Commander is a fantastic way to play the Magic. It has the accessibility of Standard, with a card pool as deep as Vintage and Legacy. I was exploring the Vintage and Legacy banned and restricted list recently. It was hard to believe some of the things I saw. Several Commander staples adorned this list. Today I come to you with an idea.

What powerful cards from the Legacy and Vintage ban list should you be playing in Commander?

Before jumping into specific cards, it is important to discuss how each format can deal with troublesome cards. Legacy is operated entirely by Wizards of the Coast. They alone control the bans. A card is either banned, or it is not.

Vintage also has a banned list. It is also managed by Wizards. However, it is seldom used. Vintage is the place where all of Magic’s cards for better or for worse get to play! To ease the damage to oppressive strategies, cards can be ‘restricted’. You can only play one copy of a restricted card, instead of the usual four. Imagine how crazy a deck would be with four copies of Black Lotus!

Finally, Commander. This is the odd duck of the bunch. Wizards of the Coast does not manage it. The ban list is maintained by the ‘Commander Rules Committee’ (RC). These people are not directly associated with Wizards of the Coast. If Wizards of the Coast vanished tomorrow, the RC would still exist. The only tool the RC uses today is outright banning cards. Given Commander is a singleton format, ‘restricted’ does not work here. In the past, the RC would ban cards specifically as your Commander, but they have discontinued this practice.

You can find all cards that meet our criteria on Scryfall.

I will also not be discussing every single card in minute detail. Instead, I would like to cherry-pick some notably powerful cards from this list. Some cards will be narrow. Only suitable for certain decks, while others are powerhouses you should try in every deck.

Finally, I will avoid talking about obviously powerful cards. Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, and Demonic Tutor are powerful, and you should be playing them in Commander if possible.

I don’t need to explain why Sol Ring is powerful!

The first big category to discuss is card advantage. It can come in many forms, and I’m sure some will surprise you!

Dig Through Time, and Treasure Cruise are two must-have cards in Commander. Both feature the titular ‘dredge’ mechanic. Cruise draws three cards, while Dig looks at the top seven cards and lets you take two.

Both cards were on the chopping block in 2015. Cruise got the axe in January. In both formats, blue-red Delver decks were to blame. Between Fetchlands and cantrips it was trivial to make these spells cost next to nothing!

It was a similar story for Dig Through Time. With Cruise gone, Dig was the next best option. In the B&R announcement, Wizards of the Coast called the lack of diversity a driving force.

Expressive Iteration is a more recent example of the same phenomenon. It was only banned in Legacy, however, the cause is still the same. Izzet Delver was to blame. In March 2023 Ian Duke described Expressive Iteration as “the card quality and quantity it provides allows Izzet Delver to easily adapt to stay on top of any changes in the metagame”.

Simply put, the card was too powerful. Giving Delver decks access to two mana card advantage spells has been a constant sticking point in the format.

Card advantage doesn’t just mean drawing cards. It can come in other forms too!

Wrenn and Six, and Dreadhorde Arcanist hammer this home for me! Whenever Dreadhorde attacks, you get to cast an instant or sorcery from your graveyard with mana value less or equal to its power. This was a menace in its day. Casting a Lightning Bolt or a Ponder for free is a great upside for attacking!

Once again, Delver decks were called out as the main player in getting this card banned. In that same February 2021 announcement Oko, Thief of Crowns was banned (we’ll get to him later). This double bill of bans aimed to stifle the Izzet decks splashing green for Oko. Here we see Dreadhorde generates card advantage by re-using cards from your graveyard.

Wrenn and Six have some of the same DNA we saw with Dreadhorde. However, in this case, it is more subtle. This Planeswalker offers a three-step plan.

1. Shut down the early game
2. Consistency for the mid to late
3. Shut down your opponent’s lands

The early game is where Wrenn and Six thrive. Their -1 ability makes playing one toughness creatures a risky proposition. If your one drop does not have an immediate impact, there is no point casting it. An opponent holding a Thalia, Guardian of Thraven, Llanowar Elf, or Delver of Secrets might as well just discard them.

They cannot be played while Wrenn and Six are on the board.

Now for the second part of Wrenn and Six’s plan. Play lands, and especially crack Fetchlands. Every turn, return a Fetchland with Wrenn and Six’s -1 ability. You thin your deck every turn. This makes digging for your powerful cards easier. This culminates in step 3.

Find and replay Wasteland. Your opponent cannot play their early game. In the midgame run away with the advantage offered by always having access to a land. In the late game, disable your opponent’s ability to play at all. Here we are not drawing cards to win, we are forcing cards to rot away in the opponent’s hand.

The banned card advantage spells are one of two things. They are efficient, or they are repeatable. With that in mind, we need to weigh up their viability in the context of Commander. In the case of the three sorceries we looked at, they are a natural inclusion in any blue deck. Whether you’re a fast and efficient Izzet mage with spells to dredge away or a slow grindy casual deck, you will have no problem casting these spells for one to three mana.

Expressive Iteration is a harder sell. Three out of 100 is rough. However, for such a low cost, I love this card. When I have a Storm Kiln Artist or Birgi, God of Storytelling in play, this card just lets me keep digging and storming off.

Dreadhorde Arcanist has the most flexibility and ‘fun factor’ in Commander. While it can be used for simple value recurring one cost spell, the ceiling is much higher. Commander is a slower format. This means we might be able to buff Dreadhorde and get even bigger spells.

I love pairing this with Mishra’s Command. Here we can pay a large value of X to discard our hand and buff the Dreadhorde Arcanist. From there, we can recast one of the spells we just discarded!

All the cards discussed here are super affordable. You can get them all for around €2 each, except for Wrenn and Six. They are around €30 from Three For One Trading. That’s a great deal considering the  €60 – €80 in Wrenn and Six’s heyday!

There is a whole class of cards that are typically restricted in Vintage but legal everywhere else. These are effects that make cheap spells cost more mana. Examples include Chalice of the Void, Thorn of Amethyst, and Vexing Bauble.

These cards are banned for the amount of non-games they create.

For example: In turn one, I play Ancient Tomb, Black Lotus, and Mox Jet. Tap Ancient Tomb and play Thorn of Amethyst.

I now have access to six mana for my turn two. Meanwhile, you can never play your Moxen or Black Lotus.

This play pattern is at best boring, and at worst frustrating. The reliance on fast mana in Vintage leads to decks that lock out the opponent ASAP with these effects. These became known as MUD decks. At Eternal Weekend 2014, Ronald Chang and Nam Tran each piloted this deck to top eight success.

As a testament to the deck’s consistency of Chang’s 18 lands, nine of them can produce two or more mana on turn one. 16 effects impact the opponent’s cheap spells! While MUD decks still exist, many of these effects have since been restricted.

These effects are a double-edged sword in Commander. In general, I think they are very weak outside of high-power environments. They tend to see play in fast combo decks like Magda, Brazen Outlaw. Stax decks such as Oswald Fiddlebender love it too. Here these effects work as protection against counterspells.

The only one of these effects that I earnestly think is worth playing, in general, is Vexing Bauble. I have put this in all of my Commander decks since MH3 was released. Any time a spell is cast for free, you counter it.

For one mana that is an incredibly low barrier to entry. In Legacy and Vintage, this is typically used to stop Force of Will and fast mana. This has some crossover with CEDH too. However, in more casual decks, Vexing Bauble still has its place!

Etali, Primal Conqueror, Urza, Lord High Artificer, Narset, Enlightened Master, all these cards cast spells without paying their mana cost! Vexing Bauble turns all these effects off!

The cherry on top of all this: Vexing Bauble can sacrifice for one mana and draw a card!

You can play out your bauble and when you’re sick of it, just get rid of it! Maybe you’re in a game where no one is playing free spells, just cycle it. This card is awesome. The risk is so low, but the reward is so high. Vexing Bauble has been trending on Cardmarket at around €1.50 – €2.

Give this card a try, you will not be disappointed!

The next couple of cards don’t fit into nice categories. I think they are all just solid cards! All of these are worth considering in your next deck.

Hermit Druid is the core of a powerful combo deck in eternal formats. The ability lets you mill cards until you hit a basic land. This card is awesome in both low and high power. If you’re a combo gamer, fill your deck with zero basic lands. Then, activate Hermit Druid milling your entire deck. Finally, cast Thassa’s Oracle and win the game!

For a more casual self-mill deck, you can treat Hermit Druid like a mill spell. It’s incredibly efficient at dumping cards into the grave, no questions asked.

Underworld Breach carries a lot of the same DNA as Hermit Druid. This is a powerhouse in high-power play and an insane value piece in casual decks. Underworld Breach turns your graveyard into your hand. Cast whatever you want for the low cost of exiling 3 cards.

Lurrus and the entire companion cycle are a controversial bunch. The original wording of Lurrus leads to an outright ban on the card in Vintage. That’s something we haven’t seen in a very long time! Since the errata, Lurrus has been unbanned in Vintage, but is still gone in Legacy.

As a companion, Lurrus offers a fun deck-building challenge, and it’s surprisingly not too difficult! They only restrict the mana value of permanents in your deck. This means you can still play expensive instants and sorceries. Of note, your commander needs to be two mana or less for Lurrus to be happy. I have played Lurrus alongside Amalia Benavides Aguirre for a sticky Voltron strategy.

So far, we have praised the Vintage and Legacy ban list as a great source of inspiration for Commander. With that said, not all cards are created equally. This article has focused on banned cards that are strong in a casual Commander context. On the other hand, some cards are only good in specific decks, or even outright bad in commander.

Oath is a powerful deck in Vintage and has been banned in Legacy. It leverages Forbidden Orchard to give your opponents a creature. Then you can play Atraxa, Griselbrand, and other scary monsters from your deck for free.

In Commander, this is much less consistent. If Alice has 5 creatures, but Bob, Clare, and you all have nothing, Oath will trigger for Bob and Clare! You’re essentially giving your opponents free stuff. While this can lead to some wild games, I cannot recommend it as a true “good” card.

If you do want to take the Oath of Druids challenge, you could try to mitigate the downside. Containment Priest and Hallowed Moonlight can help here.

Misstep is banned for very specific reasons. While sniping a turn 1 Sol Ring is exciting, the odds of that happening are incredibly low. In most games of Commander, Nature’s Claim or Lightning Bolt would be better. Mental Misstep was banned for the game-play patterns it enabled.

Phyrexian mana meant any deck in Legacy/Vintage could play it. This would frequently result in players casting Misstep targeting another Misstep. No one was ever safe from getting Misstep. Other “free” spells in Legacy have some deck-building costs associated. Force of Will costs a blue card. You cannot just play it in mono-red. Misstep was everywhere! The ban was for diversity. It returned the notion that a tapped-out player was open!

In Commander, Misstep is outclassed by cards with similar utility. Games go longer and there is less reliance on one mana spells. On occasion, CEDH decks will play this card, but even there it is not universal.

Gitaxian Probe had a similar issue. Over saturation. Storm decks played it for increased storm count, aggro decks ran it to check if the opponent had a counterspell. Gitaxian Probe was played everywhere. It’s low cost relative to the format. Probe’s impact is just too low to warrant a slot in Commander.

Many decks would simply prefer a more general card with higher utility. In the context of a storm deck in Commander, I could maybe see it having a home. But even here, Commander is often slow enough that you would rather play something more high-impact.

Unfinity is a set that was released to a wide range of controversy. Previous joke sets, Unglued, Unhinged, etc. were not legal for general play. But Unfinity was different. Of the set’s 216 cards, 119 were legal in eternal formats. Today we are down to 47 cards in Legacy/Vintage. This is due to stickers and attractions. This article is not a full deep dive into Unfinity.

The short explanation is this: Attractions and stickers require you to bring extra decks. Say I cast Rad Rascal to open an attraction. It dies later in combat. You cast Reanimate targeting my Rascal. But, you’re not playing an attraction deck! This means you cannot open an attraction. Even though your deck has no interest in attractions, it would have been ‘optimal’ for you to bring a sticker and attraction deck just in case this happened.

This would not be a problem though so long as none of these cards saw Legacy play right?

Enter _____ Goblin or “Name Sticker” Goblin as he became known on Magic Online. This Goblin became very playable. It would consistently generate 4-6 mana. This led to incredibly explosive plays from Goblin decks in Legacy and Vintage. This was not a niche Unfinity card people were joking around with. This is a real card people regularly play.

The Goblin also brought about logistical problems on Magic Online. The digital client did not have a proper implementation of the sticker mechanic. This led to discrepancies in online vs paper tournaments. In May 2024, all cards referencing the attractions and sticker mechanics were banned in Legacy, Vintage, and Pauper.

Again, we must now ask the question. How does this affect Commander? Commander has kept these mechanics in full force. This means the full 119 Unfinity cards are legal. Of the attractions and sticker cards, they are weird but mostly unremarkable. If this mechanic intrigues you, I would highly encourage you to give it a try. This is especially true with attractions and their synergy with commanders that roll dice.

The remaining Unfinity cards still legal in Legacy/Vintage are a story for another day. Some of them even see play with no issues! If you’d like to see an article on Unfinity let us know! There are some solid treasures in that set!