Popular Rising Commander Variant Axes Entire Banlist

Last updated on March 3, 2026

Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh | Illustration by Chris Seaman

What if “banning cards” wasn’t the main balancing tool? AeonShift, a new variation on the Commander format, is built around that idea: everything stays playable, but the best cards come with a points price tag, and your commander sets the size of your budget.

This new Magic format is set to launch later today and a lot of the details have not been revealed yet, but many of its deckbuilding rules have already been published. Let's see how they work!

How AeonShift Works

Nadu, Winged Wisdom – Illustration by Daren Bader

AeonShift is a new player-run format which overhauls Duel Commander‘s deckbuilding rules around a points-based system: You pick a commander as normal (it still defines your color identity), but your commander also sets how many points you’re allowed to spend on the rest of your deck. Most cards cost 0 points, while individually powerful cards are assigned point costs, and deckbuilding is about staying under your point budget. A Black Lotus, for example, costs 80 points, while Hexing Squelcher costs 3 points.

Source: mtgdc

In a way, your commander is your “wallet” (how many points you can spend), and they you spend those points as you add cards to your deck.

The examples they give show powerful commanders like Nadu, Winged Wisdom with a much smaller budget than more janky choices like Nicol Bolas, implying the system is trying to “handicap” top-tier commanders while giving more room to weaker ones.

For example:

• Nadu, Winged Wisdom allows spending 14 points.
• Winota, Joiner of Forces allows spending 45 points.
• Nicol Bolas allows spending 168 points.

So while all paper MTG cards will be legal, you won't be able to play all of them (even if your commander allows them). If Nadu, Winged Wisdom is your commander, you can't play The One Ring or a Black Lotus, since Nadu doesn't give you enough points to “buy” those cards into your deck.

A Bit Like MTGA's Brawl

As it turns out, there's already one Magic format that uses a point system for cards: MTG Arena‘s Brawl. And, at a high level, AeonShift and MTG Arena Brawl are trying to solve the same problem, namely how to balance a format with gazillion cards.

But each format solves the problem in almost opposite ways.

Arena’s approach is matchmaking-first. Brawl lets you put any cards in your commander's color identity, just like regular Commander. And then it uses card points to find a worthy opponent, with a deck that weights roughly the same as yours.

AeonShift’s approach is deckbuilding-first. You can't just build with whatever fits your color identity. But, if it works as advertised, then all well-built AeonShift decks should be roughly evenly matched.

The Duel Commander Schism

Duel Commander is a community-run, one-versus-one version of Commander. It started back in 2007, and it was added to MTGO in July 2024, alongside a dedicated Tournament Practice room and League support.

All was well and good for about a year…

… then there was a community schism. Long story short, the Duel Commander organizers split, along with their websites, and the “point system” was literally one of the causes for the split according to one of the sides:

Source: www.duelcommander.org

The “new” site became duelcommander.org and the “older” one remained mtgdc.info… which is the one now shifting to AeonShift.

With two different communities claiming to represent and maintain the format, MTGO devs were in a bit of a pickle about which to follow for bans. What MTGO decided to do back then was to run a poll. Based on the poll's results, “the community made clear that there is a single source of truth for format updates – the Duel Commander Committee’s new website,” MTGO said.

Source: MTGO, Magic Online Weekly Announcements, November 25, 2025

Last January 26, duelcommander.org published a their Banned & Restricted update (Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh banned as commander; Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Trazyn the Infinite, and Necrotic Ooze unbanned), which MTGO followed, making clear MTGO considers this sit the “real” Duel Commander

Meanwhile, and on that same day, mtgdc.info published a much more radical “system change” announcement claiming that as of March 3, 2026, the B&R list would effectively be abolished in favor of a new legality system… which as we now know will be called AeonShift.

So, on the one hand, it looks like the Duel Commander split is over, in a sense: There won't be two competing websites claiming to represent the Duel Commander community (although AeonShift's full name seems to be “AeonShift Duel Commander,” so who knows…)

On the other hand, though, it remains to be seen if MTGO will be willing to include AeonShift in their client, given the past history. MTGO seems the perfect environment for a deckbuilding system based on points. And. as shown by Duel Commander back in 2024, and Premodern more recently, MTGO can really help a player-run format grow.

A Few Hunches

Black Lotus – Illustration by Steven Belledin

As noted above, my strongest hunch is that AeonShift will live or die based on the digital deckbuilding tools. If those tools suck, the format will be dead on arrival. Without a frictionless point calculator, I think this project will have a really hard time lifting off.

Even with good tools, it feels too cumbersome for kitchen-table play, and even a tad too many hoops to jump for casual FNM play: you basically have to check your opponent's decklist card by card to make sure they are playing fair.

The above problem goes away in a competitive environment, though. And, if MTGO adopts it, then it also goes away for casual play. In other words, I think this point system is a lot better on a digital platform.

On the one hand, and I think this may be a big negative, AeonShift kills “Big Power Magic”, so to speak. Part of Commander's appeal is, “I wanna do broken things with broken stuff, lemme play the most powerful stuff in MTG”…and a point system is specifically designed against this. You can't play the best commander with the best cards in this format, and that is that way by design.

On the other hand, a point system may let janky stuff be great. Nadu can't play a Black Lotus, but with Nicol Bolas you can play a Lotus, The One Ring, and you've still got 46 points to spare, which is more than three time's Nadu's full budget. So we may end up with “bad commanders are good” situation.

At any rate, though, AeonShift debuts today, so we'll see!