Introduction
We had a large and anticipated Banned and Restricted Announcement last Monday. As per the original Wizards article.
Pioneer:
《Karn, the Great Creator》 is banned.
《Geological Appraiser》 is banned.
《Smuggler’s Copter》 is unbanned.
Modern:
《Fury》 is banned.
《Up the Beanstalk》 is banned.
Let’s discuss what that means for both formats!
Pioneer
《Geological Appraiser》
《Geological Appraiser》 didn’t get all that much time in the sun, getting banned after only a few weeks of being legal. Despite unexciting winrates at the Canadian, South American, and Japanese Regional Championships that took place over that period, Play Design decided that the opportunity to win as soon as turn three after casting just a single creature was too much for their vision of the format.
While the deckbuilding package required to make the 《Geological Appraiser》 kill work was far from compact, the deck had a 《Splinter Twin》-esque air to it, forcing opponents to never tap out of their removal spells.
There is something funny about 《Geological Appraiser》 and Discover being an attempt at fixing the much-maligned Cascade mechanic – a mechanic that seems to twist the rules of the game to spawn powerful combos every few sets – and fail spectacularly. 《Glasspool Mimic》 worked its way around that “if you cast it” clause on 《Geological Appraiser》 beautifully!
Overall, I’m not surprised with this deck being gone, nor will I particularly miss it – the ban seems fairly consistent with the philosophy that put 《Balustrade Spy》 and 《Undercity Informer》 on the banlist before.
《Quintorius Kand》 combo remains a legal option, but that deck so far performed horribly at tournaments. It’s a whole turn slower while remaining easy to interact with, and when facing 《Quintorius Kand》, if all you need to do is to survive one more turn, a measly “Stomp” will guarantee you get another untap step, even if they kick their combo off with a 《Trumpeting Carnosaur》 – unlike 《Geological Appraiser》 variants.
Newer removal spells like 《Torch the Tower》 and 《Bitter Triumph》 also increase the ease of interacting with Planeswalkers in the format. 《Quintorius Kand》 decks seem to aim to occupy a metagame space similar to 《Lotus Field》 Combo while being just significantly worse decks.
《Karn, the Great Creator》
《Karn, the Great Creator》 is the second card banned in this update. On one hand, Mono-Green seemed to consistently perform at around slightly lower than 50% winrate throughout all the Regional Championships and Pro Tours.
On the other hand, few things in Magic’s history infuriated me more than when I got accidentally hosed by Karn’s incredibly powerful, yet also incredibly narrow passive, attached to a planeswalker players ran in their big mana decks independently, to tutor up silver bullet artifacts. Just like in the memorable “49% winrate” banning of 《Inverter of Truth》, removing 《Karn, the Great Creator》 from the format seems based more on community feedback.
That said, even if Mono-Green Devotion consistently failed to deliver up to the winrate and performance expectations, it’s hard to argue against Green putting a lot of pressure on everyone’s sideboards. Green frequently required both specific and quick solutions.
Rakdos Midrange will no longer feel pressured to devote a large portion of their sideboard to 《Extinction Event》, Rakdos Sacrifice will happily drop their 《Furnace Reins》, and we’ll probably see a lot less 《Thing in the Ice》 in Izzet Phoenix in the future.
That gets us back to Lotus Combo – a deck which quietly, despite its low metagame share, seems to post impressive winrates at most tournaments throughout the past two years. Mono Green Devotion, with its fast and consistent access to game one 《Karn, the Great Creator》 fetching 《Damping Sphere》 or 《The Stone Brain》, was widely understood to be one of the natural predators of that deck.
Can we rebuild Devotion and still play it in some form? Perhaps – 《Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx》 remains an impressive mana engine – but it’s likely going to be focused on overwhelming the opponent with creatures and using the 《Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx》 mana jump to reduce the opponent’s life total to zero.
《Burning-Tree Emissary》 and planeswalkers like 《Vivien, Arkbow Ranger》 and 《Nissa, Who Shakes the World》 can help restructure Mono-Green in that way, but more passive ramp cards like 《Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner》 and 《Wolfwillow Haven》 lose a lot of value with no combo finish available. Given that the Karn version of the deck wasn’t doing too well lately, I don’t hold high hopes for Devotion in the immediate future.
Lotus Combo is a slower, almost Tron-like combo deck focused on assembling a pair of Hexproof lands – a permanent type that’s particularly hard to interact with – with Mono-Green gone, there isn’t much else left to do when fighting Lotus Combo than to race them.
While most decks will be elated to get some free sideboard space with Mono-Green mostly gone, one of the ways I could see the Pioneer metagame developing would be an uptick in Lotus Combo, and I will be immediately devoting those slots to 《Damping Sphere》.
《Smuggler’s Copter》
《Smuggler’s Copter》 is an interesting unban. Being a cheap, generic, yet still mighty on-rate artifact, it asks the player only two things: to play a good number of creatures and to be interested in attacking at all.
It fits cleanly into many more aggressive decks, like Gruul Vehicles – a deck that’s happy to both crew with mana Elves and loot them away later in the game. More synergy-based aggro decks like Boros Convoke and Mono-White Humans will maybe think twice, but will happily pick up 《Smuggler’s Copter》 at least as a sideboard card.
But where I envision 《Smuggler’s Copter》 truly shining is alongside 《Thoughtseize》 and 《Fable of the Mirror-Breaker》 in Rakdos midrange decks – both the traditional midrange and sacrifice variants. Crewing should be easy between 《Bloodtithe Harvester》, Goblin Shaman Token, and 《Cauldron Familiar》, looting is incredible with black interaction spells, and those decks are always looking to deal some chip damage here and there.
An example decklist incorporating 《Smuggler’s Copter》 into sacrifice:
Rakdos Sacrifice
Click to see details
In midrange builds, an obvious comparison arises with another staple vehicle – 《Reckoner Bankbuster》. I wouldn’t be surprised if 《Reckoner Bankbuster》 still sticks around as a powerful card draw spell in the sideboard, but the more aggressive slant of 《Smuggler’s Copter》 will probably make it a better game one card.
And that’s not to mention another shell that will make great use of 《Smuggler’s Copter》 – 《Greasefang, Okiba Boss》! A discard outlet for 《Parhelion II》, a Vehicle for extra 《Greasefang, Okiba Boss》 synergy in scrappy games, and a backup plan against graveyard hate almost on its own – it fits like a glove.
With 《Fable of the Mirror-Breaker》《Smuggler’s Copter》, and 《Bloodtithe Harvester》 all being great cards and discard outlets at the same time, I’d even look into the possibility of a fair approach to 《Greasefang, Okiba Boss》 with higher card quality. Keep in mind that 《Karn, the Great Creator》 will never stop you from crewing your vehicle again, either!
Mardu Greasefang
Click to see details
I expect 《Smuggler’s Copter》 to show up in many decks in the near future. Avoid playing 《Supreme Verdict》 and other traditional sweepers and maybe focus more on 《Temporary Lockdown》. Incidental 《Shatter》 such as 《Abrade》 and 《Kolaghan’s Command》 should also be good to run for now.
Modern
《Fury》
Since Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth and the corresponding Pro Tour in Barcelona, the online tournament presence of Rakdos Scam was without a doubt a little bit overwhelming; but with this update, I’m pretty sure the “scam” part of the Rakdos deck is gone.
Without a secondary Incarnation to make use of the undying tricks with, it’s really hard to justify putting 《Not Dead After All》 in your Modern deck. Orzhov Scam variants existed somewhere in tier three after Modern Horizons 2 was released, 《Solitude》 isn’t something you can go out of your way to put into play on turn one, and without red looting effects like 《Fable of the Mirror-Breaker》, you need to find an actual use for each trick you draw.
Now, that doesn’t mean Rakdos decks should be gone from Modern in general. 《Thoughtseize》《Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer》, and 《Orcish Bowmasters》 are still excellent midrange cards, but a deck like this is much fairer and weaker and likely won’t be breaking tier 1 anytime soon.
A funny thing about the ban is that “fair” 《Fury》 strangely wasn’t particularly good in Modern for a while – it only showed up in decks that abused its evoke mechanic. In Rhinos – one of the last few decks interested in playing 《Fury》 straight-up, to pitch it – its numbers dwindled and dwindled.
One interpretation is that 《Fury》 has fallen victim to its own success, pushing out all of the creature-based decks that would present multiple targets for 《Fury》 to sweep. Wizards’ article hints at that possibility, but I doubt it.
“Creature” decks – which would encompass, I guess, tribal decks – can’t compete with the powerful and hyperefficient gameplans of Amulet Titan, Living End, or Yawgmoth, so I don’t expect much to change in the structure of archetypes that we are allowed to play in Modern after this update.
《Up the Beanstalk》
《Up the Beanstalk》 is a ban that caught me a little bit off-guard. After all, Four-Color Omnath could now just revert to pre-Wilds of Eldraine builds using 《The One Ring》 as their main card advantage engine. It’s possible that Wizard’ has access to data that suggests otherwise, but while Cascade Beans has been widely adopted as the dominant version, my assumption was always that those two builds should be similar in winrate, with different upsides and downsides. I might be entirely off-base in this assumption.
Nonetheless, Wizards seems to have listened to community feedback, and as per their article, attempted to reduce the unfun play patterns. In a way, I understand that, as 《Wrenn and Six》 and 《The One Ring》 at least cost mana, and they tend to produce games that make more sense than the 《Commandeer》-pitch-everything hellscape we spent a few months in thanks to 《Up the Beanstalk》.
Conclusion
I think the big winners of this banlist update are Yawgmoth – a deck that welcomes never again having to face a double 《Fury》 – and blue decks. 《Counterspell》 is excellent against cumbersome sorcery that is 《The One Ring》, but blue decks weren’t exactly thrilled to see 《Up the Beanstalk》 deployed as soon as turn two, half the time before 《Counterspell》 could even be cast.
Amulet and Tron are happy to see the premier 《Blood Moon》 deck played less, but not necessarily if that metagame share will be picked up back by Izzet Murktide; and Cascade decks probably remain strong as ever.
I, for one, am cautiously optimistic as to what the update means for the future of Modern. Frankly, it doesn’t feel like a major upheaval – for that, I think we’ll have to wait until Modern Horizons Ⅲ later next year.
Stay hydrated!
Piotr Glogowski (X / Twitch / Youtube)
