It’s finally here, folks! After much discussion and speculation, the March 31st MTG bans (and unbans) are upon us. Several competitive Magic: The Gathering formats are in a bit of a weird spot right now. As a result, players have been eagerly awaiting these changes. Do they deliver on these heightened expectations? For the most part, absolutely.
Modern’s biggest problem card has been taken off the table, which is a great start in anyone’s eyes. Beyond that, both Legacy and Pauper have been hit with significant changes, too. The lack of changes to Standard may disappoint some, particularly in light of the Monstrous Rage debacle last week. That said, we are just two weeks away from Tarkir: Dragonstorm, so perhaps patience is the best approach from Wizards here.
Underworld Breach Finally Banned In Modern!
- Mana Value: 1R
- Rarity: Rare
- Type: Enchantment
- Card Text: Each nonland card in your graveyard has Escape. The Escape cost is equal to the card’s mana cost plus exile three other cards from your graveyard. (You may cast cards from your graveyard for their Escape cost.)
At the beginning of the end step, sacrifice this enchantment.
To address the elephant in the room first, the banning of Underworld Breach in Modern is the clear headliner of the March 31st MTG bans. Ever since the unbanning of Mox Opal in December of last year, Grinding Breach decks have ridden roughshod over the format. We’ve seen near-constant calls for a ban on the deck for months, and now Wizards is finally addressing the issue.
By combining Breach with Grinding Station and either Mox Amber or Mox Opal, Grinding Breach decks were able to combo off consistently in the early game. Even with top-tier artifact destruction like Meltdown available, most decks in the format struggled to compete. For everyone playing a non-Breach list in Modern, this ban is a long-awaited relief.
Since Breach is one of the deck’s key combo pieces, Grinding Breach decks will cease to exist now that this ban is in effect. There’s no real replacement for this modern take on Yawgmoth’s Will in the format. Frankly that’s probably a good thing. With this huge roadblock out of the way, Modern will likely develop in a new direction, with the likes of Boros Energy and Eldrazi Ramp swooping in to claim more meta share.
Legacy Bans
Modern wasn’t the only casualty of the March 31st MTG bans. Legacy also took a couple of hits: one expected, one not so much.
If you follow Legacy at all, you’ve likely heard complaints about Sowing Mycospawn since the release of Modern Horizons 3. Legacy’s huge suite of fast lands such as Ancient Tomb and Eye of Ugin lets this Eldrazi come down incredibly early in the game. Once it does, both its land exile and land search effects come on cast, which makes them very difficult to stop. It’s easy for Eldrazi players to take out one of your lands, search up an untapped Wasteland, then take out another. It’s not a fun play pattern at all, and many players will be very happy about this ban as a result.
Troll of Khazad-dûm is a bit more of a surprise. It’s a strong piece in the Dimir Reanimator decks that are currently occupying the top spot in the format. That said, it hardly screams ‘problem card’ at first glance. According to the official ban announcement, the card let Reanimator effectively serve as a ‘fair’ deck with the possibility of explosive plays, which is a fundamental shift from the usual risk/reward playstyle associated with the deck.
With Troll out of the way, Wizards hopes that Dimir Reanimator will become a “a more committal synergy deck.” This is the second big hit Dimir Reanimator has taken recently following the Psychic Frog ban in December. With this on top, it may finally drop from the top spot now.
Pauper Bans
Even more so than Legacy, Pauper has been in need of some MTG bans for a while now, and the March 31st update gave it some. A whopping three cards have been banned, in fact, which is a significant shake-up for the format.
First of all, Modern Horizons 3’s Basking Broodscale has been hit. This isn’t particularly surprising. As soon as the card came out it became part of a lethal combo deck with Sadistic Glee. Ever since, this deck has been one of the best things you could be doing in the Pauper format. It’s fast, it’s consistent, and it’s difficult for mere commons to interact with. Banning Broodscale now makes a ton of sense from a format diversity standpoint.
Less obvious but no less important are the other two Pauper bans from today. Both Kuldotha Rebirth and Deadly Dispute see a ton of play, across multiple decks in the format. The reasoning behind this is simple: efficiency. Both are incredibly strong examples of their respective effects, token generation and card draw, in the Pauper format. Both are also typically cast by sacrificing an artifact, which has pushed Pauper into the small-artifacts-everywhere state it’s in now.
With both cards now gone, players will have less incentive to run the likes of Experimental Synthesizer. In turn, we should hopefully see some more interesting and varied archetypes emerge to take their place. Pauper has been an unofficial ‘artifact format’ for a while now. It’ll be good to see how it looks without its best artifact synergy pieces.
Pauper Unbans
Today’s update didn’t just taketh away: it giveth, too. To counterbalance the three cards banned in Pauper, two more cards have been unbanned in the format: High Tide and Prophetic Prism.
Before we discuss the cards themselves, it’s worth noting that these are both what Wizards is calling ‘Trial Unbans.’ According to the announcement article, this means that they’re unbans which will be re-evaluated during the next banned and restricted update. This puts the unbanned cards in a tenuous position, not unlike that of Commander Game Changers. Keep this in mind before buying either of these cards in the near future.
Now onto the unbans themselves. High Tide is a really interesting case, in that it was banned pre-emptively in Pauper before it had the chance to cause problems. Given that the card has a whole Legacy deck named after it, this seemed like a sensible precaution. Wizards wants to try the card out in the format with a Trial Unban, fully aware that it could break things. It’s an incredibly powerful ritual effect, after all, in a color that doesn’t typically get access to ramp. It’s hard to predict how this will go, but it’ll certainly be interesting.
Prophetic Prism is a different story. This card was banned because of the huge consistency and fixing boost it offered to Tron and Affinity decks in Pauper. Card draw and artifact synergy are so prized in the format that even something as inefficient as this caught a ban. With the banning of Deadly Dispute and Kuldotha Rebirth Prism gets considerably worse. As a result, this is likely a safe unban. We’ll just have to wait and see how things shake out over the next few weeks.