Some notable exclusions:

On Dockside Extortionist, Jeweled Lotus, and Mana Crypt

We would be plugging our ears if we did not acknowledge the elephants in the room when it comes to this series of unbans: the September bans of Dockside, Lotus, and Mana Crypt. Many players out there probably immediately scrolled down this long article as quickly as they could to discover the fates of these cards.

We did talk about these cards and are not unbanning them at this time.

Opinions from the Commander Format Panel varied. Some believe Commander is more fun without them, others would like more time to see how the Commander Bracket system is adopted before doing anything here, and others felt it’s too soon to do anything with these cards. There were a few people who were open to doing something with Jeweled Lotus now, but that was not the majority opinion. The overwhelming majority of the panel did not want to do anything with any of these cards at this time.

I will be transparent and say that I believe if any of these are ever to return, the most likely one is Jeweled Lotus due to its one-shot nature, iconic feel, and ability to help support high-mana value commanders. I want to be clear, this is not me saying that will ever happen, but that was the one among the panel with the most traction.

I know many of you love these cards. Many of you are also glad you no longer have to play against these cards. There’s always that kind of push and pull with powerful and potentially ban-worthy cards in Commander. I appreciate there are many people in both camps, and that no matter what happens with these cards, somebody will feel like they didn’t get the result they wanted. However, we wanted to talk about the cards here honestly and what was said internally for transparency.

These cards will be something I’m sure we’ll talk about next year. But for this year, the book is closed on these three cards.

Behind the scenes of early Magic was really a handful of people flying by the seat of their pants. They really were completely unprepared for Magic’s overwhelming success.

Mark also talks about this on his Drive to Work podcast if you want more, it’s pretty fun to hear his old stories of how they had to learn through experience for basically everything

Yeah the mismatch between paper/digital is going to be annoying. What makes it worse is that it’s a mess that could have been entirely avoided had they just not tried to push UB within everywhere

I’m wondering if this is because Marvel also has Marvel Snap which they don’t want Arena competing with. Or the rights for both paper and digital were just too high for Wizards

Regardless of the reason, yay for more Universes Within! This makes it a lot easier for them to reprint those cards in paper as well since the art + creative is already done

I was musing on the power level of Standard earlier but it’s still shocking at how much Standard Izzet Prowess resembles Modern Izzet Prowess right now

I can’t really blame anyone for wanting to walk away right now. When they first announced UB, admittedly I felt like people were overreacting. I thought they would be printing UW versions of most cards and that it wouldn’t go beyond Commander release 1-2 times a year. Turns out I was very, very wrong. I think I was already tired about the constant UB releases and the encroachment into Modern, but Standard really solidified my distaste for it.

It’s not like I hate everything about it, I think they’ve made some very cool designs that I don’t know would ever get made otherwise. But in every case there’s a card I like I would always rather have a UW card over the UB card. And the rate they’re printing them has made it impossible to print UW versions to keep up.

Power creep is definitely happening, I feel like I’m less concerned about it because I played Yu-Gi-Oh before Magic, and compared to that the power creep in Magic is much slower. Still, it’s made me much less interested in Standard given that it was nice to have a lower power format but now it feels almost as fast as other formats. I still enjoy Modern but looking at how MH3 in particular pushed out so many of the decks before it and how Wizards constantly drags its feet on banning obvious problem cards… It does not inspire confidence.

Obviously this new path is profitable, but I hardly think they need it. Based on sales of Bloomburrow and Dragonstorm they likely still would be doing fine with a slower release schedule and only in-universe sets. But it just wouldn’t satisfy Hasbro’s shareholders and the constant pressure for more profits, especially since WotC is basically propping up the rest of the company. I don’t know how long they can keep this up, and I still enjoy so much of Magic that I don’t really want it to crash, but there’s just so much that’s happening the I wish wasn’t happening.

Such a gorgeous piece, gives the impression of a monster that’s beyond human comprehension

Wow, I had heard about Blue Prince but I didn’t realize it was the same person behind Mythic Spoiler!

As expected from a starter kit, pretty basic cards. It does seem like there’s an Equipment theme going on, and City is a new land type that could be interesting

10 copies is a really small amount, I would have thought they’d have a bigger stock for something like this.

Just wish they would just go back to print-to-demand SL. I’ve just tuned out SL releases now since I know I won’t have a chance to get something if it’s actually popular

I feel this way too. I didn’t mind a lower power standard because I always had Modern (and then Pioneer) to go to. Admittedly I came in around SOI block and that was a very weak standard, but I thought the best time was during GRN/RNA block when there were so many decks that felt very strong and synergistic but not busted. I suppose they feel like casual Commander fills this void now

I try to get the highest quality pics I can but I was short on time to upload these and just grabbed the first ones I found

Ur-Dragon, Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Tiamat, maybe Ramos Dragon Engine and Morophon. I guess Changeling typal decks enjoy this

I’m not the best at Limited, but a 2/2 with Flying for 2 that can draw multiple cards from the main Sultai/Temur mechanics seems very, very good at uncommon?

It’s buffable either turn. The “base” part of the text just means it only affects the printed stats on the cards, and not other effects like counters or anthem abilities. So this creature with a +1/+1 counter is 6/3 on your turn and 3/6 on an opponent’s turn

I think their ubiquity and simple rules make basic lands good for more adventurous art design. That being said, this one is not really up my alley (I do however love the Nyx and Planet basics). I’m glad they have the Dragon’s Presence basics for a more traditional style of full art lands though

Attached to a very nicely costed body I think this could do well. Only issue is that most Red decks right now don’t go to 4 mana, I wonder if this will be able to push a Gruul/Boros/Rakdos midrange deck into viability

I think they’re doing some Druid typal support in this set, but yeah I wish they’d try to keep tokens more Standardized across sets unless there’s just no other way to do it

Haughty Djinn was originally printed in DMU, and given that Dominaria has a long history of Djinn going back to Alpha, Smirking Spelljacker is probably from there. Older Djinn didn’t really have a cohesive visual identity, but comparing it to djinn from the more recent Dominaria sets, it seems to match up

Out of all the Djinn in Magic, only two other in-universe planes have had Djinn, Ravnica and Strixhaven. Strixhaven is the other possibility, but Spelljacker looks pretty wispy which would align more with Dominaria