If Reality Fracture spoiler season didn’t make things busy enough this past week, MTG players also learned that the Alchemy format would be shutting down for good. With it came the reversal of any digital alterations to paper MTG cards, which were being used to keep some power outliers in check. Considering this, a series of bans to MTG Arena’s existing formats makes sense, but we’re somehow not done yet.
If last week’s 6 sudden bans weren’t enough, Wizards of the Coast has just announced even more bans. This time around, Reality Fracture’s Special Guests are the cause, bringing a few notable power outliers to the client.
MTG Eye of Ugin
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Eye of Ugin
Eye of Ugin
Colorless Eldrazi spells you cast cost {2} less to cast.
{7}, {T}: Search your library for a colorless creature card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle. is banned in Historic and Brawl
As the crown jewel of Reality Fracture’s Special Guest list, Eye of Ugin is more than worth its $58 reprint value. This land’s ability to reduce the cost of all your Eldrazi by two mana is absolutely ridiculous, allowing for some extremely fast turns. With the right hand, it’s not uncommon for this land to essentially power out eight mana’s worth of Eldrazi on turn two.
Thanks to absolutely breaking smaller Eldrazi in half, Eye of Ugin would go on to create one of the worst Modern formats in the game’s existence, later labeled as Eldrazi Winter. The card is now banned there, and it makes tons of sense as a Historic ban, too.
Eldrazi Temple
Eldrazi Temple
{T}: Add {C}.
{T}: Add {C}{C}. Spend this mana only to cast colorless Eldrazi spells or activate abilities of colorless Eldrazi.
, a significantly weaker land than this card, had to be banned in Historic because of the fast mana it provided. If that was too much for the format, Eye of Ugin would likely break it.
If that weren’t enough, Eye of Ugin is also being preemptively banned in Brawl, where it arguably excels even more. On top of giving your Eldrazi a major discount, Eye of Ugin can tutor up incredible bombs in slower games, churning your opponent to dust. Notably, Competitive Brawl uses a totally separate ban list from Brawl, so players can still try this card there.
MTG Mind Twist
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Mind Twist
Mind Twist
Target player discards X cards at random.
is banned in Historic
Offering an obscene amount of value while absolutely ruining your opponent’s hand, Mind Twist is an extremely frustrating card to play against. Thanks to the randomness factor, Mind Twist can even discard your opponent’s lands, which is extremely uncommon for hand disruption effects. This can routinely make your opponent’s hand unplayable, ending the game on the spot.
With fast mana like
Dark Ritual
Dark Ritual
Add {B}{B}{B}.
, Mind Twist can become even more problematic. With two Rituals, you can discard five cards at random out of your opponent’s hand as early as turn one, ending the game before it started. This seems to be the reason why Mind Twist is currently banned in Legacy, but some players do believe that it could be unbanned safely.
In Historic, Dark Ritual is banned, but there are some other fast mana options that could have caused Mind Twist to become a concern. Despite seeing little play,
Culling the Weak
Culling the Weak
As an additional cost to cast this spell, sacrifice a creature.
Add {B}{B}{B}{B}.
does fuel some broken strategies like Historic Spy Combo and Jund Breach, which are currently held back by being too one-dimensional. Mind Twist could fix that, making these strategies a power outlier.
Otherwise, Mind Twist is notably quite powerful alongside
Jeska’s Will
Jeska’s Will
Choose one. If you control a commander as you cast this spell, you may choose both instead.
• Add {R} for each card in target opponent's hand.
• Exile the top three cards of your library. You may play them this turn.
, making for an extremely toxic Storm dynamic. So long as you can cast Will with a black mana available afterward, this two-card combo would discard your opponent’s entire hand without fail, regardless of its size.
While these could have caused problems in Historic, fast mana may have been only part of the reason for this ban. Thanks to the recent MTG Arena Powered Cube update,
Hymn to Tourach
Hymn to Tourach
Target player discards two cards at random.
is now legal in Historic, meaning that Arena just got two of the most disgusting discard effects in the entire game. Some may have worried these two cards would be a bit egregious together, but that is just speculation.
Whatever the reason for Mind Twist’s Historic ban, this particular choice seems to be more of a preventative measure, keeping any potentially problematic combos out of the format. Considering the toxic play patterns that this card creates, the decision seems quite sensible. Notably, players who want to try out Mind Twist can still do so in Timeless and Brawl.
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