A few days ago, Wizards of the Coast announced some major bannings in Pauper, and also that there would be another Banned and Restricted announcement to cover other formats. Today we got that B&R and Boy oh Boy is it a big one. Let’s get right into it and check out what’s happening.
The Banned
Standard:
-
Alrund’s Epiphany
Alrund’s Epiphany
Create two 1/1 blue Bird creature tokens with flying. Take an extra turn after this one. Exile Alrund's Epiphany.
Foretell {4}{U}{U} (During your turn, you may pay {2} and exile this card from your hand face down. Cast it on a later turn for its foretell cost.) is BANNED -
Divide by Zero
Divide by Zero
Return target spell or permanent with mana value 1 or greater to its owner's hand.
Learn. (You may reveal a Lesson card you own from outside the game and put it into your hand, or discard a card to draw a card.) is BANNED -
Faceless Haven
Faceless Haven
{T}: Add {C}.
{S}{S}{S}: This land becomes a 4/3 creature with vigilance and all creature types until end of turn. It's still a land. ({S} can be paid with one mana from a snow source.) is BANNED
Legacy
-
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Whenever Ragavan deals combat damage to a player, create a Treasure token and exile the top card of that player's library. Until end of turn, you may cast that card.
Dash {1}{R} (You may cast this spell for its dash cost. If you do, it gains haste, and it's returned from the battlefield to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step.) is BANNED
Historic
-
Memory Lapse
Memory Lapse
Counter target spell. If that spell is countered this way, put it on top of its owner's library instead of into that player's graveyard.
is BANNED (From Suspended) -
Teferi, Time Raveler
Teferi, Time Raveler
Each opponent can cast spells only any time they could cast a sorcery.
+1: Until your next turn, you may cast sorcery spells as though they had flash.
−3: Return up to one target artifact, creature, or enchantment to its owner's hand. Draw a card. has been Rebalanced and Unbanned
Standard
Truth be told, I did NOT expect that Standard was going to be touched at all. Historically, when a new set is about to be released, they hold of on banning anything from Standard to see how the set impacts the format. While we know that
Alrund’s Epiphany
Alrund’s Epiphany
Create two 1/1 blue Bird creature tokens with flying. Take an extra turn after this one. Exile Alrund's Epiphany.
Foretell {4}{U}{U} (During your turn, you may pay {2} and exile this card from your hand face down. Cast it on a later turn for its foretell cost.)
and
Faceless Haven
Faceless Haven
{T}: Add {C}.
{S}{S}{S}: This land becomes a 4/3 creature with vigilance and all creature types until end of turn. It's still a land. ({S} can be paid with one mana from a snow source.)
got rebalanced for Alchemy and were presumably on the watch list,
Divide By Zero
Divide By Zero
Return target spell or permanent with mana value 1 or greater to its owner's hand.
Learn. (You may reveal a Lesson card you own from outside the game and put it into your hand, or discard a card to draw a card.)
was not one that I saw coming.
We’ve all seen the scourge that was Izzet Turns in Standard in some form, which Alrund’s Epiphany was a big part of. Same goes for Divide by Zero, being one of the strongest “counter spells” in the format. In conjunction with
Lier, Disciple of the Drowned
Lier, Disciple of the Drowned
Spells can't be countered.
Each instant and sorcery card in your graveyard has flashback. The flashback cost is equal to that card's mana cost.
it was very hard to resolve anything. Faceless Haven really was the main means for Mono Colored Aggro decks to counteract these control strategies, and with the nerf to control, this made a ton of sense.
Legacy
Legacy is very powerful format. With the addition of Modern Horizons 2, there was a major power spike in the Izzet Delver decks, lead by
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Whenever Ragavan deals combat damage to a player, create a Treasure token and exile the top card of that player's library. Until end of turn, you may cast that card.
Dash {1}{R} (You may cast this spell for its dash cost. If you do, it gains haste, and it's returned from the battlefield to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step.)
. Often times, this deck would snowball it’s advantages in the early game with Ragavan, backed up by cards like
Daze
Daze
You may return an Island you control to its owner's hand rather than pay this spell's mana cost.
Counter target spell unless its controller pays {1}.
and
Force of Will
Force of Will
You may pay 1 life and exile a blue card from your hand rather than pay this spell's mana cost.
Counter target spell.
, which lead to it having a really high win rate. The team will be monitoring the format closer over the coming weeks and will make any other adjustments if needed.
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Historic
For Historic,
Memory Lapse
Memory Lapse
Counter target spell. If that spell is countered this way, put it on top of its owner's library instead of into that player's graveyard.
was on the suspended list for a few months at this point. The format is such that it got MUCH healthier without it, and blue control decks continue to be a contender in the format. The team felt that it would be more detrimental to the format to have Memory Lapse back, so it’s now being Banned.
What’s REALLY interesting is that
Teferi, Time Raveler
Teferi, Time Raveler
Each opponent can cast spells only any time they could cast a sorcery.
+1: Until your next turn, you may cast sorcery spells as though they had flash.
−3: Return up to one target artifact, creature, or enchantment to its owner's hand. Draw a card.
got rebalanced and is being Unbanned. Now this version of Teferi is one of the strongest planeswalkers ever printed. It’s a power house in Modern and Legacy, and it was a menace to play against. It’s cheap mana cost and prohibitive passive ability really made it a must kill target, and if you couldn’t deal with it, the game was basically over. Let’s take a look at the new and improved Teferi, Time Raveler.
The new Teferi is now 4 mana instead of 3, starts with 5 Loyalty instead of 4, and his passive was changed to: “Your Opponents can’t cast spells during your turn”. I believe that these changes are nice, and will make the card less prohibitive to play against. The difference between 3 and 4 mana is quite large in terms of board development. Putting Teferi at 4 means that control decks now need to choose between playing Teferi on curve, and casting a
Wrath of God
Wrath of God
Destroy all creatures. They can't be regenerated.
to deal with a built up board state.
The Passive rework is nice as well, as this accomplishes a lot of the same things the original Teferi’s passive did, but allows opponents to play with cards on the stack on their turns in order to deal with him. Finale of Promise and Dreadhorde Arcanist were mentioned by the team. I believe that despite the nerfs, Terefi will still see play in Jeskai and Azorius control decks.
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What are your thoughts on the bannings? Did you expect some of these? What would you have liked to have seen been banned or unbanned? Let us know in the comments!