Wizards of the Coast has announced it is finally putting an end to Alrund's Epiphany in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic The Gathering's Standard format. It, and two other cards, are officially bann🥀ed as of today, with more cards being chopped for other formats🌜.
In Legacy, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is being banned, continuing Modern Horizons 2's massive impact on a wide number of eternal formats.
In the latest , the biggest news is that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Alrund's Epiphany is now banned in the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Standard format. The card debuted in 2021's Kaldheim, where it sat mostly dormant until the Standard rotation later in the year. Thanks to the high-power answers to it rotating out, as well as the addition of highly synergistic cards like Galvanic Iteration in later sets, Alrund's Epiphany then utterly dominated the metagame for months.
Talking about the ban, Wizards said that Alrund's Epiphany has mostly been a problem at high level, competitive play, rather than in best-of-one matches on Arena. This was most keenly felt at the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:World Championships late last year, where over half of 🦄the top 16 decks used the maximum allowed number of copies of it. The ban is to ensure the competitive scene allows for "more mid-speed and slow archetypes".
Alrund's Epiphany isn't the only card getting banned in Standard. Another popular card in blue control decks was Divide By Zero, which bounced a creature or spell back to its owner's hand. Wizards pointed out an interaction between it and Lier, Disciple of the Drowned and Hullbreaker Horror from the two recent Innistrad sets that allows you to effectively lock your opponent out of the game as a primary reason for the ban.
Finally, Faceless Haven is also being banned to nerf mono-white and mono-green aggro decks. Faceless Haven is a land that can become a creature, which means it could easily slip under a lot of ways other decks try and control aggro decks, like board wipes that don't normally hit lands. Faceless Haven has been a problematic card before, as it was part of a combo with The Book of Exalted Deeds in the short-lived Standard 2022 format, and allowed you to make the game all but unwinnable for your opponent.
The other noteworthy ban comes for Legacy, an eternal (non-rotating) format that prioritises high-powered play that is more constrained and moderated than Vi🧸ntage. In it, the Modern Horizons 2 card Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is being banned, just because it was too powerful.
Ragavan does everything. It only costs one red, but when it deals combat damage it gives you a treasure token and exiles the top card of their library to let you play that turn. As Wizards puts it, "early mana and card advantage can take over a game even more so than in other formats". Ragavan helped games end before they'd even really begun, especially in the format-dominant Izzet (red/blue) Delver decks.
For less major bannings, Teferi, Time Raveller has been 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:digitally rebalanced for Arena's Historic format. The card was previously completely banned, but with an increased starting Loyalty and making the static ability only stop your opponents from casting spells on your turn it has been deemed suitable for the format once more. Memory Lapse was less lucky, and it's been moved from a temporary suspension to a permanent ban.
This is one of the most substantial ban updates in months, and it comes hot on the heels of recent bans aimed at Magic's commons-only 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pauper format which saw 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Atog, Bonder's Ornament and Prophetic Prism get banned to knock down the meta-favourite Affinity decks. Hopefully, these bans can help revitalise Standard, while also knocking the price of Ragavan down for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Commander players!
