The Magic: The Gathering Mythic Championship VI is coming next week, and with many MTG players complaining about how "Oko, Thief of Crowns" is dominating the Standard format, fans are wondering if Wizards of the Coast will actually ban or restrict the Throne of Eldraine Planeswalker card before the event, and now the company has given an answer.
Over on Twitter, the Magic Esports account confirmed that there will be no ban and restricted changes prior to Mythic Championship VI, which will take place on November 8 to 10, 2019 at Richmond, Virginia. The tweet also reminds us of the date of the next MTG ban and restricted announcement: November 18, 2019, so it's highly-likely that the company will finally ban Oko in Standard at that date.
WotC recently addressed the problem with Oko during a Magic Arena livestream, and said that they underestimated the Throne of Eldraine card when they designed it.
Even though many Magic players are not happy with this decision not to ban Oko before Mythic Championship VI, it's probably the best for MCVI competitors who are required to submit decklists ahead of the event since they would have little time to prepare if WotC decides to ban Oko before the big tournament. That could also potentially hurt the MTG consumers' confidence more since banning an expensive card that was just released in the latest MTG set at an earlier date could make them feel like it's just a waste of purchase.
Of course, many fans are not happy with this news since they will have to endure watching more Oko decks ruin the fun at MCVI, so they shared their reactions with memes on the tweet:
Here's what WotC's Ian Duke said in the last MTG ban and restricted announcement earlier this month:
"Finally, we're aware of a few other community concerns regarding the Standard environment, including that early acceleration into planeswalkers can be frustrating and that the color green is strong across a variety of Standard archetypes. We'll continue to monitor the health of the environment, but feel it's important to allow the metagame to adjust to the absence of 'Field of the Dead' before further evaluation."
So it looks like competitive Standard players will have to either play Oko decks (Bant Food, Sultai Food, Simic Food, or Bant Ramp) or build decks geared to beating Oko decks. We've already seen many copies of Oko at past weekend's Mythic Championship Qualifiers (MCQ), and Mythic Championship VII will most likely have a similar unfun meta, and we'll probably see a lot of Oko mirror match-ups.
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