It’s one of the most powerful cards to come into Commander and is causing discourse in the community on whether it should see a ban. From Commander Legends, Hullbreacher promotes miserable gameplay for those who attempt to play against it.
Hullbreacher is often omitted from Vintage and Legacy Cube on Magic Online as players simply don’t want to play against the card. If it’s too obnoxious for Vintage Cube, surely it’s a similar case for Commander?
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Why Do Players Want to Ban Hullbreacher in Commander?
For example, Narset, Parter of Veils, Notion Thief
Notion ThiefFlash
If an opponent would draw a card except the first one they draw in each of their draw steps, instead that player skips that draw and you draw a card., and Alms Collector are all reasonable effects, but it’s cards such as Hullbreacher that cross the line. The issue you have with Hullbreacher is Blue already has some of the best wheel effects with Timetwister and Windfall
WindfallEach player discards their hand, then draws cards equal to the greatest number of cards a player discarded this way.. Essentially becoming Mind Twist
Mind TwistTarget player discards X cards at random. with Hullbreacher on the battlefield does not promote fun gameplay for a Commander pod.
Not to mention, Hullbreacher is easily splashable and doesn’t offer any demands with the mana value. You could argue if this was a White card, it would see less play since White doesn’t offer as much card draw compared to Blue. As it’s only three mana, it’s an aggressively under-costed effect for a card that is so game-warping.
Leovold, Emissary of Trest saw a Commander ban back in 2017 for a similar reason that Hullbreacher currently provides. Yet, Leovold is harder to cast, doesn’t come with flash but offers a similar playstyle. Granted, Leovold is often at the helm of the Commander deck, but Blue has so many ways to draw cards it’s easy to find Hullbreacher in a game of Commander.
There may be a breaking point with resource denial in Commander, but until then, Hullbreacher isn’t going anywhere. As they say — if you can’t beat it, you may as well be it. Plus, you can’t keep giving Merfolk players good cards, they may think they’re relevant, or something.
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