A little surprising that [[Orcish Bowmasters]] is already on their watchlist but the card seems pretty nuts so far. [[Mirkwood Bats]] is also on the watchlist.
Full text of the update:
Cards
No changes
Rules
The ring tempts you – This is a mechanic that – on the surface – looks a lot like venturing into the dungeon. In the past we’ve had to make changes to Rule 10 (Cards from outside the game) to accommodate these mechanics. Unlike Dungeons, though, this mechanic is tracked on an emblem! The rules today already accommodate emblems, so no changes are necessary for this to function as it does in other formats.
General Commentary
We’ve been following the community’s discussions and concerns surrounding Orcish Bowmasters, and – to a lesser extent – Mirkwood Bats. With the help of the Commander Advisory Group, we’ll be observing how and if those discussions change over time as people play and play against these cards.
We’ve also seen a ton of excitement! The idea of a fully fleshed-out set with deep lore really closely aligns with our goals in managing the format. In this set, Wizards has delivered a ton of tools to players who want to tell stories through their deckbuilding and gameplay. A property as deep as Lord of the Rings has a ton of stories to tell.
We’ll be back with our next update on August 28 in advance of Wilds of Eldraine!
Asking as someone who doesn’t play much Commander – what’s dangerous about the Bowmasters and Bats? Is there a win-the-game combo that they enable?
I have no idea what they’re concerned about with Bats but I’m assuming Bowmasters go kinda crazy with all the wheel effects that run rampant in EDH. Even so, it’s definitely one of the least egregious wheel “payoffs” in a format with [[Hullbreacher]] and [[Notion Thief]] etc.
I don’t feel like Bats does much more than we already see with cards like Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat. Just triggers off of more things and makes the rampant Treasure generation we’ve seen actively kill people. Which honestly, may be a good thing.
Bowmasters is cheap, efficient and deadly, but I don’t think it poses much more of a threat than wheel-based builds already do. Certainly lets you clean up the board if people start drawing a ton, though.
Except Hullbreacher’s been banned in Commander for a while now. Notion Thief isn’t, yes, but the other has been banned for a while.
Very true, forgot that somehow. Narset is another.
Tolarian Community College did a video listing the most powerful commander cards in LTR and Bats was the top card. It has a huge edge over Blood Artist and the like since it drains life with treasure tokens (twice!), and token generation in general is very common in many decks. It’s a must-answer card that slots into a ton of decks, not just sacrifice engine decks.
I don’t think Bowmaster is that big of an issue, but Bats seems problematic because it hits every opponent and token creation and saccing can get pretty out of hand.
