Yesterday’s massive banned and restricted announcement marked a significant milestone for Magic: The Gathering. Seven cards in total were banned from Standard; the kind of numbers we haven’t seen since the dark days of original Affinity. Such an extreme move can’t help but feel like an admission of fault on Wizards’ part, but in general, players are responding well. Beyond Standard, however, things are less rosy. The June 2025 MTG bans have whipped up quite a bit of controversy, largely due to what wasn’t hit.
The changes to older Magic formats in this update were minimal, bordering on non-existent. For those who enjoy these formats, Legacy and Pioneer in particular, this is seriously bad news. Players have been crying out for a shake-up in these formats for a while, and now their hopes are dashed. Unless we see emergency updates soon, eternal Magic may be in a bad spot for the foreseeable future.
Legacy Left Lacking
By far the biggest casualty of yesterday’s bans, going by online reaction at least, is Legacy. Wizards opted for no changes to the format, despite pleas from players to address the issues there.
These issues are twofold: the continued dominance of Dimir Reanimator decks and the frustrating Oops, All Spells matchups. The former is clearly an issue on the radar, as Wizards has banned multiple cards from the archetype over the last few updates. While the deck has lost a step or two, it remains the top dog in the format by a significant margin.
Oops, All Spells is a stranger situation. This isn’t a top-tier deck by any means, but it is one that can win immediately, leading to non-games of Magic. People gravitate towards Legacy because of its high skill ceiling and rich gameplay. A deck like this flies in the face of all of that.
By changing nothing, Wizards is ultimately letting these problems fester rather than addressing them. As you’d expect, players are none too happy about it.
“Legacy and vintage need to be moved to a committee approach for bans. Wizards is an embarrassment.”
Dominick Paolercio, via X
This idea, putting the governance of Legacy into the hands of the players, has been bandied about a lot since the announcement. While technically an option, since Legacy isn’t a mainstream competitive format anymore, this is very unlikely. That players are bringing it up at all is pretty damning, mind you.
“When it comes to #MTGLegacy, I’ve been anti-community panel for a long time. I trusted @wizards_magic to make good decisions for the format I love. Today changed that. I wouldn’t even want to be apart of it, I just want individuals who actually give a shit about Legacy.”
Bryant Cook, via X
There’s a clear feeling of neglect in the online Legacy community right now. Players expected Wizards to hear their concerns and deal with them, and that expectation hasn’t been met. Whether this was the right call or not will be borne out in the coming weeks, but for now, it certainly doesn’t feel like it.
Pioneer’s Dying Days?
The controversy over the June 2025 MTG bans isn’t limited to just Legacy. A lot of players are concerned about Pioneer too, especially given the fact that Wizards has, seemingly, been quietly letting the format die off in recent months. We haven’t seen any major Pioneer events in a while, and there are none on the horizon. With this in mind, leaving things be feels like a dangerous gamble.
In the announcement article, Wizards claims that Pioneer currently looks “healthy and diverse,” without decks with “problematic win or play rates.” On social media, the community has been quick to challenge these claims.
“I haven’t played much pioneer lately, but have been watching friends play it in challenges, but to say the format looks incredibly healthy and diverse when the format has been virtually 2-3 decks for the last 3-4 months is insane.”
Jack Potter, via X
Looking at the current Pioneer metagame, Wizards’ assertion does start to look a little suspect. Mono-Red Aggro, Izzet Phoenix, and Mono-Black Midrange take up about 50% of the field according to MTG Goldfish stats. These decks have been dominant for a while now, too. Players are just as sick of facing Heartfire Hero and Cori-Steel Cutter here as they were in Standard, but in this case, no bans are coming to save the day.
“Also begging anyone with a say in the ban list to play Pioneer Phoenix for a single game. It’s obvious no one has done that given what was said on the announcement.”
Dominick Paolercio, via X
As with Legacy, there were a lot of comments about the delivery of the news here as well. Many felt Wizards came across as out of touch with the format. With the way things are going, this honestly isn’t surprising. Standard and Commander are the clear focus for Wizards right now, and Pioneer is falling by the wayside.
As Sir EPIC put it on X: “Pioneer Deserves Better. A format once full of promise now sits in limbo: under-supported, underplayed, and overlooked.” Whether Wizards will address this issue, with bans or otherwise, remains to be seen.
A Long Road Ahead
Legacy and Pioneer have definitely borne the brunt of today’s MTG bans controversy. Things aren’t all sunshine and rainbows elsewhere, mind you. Alchemy players aren’t totally satisified either, and some Vintage players still want Lurrus out of the format. For all of these dissatisfied customers, however, a long wait lies ahead.
In the announcement article, Wizards notes that the next banned and restricted update will come on Monday, November 24th. There are around five months between now and then, which is a big gap for players unhappy with their formats. Thankfully, Alchemy can at least get rebalances in the interim, but Legacy and Vintage aren’t so lucky.
Thanks to the obscenely high power level of these formats, changes rarely happen outside of bans or Horizons sets. Some MTG players appreciate this consistency, but there’s definitely a point where things need to change. If this discourse online is anything to go by, we’ve definitely reached that point already, so these next months may be grueling.
Ultimately, while player emotions are high right now, once we’ve had a few days to process, more players might come around to Wizards’ point of view. Sadly, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens, but the future definitely doesn’t look peachy right now.
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