The most oppressive commanders over the years in duel commander

Not all cards are as powerful as others and sometimes they warp the entire metagame around them. Cards like these force decks to adapt or completely dominate their playstyle. In this article I want to look at these commanders and why they disrupted the health of the format so much. 

Edric, Spymaster of Trest (Nov 2019)

In 2019 Edric was unleashed upon duel commander yet again after being on the banlist since 2014 thanks to sheer power. This was an experimental change by the comitee that ended up backfiring completely. The commander made an overwhelming comeback and instantly became one of the best decks in the format. 

Thanks to a lot of new and powerful support cards the was actually probably even better than it's 2014 version. The decklists were soon optimized and started ruining both local and larger tournaments. The deck was just too consistent and giving aggro decks access to reliable draw isn't really a good thing. It's creatures were annoying and hard to deal with because of protection in the form of buffs and counterspells. This in turn made Edric quite oppressive earning him a place on the banlist yet again.

Najeela, the Blade-Blossom (August 2019)

Najeela is quite an interesting commander in that you have to build the deck all around her and other warrior synergies. The deck was really expensive but also very hard to deal with, especially the amount of tokens Najeela made. The deck actually lasted around a year before being banned.

After selling your soul for the manabase, you would fill the deck with the best warriors and aggressive creatures the format offered and since you were a 5-color deck, you could run any one you liked. The deck also got access to the best removal and burn spells the format offered like Fatal Push and Boros Charm. The main problem was the pressure Najeela created very quickly and the sheer amount of tokens generated. Many other aggro decks just couldn't deal with them thus making the deck rather oppressive and getting the deck banned.

Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar (September 2021)

Or Asmo for short is quite an interesting commander to build. The deck combined the usual aggressive strategy with powerful synergies tied with discarding cards. The deck itself wasn't that powerful against control decks but it dominated aggressive matchups.

The most problematic part about Asmo was that the card could efficiently remove any kind of threat without essencialy any cost. The Underworld Cookbook was a key part of the deck and enabled the deck to synergise so well. Most aggressive decks couldn't remove artifacts that well so it was hard to stop the opponent from constantly removing your creatures. Asmo also came down quite early as a 1-mana 3/3 and also needed to be deal with. The deck ruined the diversity in aggressive strategies so much that it needed to be banned.

Inalla, Archmage Ritualist (July 2021)

I have talked abou Inalla a couple weeks ago but I just needed to put her here too. Eminence is badly designed and this just yet another reason why. Inalla proved problematic for a couple of reasons but they main one was the deck was very hard to interact with. 

You couldn't really just get rid of Inalla as she waited patiently in the command zone thus you needed very specific answers to stop the gameplan of the deck. This forced decks to adapt and players to hope that they actually drew their answers. If you didn't, it was really hard to stop the opponent from winning and even if you somehow did, the deck could go for their combo yet again next turn. This in turn made the deck really problematic and unfun to play against which forced the comitee to ban Inalla.

Author: Tomas Solovic

Date: 4th October, 2023