Banned & Restricted Announcement: 7/13/2020

Hello, internet, my name is Blue, and today I’ll be going over the B&R announcement from earlier this week. There were a lot of changes to several different formats so I’ll break it down by format, what was banned, and what I think will happen to the format going forward. We have so much to go over today so I’ll jump right into it starting with the most heavily impacted format, Historic.

Historic

If you’ve played Magic on Arena in any capacity over the last year since 2019’s rotation of Standard, then you’re likely already familiar with the format, but just in case you aren’t, Historic was Wizard’s response to the problem that might come up from rotation: “what happens to my collection?” The way Arena works, you can’t trade or dust cards, so to make Arena players feel better about half of their collection being worth nothing on the Arena economy, Wizards created the format so people could still play with rotated cards until they program Pioneer, Modern, or any other older formats onto the client. Since then, it’s become a massive hit with players to the point that it’s seeing competitive play in events and has accrued its own ban list like other formats. Now that you’re caught up, let’s go over what happened.

What Happened

Agent of Treachery is Banned (from Suspended)
Winota, Joiner of Forces is Banned (from Suspended)
Fires of Invention is Banned (from Suspended)
Nexus of Fate is Banned
Burning-Tree Emissary is Suspended

Honestly, I’m incredibly happy with all of these changes. The format has never felt better since Agent, Winota, and Fires were originally suspended. Officially banning them was absolutely the correct call as I can’t imagine a world where two cards that let you cheat on massive amounts of mana and one that completely ruins your opponent’s day are healthy. I’m also really happy Wizards decided to straight-up ban Nexus. They understood it was so much of a problem that they didn’t even give it a chance on the suspended list. Nexus has always been a problem in multiple formats and I’m glad they made this decision. Finally, Burning-Tree is probably the only one I feel kinda weird on. On one hand, it does allow for some absurdly fast starts in Gruul aggro. On the other, it’s not actually that much of a problematic card compared to some of the other cards in the deck. Overall, I’m happy with what did happen, even if Burning-Tree feels odd.

What Didn’t Happen

Historic will probably be the shortest discussion point for what didn’t get banned and really, that’s because I don’t think anything else needs to happen. If there was any decision I might have made differently about it, I’d have suspended Embercleave instead of Burning-Tree since that’s the card that actually causes problems. With something like Lovestruck Beast, The Cleave can come down early and deal over half your opponent’s life total in a single hit, and that makes for a lot of non-games. Otherwise, though, Wizards handled Historic probably the best of any other format we’re talking about today. Speaking of poorly handled formats…

Pioneer

Pioneer was released practically at the same time as Historic was last year but they’re in drastically different spots right now. Historic feels relatively healthy, especially after the bannings, but Pioneer absolutely got the shaft this week. I’ve honestly never felt more disappointed in a B&R than I do right now with what quickly became my favorite format then lost all meaning to me just as fast.

What Happened

Oath of Nissa is Unbanned

That’s it. That’s all that happened. The format is overrun with combo decks, as Inverter and Breach are at the top of everything right now and all they did was unban something that will do literally nothing except maybe make Kethis Combo a reliable deck in Pioneer like it was before it rotated out of Standard. Imagine thinking “You know what will solve all the combo decks in the format? Another combo deck!” I would’ve been happy with a Dig Through Time or Sylvan Scrying ban to make the decks less consistent if they didn’t want to cut them out of the format entirely, but they did nothing. As happy as I am for Historic, I’m equally infuriated by how poorly Pioneer is being handled. Thanks, Wizards. I will very likely not be playing Pioneer anytime soon and from what I’ve seen on Twitter and Facebook, most people agree with me.

What Didn’t Happen

I pretty much covered it all already. Inverter and Breach weren’t touched, which was the main thing that had most Pioneer players excited when they announced the update last Monday. Until something changes, I’m just going to stick to playing Modern. Which brings us around to our next topic…

Modern

Modern has been in a pretty okay spot as of late, with the exception of Uro Snow decks completely dominating. From Temur to Sultai to Bant, UGX Uro control decks have been a force to reckon with for a while. Even the most aggressive decks like Prowess/Blitz have a difficult time beating the deck since they’re loaded with cheap card draw and removal, as well as their primary win condition just being a giant 6/6 that gains 3 life every turn. I’ve been playing Blitz myself for roughly a year now, since Faithless Looting was banned, and, lemme tell ya, I’ve never had a worse matchup than I do dealing with the current Uro decks. That’s not to even mention their ability to go long against other control decks and out grind midrange into the ground. So what exactly happened to shake up Modern?

What Happened

Arcum’s Astrolabe is Banned

I definitely think this is a huge step in the right direction. Astrolabe was a huge problem for the format for multiple reasons. One, it was virtually free as it has no inherent downside other than using snow mana and it replaced itself by drawing a card. Two, it allowed decks to have practically perfect mana without making concessions to the mana base. Three, it made mana costs not matter. All of these were problems and really all for the same reason; consistency. Consistency in of itself isn’t a problem, but it’s how it’s used that is. I played a game against Sultai the other day where they played an Astrolabe on turn one and another on turn three. They didn’t have black or green lands until turn five, yet by that point, they’d cast a Fatal Push and an Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath, as well as Escaped said Uro. They had two Field of Ruins in play. They played worth of spells with two colorless lands and three islands. That’s where the consistency issue with Astrolabe was and will be across formats, including Legacy, which Wizards said they were keeping an eye on the card there as well.

What Didn’t Happen

There are two things I’ll go over here, and one of them is purely due to the overwhelming number of people wanting it to happen. First of all, Uro wasn’t banned. While I don’t think it necessarily needs it, it is the most played creature in the format at the time of this article and has been for some time. In the six months since it was printed, it has dominated the meta since it can gain life against aggro, is a consistent threat for midrange, and is difficult to permanently answer against control due to escape. Let’s compare it to Oko, who by this time in his life into modern was already banned. He gained life against aggro, generated consistent threats against midrange, and was very difficult to answer against control being a Planeswalker. Uro ticks off all the boxes that Oko did and arguably does it better since it ticks off all the boxes at the same time. Oko was either “gain life by sacrificing the food or make the food a 3/3.” Uro is “let’s gain life from entering and attacking, plus it’s just always a 6/6.” The biggest concession I’ll give to Uro vs Oko is that Uro is a creature so it’s easier to answer. After that, Oko was annoying by turning your opponent’s stuff off permanently, which Uro can’t do, so I’ll say that they do have their differences, but they are incredibly similar in power level. I’d say Uro should at least be on a watch list of upcoming bans.

The other one I wanted to talk about is quite the opposite, and that’s Splinter Twin not getting unbanned. Twin is a card that Modern players have been wanting to be unbanned for years, basically, since it was banned in 2016. For a time, I thought it might have been safe, so I felt a similar way, then War of the Spark came along and ruined that for me. Namely, Teferi, Time Raveler. His static ability would cause major problems for Twin as a deck since it forces the action out of your opponent. Either answer Teferi to be able to interact with the combo but then their interaction piece is gone or leave him alone, but then not be able to interact with the combo in any way. You could make the argument that Teferi wouldn’t matter since playing it would force you to play the combo a turn later, but in a control shell like Jeskai Twin would be, going off on T5 with protection isn’t much different than T4 without it. Basically the point I’m getting at is as long as Teferi exists in modern, Twin cannot.

Pauper

Lastly, let’s quickly go over the most common format, Pauper. Seeing as I don’t actively play Pauper, I’ll just go over what happened and call it there since I can’t give any actual insight.

What Happened

Expedition Map is Banned
Mystic Sanctuary is Banned

So as I said, I don’t actually play Pauper to be able to heavily discuss these bannings, but I know enough to understand that Tron is, always has been, and always will be a problem in Pauper, so banning Map to make it less consistent makes perfect sense. I also know enough to understand that soft-locking your opponent out of the game with Deprive makes a lot of games feel completely not fun. I can’t even imagine how it would feel if Daze and Gush were still legal. From what I understand of Pauper, I’d say these were pretty good and healthy decisions but what do I know?

What Didn’t Happen

Again, seeing as I don’t really play Pauper, I can’t say what I think should’ve happened further, whether that’s additional bans or an unbanning, but if you play Pauper, you probably have an opinion on this so let me know your thoughts on it!

Wrap-Up

Overall, I think the B&R made mostly good changes to multiple formats and I’m excited to see how things pan out over the next couple weeks. The biggest takeaway here is that Wizards is heavily pushing Historic while simultaneously having practically given up entirely on Pioneer. I hope this isn’t the case, but we’ll see what happens going forward.

Before we end today, I just want to remind everyone of our sponsorship with ManaTraders. If you’re not already a user, follow the link here to sign up! Use discount code “ORACLE” for 20% off the first three months of your subscription! Don’t forget to follow the site (@MTGOracle,) myself (@TheRealBlueMTG,) and our sponsor Manatraders (@Mana_Traders) on Twitter to keep up with everything Magic. That’s all from me today! This is Blue, signing out!