The next scheduled Banned & Restricted announcement for Magic: The Gathering is set for Monday and players are looking at two formats that could use some pruning.
(Editor’s note: The B&R update is live now)
Standard is fresh and thriving following the release of Foundations last month while Pioneer flies under the radar due to it being shelved for the time at marquee competitive events. Modern, however, appears to need to action as the format has evolved somewhat predictably in the wake of the previous B&R update in August. Wizards of the Coast (WotC) banned Grief and Nadu, Winged Wisdom in Modern a few months ago, leaving The One Ring and the Energy shell untouched.
Fast forward to today and Modern is dominated by Boros and Mardu Energy. The Energy deck, powered up by many cards from Modern Horizons 3, accounted for 20 of the Top 32 decks in the Magic Online Modern Challenge on December 9 and 16 of the Top 32 decks in the Modern Challenge on December 10. The Energy deck also utilizes The One Ring, a card that appears in roughly 60 percent of decks in the format.
Dan Musser, of the Magic: The Gathering Play Design team, wrote the August B&R update and said this about The One Ring at the time:
We certainly considered a few other cards to take action against in this announcement—namely The One Ring. While present in several decks, there is no clear The One Ring deck terrorizing Modern. Being a unique combination of self-protection and card advantage, it is a strong card that helps prop up several varied strategies. Ultimately, we decided not to act against The One Ring. The possible problems it may be causing for Modern just aren’t as clear as Nadu and Grief. Once we see how the format evolves after this change, we will continue to observe and evaluate the health of Modern and see which future actions are necessary.”
It is abundantly clear that there is now a clear deck terrorizing Modern and it is a deck with The One Ring. The issue is, Energy decks rose to prominence without including The One Ring, so even if The One Ring is removed from the format the deck will still be a meta tyrant. Still, other decks like Tron, Domain Zoo, Eldrazi, Lotus Field, and Jeskai Control also use The One Ring to much success.
Modern Horizons 3 has also warped Legacy. Cards like Psychic Frog, Nadu, Winged Wisdom, and Vexing Bauble are everywhere, populating a majority of the top decks in the format as evidenced by the results from this year’s three Eternal Weekend events. Psychic Frog supercharges the blue soup decks, supplementing the Brainstorm, Force of Will, and Daze decks while also providing once-fair midrange decks with a combo-flourish thanks to being able to reanimate Atraxa, Grand Unifier with minimal effort and deck building cost.
Nadu combo decks that look like the previous Modern iteration but with all of the tools Legacy has to offer are also running rampant. Now the deck gets to find Nadu with cards like Green Sun’s Zenith and Natural Order in addition to Chord of Calling. Vexing Bauble allows colorless prison decks and Eldrazi decks the ability to force through powerful spells, denying opponents the chance to defend against them with Force of Will or Daze. These decks also get to take advantage of The One Ring.
While no Legacy deck is putting up numbers anything remotely close to those of Energy in Modern, many players in the community are asking for changes. Musser also wrote about potential other bans in Legacy back in August, but taking action on cards before seeing how the format settled following the ban of Grief was considered premature.
Again, as in Modern, we considered a handful of other cards for this round of changes. We looked at the new Eldrazi deck, featuring several Modern Horizons 3 cards, and talked a lot about Psychic Frog. However, Grief and Reanimator is such a large part of the current Legacy metagame that we wanted to make the clear and obvious change to the format before making further changes. Specifically, Grief and Psychic Frog are featured together in Dimir Reanimator. Psychic Frog also appears in various Delver shells, but it stands to reason that it should have a smaller metagame presence once Grief has been removed.”
So, how will WotC handle Modern, and presumably, Legacy on Monday? Will The One Ring be restricted like many have suggested? Will multiple cards from the Energy deck be banned? What about Legacy? Let us know on social media what you think will happen.
