Magic: The Gathering August 2018 Ban and Restricted Announcement

Image: Wizards of the Coast/ Illus by Tim Hildebrandt

Wizards of the Coast has made its Magic: The Gathering banned and restricted announcement today: "No changes to any formats." They didn't provide a write-up on why no changes were made but it would be nice to see them address the perceived problems and explain why certain cards like Goblin Chainwhirler didn't get banned.

Standard Mono-Red or Red/Black decks that use Goblin Chainwhirler were considered to be overpowered since the card was printed but other non-Chainwhirler decks have also shown some impressive results in Magic Online and Grand Prix events so Wizards of the Coast probably didn't see the need to ban it because they think Standard is balanced.

Some players also hoped that the Core 2019 buy-a-box promo Nexus of Fate would get banned in Standard because of its limited availability to players. The Professor even addressed that issue recently, but Wizards didn't explain why it didn't get banned. While Turbo Fog and Control decks that use Nexus of Fate are viable, I don't think they're overpowered. Standard is also rotating when Guilds of Ravnica comes out in October so the format will change a lot by that time.

As for Modern, I know some players who want Krark-Clan Ironworks or Ancient Stirrings to be banned because of the deck's power level but Wizards probably didn't think that they're too dominant. Humans deck is getting more powerful but there are ways to deal with it like Blue/White Control decks' Terminus and Jund's abundance of removal spells.

Do you think they should have banned or unbanned some Magic cards? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

The next Magic banned and restricted announcement will be on October 1, 2018.

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