List current as of January 18, 2016
Bans effective as of January 18, 2016
This Banned List is not of my creation. This is Official Banned List on the Official Commander website. Take any complaints and concerns over there. If you want to play with you own Banned List with your friends, please do. If a Legendary creature is banned, then it is also banned as a Commander.
New Banned Cards (1/18/2016):
Legal Sets:
All Vintage legal sets (Including the Commander Product)
Banned List:
I Got 99 Problems But a Commander Ain't One 
July 7th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
[…] EDH Banned List […]
December 17th, 2010 at 10:48 am
Should Emerakul be on both of these lists or is he only banned in the decks and not banned as a general?
December 17th, 2010 at 11:08 am
The General/Commander banned list means those cards still can be used in decks, but not just as your General. Emrakul and Kokusho are banned from the format, which includes being a General/Commander as well.
December 17th, 2010 at 10:50 am
If Coalition Victory is on the list of banned cards, what stops Door to Nothingness from being on the list?
December 17th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Coalition Victory can only be stopped one way: by countering it, which means you have to play Blue. All “instant win” cards are banned for that reason. Since Door to Nothingness enters the battlefield tapped, there are ways to deal with it. It can be bounced, destroyed, stolen, exiled, turned into a creature and killed, redirect the player target. Basically every color has a way to deal with it, which is why it’s legal.
December 22nd, 2010 at 9:07 am
actually all of the instant wins ARE NOT banned……only coalition victory…..which makes me wonder why…….why CV when it is harder to win by versus Test of Endurance, Epic Struggle, Chance Encounter, Mortal Combat, Helix Pinnacle, and Felidar Sovereign…….the only one i can see that shouldn’t be on here is Battle of Wits just because a Commander/EDH deck can only be 99+1 and BoW needs a 300+ card deck to win
December 22nd, 2010 at 10:06 am
The other ones you mentioned aren’t instant wins. All of those require you to win on your upkeep which means that players generally will have a chance to respond to them going off. If you play other cards that allow you to cast them as instants so you cast them at the end of your opponent’s turn, then that’s fine. It’s another hurdle you’ve got to jump.
But they aren’t instant wins.
January 17th, 2011 at 9:42 am
Not to mention that Door to Nothingness doesn’t really cause you to win… if you can fire it off, it simply causes one of your opponents to instantly lose. In a one-on-one game it’s obviously a win, but in multiplayer you’ll usually have at least one more person to contend with.
And trust me, as a person who runs Door to Nothingness in two different EDH decks, I can tell you a) people rightly see this as a huge threat, to the point where I have NEVER been able to activate it (most times I don’t even get to untap it before it dies) and b) it makes you a huge target… it’s weird, but people are very hostile towards cards that say “target player loses the game,” not to mention the controller of such a card.
December 27th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
What about Riftsweeper (Future sight) and Crucible of the worlds (Core)? I was perusing some forums and both were listed as banned. Is this the official and most up-to date reference list to go by?
December 27th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
Those cards used to be banned but are no longer. This list is always kept to date with the date of the latest update up at the top of the page.
January 16th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
dear edh people, stop banning cards in a casual format
sincerely
ever casual magic player
January 20th, 2011 at 6:47 am
You can house-rule cards to not be banned. The above list is just a nice guideline to follow so the game doesn’t become stale. EDH/Commander is a player-driven format, so if you want to play differently, as long as the other people you’re playing with don’t mind, go right ahead.
January 27th, 2011 at 7:22 am
Why is Braids banned as a general? There are much more broken generals (e.g. Maralen of the Mornsong)
May 30th, 2011 at 4:08 pm
Because, being able to play a turn 1/2 braids (not hard to do) is no fun for anyone, and guarantees that you’ll win the game, and that noone can deal with it.
May 23rd, 2011 at 6:32 am
Why is Kokusho, the Evening Star banned? It doesn’t seem that broken?
June 2nd, 2011 at 11:41 am
Kokusho is banned because EDH is usually played in multiplayer. Specifically EDH tournament finals are 8 player. EDH tournaments (went it was legal) were pretty much a race to see who could play it quickest. One that dies would pretty much read “All opponents lose 5 life. You gain 35.”
Plus It is very easy to ramp into (Dark/Cabal ritual, Sol Ring), tutor for (Demonic/vampiric Tutor, Entomb), easy to revive in it’s colors (Reanimate, Exhume, Zombify) and very hard to kill without triggering it’s ability. All these reasons combined is why it is banned.
September 5th, 2011 at 10:26 pm
i get every card, exept upheaval… is it banned simply because its so booring?