November 6th — Jeweled Lotus [] is banned
Unlike the Commander Rules Committee which announced that they were aware that this card was going to be printed, we found out about this card when it was spoiled last week. We talked quite a bit in chats and had a meeting discussing this card earlier this week. As part of our discussions, we all initially agreed that this card would most likely be banned after 90 days. The primary purpose of our discussions was mainly to decide whether to ban it now, or ban it after 90 days.
The intention of our 90 day policy is to allow new interesting cards to see some play before being banned. Jeweled Lotus [] does not provide any interesting new plays. It accelerates an already fast format.
We have already banned comparable cards such as Lion's Eye Diamond [] and/or Dark Ritual []. Dark Ritual [] and Lion's Eye Diamond [] were banned primarily because of their interaction with the Command Zone. Jeweled Lotus [] has all of the same problems, but without having to discard your hand. Plus it costs one less mana compared to Dark Ritual []. Because of these comparisons, we feel like we have already tested arguably worse versions of this card, and already banned them.
However this does not mean we won’t do our due diligence. We will continue to test this card internally. We are going to start with it banned, and test from the perspective of whether or not to unban this card. We will provide updates at our regularly scheduled announcements.
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