Is this new ban announcement the death of combo decks?

This monday the official duel commander commitee unveiled the newest ban/restricted announcement which banned 2 powerful cards for combo decks. The community doesn't agree with these changes as they leave the aggro decks freely dominate the format. In this article I will write about the impact of these changes and how odd they are.

Odd bans...

The newest announcement of the duel commander comitee unveiled that both Lotus Petal and Rain of Filth have been placed on the banlist as of monday. The community including myself was confused about these bans. Players were hoping to see unbans or bans of cards often used in aggressive decks to make them less dominant. 

The bans of Lotus Petal and Rain of Filth are quite odd as they harm the combo archetype in duel commander which was already really underepresented. The only decks that use it are Wernog/Cecily and Greasefang combo decks which weren't even that popular. These changed do nothing to adress the dominance of midrange and aggressive decks in the format like the new Slimefoot and Squee, Raffine or even Aragorn. The community is not happy with these changes however there may be a reason for the bans...

The death of combo?

These changes hurt pretty much only combo decks, especially the Wernog/Cecily combo deck which was the most popular from among them in the current duel commander metagame. Combo was already the least popular style of deck in duel commander representing only about 10% of all tournament top 8s. The Wernog/Cecily deck has been slowly rising for the past few months and has been winning some major tournaments lately so I could see the reason behind the ban as the deck could become a problem down the line. In the annoucnement they also mention that Lotus Petal was also a popular card for aggro decks which I do kinda agree with as some versions of decks played a copy if they needed their commander fast like Raffine and Aragorn.

However, the deck was nowhere near as oppressive or popular as the midrange decks of the format which dominate the metagame. Without it there are simply no other solid combo decks left. The next most popular deck is the Old Rutstein reanimator deck which is still not nearly as popular. This announcement could mean the rise of Old Rutstein or begin the downfall of the already underrepresented combo archetype in the format.

Author: Tomas Solovic

Date: 29th November, 2023