MTG's Most Anticipated Announcement Bans 5 Cards and Restricts 2 More

This is the biggest MTG ban announcement in years. We had three MTG formats with a problematic S-tier deck at the same time, and boy, did the ban list deliver. Three formats have newly announced bans. Two of those formats have multi-card bannings. With two new restrictions, even Vintage wasn’t left out of the fun. Sorry, Modern fans. The One Ring did not get restricted in that format.

Nadu, Winged Wisdom and Grief Banned in Modern

To begin, Nadu, Winged Wisdom and Grief were banned in the Modern format. It’s no surprise to see Nadu, Winged Wisdom go. As soon as Simon Neilson, winner of Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3, stated that the deck needed a ban, it was only a matter of time.

One of the most broken combo decks of all time, Nadu, Winged Wisdom could win the game from just two cards and was incredibly resilient to removal thanks to Nadu’s ability to provide card advantage in response to targeted effects.

Reading more about how Nadu, Winged Wisdom came to be, it appears that the card was changed near the end of the design process, and the problematic interaction with cards like Shuko and Outrider en-Kor was missed. We’ll discuss this more in a future article.

While everyone expected Nadu, Winged Wisdom to take a much-needed departure from the modern format, Grief’s ban is more surprising. In the ban notes from Wizards of the Coast, Grief is cited as being “maligned as one of the least fun parts of competitive Modern events.” Getting Grief Scammed with the namesake card and something like Malakir Rebirth rips apart players’ hands for as little as one mana. Muliganning down and getting Grief Scammed afterward is an absolutely brutal feeling. Not only do you lose two cards, but you still have to answer a creature afterward.

“Even outside of mulligans, having a turn one answer to a three- or four-power menace creature after an opponent has taken away your best cards is just asking too much.”

Grief’s presence in multiple Modern legal decks were cited, including Goryo’s Vengeance, Living End, Rakdos Midrange and Necrodominance. Ultimately, the decision to ban Grief was made “interest of making the format more fun.”

The One Ring is also cited here as a card that Wizards of the Coast is watching. No action was made against the card today, but it is seeing play in almost every Modern deck at the moment. After this ban announcement, we expect The One Ring to see a price hike. We also expect The One Ring to pop up on a future ban announcement, for what it’s worth.

All-in-all, we’re quite happy with these ban announcements. Frankly, as long as Nadu, Winged Wisdom exited the Modern format, most of the community would be happy with this ban announcement.

Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord and Amalia Benavides Aguerre Banned in Pioneer

When discussing Pioneer, Wizards of the Coast states that there were two clear outliers from the rest of the format, and the namesake cards to both of those decks were banned today. Rakdos Vampires the bigger of the two outliers, represented 30% of the winner’s metagame week in and week out. Instead of banning Vein Ripper, the card that caused the rise of Rakdos Vampires, Wizards of the Coast decided to ban Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord, because the card’s existence makes any massive top-end Vampire printed in the future a threat to the Pioneer format.

The combination of Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, and this insane turn-three tempo play, was too much for the Pioneer format to handle. Now that the clock has been slowed down for the Rakdos Midrange strategy, other decks should have some breathing room.

While Rakdos Vampires was an outlier, so was the Amalia Life combo deck. With many value-based enablers like Chord of Calling, Collected Company and Return to the Ranks, the Amalia combo deck is incredibly consistent. Since the combo only requires two cards (Amalia Benavides Aguerre and Wildgrowth Walker) plus a way to enable it, it is incredibly easy to pull off. The addition of cards like Dina, Soul Steeper allow you to win without even making an attack.

Interestingly, the thing that seemed to push the Amalia Life combo over the top for Wizards of the Coast is some of the counterplay involved. If one makes Wildgrowth Walker indestructible, the loop between Amalia and Walker becomes infinite. This can draw out the game if the loop itself cannot kill the opponent. Once this counterplay was discovered, draws became surprisingly commonplace, which can slow down tournaments. As a result of its power, consistency, and ability to draw the game, Amalia Benavides Aguerre got the banhammer.

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Treasure Cruise were two other MTG cards that were cited as something Wizards of the Coast was considering banning in Pioneer alongside these two bans, but they have decided not to make overwhelming changes to any of the affected formats in this ban announcement.

Of course, because Amalia Benavides Aguerre and Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord were banned in Pioneer, they are also banned in Explorer.

Grief Banned in Legacy

This was perhaps the most predictable ban of them all. Grief probably should have left the Legacy format one ban announcement ago. Legacy players are finally free from their Grief overlord.

While the card is incredibly oppressive in the format overall, Grief’s biggest grievance in the Legacy format was its presence in the Rescaminator deck. This deck was capable of siding into two different gameplans, leveraging Reanimate to cheat Atraxa, Grand Unifier into play, or playing a fair, midrange plan in the presence of lots of graveyard hate. Traditionally, these multi-plan decks were gimmicks at best. This deck was the real deal, which was a massive problem.

According to Wizards of the Coast, Psychic Frog was also discussed at length as a secondary ban option. Ultimately, they decided that, since Grief and Reanimate were a massive part of the Legacy metagame, there was a strong chance that the meta would shift significantly following this ban. Psychic Frog could still be an issue in Delver decks and Reanimator strategies, but decks with a decent Delver matchup should become more popular following these changes.

Honestly, I think not banning Psychic Frog is a massive mistake, but seeing how the format shakes up will be interesting.

Two Restrictions in Vintage

Urza’s Saga and Vexing Bauble were both cited as massive issues in the Vintage format. Lurrus Saga, utilizing the Companion Lurrus of the Dream-Den in conjunction with Urza’s Saga has largely been regarded as the best strategy in Vintage right now. Outside of that, Wizards of the Coast states that “the opportunity cost of playing four copies of Urza’s Saga in the format is simply too low.” Because of the presence of Mox and Black Lotus, almost every Vintage deck runs multiple tutor targets for the land. The card was so influential on the format that it was a top-five unrestricted card, and saw heavy play in any deck that had an artifact theme. Apparently, a game of Vintage ending on turn four in the face of gigantic Constructs created by Urza’s Saga was incredibly common. The card’s restriction is unlikely to cut its play percentage, but will limit the number of games that it ends.

Vexing Bauble ruins the spirit of Vintage. The few who play this absurdly expensive format do so to cast Magic’s strongest spells. Moxen, Black Lotus and Force of Will are massive pillars to the Vintage format, and a turn one Vexing Bauble turns all of that off. Chalice of the Void is already restricted in the Vintage format for similar reasons. This restriction seems like a no-brainer to us.

A Fantastic Ban Announcement, With One Exception

This was the ban announcement that many MTG players were looking for. This announcement addressed problematic decks in Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, and even Vintage to some extent. The biggest issue with this announcement is its timing.

To remedy this, instead of lining up ban announcements with set releases, Wizards of the Coast will now line up bans with competitive Regional Championship and Regional Championship Qualifier seasons.

Because of this, the next ban announcement for Magic: the Gathering is scheduled to take place December 16.

While the timing was poor, Wizards of the Coast seems to have learned their lesson, delivering exactly what the community was looking for. We hope that the quality of future ban announcements is similar to this one.