May 26, 2025
Announcement/Update
Over the past two months, Duel Commander has maintained a healthy, balanced metagame with all major archetypes represented. We've observed several notable developments: Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh / Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools combinations are gaining popularity as storm decks, Slimefoot and Squee is making a modest but promising return, and we're welcoming a new competitive contender: Deadpool, Trading Card.
All top-tier meta decks remain within acceptable power levels for balance. Rather than targeting established meta decks with bans, we've focused on strengthening emerging archetypes and strategies to better compete with the current top tier.
🔘 GLOBAL GAME RULES CHANGES
• No changes.
🔘 INDIVIDUAL BANNED AND RESTRICTED CARD CHANGES
• Invert Polarity is now banned.
🔘 EXPERIMENTAL CHANGES
• Zurgo Bellstriker is now legal.
• Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis is now restricted.
🔘 OTHER CHANGES
• No changes.
You can still contact us on our Reddit page and our Discord server.
⏰ The next scheduled announcement will be published on July 28, 2025.
Until then, we wish you all many good games! 😇
Invert Polarity
Invert Polarity's ability to drastically swing games as early as turn 3 through coin flips has proven problematic for player experience and creates unnecessary frustration.
From a strategic perspective, the card offers poor decision-making opportunities, particularly when targeting bilateral effects like board-sweeping effects, static effects, or uncounterable spells—essentially becoming a coin flip with a 50% chance of having no impact, which increases unwanted randomness.
While Invert Polarity previously saw limited play due to its {U}{R} color requirements, the current dominance and widespread adoption of Aragorn, King of Gondor decks has led to increased usage of this card. To improve overall player experience, we've determined this is the appropriate time to remove it from our game.
For these reasons, Invert Polarity is now banned in Duel Commander.
Zurgo Bellstriker
When Zurgo Bellstriker was the only one-mana mono-red commander available, it proved too consistent and fast for metagame health. However, subsequent printings of additional one-mana mono-red commanders have demonstrated that the metagame can now withstand this power level. In fact, mono-red strategies are currently nowhere near tier 1 status.
We believe that providing access to Zurgo Bellstriker will benefit mono-red strategies by allowing players to tune their decks in response to tier 1 threats.
Commander swapping is a significant strength for mono-colored strategies, and by making Zurgo Bellstriker legal as a Commander, we hope to increase strategic decision-making by enabling more commander swaps based on play/draw decisions and opposing strategies.
As an experimental unban, if Zurgo Bellstriker proves to break the metagame balance, we reserve the right to respond swiftly by returning him to the banned list.
For these reasons, Zurgo Bellstriker is now legal as a commander.
Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
Rather than targeting top contenders with bans, we wanted to provide players with more tools to fight back and increase diversity by offering a viable winning strategy for green-based decks.
Green is currently the least-played color by a significant margin, and we hope Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis will revitalize green strategies like Grist, the Hunger Tide while introducing new midrange decks such as Teval, the Balanced Scale and others.
We also wanted to give midrange strategies the tools necessary to match the velocity of combo decks.
As an experimental unban, if Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis proves to break the metagame balance, we reserve the right to respond swiftly by returning him to the ban list.
For these reasons, Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis is now restricted.
