Commander Clash Tests No Ban Format, House Rules Tame Chaos

Commander Clash ran an experiment on December 12, 2025 by running a four player pod with no official banned list, pitting Seth, Tomer, Morgan, and Crim against one another in Season 19 Episode 7. The episode permitted most format staples, then layered a season set of house bans to prevent uninteractive, unwinnable positions. The event included full deck lists, gameplay highlights, and commentary on how the meta shifted when major pieces were allowed or removed.

The season house bans applied alongside or instead of the official list were chosen to curb the fastest and most runaway engines. The banned cards for this season were Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Gaea's Cradle, Ancient Tomb, Smothering Tithe, Rhystic Study, Trouble in Pairs, Field of the Dead, Glacial Chasm, The One Ring, and Teferi's Protection. Removing the standard ban list while keeping this focused set of prohibitions produced games that felt higher power, but not impossible to interact with.

Practically this matters because it gives play groups a tested floor for balancing power games. With fast mana and a handful of card advantage engines removed, decks leaned into tutor lines and alternate combo pieces, creating turns with more decisive plays but also more windows for interaction. The write up and episode serve as both a replay and a playbook, showing how small, targeted house rules change deck building priorities and encourage different kinds of sequencing and sideboarding.

If you want to try a similar experiment, test a single session with the listed house bans, note which cards cause the most runaway positions, and adjust the house list rather than reverting immediately to the full official banned list. The episode page includes the video and embedded clips for direct study, and the deck lists provide concrete starting points for building in a permissive but manageable environment.