What if there could be planeswalkers in the command zone?
Many both commander and duel commander players have asked the question why aren't planeswalkers allowed as commanders. Only a very select few have ever been allowed to start in this special zone and many became powerful and popular. In this article I will analyze and hopefully answer the question: What if you could have planeswalkers in the command zone?
Why aren't planeswalkers allowed in the command zone?
Planeswalkers represent powerful characters from the mtg universe. A lot of these have powerful effects that are worth protecting and keeping them around for as long as possible. These kinds of cards would thrive in a format such as commander where players generaly have more time to interact with each other and execute their game plan.
The rules comitee believes that over time planeswalkers would over time a large potion of the metagame would switch to planeswalkers instead of the generic creature commanders. Most planeswalkers also aren't really that interesting to build, the more interesting commanders like Tasha, the Witch Queen or Lord Windgrace are made and allowed as commanders.
Planeswalkers also behave quite differently from creatures. Generic board wipes like Toxic Deluge or Wrath of God don't get rid of them. The same can be said for removal spells, players would need to run removal that doesn't only destroy creatures or artifacts but also planeswalkers.
What about duel commander?
Only a few planeswalkers have been allowed as commanders but we already saw some of them as powerful metagame threats in duel commander. Cards like Dihada, Binder of Wills and Mincs and Boo, Timeless Heroes both broke the format and ended up being banned. Even without those two, you will still see planeswalkers like Aminatou, the Fateshifter and Grist, the Hunger Tide in the command zone quite often.
A lot of planeswalkers are quite slow and probably wouldn't be that powerful in the format. The truly broken ones would be the cheaper ones.
One of the best ones is Teferi, Time Raveler. This card would probably single-handedly make azorius control really good if not broken. It is also great against control mirrors as it stops your opponent from playing counterspells and other spells in response.
Oko, Thief of Crowns would also be a really good one. 6 loyalty is just too much on turns 2-3 for pretty much any deck to answer. Getting food tokens or turning creatures into 3/3s every turn would make it a powerful midrange commander. He can also switch those food tokens for your opponent's creatures or commanders. There is a reason Oko is banned in pretty much every format and allowing him to be played in the command zone would not be a great idea.
Wrenn and Six is the last one I want to mention here. Having this card in the command zone would invalidate pretty much any creatures with 1 toughness while getting back all of your fetch lands. The last ability of giving your instant and sorcery retrace isn't that important as the game will probably be over before you get to it, burning your opponent's creatures and face is just better. Having a planeswalker this cheap and effective in the command zone also probably wouldn't end well.
The impact and conclusion
If a change ever happens that allows planeswalkers to enter the command zone some things would change. Players would probably play more removal spells for planeswalkers like Dreadbore. In commander, players could play more burn spells or haste creatures to get rit of these pesky cards before they become a problem. This change would also probably make commander games last longer which we probably don't need.
As for duel commander, this change would meaby allow for some interesting decks but it would probably cause a lot of problems with more than one card getting banned. In conclusion, allowing planeswalkers as commanders would be problematic and would cause more problems than good. In my opinion, planeswalkers are done quite well and they don't really need to change the rules as the most unique planeswalkers are already allowed as commanders.
Author: Tomas Solovic
Date: September 4th, 2023