Magic: The Gathering fans have taken their outrage over the recent Commander bans to the next level by creating two different petitions: one to fire the Commander Rules Committee and one to reverse the recent bans.

The recent bannings of Jeweled Lotus, Dockside Extortionist, and Mana Crypt (not so much Nadu) have truly struck a nerve with Magic players, enough for them to call for the heads of CRC. Since announcing that those three once valuable cards had been banned in Commander/EDH games, the CRC has been under fire on social media (see "Commander Rules Committee Receives Backlash") nonstop on every group, website, and thread related to the game.

As the next logical step in the cycle of gamer rage, Commander fans put up two petitions on change.org: one to fire the CRC and one to reverse the changes to the format.  The manifesto for the first petition has been articulated as follows:

The ban list for Sept 23 is an atrocity.  Why?

  • Thousands of customers / players have lost thousands of dollars.
  • EDH is an "Eternal Format" meaning it has access to all cards throughout the history of MTG.
  • These changes serve only casual players.
  • They've kept Sol Ring because it "defines" the format, yet ban Mana Crypt and Jeweled Lotus?  Cards that literally define cEDH as a whole?
  • Dockside Extortionist is a big part of what made red competitively viable.
  • Jeweled Lotus was literally made for commander and can't be used in ANY other format.
  • Mana Crypt is literally just Sol Ring for 1 less mana.  It was more than fair in game. (And no, Sol Ring and other fast mana don't need to be banned)
  • The only thing wrong with these cards were price / availability.

... It's more than obvious that the rules committee is completely oblivious and ignorant.  They need to be fired ASAP. At the least, I hope this is a turning point where the RC recognizes cEDH as its own format and gives it its own banlist.  The best outcome would be to see Wizards of the Coast recognize EDH as a fully sanctioned format for the WPN. 

The larger of the two petitions, the one to reverse the current changes, demands the reinstatement of Dockside Extortionist, Jeweled Lotus, Mana Crypt, and Nadu, Winged Wisdom. This petition focuses on the idea that Commander/EDH is a format that was built so that players could use the cards they've spent money on to play a casual format, and that by the CRC banning cards they are essentially circumventing aspects of Rule Zero (the discussion that happens before a game of Commander that sets up the special rules for the game).

Beyond the reasons stated in the petitions above, there are other issues with this banning that have arisen with the CRC's ability to wield any power over Magic: The Gathering formats. It seems obvious to many that WotC allowing an outside, loosely affiliated community entity to have the power to change (without any oversight) the Commander format, a format which WotC specifically creates products for, is possibly a conflict of interest for a subsidiary of a publicly traded company (Hasbro). The outside entity always has the option to act against the best interests of WotC and Hasbro, for whom they are unofficially managing an aspect of a billion-dollar brand, which may do damage to the brand. On some level, WotC continuing to allow the CRC to dictate what cards the company makes can and can't be played is somewhat irresponsible brand management and probably should be rectified in some way before another incident does real damage to the game's most popular format.