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Magic: The Gathering Arena Suspends Winota, Joiner of Forces For Historic Digital Format


Wizards of the Coast has announced that it's suspending Winota, Joiner of Forces from Magic: The Gathering's Historic format. The decision to suspsend the red/white legendary Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths card from MTG Arena's eternal format was based on the data from Ranked Historic since it returned in late May.

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According to WotC, decks that use Winota, Joiner of Forces currently represent too large a portion of the Historic metagame, so that's why they are suspending Winota from Historic.

WotC went on to explain the timing of Winota's suspension: "We are making this suspension effective immediately, which is a change from our previously announced practice of providing one-week notice," Wizards said. "As we have worked and learned more about how to manage Historic as a digital-focused format, we feel that the notice period is, on balance, more problematic than beneficial here. The digital nature of Historic play allows us to observe the full format much more closely, and it allows players to respond to format changes more quickly as well. For Historic only, there will be times that we feel the case is compelling enough that we should act immediately, without providing a one-week notice."

Since Winota is still playable in Standard, and only banned in Historic format, WotC will not be issuing any Wildcard grants for those who have the card.

Do you think suspending Winota from Historic is the right decision? Let us know in the comments section below.

The latest suspension for MTG Arena's Historic format will immediately go into effect once today's maintenance is complete, and this includes both Historic Ranked and Traditional Historic Ranked.

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