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.
There will be no B&R changes prior to #MythicChampionshipVI
— Magic Esports (@MagicEsports) October 29, 2019
The next B&R Announcement will be November 18th, 2019
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:
— Michael (@jonasdash) October 29, 2019
— Orzhov Jester (@Jester_SB) October 29, 2019
Magic ElkSports pic.twitter.com/h1wD6ED6g2
— Joshua Blankenship (@deathriteramen) October 29, 2019
I expect myself and other humans to tune in for about this long. If they’re still embedding the stream in webpages, though, the viewership numbers will still appear solid. pic.twitter.com/RxW2OoGu7U
— Nate Green (@NastierNate) October 29, 2019
#MythicChampionshipVI #MTG pic.twitter.com/EBkG8oDRXw
— Emmett. Him/His/Hamtaro (@TheGreenyTea) October 29, 2019
— Joey D (@Deathnstuff) October 29, 2019
This is the second "no emergency bans" in the last 6 months. 1) Ideally there shouldn't be a perception that an emergency ban is needed that often, 2) now every time they don't announce there won't be an emergency ban, people will speculate...
— Ari Zax (@argzax) October 29, 2019
Hot take...stop printing planeswalkers that ruin every format. Static abilities are miserable on planeswalkers and wrenn and six has made legacy blue stew the best plan. Vintage had Karn problems and now we have narset. Thanks @wizards_magic
— HacksMTG (@HacksMtg) October 29, 2019
— Johnny Knight of the Old Code | Colossus Hammer (@ColossusHammer) October 29, 2019
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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