STANDARD
As is often the case, the Standard card pool rotation with the release of Dominaria United caused quite a shakeup, with cards from the new set finding their places into decks, and many of last year's cards shifting context within the new metagame. As the format has settled into place, the color black has proven powerful and prolific, and makes up the foundation of many of the top decks. Despite that commonly shared color, we're seeing good diversity among competitive decks and strategies, and player engagement with the format has been healthy.
To provide a small push against the color black's play rate among competitive decks, we're choosing to ban one black card. We discussed several different options, as no single black card stood out as a major power outlier played by all decks containing black. Ultimately, we decided that banning The Meathook Massacre was the best choice, as it's one of the most powerful black cards in the format, is especially powerful against specific archetypes (decks relying on a lot of small creatures), and has had its time to shine in Standard for over a year.
With The Brothers' War on the horizon, we anticipate the new cards entering the format to provide tools for other decks and color combinations. In the meantime, we expect this little shakeup will help keep Standard enjoyable and trending toward an even healthier spot going forward as the card pool expands.
MODERN
Modern has been in a healthy place since the last banned and restricted update, with good diversity among archetypes and even the most popular competitive decks occupying a relatively small slice of the metagame (about 5–6% each, on Magic Online). However, as tabletop Modern play continues to rebound since the height of the pandemic, we've decided to enact a change that we've been considering for some time by banning Yorion, Sky Nomad.
Yorion most commonly appears as a companion in Four-Color Omnath decks, which show a strong win rate and, according to our matchup data, are likely to continue to rise in popularity. In addition to game-balance concerns with the deck, we're also factoring in the physical dexterity requirements of playing with a large deck for tabletop. We're wary of the metagame reaching a point where players are playing the deck because of its perceived strength and win rate despite not enjoying how cumbersome it can be to operate.
While these physical dexterity issues exist to a lesser degree in other formats (like Pioneer), Modern specifically entails more shuffling and other physical card manipulation because of the deep card pool of card-selection spells, fetch lands, and so on. Cards encouraging large decks, like Battle of Wits, have existed in the past, but usually on the fringes of competitive play rather than as one of the strongest decks.
Finally, we've also heard from many players that the repeated triggers caused by Yorion and many of the cards surrounding it can lead to repetitive gameplay patterns and long games with lots of downtime between the other player's actions. It's important that the net player experience playing with the top decks is a fun one, and while we're okay with such decks existing, it can make the format less enjoyable when these patterns are associated with one of the strongest decks over a long period of time.
Therefore, to make Modern as fun and accessible as it can be for all types of players, Yorion, Sky Nomad is banned in Modern.
1. They decided to ban one card from the competitive mono black deck and meathook was the best choice. Also “Brothers war” will likely bring new tools for he deck making Meathook even easier to ban
2. The win rate on 4-color omnath was way to high and players were complaining on it and yorion was the key
Good riddance to MM in Standard. Overjoyed that it is gone. I have a feeling B players are just going to dip into WB and WBx (Mardu and Esper) for their mass removal needs though. Maybe Karn's Sylex may see a little boost in play as well although it is a far weaker replacement for MM.
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Now get rid of Yorion in Explorer as well and I'll be happy. I just can't stand that card, if I wanted to play with unwieldy stacks of cards I'd play Commander, not 2-player formats. I was half expecting them to do something about Greasefang as well though, T3 Parhelion II is a miserable play experience I'd rather avoid.
The Meathook Massacre gone should help aggro decks a fair bit, the Domain sweeper is pretty mediocre if you're playing monoblack, and while Path of Peril or Bloodline Culling can be devastating against small creature aggro, they don't have the life swing that can put the game beyond reach, Liliana may be a problem further down the road but she sells packsis too new to the format to ban yet, and she's not as effective against decks that fill up the board, or, ironically, Black-based aggro since they can just discard boxers or skeletons to her +1 to play them later.
I agree that Mono-B may dip into white and/or red to mitigate the loss of MM, oh well, our FNM just got better, the 2 whales playing MM decks will have to find something else:rolleyes:.
Really surprised Breach Station didn't get hit, and REALLY surprised Iteration got to stay in Modern. That card is 110% format breaking.
Expressive Iteration is rather unsubtle about how good it is, although I get the feeling it gives quite a lot of decks a more subtle edge than drawing 3 cards instead of 2 for cheap will. Notably, I always preferred removal over Expressive Iteration in Indomitable Creativity decks simply because removal won me the game more often.
Underworld BreachGrinding Station only started getting markedly good instead of kinda fringe in the last few weeks, and I've consistently had trouble winning with that against the king, UR Tempo (at least in Game 1). I find it generally cannot assemble its combo fast enough to truly threaten the Turn 4 combo against all opponents (e.g. Calibrated Blast generally outspeeds you).
Much as I enjoy playing Meathook Massacre, that's the right call.
Plus, with some luck, maybe this will bring the price down enough to make a paper copy worth getting.
It could possibly bring down the paper price but I have a feeling Pioneer will play it increasingly and it may not drop a whole lot. Just a hunch.
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Speaking of expensive cards... It amuses me that there are now Indomitable Creativity decks. The card stars at €13 on Cardmarket (English, NM), with the foil starting at €36...
This used to be a chaff mythic and I bought my foil for 99 Eurocents!!!!
Speaking of expensive cards... It amuses me that there are now Indomitable Creativity decks. The card stars at €13 on Cardmarket (English, NM), with the foil starting at €36...
This used to be a chaff mythic and I bought my foil for 99 Eurocents!!!!
that can happen for any card (but most are because of commander)
spirit of resistance was probably the least played card that should be put in nearly every single 5-color commander deck they finally got the slap in the face of how good it is when Jodah, the Unifier and Jared Cathalion came to existence (it was like 30 cents from the beginning till kaldheim (esika) then it became a $3 and today…………$25)
With the glut of Monored haste in lower ranked and unranked on arena, it was the only life gain to get you back out of the hole against red. While it was definitely over tuned, I wish there were at least some other serviceable early game board wipes.
Even Doomskar, again. It doesn't have to be black, but there is so much haste in Standard, right now, even Temporary Lockdown barely does anything.
At least having other lower CMC board wipes could help stem the aggro tide. Standard hasn't been able to find a solid Aggro • Midrange • Control balance in a long time; and WotC clearly doesn't like Johnny's, anymore.
With the glut of Monored haste in lower ranked and unranked on arena, it was the only life gain to get you back out of the hole against red. While it was definitely over tuned, I wish there were at least some other serviceable early game board wipes.
I've seen some people saying mono-B is dead without Meathook, but they still have an excellent curve and being on the wrong side of Invoke Despair is still one of the most brutal things that could happen to you in current Standard. Meathook ban means that mono-B has an exploitable flaw on their game plan, as opposed to before where no matter wether you tried to go wide, tall, grind or aggro them, they could always one-up you with the right cards.
Fable will be annoying, but Red's card pool is otherwise a bit lacking at the moment so I think it's fine. Aggro will be on the rise which is great to counterbalance Blue Djinn which is even more obnoxious. Esper will still be strong, but I think the combo of "adjustable wrath + creatures that grow themselves" was always the main draw of the deck so dunno how it'll fare. Overall, I'm excited for the ban.
As for Yorion... Yeah, screw Companions and good riddance.
2004 Standard: hm the only two decks that are viable right now are Ravager Affinity and Ravager Affinity hate, basically the very definition of a card game being broken, let's ban just Skullclamp and wait a few months to see where that goes
2022 Standard: to provide a small push against the color black's play rate among competitive decks,
Oh by the way I wouldn't get your hopes up the the meathook massacre going down in price
Because there’s a decent chance pioneer will easily use it. And second it’s possibly one of the best one the zulaport cutthroat type cards in commander
No idea how wandering emperor survived. Most broken planeswalker in standard
Agreed 100 percent. I hate that card and its terrible design. I am sure it will see an uptick in play now that MM is gone. It and Fable also need to go in Standard.
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I am asking honestly, because I really don't know why. She's basically "exile target creature" or "combat trick that will save you a blocker/attacker" for 2WW.
I am asking honestly, because I really don't know why. She's basically "exile target creature" or "combat trick that will save you a blocker/attacker" for 2WW.
While I'd prefer a Standard player's perspective on this, I can answer (to a certain extent) as a Modern player - The Wandering Emperor is that good at saving your butt. Her removal lets a control/midrange player claw their way back into the game from considerably behind. And costing only 4 mana vs. Lolth's or Wrenn and Seven's 5 matters when it's your life points on the line.
The Wandering Emperor's Flash and ability to use her abilities at instant speed (once) also lets her be one of the very few planeswalkers who fits well in a draw-go strategy (this may be more prominent in Modern than Standard).
The Wandering Emperor's token production also lets her be a viable win con who puts pressure on opponents turns sooner than Grand Master of Flowers (with the wrong deck contents) or at least 1 turn sooner than 5-cmc walkers.
(I am speaking as someone who legit tried Kaito Shizuki in a Modern Indomitable Creativity deck and found that The Wandering Emperor was flat-out winning me more games more often. Sheer token production and even card filtering are often not enough compared to dealing with various flying, evasive, huge, disruptive, etc. threats. The Wandering Emperor feels like a more expensive Solitude who's a better win con.)
Instant speed white removal in a color that already has instant speed white removal. On a hard to remove planeswalker. And you can't attack the Emperor as it has flashed into play then gets to turn around and cast more protective creatures next turn and click up vs. an aggro deck. Its a huge tempo swing in a color that doesn't need that type of above the curve tempo swing. And 2 life to boot!
I would be okay with the Flash ability as long as the Emperor died using her -2 ability AND hack off the 2 life as well. As it stands exactly what Lectrys said above. And if not you should be able to change targets and attack the Emperor after she flashes in.
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Agreed with all above about emperor.
It's the flash abilities and then untap to do it again that's backbreaking. It nullifies your attack, kills your best attacker, gives a 2/2 blocker and gains life all for the rediculously low price of four mana.
Oh by the way I wouldn't get your hopes up the the meathook massacre going down in price
Because there’s a decent chance pioneer will easily use it. And second it’s possibly one of the best one the zulaport cutthroat type cards in commander
It's gone down about $15 since the ban announcement, looks like.
The Wandering Emperor is not nearly as ubiquitous as The Meathook Massacre and getting rid of both the best boardwipe and the best single target removal would likely shift the meta a lot more dramatically than intended.
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The meathook massacre is banned
Modern
Yorion, Sky Nomad is banned
STANDARD
As is often the case, the Standard card pool rotation with the release of Dominaria United caused quite a shakeup, with cards from the new set finding their places into decks, and many of last year's cards shifting context within the new metagame. As the format has settled into place, the color black has proven powerful and prolific, and makes up the foundation of many of the top decks. Despite that commonly shared color, we're seeing good diversity among competitive decks and strategies, and player engagement with the format has been healthy.
To provide a small push against the color black's play rate among competitive decks, we're choosing to ban one black card. We discussed several different options, as no single black card stood out as a major power outlier played by all decks containing black. Ultimately, we decided that banning The Meathook Massacre was the best choice, as it's one of the most powerful black cards in the format, is especially powerful against specific archetypes (decks relying on a lot of small creatures), and has had its time to shine in Standard for over a year.
With The Brothers' War on the horizon, we anticipate the new cards entering the format to provide tools for other decks and color combinations. In the meantime, we expect this little shakeup will help keep Standard enjoyable and trending toward an even healthier spot going forward as the card pool expands.
MODERN
Modern has been in a healthy place since the last banned and restricted update, with good diversity among archetypes and even the most popular competitive decks occupying a relatively small slice of the metagame (about 5–6% each, on Magic Online). However, as tabletop Modern play continues to rebound since the height of the pandemic, we've decided to enact a change that we've been considering for some time by banning Yorion, Sky Nomad.
Yorion most commonly appears as a companion in Four-Color Omnath decks, which show a strong win rate and, according to our matchup data, are likely to continue to rise in popularity. In addition to game-balance concerns with the deck, we're also factoring in the physical dexterity requirements of playing with a large deck for tabletop. We're wary of the metagame reaching a point where players are playing the deck because of its perceived strength and win rate despite not enjoying how cumbersome it can be to operate.
While these physical dexterity issues exist to a lesser degree in other formats (like Pioneer), Modern specifically entails more shuffling and other physical card manipulation because of the deep card pool of card-selection spells, fetch lands, and so on. Cards encouraging large decks, like Battle of Wits, have existed in the past, but usually on the fringes of competitive play rather than as one of the strongest decks.
Finally, we've also heard from many players that the repeated triggers caused by Yorion and many of the cards surrounding it can lead to repetitive gameplay patterns and long games with lots of downtime between the other player's actions. It's important that the net player experience playing with the top decks is a fun one, and while we're okay with such decks existing, it can make the format less enjoyable when these patterns are associated with one of the strongest decks over a long period of time.
Therefore, to make Modern as fun and accessible as it can be for all types of players, Yorion, Sky Nomad is banned in Modern.
1. They decided to ban one card from the competitive mono black deck and meathook was the best choice. Also “Brothers war” will likely bring new tools for he deck making Meathook even easier to ban
2. The win rate on 4-color omnath was way to high and players were complaining on it and yorion was the key
source: the mothership
Now if they would just ban Fable of the Mirror-Breaker as well. But a good day overall.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
The Meathook Massacre gone should help aggro decks a fair bit, the Domain sweeper is pretty mediocre if you're playing monoblack, and while Path of Peril or Bloodline Culling can be devastating against small creature aggro, they don't have the life swing that can put the game beyond reach, Liliana may be a problem further down the road but she
sells packsis too new to the format to ban yet, and she's not as effective against decks that fill up the board, or, ironically, Black-based aggro since they can just discard boxers or skeletons to her +1 to play them later.I agree that Mono-B may dip into white and/or red to mitigate the loss of MM, oh well, our FNM just got better, the 2 whales playing MM decks will have to find something else:rolleyes:.
Plus, with some luck, maybe this will bring the price down enough to make a paper copy worth getting.
Expressive Iteration is rather unsubtle about how good it is, although I get the feeling it gives quite a lot of decks a more subtle edge than drawing 3 cards instead of 2 for cheap will. Notably, I always preferred removal over Expressive Iteration in Indomitable Creativity decks simply because removal won me the game more often.
Underworld Breach Grinding Station only started getting markedly good instead of kinda fringe in the last few weeks, and I've consistently had trouble winning with that against the king, UR Tempo (at least in Game 1). I find it generally cannot assemble its combo fast enough to truly threaten the Turn 4 combo against all opponents (e.g. Calibrated Blast generally outspeeds you).
It could possibly bring down the paper price but I have a feeling Pioneer will play it increasingly and it may not drop a whole lot. Just a hunch.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
This used to be a chaff mythic and I bought my foil for 99 Eurocents!!!!
that can happen for any card (but most are because of commander)
spirit of resistance was probably the least played card that should be put in nearly every single 5-color commander deck they finally got the slap in the face of how good it is when Jodah, the Unifier and Jared Cathalion came to existence (it was like 30 cents from the beginning till kaldheim (esika) then it became a $3 and today…………$25)
I'd take any of the old standbys:
Even Doomskar, again. It doesn't have to be black, but there is so much haste in Standard, right now, even Temporary Lockdown barely does anything.
At least having other lower CMC board wipes could help stem the aggro tide. Standard hasn't been able to find a solid Aggro • Midrange • Control balance in a long time; and WotC clearly doesn't like Johnny's, anymore.
I've seen some people saying mono-B is dead without Meathook, but they still have an excellent curve and being on the wrong side of Invoke Despair is still one of the most brutal things that could happen to you in current Standard. Meathook ban means that mono-B has an exploitable flaw on their game plan, as opposed to before where no matter wether you tried to go wide, tall, grind or aggro them, they could always one-up you with the right cards.
Fable will be annoying, but Red's card pool is otherwise a bit lacking at the moment so I think it's fine. Aggro will be on the rise which is great to counterbalance Blue Djinn which is even more obnoxious. Esper will still be strong, but I think the combo of "adjustable wrath + creatures that grow themselves" was always the main draw of the deck so dunno how it'll fare. Overall, I'm excited for the ban.
As for Yorion... Yeah, screw Companions and good riddance.
2022 Standard: to provide a small push against the color black's play rate among competitive decks,
Boy have they done a 180.
Because there’s a decent chance pioneer will easily use it. And second it’s possibly one of the best one the zulaport cutthroat type cards in commander
Agreed 100 percent. I hate that card and its terrible design. I am sure it will see an uptick in play now that MM is gone. It and Fable also need to go in Standard.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I am asking honestly, because I really don't know why. She's basically "exile target creature" or "combat trick that will save you a blocker/attacker" for 2WW.
In Arena, I had much more harder time against Grand Master of Flowers or Lolth, Spider Queen, and currently have troubles against Wrenn and Seven...
But maybe I am just unskilled player.
While I'd prefer a Standard player's perspective on this, I can answer (to a certain extent) as a Modern player - The Wandering Emperor is that good at saving your butt. Her removal lets a control/midrange player claw their way back into the game from considerably behind. And costing only 4 mana vs. Lolth's or Wrenn and Seven's 5 matters when it's your life points on the line.
The Wandering Emperor's Flash and ability to use her abilities at instant speed (once) also lets her be one of the very few planeswalkers who fits well in a draw-go strategy (this may be more prominent in Modern than Standard).
The Wandering Emperor's token production also lets her be a viable win con who puts pressure on opponents turns sooner than Grand Master of Flowers (with the wrong deck contents) or at least 1 turn sooner than 5-cmc walkers.
(I am speaking as someone who legit tried Kaito Shizuki in a Modern Indomitable Creativity deck and found that The Wandering Emperor was flat-out winning me more games more often. Sheer token production and even card filtering are often not enough compared to dealing with various flying, evasive, huge, disruptive, etc. threats. The Wandering Emperor feels like a more expensive Solitude who's a better win con.)
Instant speed white removal in a color that already has instant speed white removal. On a hard to remove planeswalker. And you can't attack the Emperor as it has flashed into play then gets to turn around and cast more protective creatures next turn and click up vs. an aggro deck. Its a huge tempo swing in a color that doesn't need that type of above the curve tempo swing. And 2 life to boot!
I would be okay with the Flash ability as long as the Emperor died using her -2 ability AND hack off the 2 life as well. As it stands exactly what Lectrys said above. And if not you should be able to change targets and attack the Emperor after she flashes in.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
It's the flash abilities and then untap to do it again that's backbreaking. It nullifies your attack, kills your best attacker, gives a 2/2 blocker and gains life all for the rediculously low price of four mana.
It's gone down about $15 since the ban announcement, looks like.
The Wandering Emperor is not nearly as ubiquitous as The Meathook Massacre and getting rid of both the best boardwipe and the best single target removal would likely shift the meta a lot more dramatically than intended.