When Everything Is a Bomb, Nothing Is

Power creep is that awkward relative who shows up uninvited to every Commander night. You don’t necessarily hate them — they bring the good cards, after all — but they always make things weird.

Every few sets, Magic: The Gathering raises the ceiling on what a “good” card looks like. Suddenly, your once-proud win condition feels quaint next to whatever pushed monstrosity just dropped in Standard. Commander, being the format that absorbs everything, feels this creep the most. And it’s created a paradox: the game is simultaneously more exciting and more exhausting than ever.

The Upside: More Toys, More Chaos

Let’s start with the good stuff. Power creep gives us better toys. It’s why we get cards like Dockside Extortionist — one of the most efficient red cards ever printed — or Smothering Tithe, which made white ramp like it had something to prove.

New designs push color identities in directions that were once unthinkable. Green gets card draw, black gets ramp, blue gets creature synergies — the lines blur, and Commander decks become more creative than ever. You’re not just running staples anymore; you’re running synergies that didn’t even exist five years ago.

And honestly? That’s fun. Commander thrives on novelty. Every new set gives you an excuse to rebuild an old deck or brew something insane. The game stays fresh because the power keeps creeping.

The Downside: Welcome to the Arms Race

The problem is that with every new overpowered card comes a silent escalation. When one player upgrades their deck with the latest powerhouse, everyone else feels pressure to keep up.

That’s how casual pods slowly transform into accidental cEDH light. Nobody means for it to happen. It’s just that the table’s power level naturally drifts upward — like a frog in boiling water — until everyone’s playing “casual” decks that could combo off by turn five.

You start the night thinking you’ll just cast your Sun Titan and vibe, but someone’s already tutoring for their infinite combo, and now your board state feels prehistoric.

That escalation kills balance. Suddenly, “casual” means wildly different things depending on who you ask. And as I argued in Why Casual Commander Is Harder Than Competitive Commander, social balance is the true skill test of the format.

Designers Know Exactly What They’re Doing

This isn’t accidental. Wizards of the Coast has leaned into power creep as a feature. They’ve realized that Commander players love splashy effects — and more importantly, we buy product to chase them.

The Commander precons themselves have gotten absurdly efficient. Compare early ones like Heavenly Inferno (2011) to modern lists like Growing Threat or Draconic Dissent. These aren’t “beginner” decks anymore. They’re semi-tuned engines that can hang with most homebrews straight out of the box.

From a business standpoint, it’s brilliant. From a game health standpoint? It’s complicated. The new baseline for “strong” has shifted so much that older decks now feel underpowered even when they were once dominant.

The Blurring of the Color Pie

Power creep doesn’t just make cards stronger — it makes colors less distinct. There was a time when blue couldn’t remove creatures cleanly, white couldn’t draw cards, and red couldn’t tutor. Now? Everyone does everything, just differently.

It makes for cool design space but also homogenizes gameplay. When every color can draw, ramp, and recur, decks start feeling the same. You used to know what to expect when someone said “mono-white.” Now it might be a midrange engine that plays like Simic in a trench coat.

That’s not to say it’s all bad. Sometimes blurring the lines opens creative doors. Decks like Osgir, the Reconstructor or Prosper, Tome-Bound wouldn’t have existed under the old design philosophies. Still, there’s a trade-off: mechanical flavor gives way to mechanical efficiency.

Power Creep and the Death of Jank

One of Commander’s charms was always its jank-friendly nature — the idea that you could win with anything if you played it right. Power creep quietly murdered that dream.

When your opponents’ decks routinely drop bombs like Defiler of Dreams or Ancient Copper Dragon, your seven-mana 4/4 that makes one token suddenly looks like a thrift-store mythic.

Jank still exists, but it’s now a conscious choice — a stylistic rebellion against the meta. You play weird cards not because they’re secretly good, but because you’re making a point. And that’s fine, but it changes the social contract. Power creep didn’t just change decks; it changed the definition of fun.

Commander Is No Longer a Retirement Home for Cards

Originally, Commander was the place where your old rares went to live after Standard rotated out. It was the Island of Misfit Toys for Magic. Power creep flipped that dynamic. Now, Commander is the design target — and cards are being made for it.

The result? Commander doesn’t just absorb power creep — it drives it. New legends are printed with multiplayer synergy in mind, mechanics like “impulse draw” exist because red needed card advantage that wouldn’t break one-on-one play, and sets like Commander Masters are literal love letters to the format.

That’s great if you love Commander (and I do). But it also means the format’s identity is evolving faster than the community can regulate it. The sandbox is expanding — but so are the toys that can blow it up.

The Inflation of Expectations

Remember when drawing three cards for four mana was considered value? Now if your spell doesn’t also create tokens, gain life, and exile a graveyard, it’s “unplayable.” That creeping expectation shifts how players evaluate every new set.

Power creep doesn’t just change cards — it changes mindsets. Players subconsciously expect more from less. If a Commander doesn’t generate advantage the moment it hits the battlefield, it’s dismissed. If a card doesn’t “do something immediately,” it’s forgotten.

We’ve become so used to front-loaded efficiency that patience feels like weakness. Magic used to reward long-term strategy. Now it rewards instant impact.

The Paradox of Progress

Power creep keeps the game exciting. It also accelerates fatigue. New sets arrive so quickly that decks barely have time to stabilize before the next wave of upgrades rolls in. The endless cycle of improvement feels both thrilling and exhausting — like constantly remodeling a house that’s already livable.

The irony? The same people who complain about power creep are also the first to buy the new busted cards “just in case.” We all feed the machine because deep down, we love it. Power creep is a problem we enjoy having.

When “Better” Isn’t Always Better

So has power creep ruined Commander? Not even close. It’s just made it louder. Every deck now has potential to pop off spectacularly — which means every table is a little more volatile.

Games end faster, turns feel bigger, and the swings are cinematic. But the space for slower, grindy decks has shrunk. If you’re not adapting, you’re getting left behind. And that’s the tension at the heart of modern Commander — the format we love is evolving faster than our nostalgia can keep up.

The best thing you can do? Find your balance. Mix your bombs with your pet cards. Run the broken stuff, but remember why you play in the first place — the table talk, the ridiculous combos, the moments that make everyone groan and laugh in equal measure.

Because power creep may have changed the cards, but it hasn’t changed what makes Commander magical: the people sitting across from you.