The latest Magic: The Gathering ban list update is here. Wizards of the Coast’s latest change to their widely popular card game includes an “early rotation” for the popular Standard format, banning seven cards from competitive play.
The Magic: The Gathering Ban List Update
In an official blog post, several members of Magic’s design team, Carmen Klomparens, Jadine Klomparens, Arya Karamchandani, Garvin Varhey, and Dave Finseth, broke down the Magic: The Gathering ban list update and explained their process.
As mentioned before, the format changing the most from this ban list is Standard format. Officially, seven cards are now banned from Standard, which is a lot according to Jadinee Klomparens. Those seven cards are as follows:
- Cori-Steel Cutter
- Abuelo’s Awakening
- Monstrous Rage
- Heartfire Hero
- Up the Beanstalk
- Hopeless Nightmare
- This Town Ain’t Big Enough
There is a lot to unpack. The biggest offender on this list is Cori-Steel Cutter. It is a key card in the Izzet Prowess deck, represented in 40% of the Standard format meta at the recent Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy Pro Tour.
According to the post, Izzet Prowess is having an overall negative effect on the meta. This is why Cori-Steel Cutter is getting banned, it is too strong compared to everything else. Low cost, big impact, still affects the battlefield even if it’s destroyed quickly. For the long-term health of the game, it is a sensible ban.
As for the other bans in the Magic: The Gathering ban list update, they are mostly for similar reasons. Monstrous Rage is too strong in mono-red decks so it’s out. Same thing with Heartfire Hero. Abuelo’s Awakening has synergized too well with Omniscience, so it’s on the list. Up The Beanstalk has been on ban lists before in Modern format, and it is now banned in Standard for similar reasons.
Hopeless Nightmare has proven to be too potent in self-bounce decks, making it a disruptive, aggressive deck. Finally, This Town Ain’t Big Enough, when parred with Stormchaser’s Talent, leads to a lot of momentum-killing endgame lock-outs. So to keep things fun, it is now banned.
Overall, this updated ban list is a measured change for the game. As for how this will change the competitive meta, that is something only time can tell.
