Blood Moon

In theory, it is a card that punishes color-intensive strategies, imposing a significant deckbuilding constraint in order to circumvent this problem. In practice, however, it is also effective against decks with few colors, and even against decks that play the card themselves. Adapting the mana base in order to be able to withstand a Blood Moon is never a good strategic choice, as it would render the deck unplayable against other decks, and its diffuse presence does not necessarily justify simply changing decks, thus taking on a regulatory role that the card can sometimes play in other formats, but which it cannot fulfill in ours given its own constraints. Lastly, we think that there are alternatives to this card, but those can be managed using more numerous tools.

Blood Moon is therefore a card that diminishes the strategic interest of games, and for this reason, it is now banned in Duel Commander.

Dark Ritual

Dark Ritual is a uniquely powerful card in terms of the acceleration it provides. It is one of the few remaining cards that can produce more than one mana of a single color unconditionally. Its ability to speed up combo strategies such as Storm or Reanimator often in ways that are difficult to interact with—creates situations where games can end far too quickly for the average deck in the format to respond.

As the overall power level of the format has increased, tempo has become more influential than card advantage. Dark Ritual enables many decks to get ahead of the curve, creating significant tempo swings by enabling plays like turn 2 Deadpool, Trading Card or Sheoldred, the Apocalypse,  turn 3 Dream Halls or Kefka, Court Mage or turn 4 Tivit, Seller of secrets.

The play patterns Dark Ritual encourages are often unpredictable and can lead to games ending abruptly, offering little room for interaction.

For these reasons, Dark Ritual is now banned in Duel Commander.

Force of Will

Force of Will is theoretically a reactive card. In practice, however, it primarily benefits decks that can cast a powerful threat early in the game, while protecting it at a low cost. Where the card should therefore allow games to be extended by offering reactive strategies additional answers, it tends to shorten them to the benefit of the player offering the most linear strategy. Furthermore, Force of Will is a card that allows you to exchange Card Advantage resources for a Tempo advantage. As the format has greatly accelerated, this exchange has become heavily biased towards tempo, which naturally changes the use of the card.

Force of Will is a card with a unique effect in our format. Unlike other free counterspells available, this one counters unconditionally. The main consequence of this peculiarity is that it is impossible to anticipate its use correctly, except in a few, very specific cases. From a strategic point of view, the right choice is always to ignore this threat while accepting the possibility of being punished for that decision.

Force of Will is therefore a card that reduces the strategic interest of games; for this reason, it is now banned in Duel Commander.

Underworld Breach

The storm archetype has long been a very specific challenge in this format. The archetype is interesting in itself: it offers an original strategy that broadens the spectrum of available combo decks. However, the very nature of its strategy makes interaction difficult, and many decks simply do not have the right tools to deal with it, which effectively stifles the metagame.

There are several ways to tackle this problem, but it became clear to us that there were two main culprits: fast mana and a particular enabler: Underworld Breach. The latter is truly unique in the history of Magic: it requires very little setup, can be used a sort of one-card-combo, and thus constitutes a game plan in itself. It is the cornerstone of most storm deck variants, without being the only strategy, which makes these decks even more complex to play against effectively. Finally, it is a card that has no acceptable use in the metagame: it is either insignificant or too powerful. The removal of this card should not eliminate the storm archetype, but should bring it back to an acceptable level of power.

For these reasons, Underworld Breach is now banned in Duel Commander.