Wizards of the Coast just dropped a surprise banned and restricted announcement today. This announcement has been highly anticipated as the Strixhaven Championships showcased a new, powerful deck in Jeskai Turns, and the community has been waiting to see what Wizards would do to correct the issue.
Effective June 10th, 2021
Time Warp is Banned in Historic.
This is a big shake up to the metagame assuredly. The cards that the community had been expecting to be banned were Brainstorm and Faithless Looting as they were the most played cards from the Mystical Archives in the format across multiple decks. Wizards’ reasoning for banning Time Warp only at this time, was that Jeskai Turns was the dominant deck, and according to their data, it was winning at much higher rates than the other Tier 1 decks, Izzet Phoenix and Jeskai Control. Not to mention, the play patterns of Izzet Phoeinx and Jeskai control allow for opponent interaction and counter play where Jeskai Turns did not. They also mentioned that they will be keeping a close eye on Brainstorm and other cards and will be willing to take more action if the cards continue to be an issue. You know that there’s a problem when Wizards out right bans a card instead of putting in the suspended list. It seems they don’t envision a world where Time Warp can be a healthy card in the Historic Meta.
You can read the full Banned and Restricted announcement here. Do you think that Wizards will need to ban more of the Mystical Archive cards, or do you think that the format will correct itself? Let us know in the comments?
READ MORE: Strixhaven Championship Historic Win Rates Revealed. Magic: The Gathering Ban Coming?
