MTG Head Designer Mark Rosewater Says Commander Staple Was “A Mistake”

Last updated on June 3, 2025

Lightning Greaves – art by Adrián Rodríguez Pérez

We all love free things. And free spells are usually among the most powerful cards in Magic. So powerful that, in fact, they can be borderline broken… or downright be a design mistake.

Magic's Head Designer Mark Rosewater admitted yesterday that such is the case with one of Commander‘s most popular staples: Lightning Greaves.

When asked directly if Greaves was a wrong move, given that later versions like Swiftfoot Boots or Lavaspur Boots all have a real equip cost, Rosewater responded: “The 0 equip cost was a mistake.”

First of a Kind

Lightning Greaves (Secret Lair) – Illustration by Rudy Siswanto

Originally printed in Mirrodin – the Magic set that introduced equipment – Lightning Greaves had a unique trait: it was the first and only equipment with equip cost 0. It also grants the equipped creature haste and shroud, meaning that for the rest of the game your biggest threat can come out swinging and protected from targeted interaction. In time, it would become a Commander staple, and although it's not an auto-include, it's the fifth most-played card in EDH decks, and a mainstay in cEDH and Duel Commander.

According to a Star City Games article from a few years ago, Lightning Greaves “Started out as a one-mana equipment that gave the creature haste and vigilance, while only costing one to equip. Mark Rosewater liked the idea of fitting both abilities on a piece of equipment because it was difficult to include on a mono-colored creature.” The Magic team later moved the casting cost to two, the equip cost to zero, and vigilance was switched for shroud to make the equipment good enough for Standard.

They probably thought that Lightning Greaves was balanced enough, since shroud (unlike hexproof) prevents you targeting your own creature, so you can't keep applying buffs and equipment once the Greaves are attached. But they must have noted that they had pushed it a bit too far, since zero-equip equipments that came later were much weaker, or had important caveats.

Darksteel‘s Grafted Wargear comes with a “whenever it becomes unattached from a creature, sacrifice that creature,” clause to prevent abuse. Shuko‘s buff is minimal, with the equipped creature getting just a paltry +1/+0. And the latest free-to-equip equipment, Leather Armor from Adventures in the Forgotten Realms (which, like Lightning Greaves, provides a bit of protection against targeting thanks to ward), comes with an “Activate only once each turn” clause.

Which, to be fair to Wizards, clearly suggests that most of Lightning Greaves‘s power comes from the combination of haste and shroud, not just its free lunch when it comes to equipping. There's just one other piece of equipment that's more popular than Lightning Greaves in Commander: Swiftfoot boots, which gives haste and hexproof (arguably better than shroud).

Swiftfoot Boots, originally printed in 2012, cost the same as Lightning Greaves to cast, and costs to equip – clearly what makes it a top 5 card in EDH are the abilities it grants, even if equipped at non-zero costs. And, by and large, the Greaves' and Boots' lane is restricted to Commander variants: The only card that plays with with 0-cost equipping and which makes a dent in 60-card formats is a creature, Puresteel Paladin, often seen as 4x in Modern's Hammer Time decks.

But then Nadu showed up and drove home the point that, yes, 0-cost activations are broken.

The Nadu Debacle: How a Free Equip Broke Modern

Nadu, Winged Wisdom – Illustration by Daren Bader

What really brought home the problem with 0-cost activations was Modern Horizons 3‘s Nadu, Winged Wisdom.

In mid-2024, Modern Horizons 3 introduced Nadu, Winged Wisdom, a 3/4 bird wizard who gives each creature you control an ability: “Whenever this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, reveal the top card of your library. If it's a land, put it onto the battlefield. Otherwise, put it into your hand. This ability triggers only twice each turn.”

In essence, Nadu turns targeting your creatures into card draw (and ramp for lands). While MTG designers balanced Nadu for typical interaction (the trigger was limited to twice per turn to prevent obvious infinite combos), they overlooked a key synergy: repeatable, targetable, zero-cost activated abilities. Like, yep, equipping for free.

Within days of spoilers, the Modern community identified that Shuko, the dusty equipment from 2005, would let you draw your whole library with Nadu on board. And the synergy was obvious enough that the finance community was betting on it to happen – a spec that turned out to be an amazing bet as Shuko‘s price skyrocketed. In the weeks after MH3’s release, Shuko spiked from about $2 to nearly $40 on secondary markets

Source: MTGStocks

Long story short, Nadu was swiftly banned in Modern on August 2024, with Wizards admitting that Nadu, Winged Wisdom was a design mistake, and a month later the bird was shot down in Commander.

The specific reason? “I missed the interaction with zero-mana abilities that are so problematic,” admitted Michael Majors, Modern Horizons 3‘s lead designer.

“The issue isn’t that we said ‘0 cost activations are a problem' and we forgot some existed,” Mark Rosewater clarified on his personal blog. “We didn’t realize that was a problem we needed to worry about with this specific card.” According to Rosewater, WotC knows very well that 0 cost activations are broken and that's why they have stopped doing it. What made the Nadu problem so big was that, as Majors admitted, even if they already knew about this broken mechanic they failed to see how it would backfire with Nadu specifically.

“Free” is Problematic in MTG

Delighted Halfling – Illustration by Livia Prima

The saga of Lightning Greaves and its zero-mana equip kin teaches a universal lesson: There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. In Magic in particular, free spells and free actions can break the game in half when they find the perfect combo.

As Mark Rosewater explained yesterday on his personal blog, 0 costs have historically caused play design problems. “The card is just more powerful than it should be,” Mark notes. “It causes problems when we want to have things trigger off being targeted by effects.”

The irony here is that Lightning Greaves seems like the sort of mistake that Wizards of the Coast enjoys repeating a lot: It has been reprinted in the two most recent sets, Aetherdrift and Tarkir: Dragonstorm, as part of their Commander precons. And it was reprinted a bunch of times last year, in three different main sets plus a Secret Lair plus showing up in Mystery Boosters 2.

And in case you were wondering: yeah, Lightning Greaves, alongside its Swiftfoot Boots cousin, will also be reprinted in the upcoming Final Fantasy Commander precons.

But even reprinting it to death just can't push the price of this broken Commander staple below $5. Magic players do love their free lunches!