Image: Wizards of the Coast/ Illus by Chippy
Today, Wizards of the Coast has announced its Magic: The Gathering banned and restricted update, and unfortunately, they're not the cards many players are hoping to get banned.
Only Deathrite Shaman and Gitaxian Probe are banned in Legacy format. There are no changes in other formats so if you were hoping that Goblin Chainwhirler would be banned in Standard, or Stoneforge Mystic would be unbanned, you'd probably be upset by now.
"Over time, we've seen a reduction in diversity of blue-based non-combo decks, with what were once more differentiated aggressive, midrange, and controlling archetypes condensing into a similar core of the strongest cards," Ian Duke explained. "Deathrite Shaman's powerful mana-fixing capability allows these decks to commonly play up to four colors, choosing from the most efficient cards in the environment. Its flexible abilities allow the decks to easily switch between aggressive and controlling stances, making them difficult to attack. Additionally, the incidental graveyard hate provided by Deathrite Shaman's abilities automatically protect against offbeat strategies like Dredge and Reanimator without requiring deck-building concessions against the rest of the metagame."
On why Wizards of the Coast decided to ban Gitaxian Probe: "We like that Legacy has a heavier focus on spellcasting and cards in hand compared to permanents on the battlefield, as this provides a different type of play experience compared to other formats that some players deeply enjoy. Gitaxian Probe undermines this philosophy by removing some of the psychological and bluffing aspects of gameplay, and gives proactive decks a strong advantage by knowing when and how to play around traditional answers to their strategies, like counterspells and permanent removal."
Ian Duke also went on to explain why Goblin Chainwhirler was not banned in Standard, saying that the win rates of mono-red and red-black decks are in a normal and healthy range. "Mono-Red had a 49.9% (non-mirror-match) win rate and black-red had a 51–52% win rate," Duke explains. Grand Prix Singapore and Grand Prix Pittsburgh proved that it's not just the "Chainwhirler decks" that can Top 8. We saw Blue-Black Midrange and Blue-White God Pharaoh's Gift top the competitions. Recently, Dylan Brown won the U.S. Nationals with Blue Black Midrange and there were no Chainwhirlers in the Top 4.
Many players were speculating that Stoneforge Mystic would be unbanned in Modern and/or Legacy, which explains the recent price spikes but it looks like Wizards didn't find any reason to free the powerful Equipment-focused creature.
Are you happy with the latest Magic: The Gathering ban and restricted update? Or do you think they should have banned or unbanned certain cards? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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