It’s safe to say that Duskmourn: House of Horror is a pretty powerful MTG set. Since release, we’ve seen plenty of new staples and powerful bombs making waves in multiple formats. For the most part, the Duskmourn-based innovations have been well regarded and warmly received. Sadly, there is an exception to this positive trend as one card in particular may be causing more harm than good.
If you’ve been playing Standard, especially on MTG Arena, this problem card will be a very familiar face. Since its release, Leyline of Resonance has been absolutely everywhere, especially in best-of-one queues. Capable of dishing out insanely fast turn-two kills, MTG players have long been asking for this card to be banned.
Now, it seems exactly that may be happening before too long.
Incoming Leyline of Resonance Ban?
In the latest Weekly MTG Arena Announcements, Wizards revealed they’re watching Leyline of Resonance closely. Specifically, Wizards is focused on the card’s performance in Best-of-One matches, which has been a serious sore spot. While Wizards isn’t outright confirming action will take place, the writing is nonetheless on the wall.
Your opponent only needs three cards to kill you with Leyline of Resonance in play. A turn one Heartfire Hero leads into Turn Inside Out and Callous Sell-Sword’s Burn Together on turn two. Thanks to Leyline of Resonance doubling Turn Inside Out, you’ll take 24 damage.
The problem with Leyline of Resonance in Best-of-One is that it can be almost impossible to react to it. If you play a tapped land against it on the draw, there’s a chance you can do literally nothing before dying. Even on the play, Leyline of Resonance is a must-remove threat as soon as possible.
In Best-of-One, this is a very tall order as your deck isn’t necessarily built with turn-one enchantment removal in mind. This is typically the only viable answer since hand attacks like Duress or Deep-Cavern Bat won’t work. Instead, you’re basically forced to have Pick Your Poison or a similar effect in hand.
Since you can sideboard in enchantment, and creature removal, Leyline of Resonance isn’t as much of an issue in Best-of-Three. While your opponent may get in a speedy game one win, the deck’s fairly simple game plan can easily be thwarted. Since this isn’t an option in Best-of-One, you’re forced to either compromise your deck or risk random turn two kills.
Unsurprisingly, this makes Leyline of Resonance very hard to play around, as well as unfun to play against. Since fun is so important in Best-of-One, it’s no wonder that Wizards is watching this card carefully.
A Potentially Bothersome Banning
Right now, it seems pretty likely that Leyline of Resonance is going to get hit by the ban hammer in Best-of-One Standard. That being said, Wizards won’t be rushing to take this action as it has some major problems. For starters, Leyline of Resonance is only really a problem some of the time.
According to statistics from Reddit, the odds of the Leyline of Resonance combo winning on turn two is around 11-15%. In the grand scheme of things, this percentage may seem rather small, or even suitable for a combo deck. The problem is, however, that losing to this combo deck feels especially bad since you can’t do anything about it.
This is likely the metric that Wizards of the Coast is paying the most attention to. Even if the deck’s win rates aren’t oppressive, the ‘feels bad’ metric is undeniably still a factor. From this angle, there’s no question that Leyline of Resonance needs to go, but even that isn’t a simple ask.
Banning an MTG card solely in Best-of-One is a very strange thing for a TCG to do. It presents a huge spike in complexity, even if Best-of-One is only really played on Arena. Thanks to this, Wizards is bound to be hesitant to ban this card. This problem is unfortunately amplified by MTG Foundations being on the horizon since Standard is meant to be approachable right now.
Despite this issue, Wizards has banned a card in Best-of-One before. Back in 2020, Wizards banned Nexus of Fate in Arena Standard Best-of-One largely due to its disruptive nature. While it would be a monumental decision, this nonetheless shows that a targeted and highly confusing Best-of-One ban is possible.
It’s G O T T O G O
At the end of the day, Leyline of Resonance really doesn’t need to be in Standard, especially not Best-of-One. Mono-Red and Gruul Aggro decks were already capable of turn three kills, which are only slightly less unfun. In anything, given the pace of Standard, turn three kills feels a lot more sensible than random turn two ones.
Unsurprisingly, on social media, many MTG players are pretty keen to see a Best-of-One ban for Leyline of Resonance be banned in Best-of-One. Now that Wizards has addressed it, it really wouldn’t be a surprise when the next ban announcement rolls around. Currently, said announcement is scheduled for December 16th, 2024.
Given this next official ban window is still months away, Wizards may elect to take action sooner. Whether or not this will happen, however, remains to be seen. That said unless MTG Foundations seriously shakes up the metagame and provides answers, a banning certainly seems likely.
