With various cards seemingly homogenizing entire formats, bans in Magic are once again a talking point. Considering we just saw Fable of the Mirror-Breaker finally get banned out of Standard, its surprising to see the topic reappear so quickly. Many will be watching the Lord of the Rings Pro Tour at the end of this month, some with questions regarding whether The One Ring will be banned or not.
Until then, however, another decade-old and somewhat niche MTG format has updated its banlist. Ironically, the offending card was just announced as a Mythic Rare reprint in Commander Masters and is currently amongst the most valuable cards you can open for the entire set. Land Tax is getting banned in the Premodern format, but since this format is a somewhat niche one, we need to start by explaining what Premodern even is.
What is Premodern?
According to the official Premodern site, the format was invented in 2012 by MTG player Martin Berlin. Explaining the legal card pool for Premodern is a tad bit tricky, but the format’s card pool ends where Modern’s begins, meaning nothing past Eighth Edition (including Eighth Edition) is legal in the format. This is summarized on the site as “all cards with the old frame printed between 1995 and 2003, which were standard legal at some point during this period.” As such, the legal card pool includes the sets listed below:
- Fourth Edition
- Ice Age
- Chronicles
- Homelands
- Alliances
- Mirage
- Visions
- Fifth Edition
- Weatherlight
- Tempest
- Stronghold
- Exodus
- Urza’s Saga
- Urza’s Legacy
- Classic Sixth Edition
- Urza’s Destiny
- Mercadian Masques
- Nemesis
- Prophecy
- Invasion
- Planeshift
- Seventh Edition
- Apocalypse
- Odyssey
- Torment
- Judgement
- Onslaught
- Legions
- Scourge
any sets you don’t see on this list are not legal in Premodern. As such, this truly embraces the slogan on the forefront of the official Premodern site: “a community-created old school format.”
All the other rules for Premodern are the same as any other two-player competitive format.
The Premodern Banlist
As is the case with most formats, Premodern has its own banlist created to help carry out the mission of the format. Once again, as stated on the official Premodern site, the goal of the format is “that the format should be a home for iconic and fun cards that don’t see play in other formats—either because their relative power level has withered over time, or because they are not tournament legal due to their interactions with newer cards.”
In order to stay true to this mission, some cards have been removed from the format “in order to leave room for other cards to prosper, and to make the format distinct from others.” Here are the cards that have been removed thus far:
- Amulet of Quoz
Amulet of QuozRemove this card from your deck before playing if you're not playing for ante.
{T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Target opponent may ante the top card of their library. If they don't, you flip a coin. If you win the flip, that player loses the game. If you lose the flip, you lose the game. Activate only during your upkeep. - Balance
BalanceEach player chooses a number of lands they control equal to the number of lands controlled by the player who controls the fewest, then sacrifices the rest. Players discard cards and sacrifice creatures the same way. - Brainstorm
BrainstormDraw three cards, then put two cards from your hand on top of your library in any order. - Bronze Tablet
Bronze TabletRemove this card from your deck before playing if you're not playing for ante.
This artifact enters tapped.
{4}, {T}: Exile this artifact and target nontoken permanent an opponent owns. That player may pay 10 life. If they do, put this card into its owner's graveyard. Otherwise, that player owns this card and you own the other exiled card. - Channel
- Demonic Consultation
Demonic ConsultationChoose a card name. Exile the top six cards of your library, then reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a card with the chosen name. Put that card into your hand and exile all other cards revealed this way. - Earthcraft
- Entomb
EntombSearch your library for a card, put that card into your graveyard, then shuffle. - Flash
FlashYou may put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. If you do, sacrifice it unless you pay its mana cost reduced by {2}. - Force of Will
Force of WillYou may pay 1 life and exile a blue card from your hand rather than pay this spell's mana cost.
Counter target spell. - Goblin Recruiter
Goblin RecruiterWhen this creature enters, search your library for any number of Goblin cards, reveal them, then shuffle and put those cards on top in any order. - Grim Monolith
- Jeweled Bird
Jeweled BirdRemove this card from your deck before playing if you're not playing for ante.
{T}: Ante this artifact. If you do, put all other cards you own from the ante into your graveyard, then draw a card. - Land Tax
Land TaxAt the beginning of your upkeep, if an opponent controls more lands than you, you may search your library for up to three basic land cards, reveal them, put them into your hand, then shuffle. - Mana Vault
- Memory Jar
Memory Jar{T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Each player exiles all cards from their hand face down and draws seven cards. At the beginning of the next end step, each player discards their hand and returns to their hand each card they exiled this way. - Mind Twist
Mind TwistTarget player discards X cards at random. - Mind’s Desire
- Mystical Tutor
Mystical TutorSearch your library for an instant or sorcery card, reveal it, then shuffle and put that card on top. - Necropotence
NecropotenceSkip your draw step.
Whenever you discard a card, exile that card from your graveyard.
Pay 1 life: Exile the top card of your library face down. Put that card into your hand at the beginning of your next end step. - Rebirth
RebirthRemove this card from your deck before playing if you're not playing for ante.
Each player may ante the top card of their library. If a player does, that player's life total becomes 20. - Strip Mine
Strip Mine{T}: Add {C}.
{T}, Sacrifice this land: Destroy target land. - Tempest Efreet
Tempest EfreetRemove this card from your deck before playing if you're not playing for ante.
{T}, Sacrifice this creature: Target opponent may pay 10 life. If that player doesn't, they reveal a card at random from their hand. Exchange ownership of the revealed card and Tempest Efreet. Put the revealed card into your hand and Tempest Efreet from anywhere into that player's graveyard. This change in ownership is permanent. - Tendrils of Agony
- Time Spiral
Time SpiralExile Time Spiral. Each player shuffles their hand and graveyard into their library, then draws seven cards. You untap up to six lands. - Timmerian Fiends
Timmerian FiendsRemove this card from your deck before playing if you're not playing for ante.
{B}{B}{B}, Sacrifice this creature: The owner of target artifact may ante the top card of their library. If that player doesn't, exchange ownership of that artifact and Timmerian Fiends. Put the artifact card into your graveyard and Timmerian Fiends from anywhere into that player's graveyard. This change in ownership is permanent. - Tolarian Academy
- Vampiric Tutor
- Windfall
WindfallEach player discards their hand, then draws cards equal to the greatest number of cards a player discarded this way. - Worldgorger Dragon
Worldgorger DragonFlying, trample
When this creature enters, exile all other permanents you control.
When this creature leaves the battlefield, return the exiled cards to the battlefield under their owners' control. - Yawgmoth’s Bargain
Yawgmoth’s BargainSkip your draw step.
Pay 1 life: Draw a card. - Yawgmoth’s Will
Yawgmoth’s WillUntil end of turn, you may play lands and cast spells from your graveyard.
If a card would be put into your graveyard from anywhere this turn, exile that card instead.
As of July 15, 2023, Land Tax has officially joined the Premodern banlist.
Why was Land Tax Banned?
Land Tax, on its own, is already pretty powerful. In Commander, this card can be used to make sure that you don’t miss many land drops throughout the game. Whenever an opponent has more lands than you at the beginning of your upkeep, Land Tax will allow you to find three Basic Lands and add them to your hand. That’s three land drops you no longer have to worry about making! This card can trigger multiple times as well.
While this may seem relatively harmless, Getting three cards for one mana is a potent effect, especially when you can do it multiple times. Basic Lands aren’t too useful if you don’t need any lands, but these extra cards in hand can enable other problematic cards. That’s the reason why Land Tax was banned in Premodern.
“Land Tax enables an overpowered draw engine which can be set up consistently at a minimal mana cost. Disrupting the engine in time can be difficult, and requires cards not available to all colours. The Land Tax engine can be exploited in different deck shells, and doesn’t appear to have a natural counter or weakness.”
Premodern Ban Announcement
The main offender in Premodern that is making Land Tax problematic is Scroll Rack. In the context of finding three Basic Lands, Land Tax can be pretty harmless. Scroll Rack, however, turns that into something much more dangerous.
Scroll Rack allows you to exile any number of cards in your hand face down and put that many cards from the top of your library into your hand. This, notably, is not drawing cards, getting around pesky hatebears like Orcish Bowmasters
Orcish BowmastersFlash
When this creature enters and whenever an opponent draws a card except the first one they draw in each of their draw steps, this creature deals 1 damage to any target. Then amass Orcs 1. and Narset, Parter of Veils in Commander. This, therefore, can turn the three Basic Lands you find with Land Tax into the three cards on top of your deck. The obvious flaw with this plan is that there’s now three Basic Land cards on top of your deck.
Well, if you play to specifically have less lands than your opponent, Land Tax can trigger again on your upkeep. This will find three Basic Lands and shuffle your library, basically allowing you to redraw the three cards you put on top of your deck, while still drawing a fourth card for turn! This can actually end up leading to even further card selection if you put more than just the three Basic lands back on top of your deck with Scroll Rack. This combination, essentially, allows you to draw four cards every turn, and the two pieces only cost three mana in total.
If this sounds powerful to you, it is still a very legal combination of cards in Commander.
This cycle, unfortunately, also leads to a lot of decision-making and shuffling, which can slow tournaments down. Much like the bans of Sensei’s Divining Top
Sensei’s Divining Top{1}: Look at the top three cards of your library, then put them back in any order.
{T}: Draw a card, then put this artifact on top of its owner's library. and Yorion, Sky Nomad
Yorion, Sky NomadCompanion — Your starting deck contains at least twenty cards more than the minimum deck size. (If this card is your chosen companion, you may put it into your hand from outside the game for {3} as a sorcery.)
Flying
When Yorion enters, exile any number of other nonland permanents you own and control. Return those cards to the battlefield at the beginning of the next end step. in Modern, games constantly going to time can be a problem in a competitive format.
Read More: Wild Combo Deck Revives Bewildering Mechanic In Major Format!
A Ban Announcement Done Right!
Our coverage for the reason why Land Tax was banned does not even come close to doing justice to what the initial ban announcement covers. This ban announcement, frankly, is a work of art, and we recommend you give it a read for yourselves. The community heavily agrees, calling this an example of what Wizards of the Coast could achieve with their ban announcements:
“It is nice to see a whole bunch of different shells, reasoning, and history behind the banning. Just like comparing it to the WotC ban announcements this just feels like they care a lot more about the format in general.”
lightsentry
“Talk about a well presented ban argument”
knightofeffect
Another point made clear in this discussion, however, is that community formats need a very clear and detailed reasoning for a ban. Otherwise, Premodern players could just ignore the ban announcement and keep playing with Land Tax if they feel the ban is not justified:
“If they ban a single card that receives push back, the policing of the format becomes suspect. You have to put forth a rock solid case that only the most committed players to that card/deck would argue against.”
dcrico20
This is further seen when one of the better cards to play alongside Land Tax in Premodern is Mox Diamond, an incredibly expensive mana rock. This allows you to use mana sources that aren’t lands, which helps you have enough resources to cast spells and activate Land Tax multiple times.
Mox Diamond currently retails for $400 at the absolute cheapest and can go for much more. This means a playset for Premodern would cost $1600, which is more expensive than entire decklists in other formats. Premodern players who purchased Mox Diamonds for the format may not use these cards going forward if Land Tax’s ban makes the card worse in the context of the format. Fortunately, if this event comes to pass (and it may not), Mox Diamond does have a lot of usage in other formats.
Don’t let this price point scare you off from trying the Premodern format either. Its very easy to create a powerful Premodern deck on a budget.
Either way, Land Tax is now banned in Premodern, and the argument for why the card was banned received applause from the community. Maybe this can help steer how ban announcements are presented in the future for the game in a larger context.
Read More: Dominant LOTR Card Could Put Up Banworthy Numbers!
