MTG Players Highlight Concerns Over Lackluster Ban Announcement

Earlier today, a major ban announcement dropped affecting the Modern and Vintage formats. Violent Outburst Violent Outburst Cascade (When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Put the exiled cards on the bottom in a random order.)
Creatures you control get +1/+0 until end of turn. was ultimately banned in Modern, while Ponder Ponder Look at the top three cards of your library, then put them back in any order. You may shuffle.
Draw a card. became unrestricted in Vintage. Violent Outburst’s banning isn’t an enormous surprise, as Crashing Footfalls Crashing Footfalls Suspend 4—{G} (Rather than cast this card from your hand, pay {G} and exile it with four time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, you may cast it without paying its mana cost.)
Create two 4/4 green Rhino creature tokens with trample. and Living End Living End Suspend 3—{2}{B}{B}
Each player exiles all creature cards from their graveyard, then sacrifices all creatures they control, then puts all cards they exiled this way onto the battlefield. decks continued to rise in recent months. Players being able to play a playset of Ponder in Vintage is a bit surprising but given the recent unbanning of Preordain Preordain Scry 2, then draw a card. (To scry 2, look at the top two cards of your library, then put any number of them on the bottom and the rest on top in any order.) in Modern, this isn’t an unprecedented move.

What was more shocking to a lot of players, though, was the fact that there were no changes made in Pioneer or Legacy. Many players were looking for overhauls in multiple formats. For some, this ideally would include additional bans in Modern to help prevent the “next man up” issue where other strategies like Golgari Yawgmoth, Thran Physician Yawgmoth, Thran Physician Protection from Humans
Pay 1 life, Sacrifice another creature: Put a -1/-1 counter on up to one target creature and draw a card.
{B}{B}, Discard a card: Proliferate. (Choose any number of permanents and/or players, then give each another counter of each kind already there.) combo wouldn’t simply take up more of the meta themselves.

Obviously, players are bound to have mixed opinions with regards to what should and shouldn’t be banned or unbanned. However, there appears to be some resonating displeasure with how this announcement transpired. Before we get to the negatives, though, we should at least go over the positives.

A General Agreement About Violent Outburst

Where players seem most pleased with regards to the announcement was with the banning of Violent Outburst in Modern. Both Crashing Footfalls decks and Living End decks alike made excellent use of this card, and it led to some rather frustrating play patterns.

As many players have pointed out, this is absolutely not the end all be all for Cascade archetypes in Modern. Cards like Ardent Plea Ardent Plea Exalted (Whenever a creature you control attacks alone, that creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.)
Cascade (When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Put the exiled cards on the bottom in a random order.) can slot in nicely. Ardent Plea even pitches to Subtlety Subtlety Flash
Flying
When this creature enters, choose up to one target creature spell or planeswalker spell. Its owner puts it on their choice of the top or bottom of their library.
Evoke—Exile a blue card from your hand. and Force of Negation Force of Negation If it's not your turn, you may exile a blue card from your hand rather than pay this spell's mana cost.
Counter target noncreature spell. If that spell is countered this way, exile it instead of putting it into its owner's graveyard. , which is a nice bonus. Throw in 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. and you can effectively resolve your Cascade spells through counter magic. In fact, Ardent Plea has supposedly been bought out on TCGPlayer already, which signals that Cascade decks may be far from dead.

That being said, players have noted that a consistent issue they’ve faced while battling against Cascade decks in Modern is the play patterns associated with Outburst and Force of Negation. Force of Negation is a very strong card, but players can only cast it for free on the opponent’s turn. This card was likely designed this way to differentiate it from 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 can be used proactively in Legacy to push your own combo through opposing interaction.

With Outburst being an Instant, though, it enabled Cascade players to cast Outburst on the opponent’s turn and use Force of Negation to help it resolve. Then, even if the opponent has multiple pieces of interaction, the Cascade player can simply untap, cast another Cascade spell, and go off from there. This made it quite difficult for other decks to develop their board and expect to interact in a meaningful way. Not to mention, these Cascade decks have been top tier for a long time and are relatively repetitive in nature, so this seems like a reasonable change at the very least.

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Potential Danger Awaits

Unfortunately, by banning only Violent Outburst, the end result may not be the super healthy format people are hoping for. First and foremost, players were very quick to point out how advantageous this ban is for Yawgmoth decks. Golgari Yawgmoth, much like Cascade decks, has represented a large portion of the Modern metagame for a long time, especially since Orcish Bowmasters Orcish Bowmasters Flash
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. was printed.

Given that Cascade decks were decent at at least helping keep Yawgmoth decks in check, it is a bit concerning how favorable the matchups spread is for Yawgmoth decks. This is, of course, assuming Cascade decks die down a little, which isn’t entirely guaranteed.

This ban also fails to address Grief Grief Menace
When this creature enters, target opponent reveals their hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card.
Evoke—Exile a black card from your hand. and the unpleasant “Scam” experiences that come with it. Even though Rakdos Scam has died down, Esper Goryo’s Vengeance Goryo’s Vengeance Return target legendary creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. That creature gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step.
Splice onto Arcane {2}{B} (As you cast an Arcane spell, you may reveal this card from your hand and pay its splice cost. If you do, add this card's effects to that spell.) decks make great use of Grief and Solitude Solitude Flash
Lifelink
When this creature enters, exile up to one other target creature. That creature's controller gains life equal to its power.
Evoke—Exile a white card from your hand. in conjunction with Ephemerate Ephemerate Exile target creature you control, then return it to the battlefield under its owner's control.
Rebound (If you cast this spell from your hand, exile it as it resolves. At the beginning of your next upkeep, you may cast this card from exile without paying its mana cost.) . After the monster weekend Esper Goryo’s decks had, some players are concerned about the state of the format going forward.

One nice aspect of this ban, though, is that if Cascade decks die down a bit, there may be room for some strategies held down to rise up once more. Most notably, players have mentioned Indomitable Creativity Indomitable Creativity Destroy X target artifacts and/or creatures. For each permanent destroyed this way, its controller reveals cards from the top of their library until an artifact or creature card is revealed and exiles that card. Those players put the exiled cards onto the battlefield, then shuffle. combo as a huge winner post-ban. Indomitable Creativity decks were quite vulnerable to Force of Negation in conjunction with the quick pressure that Cascade decks could apply.

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Pioneer Players Left Baffled

Almost definitively, the biggest issue from the ban announcement was the lack of Pioneer bans. Given the recent bans of Karn, the Great Creator Karn, the Great Creator Activated abilities of artifacts your opponents control can't be activated.
+1: Until your next turn, up to one target noncreature artifact becomes an artifact creature with power and toughness each equal to its mana value.
−2: You may reveal an artifact card you own from outside the game or choose a face-up artifact card you own in exile. Put that card into your hand. and Geological Appraiser, it seemed like the design team was taking a conscious effort to look over any unfun or otherwise toxic cards in Pioneer. Unfortunately, from a metagame share perspective, Pioneer is far from ideal.

Players were not hesitant to call out Treasure Cruise as a problematic card. Treasure Cruise has been on the short list of elite Pioneer cards for quite some time, but the printing of Picklock Prankster Picklock Prankster Flying, vigilance and Sleight of Hand Sleight of Hand Look at the top two cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the other on the bottom of your library. in Pioneer made Izzet Phoenix extremely consistent. In the latest Magic Online Pioneer Showcase Challenge, Izzet Phoenix represented eight of the top 16 decks, which is absolutely incredible.

Of course, with the recent emergence of Rakdos Vampires, there’s an argument that the format is showing some innovation and therefore shouldn’t be touched at the moment. Still, Izzet Phoenix had a dominant showing at the Pro Tour as well. Perhaps the concern is that banning Cruise would kill the Phoenix deck entirely, which is a real possibility, but as is, there’s no denying the deck’s stranglehold on the format. If you’re planning to play Pioneer in the coming weeks, you’d better have a plan for Phoenix and Vampires, because they will be everywhere.

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Problems in Legacy

Beyond Pioneer, Legacy also received no changes. Once again, there were a lot of players left stunned by this decision. Even more concerning, though, was the complete lack of any mention of Grief whatsoever in the official announcement by Wizards of the Coast. Interestingly, Orcish Bowmasters Orcish Bowmasters Flash
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. was mentioned as a card being watched in the future. The problem is, many players believe that the gameplay Grief promotes is far worse, even if Bowmasters appears in more decklists overall.

Even from a numbers standpoint, it’s not unreasonable to consider Grief an issue in and of itself. In a recent Magic Online Legacy Qualifier, Reanimator made up nearly 27% of the decks in the event. Most of these Reanimator decks were Dimir shells abusing the combination of Grief and Reanimate Reanimate Put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control. You lose life equal to that card's mana value. . With Troll of Khazad-Dum Troll of Khazad-Dum This creature can't be blocked except by three or more creatures.
Swampcycling {1} ({1}, Discard this card: Search your library for a Swamp card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle.) in the mix, Reanimator got a lot scarier and more consistent, too.

The next ban announcement is scheduled for May 13 and there are sure to be plenty of eyes eagerly watching for the news. For players that were hopeful for massive change, all hope is not lost. It’s abundantly clear, though, that a large number of players were disappointed with this announcement. This is especially true with regards to Pioneer and Legacy, which will continue to trudge along as is for the time being. Only time will tell if more changes await us in May, but for now, it’s at least worth monitoring how the Modern and Vintage metagames adjust.

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