Wizards of the Coast have announced the next round of changes to several formats of play for Magic: The Gathering with some much needed bans and restrictions to cards that are limiting the development of a new meta relative to before the arrival of the Core Set 2021. The following cards have been banned or restricted as of August 3:

Standard

  • Wilderness Reclamation is banned. Growth Spiral is banned. Teferi, Time Raveler is banned. Cauldron Familiar is banned.

Pioneer

  • Inverter of Truth is banned. Kethis, the Hidden Hand is banned. Walking Ballista is banned. Underworld Breach is banned.

Historic

  • Wilderness Reclamation is suspended. Teferi, Time Raveler is suspended.

Brawl

  • Teferi, Time Raveler is banned.

For Standard, the changes come as little surprise. Following the results of the Players Tour 3 and 4, new decks have emerged but ultimately have been unable to displace the meta from before. However, Wizards of the Coast has stated that these changes fall outside of their usual philosophy when it comes to standard, and they consider it an experiment.

Normally, this kind of popularity and the prevalence of meta decks is a normal part of Magic: The Gathering and is often solved by simply allowing the decks to shine temporarily until the Standard rotation forces them to exit. This allows players to get value from their decks, even if they are slightly overrepresented.

However, due to the ongoing global pandemic, social distancing has prevented players from engaging in Standard play outside of digital platforms, where the rate at which players can rack up wins with decks is much higher than in person. As a result, the bans listed above hope to curb the prevalence of certain meta decks in a way that is outside of the normal plan of simply waiting for the Standard rotation to occur.

Obviously, Growth Spiral was a key candidate for a ban, which makes up 68% of the day 1 metagame at the Players Tour Finals and represents 25-30% of the metagame at Mythic ranking on the Arena ladder. For similar reasons, Black-Red (or Jund) Sacrifice with the Cauldron Familiar and Witch’s Oven combo are seeing a ban. Due to a high overall win rate, and the cumbersome need to manage several triggers in digital play, Cauldron Familiar was banned.

With these changes there is no doubt that we will begin to see a shift in decks at higher levels of play, and now that these two troublesome decks are nowhere nearly as effective as before, it would not be surprising to see a slower meta that pivots away from aggro decks.

Outside of Standard play, Pioneer, Historic, and Brawl should see significant changes with a number of bans. For those players who are more interested in non-Standard play, it is well worth reading the full and lengthy post by clicking here.

Source: magic.wizards.com

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