Over the past couple years, there have been a lot of incredibly powerful cards getting implemented on MTG Arena. When MTG Arena originally launched, most sets getting added were premier sets clearly focused around Standard and Limited gameplay. However, the addition of sets like Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth and elite bonus sheets such as the Breaking News cards from Outlaws of Thunder Junction have caused a huge spike in power on the client.
With this in mind, formats that are specific to MTG Arena and its card pool are constantly being monitored. Just recently, two cards were ultimately given the axe in Gladiator. While Gladiator isn’t an official format on MTG Arena, it is a relatively popular one within the MTG community. In the format, two players battle against each other with 100-card, Singleton decks. This isn’t Commander or Brawl, so there is no legend leading your squad. Each player starts at 20 and there are no sideboards. Gladiator plays a bit like Canadian Highlander, just without a points system and only with cards on Arena.
Before this week, only five cards were banned in Gladiator. The banlist is primarily curated by a handful of experienced format overseers. To learn more about the format, take a look here. These players ultimately decided that
The One Ring
The One Ring
Indestructible
When The One Ring enters, if you cast it, you gain protection from everything until your next turn.
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life for each burden counter on The One Ring.
{T}: Put a burden counter on The One Ring, then draw a card for each burden counter on The One Ring.
and
Reanimate
Reanimate
Put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control. You lose life equal to that card's mana value.
had become too powerful and ubiquitous for Gladiator, so now the banlist lies at seven cards in total. Let’s take a closer look at why these cards were given the banhammer.
The One Ring
First up, we have a card that, despite being on MTG Arena for many months, is just now getting banned in Gladiator moving forward. Considering that the format is Singleton, it does make a bit of sense that The One Ring (notably, Gladiator only features the original version, not the nerfed version) would be a little less powerful than it might otherwise be. Part of what makes The One Ring so scary in most formats is that it works extremely well in multiples.
Once you play your first copy, you can start drawing a ton of cards at will. By the time the life loss starts to become concerning, chances are you’ve found another copy to play. In doing so, you can simply decide to keep the new copy via Legend Rule, gain Protection from everything for another turn, and you won’t be susceptible to the life loss. Here, though, the life loss is more likely to add up.
From the sound of the description given that goes over the reasons for the ban, the decision came more from a gameplay perspective than from a power level perspective. The committee mentions that the play patterns associated with The One Ring are rather repetitive and unenjoyable. At the same time, there isn’t a ton of reliable counterplay for the card.
In formats like Modern, players often come equipped with cards like
Pick Your Poison
Pick Your Poison
Choose one —
• Each opponent sacrifices an artifact of their choice.
• Each opponent sacrifices an enchantment of their choice.
• Each opponent sacrifices a creature with flying of their choice.
,
Bonecrusher Giant
Bonecrusher Giant
Whenever this creature becomes the target of a spell, this creature deals 2 damage to that spell's controller.
,
Spell Pierce
Spell Pierce
Counter target noncreature spell unless its controller pays {2}.
, and beyond out of the sideboard. Gladiator doesn’t feature a sideboard. Meanwhile, most answers to The One Ring beyond basic Counterspells are quite narrow.
As such, not only are you unlikely to have an answer at the ready in this Singleton format, but even if you do, there’s a chance the card may rot in your hand if your opponent doesn’t draw their one-of copy of The One Ring. The card’s game-warping nature seems to have ultimately led to its demise. All committee members that voted agreed that The One Ring deserved a ban, and I’m here for it.
Read More: Extremely Underrated MTG Ramp Powerhouse Rises to $50!
Reanimate
Unlike The One Ring, Reanimate was added to the banlist extremely quickly. Outlaws of Thunder Junction hasn’t even been out a month and Reanimate has already been unanimously deemed too strong for the format. The efficiency and power of the card is pretty self-explanatory. Still, the ban description provides some added context, nonetheless.
One important point the committee brought up was that Rakdos Reanimator decks were already quite popular before the printing of Reanimate. Rakdos midrange is a strong archetype with a lot of good cards to offer, and adding in a Reanimator package is not hard. Beyond Reanimate, cards like
Victimize
Victimize
Choose two target creature cards in your graveyard. Sacrifice a creature. If you do, return the chosen cards to the battlefield tapped.
,
The Cruelty of Gix
The Cruelty of Gix
Read ahead (Choose a chapter and start with that many lore counters. Add one after your draw step. Skipped chapters don't trigger. Sacrifice after III.)
I — Target opponent reveals their hand. You choose a creature or planeswalker card from it. That player discards that card.
II — Search your library for a card, put that card into your hand, then shuffle. You lose 3 life.
III — Put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control.
, and
Unburial Rites
Unburial Rites
Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Flashback {3}{W} (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)
make it pretty easy to bring back large haymakers like
Griselbrand
Griselbrand
Flying, lifelink
Pay 7 life: Draw seven cards.
to play.
What really sets Reanimate apart from these other cards, though, is its mana cost and set-up cost. First of all, Reanimate is so much cheaper than every other card similar to it on MTG Arena. You won’t find
Animate Dead
Animate Dead
Enchant creature card in a graveyard
When this Aura enters, if it's on the battlefield, it loses "enchant creature card in a graveyard" and gains "enchant creature put onto the battlefield with this Aura." Return enchanted creature card to the battlefield under your control and attach this Aura to it. When this Aura leaves the battlefield, that creature's controller sacrifices it.
Enchanted creature gets -1/-0.
or
Exhume
Exhume
Each player puts a creature card from their graveyard onto the battlefield.
on Arena, for instance.
Second, the fact that it can return any Creature from either player’s graveyard makes it pretty much an automatic inclusion in almost any black deck. The ban description stated that its low cost of inclusion was a problem, and the fact that the card was showing up in black aggro decks with no major Reanimator package showcases how busted the card is. The One Ring similarly appeared in almost every midrange deck in the format, so seeing these homogenous powerhouses get banned isn’t too surprising.
Read More: Awesome MTG Commander Options Are Annoyingly Exclusive
Cards on the Watchlist
In addition to highlighting the cards that ultimately got banned, the committee made it clear what cards were still being watched. Of the bunch, Mana Drain is the most recently released. Mana Drain is another Breaking News card that can have an absurd effect on the game. While Reanimate gives you a mana advantage by returning an enormous threat into play for cheap, Mana Drain gives you a delayed mana boost on top of being an efficient Counterspell.
While the information provided regarding why this card isn’t banworthy (for now) is pretty minimal, it sounds like blue as a color isn’t as prominent in the format to begin with. Also, Mana Drain is a reactive card rather than a proactive one, so even though it has extremely high upside, you don’t always get to set up your mana bonus on your own terms. If reactive blue decks continue to grow in popularity, this card would likely be more concerning.
The other cards mentioned were
Blood Moon
Blood Moon
Nonbasic lands are Mountains.
,
Thassa’s Oracle
Thassa’s Oracle
When this creature enters, look at the top X cards of your library, where X is your devotion to blue. Put up to one of them on top of your library and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. If X is greater than or equal to the number of cards in your library, you win the game. (Each {U} in the mana costs of permanents you control counts toward your devotion to blue.)
, and
Tainted Pact
Tainted Pact
Exile the top card of your library. You may put that card into your hand unless it has the same name as another card exiled this way. Repeat this process until you put a card into your hand or you exile two cards with the same name, whichever comes first.
. As good as Blood Moon is, it’s a little slow and hasn’t had the same back-breaking effect on greedy manabases in Gladiator as it has in other formats. As for Thassa’s Oracle and Tainted Pact, it looks like these cards have been monitored for quite some time and will continue to be watched over. This combo simply hasn’t represented too big of a metagame share as of yet. If this changes, banning one of these cards seems like a perfectly reasonable decision.
Gladiator is a pretty fun format. Despite being a bit niche, it has still garnered a surprising level of support from the MTG community. All things considered, it’s nice to see the banlist getting updated regularly. midrange and Reanimator strategies have been extremely dominant in recent events, so a shakeup is certainly warranted. With MH3 on the way, I’m sure there will be more banlist considerations in the near future, too.
Read More: Wanted Poster Secret Lair Drop Leaves Players Wanting!