Magic: The Gathering made an announcement this morning banning a truck load of cards in various formats. The headliner being Nadu, Winged Wisdom and Grief in the Modern format. The ban comes amid it being one of the most dominant decks on the Pro Tour in recent history.
Bant Nadu decks finished Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3 with an astonishing 59% win rate, well surpassing Grief’s pre-ban win rate of 54%. It even beat Hogaak’s 56% win rate in Modern. Bant Nadu decks had only two bad matchups at the Pro Tour: Four-Color Nadu and Jeskai Wizards. Jeskai Wizards performed very poorly overall, with only a 34% win rate against all decks.
Here are the cards banned today and the formats affected:
Standard:
- No changes.
Pioneer:
- Amalia Benavides Aguirre is banned.
- Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord is banned.
Modern:
- Nadu, Winged Wisdom is banned.
- Grief is banned.
Legacy:
- Grief is banned.
Vintage:
- Urza’s Saga is restricted.
- Vexing Bauble is restricted.
Alchemy:
- No changes.
Explorer:
- Amalia Benavides Aguirre is banned.
- Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord is banned.
Historic:
- No changes.
Timeless:
- No changes.
Brawl:
- No changes
These bans shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. We previously covered an article detailing WOTC warning that Amalia may be banned soon.
Grief was already a shoo-in for a Legacy banning, as even event hosts were cancelling events over how miserable the card was making the format.
It is clear that the greater Legacy community feels that Wizards of the Coast should have banned Grief from Legacy for the health of the format. This feeling has created a lot of discourse, the majority of which has been around how players will be shying away from Legacy until the next B&R announcement in August. This, along with other major Legacy events in the region, indicate to us that our event will likely be the one many players choose to forgo.
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It’s also no surprise WOTC decided to ban Nadu. Even the winner of Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3, Simon Nielsen, said:
Yeah, I don’t know. I mean… this deck is just crazy stupid and I’m glad I got to play it before it’s gone because it’s gonna be gone.
Simon Nielsen
Now that Nadu, Winged Wisdom has finally been banned, players can start building or at least be more competitive with the decks they want to play in Modern. The format has largely been at a standstill since the Pro Tour MH3 results.
Modern had become a format where you either invested in the best deck to win until Nadu was banned, or invested in a deck that couldn’t compete with Nadu until it was banned. Now that this is over, the format can continue to evolve.
What will become the best Modern deck post-Nadu ban is yet to be known. The highest win rate deck other than Nadu at Pro Tour MH3 was Mono-Black Necro; however, now that Grief is banned, that deck has been nerfed too.
Here are the official explanations for the cards banned in Pioneer & Modern:
MTG Pioneer B&R Explanation for Amalia & Sorin
Over the past several months, we’ve been able to gather data and observe results from a full season of Pioneer Regional Championship Qualifiers as well as data from other tabletop events and various Magic Online leagues and challenges. The format has two clear outliers that we’ll be addressing today: Vampires and Amalia.Since Seth Manfield’s Pro Tour win back in February, Rakdos Vampires has been a growing force in the Pioneer metagame. We’ve gradually seen the deck’s metagame share grow over time, approaching levels we believe to be problematic. The deck’s marquee play of a turn three Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord into Vein Ripper is so potent that many decks struggle to interact with it at all. Traditional removal needs to be backed up with a sacrificial creature for you to even target it, and in doing so, you’re still facing Sorin, have lost two cards, and lost some life, while they’ve gained some life. It is an exchange that is difficult to come back from. And that’s only if your answers and battlefield presence haven’t already been picked apart by the deck’s efficient Thoughtseize/Fatal Push one-two punch.
With such a large metagame share, above 30% over the RCQ season, it is clear that the deck’s existence is shrinking the diversity of the metagame to a degree we deem unhealthy. While it is fairly likely that Rakdos Vampires players will be able to transition back into playing a more traditional Rakdos Midrange deck, we believe the removal of the turn three pressure event should open up the metagame a bit, giving other strategies some breathing room.
While Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord has existed in Pioneer for quite a few years without causing any problems, we have seen how the release of a single powerful top-end Vampire has brought it right to the front of the metagame. When considering which part of a two-card combo to act on, one consideration we make is how likely one of the two cards is to cause an issue with other cards in the environment or with potential future cards that may exist one day. Paying a card’s printed mana cost is generally a safe and fair strategy, while being able to discount a card by several mana is sometimes too strong. For this reason, Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord is banned in Pioneer.
As we’ve stated in the previous Banned and Restricted announcement, the Amalia deck is one we’ve had our eyes on for a while. Creature-based combo decks are something we believe adds positive texture to a format’s metagame when reasonable. Unfortunately, this particular version of a creature combo has too many problems.
The deck uses Amalia Benavides Aguirre, Wildgrowth Walker, and various ways to gain life to kick off a series of triggers that normally ends with a twenty-power Amalia, a slew of cards being drawn or milled, a large amount life being gained, and all other creatures being destroyed. And if that wasn’t enough, players have found ways to give Wildgrowth Walker indestructible, causing the game to result in a draw as Amalia triggers an infinite number of times. This is not ideal as a gameplay experience and certainly was not something our team caught during playtesting The Lost Caverns of Ixalan.
In addition to a handful of situations in which the deck causes the game to end in a draw, the full package is quite resilient. Being able to recur various pieces of the combo with cards like Return to the Ranks and Extraction Specialist, while also drawing them directly from your library with Chord of Calling and Collected Company, gives the deck a degree of consistency and power that has made it one of the most successful decks in the format. The combination of power, consistency, and the ability to draw games have led us to ban Amalia Benavides Aguirre in Pioneer.
We considered other cards as well. Treasure Cruise and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker were discussed at length. Our team decided that, while each of the following formats clearly needs a change, we wanted to take an approach that would allow us to make the most important changes necessary to each format without possibly going too far (this will be a common sentiment as you read more about the changes to other formats). We’re confident each of the changes to these formats makes them more fun, but how much more fun? We’d like to observe this set of changes, see how each format evolves, and then decide if more changes are necessary in the next B&R announcement on December 16.
MTG B&R UPDATE AUGUST 26
MTG Modern B&R Explanation for Nadu & Grief
As mentioned in the opening section of this article, the timing of the previous B&R announcement was poor. We believe it is important that players know when to expect changes to formats. As such, we thought it was important to stay committed to the announcement dates we promised. The date leading up to the week of the Modern Pro Tour in Amsterdam was simply too early and would have served us all better being a few weeks after that event instead. This caused the last month and half of Modern to be fairly stagnant. Players knew we were likely to ban Nadu on the next opportunity, but they also knew that the best chance to win an event was likely by playing with Nadu. It was a poor experience for players, stores, and tournament organizers.
With the changes to the cadence of the B&R announcements, we would have likely targeted the end of July, before folks started engaging in the current Modern RCQ season. While we can’t go back in time and remedy that, we can learn from the past and change our approach to the future. And we can certainly take this time now to address the clear issues with the format.
Michael Majors, the lead designer for Modern Horizons 3 and resident Modern format expert, has written a few words about the origin of how Nadu came to be and why we’re banning it today.
For some time now, Grief has been maligned as one of the least fun parts of competitive Modern events. Starting the game down two or three cards from the various one-mana ways it can be returned is quite brutal. Having to mulligan is already painful, but being double Griefed directly afterwards just exacerbates an already unfun experience. Even outside of mulligans, having a turn one answer to a three- or four-power menace creature after an opponent has taken away your best cards is just asking too much.
While Grief is not currently seeing as much play as it has in the past, it is still a format staple used by several decks. Mono-Black Necrodominance, Esper Goryo’s Vengeance, Living End, Rakdos Midrange, and a handful of other decks are still using one-mana cards to abuse Grief’s manaless evoke interaction. In the interest of making the format more fun, we are banning Grief today.
We certainly considered a few other cards to take action against in this announcement—namely The One Ring. While present in several decks, there is no clear The One Ring deck terrorizing Modern. Being a unique combination of self-protection and card advantage, it is a strong card that helps prop up several varied strategies. Ultimately, we decided not to act against The One Ring. The possible problems it may be causing for Modern just aren’t as clear as Nadu and Grief. Once we see how the format evolves after this change, we will continue to observe and evaluate the health of Modern and see which future actions are necessary.
On a more positive note, despite Nadu overshadowing much of the potential of what players can explore with the addition of Modern Horizons 3, we’ve seen a few non-Nadu cards and strategies find success. Energy and Eldrazi decks were themes we took intentional shots at propping up. Necrodominance is the namesake card of a brand-new mono-black strategy. Psychic Frog has transformed previous Izzet Murktide decks into Dimir versions. What else will be discovered as the looming shadow of Nadu is removed?
MTG B&R UPDATE AUGUST 26
The bannings announced today will go into full effect immediately, August 26th, in paper and Magic Online. They will be applied digitally to MTG Arena tomorrow. Read the full B&R announcement here.
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