December 4, 2023 B&R Announcement

[Oversoul]

December 4, 2023, Banned and Restricted Announcement

Announcing changes to Pioneer, Modern, Explorer, and Pauper Constructed formats.

magic.wizards.com

Standard:
No changes

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.

Legacy:
No changes

Vintage:
No changes

Explorer:
Karn, the Great Creator is banned.
Geological Appraiser is banned.

Pauper:
Monastery Swiftspear is banned.

 

[Oversoul]

When making changes to Legacy, we often look at data through the lens of community sentiment. The community is passionate, and we believe the pillars of Legacy that players have enjoyed for many years are very important.

This is kind of vague and I want to give Dan Musser the benefit of the doubt, but I am rather critical of the concept that seems to be expressed here. Firstly, talking about the "lens of community sentiment" raises the problem that none of us is as dumb as all of us. Secondly, I worry that viewing certain cards as "pillars" just because of past performance in the format sets in stone a framework for what Legacy should look like, which rules out changes that might otherwise be on the table.

When Legacy was created in 2004, WotC decided that it wouldn't be a MaskNought format. The redaction of the power-level erratum on Phyrexian Dreadnought and later the unbanning of Illusionary Mask fully removed this aspect of the format, and now the descendants of MaskNought can operate to whatever extent they're able to compete. Those changes were made long before WotC decided that "pillars" are important. Another prominent archetype that WotC initially decided wouldn't be part of Legacy in 2004 was the Mana Drain control deck. But Mana Drain wasn't one of the cards that happened to get another chance back in the window when WotC was in the habit of trimming the ban list. So now, we might not get a chance for Legacy to see Mana Drain unbanned simply because of some vague perception of "community sentiment."

Players want to play with Brainstorm, Force of Will, and Wasteland, and thus they remain even though they would have been removed from other formats long ago due to their ubiquity. Legacy is also powerful enough to absorb cards that would otherwise need to be banned in other formats, hence we seldom take action.

This is exactly the sort of short-sighted diction I've been railing against for years. Now, banning Force of Will and Wasteland would be monumentally stupid unless the goal was to kill Legacy outright. But we should all understand that they're important because they act to police a lot of broken cards all by themselves, holding an array of potentially dominant forces in check and making the format more diverse just because of their presence. That's been true for a long time and it's also been the community sentiment for a long time. But this article doesn't express that sentiment, despite purporting to use community sentiment as a "lens."

Unban Earthcraft, you cowards.

Since the introduction of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth™, and with the releases of Wilds of Eldraine and recently The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, the Legacy metagame has incorporated several new cards and strategies have been evolving.

To name a few: Orcish Bowmasters, Lórien Revealed, Troll of Khazad-dûm, Forth Eorlingas!, Up the Beanstalk, Questing Druid, Beseech the Mirror, and Molten Collapse have all impacted the format in various ways. Bowmasters, being the most impactful of the bunch, has been adopted by various tempo, control, and midrange decks. Even so, the metagame has ample representation from each macro-archetype. With new cards making an impact, strategies adapting, and the metagame shifts taking place, we've decided to move forward with no changes at this time.

Ah, because one of these new cards might shift the metagame such that you cannot unban Goblin Recruiter? Walk me through that logic.

 

[saprolingtoken]

The reasoning from WotC feels contrived, always has. Keep popular cards unbanned because people like them even though they're better than many of the cards that are banned? Sure, why not? Keep those same weak cards banned? Yep, don't want to shake up the format. Also we have a bunch of direct to Modern, high-power sets coming out multiple times a year that will inevitably get some random card banned out of Delver again and create completely new decks. But, you know, community sentiment or something. I'm not sure there is any higher level analysis going on.

And I think that is actually the case. Look at this from Fury's ban in Modern: "We believe the removal of Fury will widen the format, allowing players to explore additional strategies, especially with low-toughness creatures. Finally, fewer overall Rakdos Evoke decks in the metagame will also likely reduce the total number of Grief and Orcish Bowmasters players will encounter."

It has been nearly two months since then and no new "low-toughness" creature decks have popped up just the same decks that have been around for awhile like Zoo, Hammer and Merfolk. And these decks are at about the same play rates post ban too. But there was a cry from the forums, those players hated Fury because they thought it made Infect or whatever pet deck they had unplayable. But that wasn't true because those decks were just bad, Fury or no Fury. That seems to be the reason it was banned, rather the the much more obnoxious Grief. Will there be any reflection on this? No, I don't think so. I think WotC will just ignore that fact and not change the way they approach these things. Randoms online will continue to whine about whatever card they lost to or is unfun and Wizards will continue to listen them, they themselves admitted as much.

Honestly, I have no idea what R&D is thinking these days. Why print a reskinned Cascade in Discover? Cascade has been problematic ever since Alara block so why would they do that again? Why print a card so similar to Bloodbraid Elf? They had to ban that very card in this announcement. These actions do not seem like those of a wise steward.

So I suspect we will never get Mana Drain back. Or Earthcraft. And definitely not Recruiter. I really thought with the Mind's Desire unban we would see more unbans on some of the more reasonable cards but maybe that's just the obligatory unban once every few years.