12 votes

Magic: the Gathering banned and restricted announcement – December 16, 2024

4 comments

  1. Eji1700
    Link
    Oh wow. This looks like the wishlist I've heard from most the people I follow. Not only major bans (frog/bauble/ring) but returns (opal/twin/looting). Really curious to see what this does to the...

    Oh wow. This looks like the wishlist I've heard from most the people I follow. Not only major bans (frog/bauble/ring) but returns (opal/twin/looting).

    Really curious to see what this does to the formats.

    5 votes
  2. DFGdanger
    (edited )
    Link
    Pioneer: Jegantha, the Wellspring is banned. Modern: The One Ring is banned. Amped Raptor is banned. Jegantha, the Wellspring is banned. Mox Opal is unbanned. Green Sun's Zenith is unbanned....

    Pioneer:

    Jegantha, the Wellspring is banned.

    Modern:

    The One Ring is banned.
    Amped Raptor is banned.
    Jegantha, the Wellspring is banned.

    Mox Opal is unbanned.
    Green Sun's Zenith is unbanned.
    Faithless Looting is unbanned.
    Splinter Twin is unbanned.

    Legacy:

    Psychic Frog is banned.
    Vexing Bauble is banned.


    The One Ring being banned in Modern, and something from the RW Energy deck were a given, as TOR was played in ~60% of decks, and RW Energy was ~35% of decks (and also played TOR).

    The unbans, and which cards they chose to unban, are somewhat unexpected. There is a dedicated crowd of Splinter Twin lovers who have never stopped clamoring for an unban.

    I liked Mox Opal a lot and thought it was super unfortunate that it got banned because of the introduction of Urza, Lord High Artificer to the format in Modern Horizons 1. Faithless Looting was taken out because they anticipated Dredge and Arclight Phoenix and Hollow One to dominate. When they banned Green Sun's Zenith they harped on how it creates repetitive gameplay because you turn 1 fetch a Dryad Arbor, shuffle it back in, and from there any time you draw it you find your best creature and it creates repetitive gameplay patterns. But they don't seem to care anymore that it might do that again.

    They have not changed the cadence at which they announce Bans and Restrictions. The next announcement is March 31st. In my opinion this is a very risky thing to do. We just had a few months of a lame duck format with Energy being far too dominant. Now what happens if one of these unbanned cards causes another deck to shoot up to dominance? I think they need to return to flexible announcements, follow a shorter cadence for non-Standard formats, or give themselves special windows to make corrections if major shake-ups like this blow up the format.

    4 votes
  3. l_one
    Link
    I do like that we currently have a genuinely diverse and healthy standard. It's nice playing a handful of games on Arena and getting to play against multiple different archetypes.

    I do like that we currently have a genuinely diverse and healthy standard. It's nice playing a handful of games on Arena and getting to play against multiple different archetypes.

    4 votes
  4. shinigami
    Link
    I was debating on whether or not to post this since I posted the last one, but I'm glad to see someone else did it. I look back on the Looting, Opal and Twin eras through rose tinted glasses, like...

    I was debating on whether or not to post this since I posted the last one, but I'm glad to see someone else did it.

    I look back on the Looting, Opal and Twin eras through rose tinted glasses, like many players probably. I'm honestly really excited to see what happens in modern. I might even try to dig up my old Twin cards.

    Knowing what I do about modern, I doubt most of these decks from the past are good enough anymore, but I do hope the format stays as wide open as it seems now.

    3 votes