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[SigmasonicX]

Banned and Restricted announcement accidentally put up early.

Announcement Date: January 18, 2016

Effective Date: January 22, 2016

Magic Online Effective Date: January 27, 2016

Modern:

Summer Bloom is banned.

Splinter Twin is banned.

Pauper:

Cloud of Faeries is banned.

The list of all banned and restricted cards, by format, is here. The full list of cards banned in Modern is here. The full list of cards banned in Pauper is here.

Next B&R Announcement: April 4, 2016
Explanation of Changes

Wizards of the Coast examines tournament results from each competitive Constructed format. When a format becomes imbalanced, or too many games are not interactive, we examine the cause.

Here are our changes:

Modern

We look for competitively viable decks that frequently win before the fourth turn. The Amulet Bloom deck has reached a performance level that is consistent with those criteria. In the past year, Justin Cohen finished second at Pro Tour Fate Reforged and Benjamin Miller made the Top 8 at Grand Prix Oklahoma City. At the StarCityGames.com Cincinnati Open, with over 1,000 competitors, Bobby Fortanely won and Bill Comminos finished in the Top 8.

This deck frequently wins before the fourth turn. With an Amulet of Vigor, a Summer Bloom, a bounce land such as Simic Growth Chamber, and another land such as Gemstone Mine, the deck can generate seven mana for additional plays on turn two. Primeval Titan, or Hive Mind with a Summoner's Pact, can end the game very quickly. For these purposes, we are treating a turn-three Hive Mind with a Pact (which forces your opponent to pay 2GG next upkeep or lose the game) as a turn-three win.

We looked into which card could be banned to reduce the frequency of the very early wins. When the deck generates seven mana on turn two, there are a lot of cards that could lead to a quick finish. So we focused on the cards that lead to that explosive mana, and that led us to choose between Summer Bloom and Amulet of Vigor.

Since either card would be sufficient, the issue turned to what possibilities remained after either card was banned. Banning Amulet of Vigor leaves a Summer Bloom ramp deck. Banning Summer Bloom allows Amulet of Vigor with tapped lands. While it was not clear that either of these has all the tools to form a competitive deck today, the deck with Amulet of Vigor is more distinctive and has more potential as more tapped lands are printed. Azusa, Lost but Seeking is a potential replacement for Summer Bloom, but it is less efficient—so while there is a deck to play, it won't have frequent turn-three wins.

For those reasons, Summer Bloom is banned from Modern.

We also look for decks that hold a large enough percentage of the competitive field to reduce the diversity of the format.

Antonio Del Moral León won Pro Tour Fate Reforged playing Splinter Twin, and Jelger Wiegersma finished third; Splinter Twin has won two of the four Modern Pro Tours. Splinter Twin reached the Top 8 of the last six Modern Grand Prix. The last Modern Grand Prix in Pittsburgh had three Splinter Twin decks in the Top 8, including Alex Bianchi's winning deck.

Decks that are this strong can hurt diversity by pushing the decks that it defeats out of competition. They can also reduce diversity by supplanting similar decks. For instance, Shaun McLaren won Pro Tour Born of the Gods playing this Jeskai control deck. Alex Bianchi won our most recent Modern Grand Prix playing a similar deck but adding the Splinter Twin combination. Similarly, Temur Tempo used to see play at high-level events but has been supplanted by Temur Twin.

We considered what one would do with the cards from a Splinter Twin deck with Splinter Twin banned. In the case of some Jeskai or Temur, there are very similar decks to build. In other cases, there is Kiki-Jiki as a replacement.

In the interest of competitive diversity, Splinter Twin is banned from Modern.
Pauper

The format currently has poor color balance. Of the ten most played nonland cards, nine are blue; the tenth is Lightning Bolt. We looked into the cause of this.

The Esper Familiars deck uses Sunscape Familiar and Nightscape Familiar to reduce the cost of blue spells, which include "free spells" such as Cloud of Faeries and Snap. Combined with the bounce lands, this means the "free spells" effectively produce mana. Here is a typical winning position: One casts Ghostly Flicker targeting Cloud of Faeries and a Mnemonic Wall, netting mana and getting back the Ghostly Flicker. Once enough mana is produced, the Ghostly Flicker can target a Sea Gate Oracle instead of the Cloud of Faeries, repeatedly looking for Sage's Row Denizen. From there, the flickering mills the opponent's deck.

Because of all the card-drawers here, it is difficult for non-blue decks to defeat this deck. It pushes the metagame to the imbalanced state where blue is heavily overplayed. Cloud of Faeries is likely the most problematic card in the deck.

In the interest of color diversity, Cloud of Faeries is banned from Pauper.

 

[Cosmo Clock 21]

There was an accident, but it was not putting the announcement up early
https://twitter.com/mtgworth/status/688226026497818627

 

[Lucario]

Holy shit

Thank you so much for that advice Kirblar. I just mailed the exarchs this morning.

 

[ElyrionX]

Wow. They really banned Twin. I still have the goddamn deck in both paper and MTGO even though I have not played it in almost a year.

 

[blackflag]

What are wizards even thinking? It doesn't even break the turn 4 rule and it's one of the few blue control decks in the format.

I play tron or affinity most of the time so I'm not salty....just confused

 

[Hero]

What are wizards even thinking? It doesn't even break the turn 4 rule and it's one of the few blue control decks in the format.

I play tron or affinity most of the time so I'm not salty....just confused

Not to be a dick but did you read the explanation of why they banned it? They literally say why.

 

[Crocodile]

Not to be a dick but did you read the explanation of why they banned it? They literally say why.

It does fall into "this deck is popular/does well > let's ban it" meme that has come to describe the Modern ban list over the years though no? I can understand how that rustles some jimmies (and I'm already seeing that online - though its impossible to change the banlist in anyway with rustling jimmies I guess ). I'm not unconvinced that something won't just take its spot rather than the metagame staying "diverse" for an extended period of time. We shall see I guess though.

 

[MjFrancis]

Well, that settles that, I'm no longer taking Splinter Twin to the SCG Regionals, lol.

If I want to get my combo on, I guess I am just a few pieces short on Kiki Chord. I can always fall back on Burn, even though I don't have Atarka's Command. I guess I tune my sideboards to fight Tron and BG/x now?

And if nothing else eight blue fetches, a few Steam Vents and playsets of Lightning Bolts and Snapcaster Mages should always be good enough for the shell of a Tier 2 or better deck.

 

[ultron87]

The reasoning is just "it was the best deck, sorry"? That doesn't really provide confidence about buying into a format. I guess this at least isn't the worst ever for someone's value because your Tarns and Snapcasters and whatnot are still good.

Glad Affinity is basically ban proof because the meta can self correct it out of existence.

 

[MjFrancis]

I'd wager Tron is next on Wizard's list.

 

[ElyrionX]

Their reasoning is absolutely ridiculous. So the basis of banning Twin is that it wins too much?

 

[WanderingWind]

More people playing Tron means more wins for me.

 

[blackflag]

Not to be a dick but did you read the explanation of why they banned it? They literally say why.

Yeah they said why...it was the best deck was their reason. There will always be a best deck and it's debatable if it even was the best deck. If it was, certainly not by a large margin. I didn't have regular trouble beating it except with Tron.

 

[Daedardus]

It does fall into "this deck is popular/does well > let's ban it" meme that has come to describe the Modern ban list over the years though no? I can understand how that rustles some jimmies (and I'm already seeing that online - though its impossible to change the banlist in anyway with rustling jimmies I guess ). I'm not unconvinced that something won't just take its spot rather than the metagame staying "diverse" for an extended period of time. We shall see I guess though.

Yeah the one thing worrying the most is what will happen to the next most popular deck? Tron and Affinity will more than likely see more play now and they were already around Twin levels in play. Will they ban those next year too? I guess it's true after all that the biggest issue modern has is the uncertainty of bannings, making everyone be cautious of investing in cards. That's not to say that banning are always bad. For example, Jace in Standard back in the days was just format warping broken, you could see it from miles coming that they could do something about it. Either you played Jace or you didn't play at all. But either way, the format will react and in a few months we'll know if the banning of Twin brought balance to the metagame.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Oh yeah, Twin got banned. Hated watching twin win.

Anyway went 2-1-1 and got a Dust Bowl in my prizepacks.

 

[Hero]

It does fall into "this deck is popular/does well > let's ban it" meme that has come to describe the Modern ban list over the years though no? I can understand how that rustles some jimmies (and I'm already seeing that online - though its impossible to change the banlist in anyway with rustling jimmies I guess ). I'm not unconvinced that something won't just take its spot rather than the metagame staying "diverse" for an extended period of time. We shall see I guess though.

They are citing format diversity and literally listed how dominant Splinter Twin decks have been, regardless of the shell. It went from being a stupid and dumb two card combo to a tempo deck that can randomly kill you if you ever decide to tap out. It's too consistent and doesn't have enough hate cards against it. People complain about Affinity and Tron but those decks have multiple hate cards that practically neuter the decks.

Yeah they said why...it was the best deck was their reason. There will always be a best deck and it's debatable if it even was the best deck. If it was, certainly not by a large margin. I didn't have regular trouble beating it except with Tron.

It was far and above the best deck in the format and was not promoting diversity. Not to mention the card was problematic to begin with and should have always been on the watch list. I've been saying one day they'll wake up and realize how terrible it makes the Modern meta and finally they woke up.

 

[keeblerdrow]

If you are going to a modern event in the next month or so, my advice is to take those sideboard slots freed up by twin and put them toward affinity. I think people will be trying to fill in the void with that deck, trying to capitalize on all the new tron players that are coming in due to all the new toys it just got.

Their reasoning is absolutely ridiculous. So the basis of banning Twin is that it wins too much?

The reason is not "winning too much" per se, but more than it was swallowing up other blue decks. It's become too easy and frequent that some blue tempo deck will just add twin to it to add percentage points. I believe an entire archetype of decks was swallowed up into the U/R/x Twin super-archetype.

 

[Nikodemos]

Their reasoning is absolutely ridiculous. So the basis of banning Twin is that it wins too much?

It's not really ridiculous. Many games companies take this aproach regarding their products. For instance, Wargaming is known to take the nerf bat to tanks which have too high a win ratio.

 

[blackflag]

Well I guess we'll see. The format is kind of scary though with Tron and eldrazi getting so much shit. Can't play a slow blue control deck against ulamog, kozilek, kozilek returns. Etc.

I have those decks but I'm afraid one of those 2 will be far and away the best by a bigger margin than twin ever was.

 

["God's Beard!"]

Let's be honest. If Jund had a 75% win rate they wouldn't ban Goyf.

 

[OnPoint]

Seems to me the reasoning is that it's the best deck, and that no other URx Tempo strategies existed without it, but since the shell survives the banning of that one card and removal of that one combo, they're creating several potential different URx decks instead of a pile of 'Splinter Twin + maybe some other stuff' decks.

I don't know, I think it's fine and I say this as someone who owns 4 Twins that are now nearly useless. The URx shells are going to survive and still stay near the top tables.

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";192349538]Let's be honest. If Jund had a 75% win rate they wouldn't ban Goyf.[/QUOTE]

When the bell came calling for Jund, Bloodbraid and Deathrite fell to the axe.

 

[An-Det]

Solid bannings, though a bit of a shame that nothing is unbanned. Twin had it coming for years, and Summer Bloom (or amulet, whichever) had to go to take care of that deck. I'm really curious to see how this shakes up the format.

 

[MjFrancis]

Before the new UR/x archetypes emerge I can see a meta dominated by Tron, Affinity, Burn, Infect and B/x Eldrazi.

I regret not having more Fulminator Mages right now.

Also, if you want to jam Kiki-Jiki's in your former Twin decks, get them now. Looks like supply on TCG has been cut by 25%+ in the past hour alone.

 

[WanderingWind]

I think people are worrying about Eldrazi way, way, way too prematurely. It hasn't done anything besides make itself a new deck in the format. We don't know if its even T2 yet. And let's say it does turn into T1. This is is, really. This is all the Eldrazi support that will exist. There will be no more Eldrazi cards unless Emrakul gets a card in SoI or that block is way heavier on Eldrazi that I suspect. Sure, there will be colorless cards moving forward, but they're rare.

Modern is a format that can force out decks that get no further support. Honestly, the fact that Splinter Twin was pretty much the sole deck this didn't apply to (there really was a correct UR deck to run with little variance) is part of why it was banned.

Or WotC will ban the new pieces that push the deck over the edge like they did with DRS, Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time and the like.

 

[Exokell]

Tron just got alot more expensive lol. Wizards r nuts!

 

[Angry Grimace]

Turned it around this week to win FNM with a 4-0 with Modern Abzan yeeha

 

[Angry Grimace]

I think people are worrying about Eldrazi way, way, way too prematurely. It hasn't done anything besides make itself a new deck in the format. We don't know if its even T2 yet. And let's say it does turn into T1. This is is, really. This is all the Eldrazi support that will exist. There will be no more Eldrazi cards unless Emrakul gets a card in SoI or that block is way heavier on Eldrazi that I suspect. Sure, there will be colorless cards moving forward, but they're rare.

Modern is a format that can force out decks that get no further support. Honestly, the fact that Splinter Twin was pretty much the sole deck this didn't apply to (there really was a correct UR deck to run with little variance) is part of why it was banned.

Or WotC will ban the new pieces that push the deck over the edge like they did with DRS, Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time and the like.

It's easy to police with both Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temple being legal.

They should have unbanned Ancestral Vision, really.

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";192349538]Let's be honest. If Jund had a 75% win rate they wouldn't ban Goyf.[/QUOTE]
Except three top tier cards are already banned from Jund

 

[MjFrancis]

B/x Eldrazi is essentially BG/x but with bigger and better threats. It's not so much something to be scared about but something to adapt to - I have no doubt that it will be T1 in the near future.

And look what just happened at Voice of Resurgence - is everyone going Zoo or Kiki Chord? Price is about $45/ea on TCG right now.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I can't wait for Dark Confidant prices to get gross.

 

["God's Beard!"]

White is a pretty middle-of-the-road color in OGW, but this is a good combo to look out for at common if you find yourself in the allies lane:

Just drafted a mono-white deck and this interaction wound up being pretty crucial.

 

[Infinite Stars]

Ugh, no Stoneforge unban literally pisses me off. It's not that it's not unbanned, but they cite in the pauper section that "They want colour balance". I don't care how you look at it, White is the worst color in Modern. You can basically build a semi competitive Modern deck in every monocolour that you can upgrade into a better deck(Burn, Elves, Merfolk, and Eldrazi). White has Death and Taxes and Soul Sisters as it's big decks, and every big success I've seen with those decks have involved a splash.

Ask people to name a both a creature and a non-creature from each colour that's used in Modern frequently that one could call it a Modern Staple. Here's off of the top of my head Black has Bob and Any discard spell, Blue has Snap and Visions, Red has Guide and Bolt, Green has Goyf and Hierarch. White has Path and.. What the hell is White's big creature.

 

["God's Beard!"]

White has Path and.. What the hell is White's big creature.

Restoration Angel?

Also, white has the best sideboard cards in Modern.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Ugh, no Stoneforge unban literally pisses me off. It's not that it's not unbanned, but they cite in the pauper section that "They want colour balance". I don't care how you look at it, White is the worst color in Modern. You can basically build a semi competitive Modern deck in every monocolour that you can upgrade into a better deck(Burn, Elves, Merfolk, and Eldrazi). White has Death and Taxes and Soul Sisters as it's big decks, and every big success I've seen with those decks have involved a splash.

Ask people to name a both a creature and a non-creature from each colour that's used in Modern frequently that one could call it a Modern Staple. Here's off of the top of my head Black has Bob and Any discard spell, Blue has Snap and Visions, Red has Guide and Bolt, Green has Goyf and Hierarch. White has Path and.. What the hell is White's big creature.

All of the best sideboard options are white

 

[Angry Grimace]

They probably should have thought of decks that can beat Tron before banning the deck that beats Tron.

I'm probably gonna fit a couple of Crumble to Dust in the board methinks.

 

[Firemind]

lol i know someone who's going to be pissed. he has dozens of splinter twins. maybe he already sold them though.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Seems good

 

[Infinite Stars]

White has the best sideboard is exactly my point. Wizards banned cards in Pauper because "Blue is too strong". By the logic that you should ban a card because a color is too powerful, one can assume that you should unban a card if a color is weak enough that it's biggest prevalence in the meta is in sideboards. Of the current Ban list, the only white card on the list is Mystic.

Also, Restoration Angel comes down on Turn 4 or later 90% of the time. The cards I mentioned as the big creatures in their colors that help to progress the game by being 2-drops.

 

[Angry Grimace]

White has the best sideboard is exactly my point. Wizards banned cards in Pauper because "Blue is too strong". By the logic that you should ban a card because a color is too powerful, one can assume that you should unban a card if a color is weak enough that it's biggest prevalence in the meta is in sideboards. Of the current Ban list, the only white card on the list is Mystic.

Also, Restoration Angel comes down on Turn 4 or later 90% of the time. The cards I mentioned as the big creatures in their colors that help to progress the game by being 2-drops.

But white isn't bad because Modern is a sideboard dominated format

 

["God's Beard!"]

But white isn't bad because Modern is a sideboard dominated format

Exactly. White isn't weak. It just has a different, yet crucial role to play.

 

[y2dvd]

So we should expect Stonegforge to see a price drop now right? Need it for my EDH!

 

[Angry Grimace]

So we should expect Stonegforge to see a price drop now right? Need it for my EDH!

lol no price memory

 

["God's Beard!"]

Other than Kirblar and people that don't really care either way like /r/spikes, it seems like the reaction to the Twin ban has been almost universally negative so far.

I don't really get it. If Wizards is willing to ban super popular cards for balance reasons then stuff like fetchands or Goyf probably should have left the format a while ago. Yet incredibly unfun cards like Blood Moon keep sticking around.

 

[kirblar]

Twin was banned becuase almost any U/R deck was just better if you put in the Twin combo. They pointed out that Jeskai Tempo was now Jeskai Twin. Temur Tempo? Temur Twin. That's what finally got it axed.

It's good to see there's a decent chunk of the responses that get that it was a huge limiter on U/x deck diversity.

 

[Angry Grimace]

It's time for UR Faeries to make its long awaited comeback!!

 

[kirblar]

It's time for UR Faeries to make its long awaited comeback!!

Abrupt Decay getting printed was so bad for Fae.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Abrupt Decay getting printed was so bad for Fae.

It don't matter I'm putting the band back together

 

[Yeef]

Kind of nuts with the expeditions tonight. Someone opened a Wooded Foothills during FNM draft, then someone opened a Delta from FNM prize packs. Then at the pre-release someone opened a Tarn in their pool and someone else opened a Cascade Bluffs in their prize pack.

 

[kirblar]

0 at mine, I went 3-0-1 with a really good U/G ramp deck. Got Kiora, Reality Smasher, and lots of support for it.

This set is amazing and so much better than BFZ.

Also, BFZ has no synergy and I really think it's gonna be a lot of 3x Oath drafts.

Aaron confirmed on Twitter that Ancestral Visions is very much on the table as an unban now. (Sword of the Meek- definitely not.)

 

[Matriox]

4-0 at prerelease. Played Ub flying splash red for kozilek's Return and the 4 damage surge sorcery. Drowner of Hope, promo was Wandering Fumarole, and ended up with a matter Shaper with a bunch of flyers and black spot removal. Overall had a really good time but the other 3 that rode with me didn't get as lucky with pulls and decided not to go at all to the other events today :S ah well, I had fun.

On bannings, I don't play modern enough to have a big say but the hand full of times I played against twin it was half and half on wins or loss (I'd say mostly due to inexperience), but I don't feel it being played a lot warrants a ban. This brings up my original post about why I'm hesitant to buy into modern because it's unreliable to think something won't get banned.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Maybe they knew something was coming down the pipe which will make UR better.....:-V

I don't think this was the right move in any aspect really. Tron is unbeatable now and on the heels of the Pod banning I think it adds far too much uncertainty to the format's reliability, especially given that Modern decks cost more than a used car.

I'm just concerned this leads to an endless cycle of bans.