between an upgraded list and an optimized one is substantial.

Thinking About Prices

While Wizards explicitly stated in their announcement debuting this new system that there wouldn’t be any new bans in Commander any time soon (in fact, we might see some unbans come April), the announcement was careful to state that “you can imagine this as a sort of watch-list. Any future bans are likely to come from this list.” So, although we won’t see bans soon, the Game Changers are the cards that you can look to when future Banned and Restricted List changes come along.

What does this mean for pricing? While it’s gonna take a while to see how this new system is adopted by the Magic community, I suspect that these Game Changers are going to see some sort of price erosion, and ultimately that comes down to a trick of economics wherein expectations become reality. Case in point, Nadu, Winged Wisdom. 

Shortly after Nadu broke onto the scene in Modern, players far and wide became fully aware of just how likely Nadu was to be banned. This card was destroying the competitive appeal of the format, so players weren’t just asking for Nadu to be banned, but rather they were anticipating it. As such, the price of Nadu quickly took a nosedive as if it had already been banned because, despite it still being legal, many players stopped playing Modern in anticipation of the format shift and sold off their copies of Nadu in the meantime.

Now, does this mean every Commander player is going to offload their Rhystic Study and Cyclonic Rifts? Certainly not - Commander moves much more slowly than other formats, and even with Wizards-sanctioned guidance we will continue to see players near and far who flout the bracket system and play happily nonetheless. That being said, this is a public sign from Wizards that it has its eyes on these cards, and for many players that sign will be enough for them to retool their decks.

Wrap Up 

If the Game Changers existed in a strictly competitive format like Standard, I’d fully expect its announcement to coincide with the collapse of the prices of many of its most problematic cards. However, Commander is a different beast. So while price movement is likely, it’s almost certainly going to be delayed and gradual. 

Keep an eye out for more announcements from Wizards, and good luck with your bets on what cards get unbanned down the line. 

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