Banlist

This page outlines the major reasons cards are banned in UnCommander, with the relevant banned cards under each section. In addition to the cards on this page, all cards banned in normal Commander are also banned in UnCommander. Banned cards should not be played without prior agreement from the other players in the game.

Not all cards that contain elements mentioned in the sections below have been banned. If these elements aren’t central to a card’s function, the card may be given errata to either work without them or reinterpret them in a way that fits the rules framework.

If you find a card here that looks unusual, it may well be from the UnOrthodox supplement, which is separate from the main UnCommander Core format. The Rules Overview page describes the function of both UnCommander formats.

Each card’s legality, and which UnCommander formats it is included in are also shown on its Traffic Light Rating label. This is found on its UnCommander card entry on this website.

UnCommander Banned cards and Reasoning

These cards are banned because we believe they can be detrimental to the positive play experiences described in the official Commander philosophy. Note that the EDH Rules Committee has no association with edhsilver.com or UnCommander. These banned cards are just our interpretation of how best to extrapolate that philosophy with the cards added in UnCommander.

One difference in how we decide bans is with effects that care about other cards outside the game. By default in UnCommander, these effects do not function due to 11. in the official Commander Rules. However, to make things easier for any playgroup that decides to allow these effects, a card’s Traffic Light Rating is decided as though those effects would work. For this reason, cards like Spike, Tournament Grinder have been banned.

These cards are banned because they mechanically involve either dexterous tasks or physically arranging cards. This follows the precedents of Chaos Orb and Falling Star being banned in all official Magic formats. These cards are hard to track, and can encourage players to arrange their cards in obstructive ways. See the UnCommander Philosophy page for more details.

By default, UnCommander does not allow things outside the current game to affect it (see the UnCommander Rules List). This includes games before and after the current game, events or items outside the game, separate games, and people outside the game. The main reason for this is to avoid the complications and potential delays of tracking of these outside elements.

Note that cards with effects like Booster Tutor‘s that bring cards from outside the game into the game are treated separately and not banned. By default,  11. in the official Commander Rules stops those effects from working.

UnCommander does not support the defacement of Magic cards or effects that change their ownership, either temporarily in-game or permanently out of game (see the UnCommander Rules List). This includes Ante cards, which are banned in all official formats.

These cards are banned either because we are unable to determine their functionality from available material, or because what they do is unworkable in-game. If you have further information on some of these, please drop us a line via email at info@edhsilver.com or on our Discord Channel.

These cards are banned because they refer directly to errata. Magic relies on errata and oracle entries to ensure consistency between card printings, and to represent updates to card templating. Interacting with it directly is a big no-no in UnCommander.

Although referring to individual whole words is allowed in UnCommander, individual letters do not have the same thematic meaning on their own. As such, these cards are currently banned.

Although referring to individual whole words is allowed in UnCommander, the number of words in a name does not have much thematic meaning and is more arbitrary. Because of this, these cards are currently banned.

UnCommander follows as closely as possible the Magic philosophy that all cards of the same name should function identically. Printing-specific elements like expansion symbol or illustration credit can vary between printings of a card. Card borders and watermarks are currently the only printing-specific elements effects are allowed to refer to in UnCommander. For why, see the Philosophy page.

These cards are banned because they either force players to perform visual or vocal actions, or refer to aspects of players that have little relevance to the game. These effects are often difficult in multiplayer games due to interpretation issues, and can slow things down. The UnCommander rules do not account for these sorts of effects.

These cards are banned because they contain effects that include time limits. In casual Magic, there are no time limits. Even in tournament Magic, time limits are only set for stages of the event or whole matches and slow play penalties are at the discretion of a judge. As UnCommander tries to follow the general philosophy of Magic where possible, allowing effects that contain time limits does not make sense.

House Rules with Banned Cards

As mentioned in our philosophy, UnCommander encourages playgroups to formulate house rules if they improve the experience for the group.

You may want to play with certain cards we have banned because they don’t fit into the rules framework. The sections on this page can be a useful guide for unbanning a certain sort of card. Rather than unbanning individual cards, we recommend setting a guideline, such as “cards that refer to people outside the game are now legal” or “cards that refer to illustration credits are now legal”. Ultimately though, it is up to you as a playgroup. Just make sure all players are agree on what cards and rules are allowed before the game begins.

Full Format Banlists

The full banlists for each UnCommander format can be found here. These do not contain the explanation for the bans, just a clean list. For more information on the two UnCommander formats, see ​the Rules Overview page.