On Nov. 10, Wizards of the Coast shared one of the most anticipated Magic: The Gathering Banned & Restricted updates in recent years. Players have been vocal about issues with the competitive Standard format and the Viven Cauldron deck especially, a blue/red powerhouse that dominates the Edge of Eternities Standard format after the recent rotation. Now, as officially announced by Wizards of the Coast, Vivi Orniter, Screaming Nemesis, and Proft’s Eidetic Memory are all banned in Standard. Heartfire Hero is banned in Pioneer, Entomb and Nadu, Winged Wisdom are banned in Legacy, and finally High Tide is banned in Pauper.
These bans surely don’t come as a surprise. Vivi has long been singled out as the biggest offender in Standard, but many were calling for Proft’s Eidetic Memory (an enchantment that grows your creatures every time you draw more than one card in a turn, and also replaces itself) to be hit too. Screaming Nemesis was also felt to be extremely overpowered, pushing red decks too far above the competition.
Beside Standard, the other format most affected by the update is surely Legacy. Entomb was a key card for the “reanimator” strategy, a classic of the format that will hardly be viable from now on. And Nadu, well, is Nadu. No need to comment on that.
While MTG players will always call for bans, this latest announcement comes on the heels of unprecedented support from Pro Players as well. Hall of Famer Luis Scott-Vargas pointed out in August that the state of the game and Vivi’s dominance would lead to a decline in participation in Standard events, a prediction that sadly came true. Players’ complaints were also aggravated by the ongoing controversy surrounding Universes Beyond sets.
As a Pauper player, I’m most happy about the High Tide announcement, as I won’t have to suffer through turn 4 wins and turns that last for 20 minutes anymore. The biggest shakeup, however, has happened for Standard. While many players also called for the ban of Into the Floodmaw, hitting Vivi and Proft’s dismantles the most popular and powerful deck in the format, opening up the ground for a plethora of new strategies, and hopefully, revitalizing player attendance.
