Introduction
The long-awaited August 26th Banned and Restricted Announcement is finally upon us, bringing changes to multiple formats. To the surprise of no one, 《Nadu, Winged Wisdom》 has been removed from Modern, but there’s much more.
Let’s discuss the changes and try to predict where every format is headed!
Pioneer
《Amalia Benavides Aguirre》 is banned.
《Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord》 is banned.
Pioneer has seemingly existed in a forgotten limbo state ever since Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor early this year. 《Vein Ripper》 was the breakout card of the tournament, and slowly but surely, Vampires supplanted the traditional builds of Rakdos Midrange, taking larger and larger portions of the metagame. It seems it was right to happen and probably should have happened earlier, so I’m glad to see that change.
I’m not happy that they chose to ban 《Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord》 instead of 《Vein Ripper》 – 《Vein Ripper》 alone seems just unplayable in the format, while 《Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord》 used to be a backbone of weaker, interesting decks in the past, back when it was used to put 《Champion of Dusk》 into play. It feels similar to the choice of banning 《Walking Ballista》 over 《Heliod, Sun-Crowned》 four years ago, which incidentally neutered the tier 3 《Hardened Scales》 decks that occasionally showed up.
《Amalia Benavides Aguirre》 got banned for a multitude of factors combined. Its power level and the pressure it exerted on the format was one thing, but how the deck occasionally drew games was pretty undesirable – it all seems fairly understandable.
What’s maybe a little bit surprising is Phoenix escaping unscathed, fully intact. Izzet Phoenix was the best deck in Pioneer at various periods in the format’s history and was often cited as one of the “Big Three Decks” alongside Vampires and Amalia, so it certainly seems poised to be the default strongest deck in the format and it would be the place to look at if I wanted to win early in post-ban Pioneer.
On the other hand, the bannings should clear the way for some historically strong Pioneer archetypes to come back, and perhaps attack Phoenix from various angles. Lotus Field suffered, as Amalia was the faster combo deck, while turn 3 《Vein Ripper》 was often hard to race, but it has always been one of the strongest foils to Phoenix in the format. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lotus Field makes a comeback.
Mono Green Devotion is another deck that’s going to be excited to see 《Amalia Benavides Aguirre》 gone. The (relatively) new 《Leyline of the Guildpact》 builds are no joke, and they can be both blisteringly fast and resilient, but they lacked good ways to interact with the faster creature combo deck.
Now, Devotion can use its sideboard slots to address a wider variety of matchups. Turn 3 《Cavalier of Thorns》 is still really powerful, and Phoenix will need to acknowledge Green during deckbuilding to beat that!
While Phoenix is the obvious place to start, there is one additional deck I’m interested in exploring – 《Ygra, Eater of All》 Sacrifice.
Pre-ban Ygra Sacrifice
I ran this list to a middling 5-3 finish in a Pioneer Showcase Challenge a week ago. It felt pretty powerful but had some problems. 《Ygra, Eater of All》 from Bloomburrow turns every creature in play into a Food, letting us go infinite with a pair of 《Cauldron Familiar》, as you can sacrifice 《Cauldron Familiar》 to each other and drain the opponent out.
It’s a little bit like a three-card combination, but given that the 《Cauldron Familiar》 can start the combo either in play or graveyard, 《Ygra, Eater of All》 is close to a five-drop that one-shots your opponent as it enters! 《Scavenger’s Talent》 makes it pretty trivial to assemble the combo, too.
One problem that deck had? 《Vein Ripper》 was not only a pain to deal with, but it also stopped your combo from functioning – for every life point you drained, they’d drain you for two! When your combo wasn’t really a combo against the most popular deck, it was hard to justify running it.
With 《Vein Ripper》 gone, 《Ygra, Eater of All》 sacrifice is much more enticing. Sacrifice traditionally beats creature decks, but has a tougher time against control and combo, and having an “I win” button should help plenty in those spots. I’m interested in exploring builds closer to traditional Rakdos Sacrifice – splashing a five-mana card should be pretty easy to do thanks to 《Fable of the Mirror-Breaker》 and 《Deadly Dispute》!
Jund Ygra Sacrifice
Modern
《Nadu, Winged Wisdom》 is banned.
《Grief》 is banned.
The ban announcement article acknowledges that this change happened a bit too late.
From my perspective as a Twitch streamer, it really felt like a lot of the potential momentum and hype for MH3 has been killed off by this mismanagement. We can like it or not, but the release of a Modern Horizons set is going to be a big shakeup of the format.
Normally, it’s where the interest in the format is at its highest – but immediately after Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3, which took place a whooping two months (!) ago, we entered a lame duck period where it was clear to everyone a change needs to be made.
The one good thing about that is the upcoming change in the ban announcement cadence. Instead of the arbitrary dates tied to set releases, future announcements are supposed to line up with RC and RCQ seasons – which is a good change, hopefully letting us avoid similar situations in the future.
The other banned card – 《Grief》 – comes off as slightly more surprising. While long-maligned for how unpleasant of a play experience it is to be 《Grief》-scammed on turn one, the card hasn’t exactly been tearing it up lately. 《Necrodominance》 and 《Goryo’s Vengeance》 decks had a decent showing at the Pro Tour. Back then, some players seemed concerned about Necrodominance taking Nadu’s crown after it’s gone, but that hasn’t seemed to materialize on Magic Online in the past few weeks. Once again, the timing of the ban is just slightly weird.
Regardless, this is the world we live in now. What happens in Modern now?
First and foremost, all of the existing archetypes previously running 《Grief》 need to reconsider their card choices. 《Necrodominance》 is still an extremely powerful card – and the combo with 《Sheoldred, the Apocalypse》 is still absolutely crazy – so I would be surprised if those can’t adapt. 《Phyrexian Tower》 loses a lot of its luster – perhaps it’s worth revisiting pre-MH3, 《Cabal Coffers》-based builds.
《Goryo’s Vengeance》 decks are in a tough spot. A traditional 《Goryo’s Vengeance》‘s deck was built around an intricate set of synergies. Swinging with an 《Atraxa, Grand Unifier》 is fine, but what’s really powerful is getting to keep it with an 《Ephemerate》. 《Atraxa, Grand Unifier》 also liked to draw free interaction. Can you reasonably run 《Ephemerate》 in your deck, once you’ll have that many fewer targets for the card?
Running 《Fallaji Archaeologist》 as your only other blink target sounds like a tough sell, so as you see, removing 《Grief》 from the archetype will likely have cascading consequences. Perhaps, a reanimator deck with a greater focus on 《Psychic Frog》 as an enabler and secondary threat could function – perhaps even using 《Persist》 to bring back 《Archon of Cruelty》, bypassing the entire 《Ephemerate》 angle – but then, the question arises: why hasn’t anyone built that deck before?
Reanimating 《Atraxa, Grand Unifier》 is still really powerful, and I’m hopeful of the card 《Goryo’s Vengeance》 in the future – but likely, the deck needs to undergo significant structural changes.
Traditional Rakdos Scam was virtually non-existent since MH3, but now it’s officially dead for good, getting both of it’s color’s Evoke Elementals banned.
Boros Energy variants will be the default midrange deck. The deck is just powerful, aggressive, and relatively flexible, but not unbeatable by any means. 《The One Ring》 remains probably the single strongest card in the format, and Ring decks will continue to go over the top of Energy. Jeskai, Tron, and Eldrazi are the biggest Ring decks.
But my personal favorite 《The One Ring》 deck – Amulet Titan – seems poised for success. Combo decks that were often raced by Nadu, hated getting Griefed, and don’t necessarily care about 《The One Ring》 seem like big winners of the announcement to me.
Lately, Amulet players have been experimenting and adapting new combos into the deck involving 《Aftermath Analyst》, 《Shifting Woodland》, or 《Lumra, Bellow of the Woods》.
My favorite way to use those newly introduced loops is to keep my Amulet deck as close to traditional builds while lessening my reliance on the combat step and moving away from the easy-to-punish 《Summoner’s Pact》. So far it has been working great for me and I’m going to put a lot more hours into this deck!
Amulet Titan
The one problem with Amulet? It’s Storm. Storm is slightly faster than Amulet, can easily run 《Blood Moon》, and benefits from the bans the same way Amulet does.
Ruby Storm had an abysmal performance at the PT when it was respected by everyone in the room and the most popular deck could 《Chord of Calling》 for a 《Drannith Magistrate》 easily, but since then Storm is reclaimed its position in the top tier and the bans seem to have solidify it. I’ll be very scared of Storm in the upcoming weeks and I’ll try my hardest to respect it.
Overall, it seems like Modern will finally get to experience its MH3 shakeup the way it was supposed to all along. The 《Grief》 ban’s timing is slightly puzzling, and long-term, I’m not sure about 《The One Ring》‘s longevity in the format, but exciting times are awaiting us.
Legacy
《Grief》 is banned.
Legacy is a format I’ve been mostly checked out of lately. UB Scam/Reanimator decks dominated the tournaments for months, but without 《Grief》, it seems harder to justify 《Reanimate》 and 《Entomb》 in fair 《Force of Will》 + 《Daze》 decks.
However, if they indeed fall off, I wouldn’t be surprised if 《Psychic Frog》 becomes a new menace. After all, 《Dreadhorde Arcanist》 needed to be banned in the format, and 《Psychic Frog》 seems vastly better than that card. It’s even blue!”
Vintage
《Urza’s Saga》 is restricted.
《Vexing Bauble》 is restricted.
This section probably wasn’t all that interesting to many of you, but I was excited to see some changes brought to Vintage!
It’s a format I love playing a Magic Online Challenge every now and then, especially with 《Bazaar of Baghdad》 decks. But my enthusiasm for the format waned gradually, through the printings of 《Urza’s Saga》 and 《Lórien Revealed》. More and more decks were incentivized and interested in running a pile of 《Wasteland》, pushing Dredge and Squeevine out of the format.
《Vexing Bauble》 felt like the last nail in the coffin, but now I’ll be excited to 《Serum Powder》 some hands away in search of 《Bazaar of Baghdad》 again.
Truthfully, most likely 《Urza’s Saga》‘s restriction should only be a minor incentive to run fewer 《Wasteland》 in blue decks, so I shouldn’t expect to face the card much less often – but one can hope!
Overall, I’m excited to dive into the new formats – especially Modern and Pioneer. While we could argue endlessly whether the announcement was perfect or not, undoubtedly it’s going to breathe some fresh air into those stale formats.
