Magic: the Gathering Sneaks Card Bannings Into Arena Announcement

For one reason or another, Wizards of the Coast snuck in a little mini B&R announcement into the December 8th MTG Arena Announcements article. If you missed it, don’t worry we have you covered. The announcement was very heavily focused on Alchemy, so this Banning felt a bit odd to see here, but at the same time, probably didn’t warrant a full B&R announcement.

Historic Brawl Bans

• Agent of Treachery Agent of Treachery When this creature enters, gain control of target permanent.
  At the beginning of your end step, if you control three or more permanents you don't own, draw three cards. is Banned
• Field of the Dead Field of the Dead This land enters tapped.
  {T}: Add {C}.
  Whenever this land or another land you control enters, if you control seven or more lands with different names, create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token. is Banned
• Ugin, the Spirit Dragon Ugin, the Spirit Dragon +2: Ugin deals 3 damage to any target.
  −X: Exile each permanent with mana value X or less that's one or more colors.
  −10: You gain 7 life, draw seven cards, then put up to seven permanent cards from your hand onto the battlefield. is Banned

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For anyone who does play Historic Brawl, this is a pretty big deal. I don’t even play all that much of it, but it’s still a pretty impactful banning. WotC did say that they did consider their new rebalancing tools for these cards, but at the end of the day, the original integrity of the cards wouldn’t be maintained and either be unsatisfying, or not address any of the problems.

Their main reasoning for the bannings are that these cards were over popular in many main decks and either exploited or pushed against some of the core tenants of the format. The ones mentioned are having a game plan focused around a single permanent, Singleton Deck building, and Color restrictions.

Agent of Treachery

Agent of Treachery Agent of Treachery When this creature enters, gain control of target permanent.
At the beginning of your end step, if you control three or more permanents you don't own, draw three cards. is a card that is very polarizing. Some people love it, many don’t. However which way you slice it, the card is very strong and in a singleton format where consistency of removal spells is scattered at best, WotC thought that this was too much.

Field of the Dead

Field of the Dead Field of the Dead This land enters tapped.
{T}: Add {C}.
Whenever this land or another land you control enters, if you control seven or more lands with different names, create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token. was honestly a card that lasted too long. As much as I love this card, it definitely was a plague on the format. The consistency of multiple zombies in a turn just for playing lands is too good to pass up. The diversity of lands that we see in Arena today makes it such that this card slots into nearly every deck.

Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

Big ol’ Papa Ugin, the Spirit Dragon Ugin, the Spirit Dragon +2: Ugin deals 3 damage to any target.
−X: Exile each permanent with mana value X or less that's one or more colors.
−10: You gain 7 life, draw seven cards, then put up to seven permanent cards from your hand onto the battlefield. rounds out the list. This powerful planeswalker is one that really breaks the “Color Restriction” bit pretty blatantly. Getting to 8 mana is a trivial feat, and it’s even possible to cheat this into play with multiple cards. Having blanket access to a few powerful removal effects is just too much for WotC in the format.

READ MORE: Top 10 Snow Cards in Magic: The Gathering

If you’re still playing Historic Brawl, what are your thoughts on these bannings? I think that they’re fine hits for sure, but I think that the real problem is with Golos, Tireless Pilgrim Golos, Tireless Pilgrim When Golos enters, you may search your library for a land card, put that card onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle.
{2}{W}{U}{B}{R}{G}: Exile the top three cards of your library. You may play them this turn without paying their mana costs. and Esika, God of the Tree Esika, God of the Tree Vigilance
{T}: Add one mana of any color.
Other legendary creatures you control have vigilance and "{T}: Add one mana of any color." giving nearly free access to the rest of their respective deck’s most powerful cards. Let us know what you think in the comments!