Later today, Wizards of the Coast will release the latest banned and restricted update for MTG. As always, this is a very exciting time for MTG players, as problematic decks can be struck down and formats shaken up. That being said, thanks to the proximity of multiple major tournament circuits, we’re not optimistic about radical competitive changes.
Unfortunately for those who think this sounds rather boring, Wizards is already downplaying the possibility of other changes. Sadly, it has recently been revealed that, despite past precedent, Commander won’t be discussed today. Considering this format has multiple major developments being worked on, it’s hard to say this isn’t disappointing.
No Commander Banlist Changes Today
Yesterday, MTG Designer Gavin Verhey revealed that Commander won’t be featured in today’s ban announcement. This was confirmed in a quick YouTube short, which explained that the brief precedent won’t be followed. Sadly, it seems that this is to be expected going forward, as well.
Back in February, in a welcome treat, Wizards updated both the Commander and competitive banlists at the same time. On the surface, this decision seemed to make perfect sense, given that all of 2026’s ban windows are preannounced. While this forewarning was designed to help competitive players build around bans, Commander players deserve advanced warning too.
Unfortunately, despite Verhey acknowledging this need for advanced warning during their video, Commander still operates on its own schedule. From the sounds of things, this schedule is a lot less frequent than the competitive one, too. During the video, Verhey stated that the next Commander banlist update will be “this Summer.”
Thankfully, when Summer does finally roll around, there will be some forewarning for the Commander banlist update. Realistically, though, this will likely only be for a week or two, so don’t expect to hear anything soon. Hopefully, when this wait does finally come to an end, there will be some exciting developments in store, at least.
Right now, the big Commander news that we’re waiting on is an update on hybrid mana. Originally proposed in October, Wizards was still collecting feedback in February, so Summer is hopefully the end of that process. Whether or not that’ll actually be the case, however, remains to be seen.
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