Banned and Restricted Announcement – November 10, 2025

Standard

Vivi Ornitier is banned.
Screaming Nemesis is banned.
Proft’s Eidetic Memory is banned.

Pioneer

Heartfire Hero is banned.

Modern

No changes

Legacy

Entomb is banned.
Nadu, Winged Wisdom is banned.

Vintage

No changes

Pauper

High Tide is banned.

Alchemy

No changes

Historic

Force of Negation is pre-banned.
Frantic Search is pre-banned.
Mystical Tutor is pre-banned.
Entomb is pre-banned.
Dark Depths is pre-banned.

Timeless

No changes

Brawl

Strip Mine is banned.
Mana Drain is banned.
Chrome Mox is banned
Ancient Tomb is banned.

Effective Date: November 10, 2025

Next Announcement Date: February 9, 2026

View the list of all banned and restricted cards by format.

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Howdy, gamers!

My name is Carmen Klomparens, and I’m a senior game designer on Magic‘s Play Design team. Welcome to the final banned and restricted announcement for 2025. In our summer announcement this year, we saw a number of cards banned in Standard. But in the time since then, it has become clear that additional action would be necessary in a couple of formats. To that end, we’ve got a few different formats seeing changes today, with notes from myself, Jadine Klomparens, Eric Engelhard, Gavin Verhey, and Daniel Xu that speak to changes in tabletop and digital formats. As a reminder from when we announced we would be lightly adjusting the timing of this banning window, we plan to move toward a more frequent announcement cadence to adjust formats as necessary, and there will be more details on that to come before the end of the year. In the meantime, I’m happy to hand the proverbial microphone over to Jadine Klomparens to speak to changes in Standard.

We’re also announcing that the next banned and restricted update will be published February 9, 2026. And as usual, we’ll be on WeeklyMTG on twitch.tv/magic tomorrow, November 11, at 10 a.m. PT to discuss these changes.

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Standard

Written by Jadine Klomparens

Vivi Ornitier is banned.
Screaming Nemesis is banned.
Proft’s Eidetic Memory is banned.

Standard has been in poor shape for the past few months. The Izzet Cauldron deck has cemented itself as the strongest deck in the format and has had unacceptably high win and play rates over a sustained duration. This deck utilizes the Izzet Proft’s Eidetic Memory core that we’ve previously seen power decks like Jeskai Oculus, now taken to a new level with the inclusion of the Vivi Ornitier and Agatha’s Soul Cauldron combo. It has dominated the tournament scene since Standard rotated with the release of Edge of Eternities, placing five or more copies into the Top 8 at all three of the Standard Magic Spotlight Series events that have occurred since then.

7 Island
4 Opt
3 Stormchaser’s Talent
3 Agatha’s Soul Cauldron
1 Abrade
4 Torch the Tower
4 Vivi Ornitier
3 Winternight Stories
3 Into the Flood Maw
3 Mountain
3 Multiversal Passage
2 Duelist of the Mind
4 Fear of Missing Out
4 Riverpyre Verge
4 Spirebluff Canal
4 Proft’s Eidetic Memory
4 Quantum Riddler


1 Fresh Start
2 Get Out
1 Duelist of the Mind
2 Spell Pierce
1 Obliterating Bolt
2 Unable to Scream
2 Annul
1 Abrade
1 Pyroclasm
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Ral, Crackling Wit

The deck has a strong fair game, efficient interaction, and a combo ceiling that other decks in the format can’t overtake. It is a strategy that has all its bases covered and has no clear angle of counterplay. As a result, the metagame has been unable to adjust to the deck and likely won’t be able to in the future.

To open up the Standard format for innovation and a wider variety of decks, it’s clear we need to disrupt the Vivi Ornitier and Agatha’s Soul Cauldron combo. That interaction is too much stronger than the rest of the format. We are opting to ban Vivi Ornitier as it is the card that’s more likely to create future balance problems if allowed to remain in the format. We believe Standard will be more fun and diverse without Vivi Ornitier in it.

There are clear parallels between Proft’s Eidetic Memory and Up the Beanstalk, which we banned in June’s update. Both cards are one-card game plans that provide a lot of strength over the course of a game. In addition, they are both two-mana enchantments that draw you a card when you play them. This makes both cards hard to profitably interact with, since both cards leave you up a full card following the exchange. This combination of qualities is a dangerous recipe for a card in the strongest deck in the format, as it greatly limits the number of decks that can combat the strategy.

In terms of power level, Proft’s Eidetic Memory has proven itself as a strong Standard engine. It broke onto the scene in a big way in the Jeskai Oculus deck at Pro Tour Aetherdrift, with a Proft’s Eidetic Memory deck lurking in nearly every Standard metagame since. Prior incarnations of the deck have been healthy additions to the metagame, but recent additions like Winternight Stories and Quantum Riddler, as well as an increased level of optimization for the core shell, leave us concerned that even without Vivi Ornitier the deck would continue to be one of the best decks in the format and potentially even the clear best deck. To ensure that the Standard metagame has room for new decks and innovation in the future, Proft’s Eidetic Memory is banned.

We are also acting against the Mono-Red Aggro deck today. Mono-Red has proven itself as the deck most able to hang with Izzet Cauldron. Despite failing to meaningfully prove an obstacle to Izzet Cauldron’s dominance of the format, its play rate at competitive events and its win rate in our internal data has us concerned it may prove to be the clear front-runner in Standard in a post-Izzet Cauldron world. Metagames where an aggressive deck is clearly the best deck are often painful for diversity because many slower decks can’t compete. To prevent this outcome, we are electing to ban Screaming Nemesis.

4 Lightning Strike
4 Razorkin Needlehead
1 Shock
4 Burnout Bashtronaut
4 Emberheart Challenger
4 Burst Lightning
18 Mountain
4 Rockface Village
3 Witchstalker Frenzy
4 Hired Claw
2 Soulstone Sanctuary
4 Nova Hellkite
4 Screaming Nemesis


2 Stingerback Terror
3 Obliterating Bolt
1 Vengeful Possession
3 Sunspine Lynx
3 Magebane Lizard
1 Twisted Fealty
2 Fire Magic

Screaming Nemesis is among the strongest cards in the default Mono-Red Aggro deck, and one of the most frustrating cards to play against in the deck. It singlehandedly removes most counterplay against Mono-Red by giving the Mono-Red deck a great game plan against two of Mono-Red’s natural predators: life gain and large blockers. With Screaming Nemesis out of the equation, we believe it is far more likely that the metagame will be able to find a healthy equilibrium with Mono-Red as just part of the landscape, not the deck to beat.

There are versions of Mono-Red that forego Screaming Nemesis, instead opting for cards like Leyline of Resonance and Slickshot Show-Off for a faster and more all-in version of the Mono-Red deck. Despite such a deck winning Magic Spotlight: Spider-Man in Baltimore a few weeks ago, we believe that this strategy is more inherently attackable than the versions of red that play Screaming Nemesis.

Learnings and the Future

A common element in all three of today’s Standard bans is an emphasis on counterplay. We want Standard to be a format where decks are strategically distinct, with a clear identity and the ability to do powerful things. Creating a healthy metagame in a world where decks have clear and powerful game plans means that those strategies need to have strong counterplay available. It is a failing of the format if there is a strong deck in the metagame that doesn’t have a good counter strategy available. This philosophy underpins both our choices today and our card designs in the future.

This philosophy of powerful decks with appropriate counterplay means we need to be careful with cards like Screaming Nemesis. The role we intended for Screaming Nemesis was to give Mono-Red Aggro players who wanted to play their deck in a hostile metagame a way to feel like they had room to maneuver and a fighting chance to win their fair share of matches. It succeeded at that job too well and instead denied players who wanted to attack Mono-Red the ability to do so. We took a risk making a card that insulated Mono-Red against life gain and blocking at the same time and introduced the possibility that missing on rate would lead to exactly what we have seen play out in recent Standard: a strong version of Mono-Red that lacks sufficient counterplay.

Missing on the power level of a new card is, to some extent, inevitable, but there are ways we can improve our accuracy. Vivi Ornitier is an example of a card where the ramifications of an individual power-level mistake were amplified tremendously by our failure to find the interaction with Agatha’s Soul Cauldron. Increasingly, the Standard metagame has been defined by a ceiling of strong multi-card synergies rather than the power level of an individual card. Adjusting to this is a design shift that is in progress, and we still have room to grow.

Similarly, Proft’s Eidetic Memory is an example of a strong engine card where the ever-increasing density of strong interactions available in the format got away from us. We designed and tested Proft’s Eidetic Memory in Murders at Karlov Manor Standard, a format where most of its powerful synergies didn’t exist. We noticed this lack of options and made Steamcore Scholar in the same set to be a great card alongside Proft’s Eidetic Memory. Because there weren’t a lot of strong synergies with Proft’s Eidetic Memory, we felt comfortable printing it at a high individual rate. We thought the overall deck was of medium strength but really fun. We particularly enjoyed that, despite synergizing with card draw, it asked players to tap out on their turn to get full value. Our prediction was that it might show up here and there but that it was unlikely to be among the strongest decks in the metagame.

And we were right, for that environment. It took seven months until the release of Duskmourn: House of Horror and Fear of Missing Out for the Proft’s Eidetic Memory package to really cement itself as a key player in Standard. As new cards were released and the overall package became stronger, the experience of playing against the deck became less fun. For example, the addition of Fear of Missing Out gave it access to bursts of combo damage that the versions we tested didn’t have. This addition of a combo finish made the deck stronger and more punishing to play against.

Once we recognized that Proft’s Eidetic Memory had the capacity to be exceedingly powerful alongside creatures that draw cards and cheap spells that draw multiple cards, we should have considered how likely we were to make more of those cards in the future. In this case, the answer was “extremely.” In the future, this is a question we will be asking before shipping similar engine cards at high rates.

To close out this section on Standard, I’d like to acknowledge that this year’s cadence for banned and restricted announcements has not been ideal and competitive Standard suffered for it, especially in the last three months. We still believe in our underlying Standard banned list update philosophy. We want these updates to be predictable, and we want the Standard format to feel stable. While our fundamental philosophy remains intact, we recognize that our execution this year caused pain, which we need to address.

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, next year, we will be increasing the number of banned and restricted update windows. This will allow us the flexibility to respond quickly if the metagame ends up in a severely imbalanced state again. Our bar for action in Standard remains high, but we do intend to intervene in situations like this where the format is clearly dominated by a single outlier deck with no clear angle of attack. As stated above, the next banned and restricted announcement will be on February 9, 2026. We’ll also be discussing these changes to our banned and restricted update windows on WeeklyMTG on November 11, so be sure to tune in.

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Pioneer

Written by Carmen Klomparens

Heartfire Hero is banned.

Pioneer is in an interesting place. From an outside perspective, things look pretty good! There are a number of viable decks, with a Magic Online Showcase Challenge earlier this month featuring five distinct archetypes in its elimination rounds.

The core problem in the format—especially on MTG Arena—is that too large a portion of the format consists of Mono-Red Aggro and decks built specifically to prey on Mono-Red Aggro. It’s for good reason, too, as Mono-Red Aggro is the archetype with the highest win-rate by a substantial margin, and when you zoom in on Best-of-One play, it also sees more play than the second and third most-played archetypes combined.

4 Monstrous Rage
2 Lightning Strike
4 Kumano Faces Kakkazan
1 Ramunap Ruins
4 Heartfire Hero
1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance
4 Rockface Village
3 Sunspine Lynx
3 Reckless Rage
4 Screaming Nemesis
2 Robber of the Rich
4 Emberheart Challenger
14 Mountain
2 Mutavault
4 Burst Lightning
4 Manifold Mouse


4 Redcap Melee
3 Flowstone Infusion
3 Urabrask’s Forge
2 Magebane Lizard
3 Cut Propulsion

Overall, our goal with this ban is to reduce the win rate of Mono-Red, specifically by targeting the degree of pressure to have interaction on the first turn (or risk dying on the third turn) that Heartfire Hero puts on the format. Pioneer is deep enough that we believe Mono-Red Aggro should be able to comfortably adapt, and lessening the inevitability that comes with its early pressure will broaden what its players can explore.

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Modern

Written by Carmen Klomparens

No changes

It’s a great time to play Modern. The last few months have seen a significant amount of competitive pressure, including Pro Tour Edge of Eternities and the first round of Modern Regional Championships for this season, with the landscape of the format ebbing and flowing from event to event.

4 Suppression Ray
4 Sea Gate Restoration
3 Flare of Denial
4 Whir of Invention
4 Fallaji Archaeologist
4 Disrupting Shoal
2 Force of Negation
4 Thundertrap Trainer
1 Strix Serenade
2 Stern Scolding
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Jwari Disruption
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Waterlogged Teachings
4 Hydroelectric Specimen
4 Sink into Stupor
4 Tameshi, Reality Architect


1 Stern Scolding
1 Force of Negation
2 Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
2 Flusterstorm
1 Island
4 Consign to Memory
2 Into the Flood Maw
1 Stock Up
1 Tezzeret the Seeker

Pro Tour Edge of Eternities boasted a diverse Modern metagame, with seven different decks in its Top 8, and the lone repeat deck of Tameshi Belcher winning it all in the hands of Michael DeBenedetto-Plummer. The most played deck, Esper Goryo’s Vengeance, only put a single copy into the Top 8 and has shown a win rate that’s in line with what we like to see from a strong deck.

3 Faithful Mending
1 Swamp
4 Goryo’s Vengeance
2 Thoughtseize
4 Flooded Strand
1 Griselbrand
1 Tainted Indulgence
4 Ephemerate
1 Preordain
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Breeding Pool
1 Consign to Memory
1 Island
3 Force of Negation
4 Atraxa, Grand Unifier
1 Undercity Sewers
4 Psychic Frog
1 Shadowy Backstreet
1 Meticulous Archive
4 Polluted Delta
1 Watery Grave
3 Prismatic Ending
4 Solitude
1 Plains
1 Godless Shrine
3 Marsh Flats
4 Quantum Riddler


2 Surgical Extraction
1 Pest Control
3 Mystical Dispute
3 Consign to Memory
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Emperor of Bones
2 Wrath of the Skies
1 Celestial Purge

Coming out of the Pro Tour, there were many hanging questions about where the format would go and how it could adapt. Luckily, Modern is a format with strong hate cards that are great at targeting specific decks. In the time since, Amulet Titan and Izzet Affinity have both shown themselves as previously known forces to reckon with, putting up respectable numbers at the Regional Championship level.

1 Echoing Deeps
2 Gruul Turf
1 Otawara, Soaring City
4 Arboreal Grazer
3 Forest
3 Scapeshift
1 Tolaria West
1 Urza’s Cave
4 Amulet of Vigor
4 Simic Growth Chamber
2 Green Sun’s Zenith
2 Lotus Field
4 Explore
4 Crumbling Vestige
1 Shifting Woodland
1 Aftermath Analyst
4 Primeval Titan
4 Spelunking
1 Vexing Bauble
1 Hanweir Battlements
1 Cultivator Colossus
1 Mirrorpool
2 Summoner’s Pact
4 Urza’s Saga
3 Boseiju, Who Endures
1 Vesuva


1 Firespout
1 Vexing Bauble
3 Dismember
1 Pithing Needle
2 Collector Ouphe
1 Six
1 Green Sun’s Zenith
2 Stock Up
2 Force of Vigor
1 Soul-Guide Lantern

Amulet Titan is a deck with a storied history in the format, remaining in tier 1 through metagames that included several cards on the banned list today. Recent adaptations to the deck include an infinite combo between Shifting Woodland and Aftermath Analyst that allows the deck to produce infinite Primeval Titans; bounce a bunch of permanents with Otawara, Soaring City; and destroy most of the opponent’s lands by looping Boseiju, Who Endures.

That sort of combo isn’t inherently problematic, but we are becoming increasingly aware of some tournament logistical issues that can arise with a deck as complicated as Amulet Titan when its win rate necessitates widespread adoption in a format. Given the deck’s legacy and Modern’s ability to absorb most forms of combo decks over time, we aren’t interested in making changes to the format at this time, but we will be watching the impact that Amulet Titan has in the coming months. If the deck continues to disproportionately impact round times at competitive events, we may begin exploring actions to take.

Changes in Modern haven’t been limited to the shuffling of metagame shares among decks at the Pro Tour, however.

1 Thundering Falls
1 Elegant Parlor
3 Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd
4 Flooded Strand
4 Arid Mesa
2 Ephemerate
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Arena of Glory
1 Mountain
3 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Island
4 Consign to Memory
1 March of Otherworldly Light
4 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Meticulous Archive
1 Wrath of the Skies
4 Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury
3 Prismatic Ending
4 Solitude
2 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker
2 Plains
1 Steam Vents
4 Quantum Riddler


1 Surgical Extraction
2 Subtlety
3 Mystical Dispute
1 Force of Negation
1 Ghost Vacuum
4 Obsidian Charmaw
2 Wrath of the Skies
1 Celestial Purge

Coverage of the Regional Championship in Houston kicked off with Pro Tour Edge of Eternities Champion Michael Benedetto-Plummer winning a match with a fresh take on the Blink archetype, with a bit of uncertainty in how the deck would fare on the weekend. Come Sunday afternoon, Vinnie Fino proved to the world that Jeskai Blink was a real contender in Modern. Combining the closing power of efficient threats like Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, the iconic blink package that Ephemerate can make use of in Quantum Riddler and Solitude, and proactive use of the widely played sideboard card Consign to Memory also used in main decks, Jeskai Blink has a lot of great stuff going for it. The fact that there’s still new space for players to explore (and succeed!) in Modern has us optimistic that we’re in for a great format this season of Regional Championships.

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Legacy

Written by Carmen Klomparens

Entomb is banned.
Nadu, Winged Wisdom is banned.

It’s time.

After a significant amount of time and effort to preserve the iconic Entomb and Reanimate play pattern of Legacy, the time has come to lay this one to rest. For multiple years, Dimir Reanimator has rested atop the Legacy metagame, surviving multiple bans, and each step has barely fazed the deck. Earlier this year, we tried to ban around Entomb and force players to play a more committal version of Reanimator that chose between having a robust “fair” game plan and a high-impact, albeit exploitable, flashy combo plan. In our previous banned and restricted list update, we spoke about wanting to give the format more time to adjust to the current version of Dimir Reanimator (and Oops! All Spells). Finding ways to hate out decks as powerful as the ones in Legacy takes time, and in the case of Oops! All Spells, its metagame share has dropped dramatically and the deck struggled a good deal at this year’s North American Eternal Weekend Legacy Championship.

On the other hand, Dimir Reanimator had a respectable weekend despite having a huge target on its back and a large metagame share.

4 Reanimate
1 Swamp
1 Flooded Strand
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtseize
3 Murktide Regent
3 Underground Sea
4 Entomb
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Ponder
3 Wasteland
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Force of Negation
1 Island
4 Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Undercity Sewers
4 Brainstorm
2 Brazen Borrower
4 Polluted Delta
3 Daze
1 Animate Dead
1 Marsh Flats
1 Archon of Cruelty
1 Atraxa, Grand Unifier


4 Dauthi Voidwalker
2 Fatal Push
1 Snuff Out
3 Barrowgoyf
2 Consign to Memory
1 Dismember
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Brazen Borrower

Banning Entomb isn’t a decision we take lightly, or a step that fills us with joy. In years past, Entomb has done a bunch of things that look great from the perspective of game design: it inspires decks, it’s iconic, and at times it’s expanded the range of cards that could be played in Legacy. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a world where Entomb allows Reanimator players to figure out if they should have a tech copy of Inkwell Leviathan, Archon of Valor’s Reach, or Tidespout Tyrant. Its predominate use case shorthands to a small handful of creatures that play well in a more traditional threats-backed-up-by-efficient-countermagic game.

Over the last couple of years, the details of Dimir Reanimator have changed, but the big picture shell has remained: Entomb‘s incentives in deck building make it too easy to leverage high-impact threats without having to commit to the fail states that normally come with a synergistic enabler-plus-payoff combo deck. Entomb specifically allows these decks to circumvent this issue and simply have the card translate to having one of the two or three most powerful creatures ever printed into the graveyard.

This has created a version of Legacy that has been divisive at best and reviled at worst. Ideally, this change can better compartmentalize decks that want to cheat big creatures into play from decks that play a more traditional game of Magic rather than promoting a hybridization of the two that can very easily switch between each half of the deck in the face of hate.

It’s our hope that players who prefer the version of this deck that uses Daze and cantrips to play to the battlefield will be able to continue to do so with Izzet Delver or Dimir Tempo.

2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Swamp
2 Brazen Borrower
2 Kaito, Bane of Nightmares
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Ponder
1 Island
4 Orcish Bowmasters
4 Nethergoyf
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
4 Force of Will
2 Thoughtseize
2 Feed the Cycle
4 Brainstorm
3 Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
4 Underground Sea
2 Undercity Sewers
4 Fatal Push
4 Daze


3 Consign to Memory
2 Hydroblast
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Force of Negation
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Null Rod
2 Barrowgoyf
1 Grafdigger’s Cage

In the short term, we believe it’s possible for people who are more enamored by the cheat-big-creatures-into-play half of the deck to find a way to play Legacy that suits their playstyle, even if the details are different than before.

4 Atraxa, Grand Unifier
3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Lotus Petal
1 Pentad Prism
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Veil of Summer
4 Ponder
4 Show and Tell
4 Stock Up
4 Sneak Attack
2 Omniscience
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
1 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Mistrise Village
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
1 Polluted Delta


3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Consign to Memory
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Pyroblast
1 Abrade
1 Brotherhood’s End
1 Fury
1 Mistrise Village

While it will likely take a while for Reanimator variants to find a new configuration that functions in ways that were possible when Entomb was legal, there are still decks in the shape of Sneak and Show and Natural Order decks that can allow players to put their favorite huge monsters onto the table ahead of schedule.

On the other side of the predictability spectrum is Nadu, Winged Wisdom. This one is a bit more straightforward: it’s a power-level outlier that’s flown under the radar. In a similar fashion to what we saw last year in the time leading up to Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3, Nadu decks haven’t been seeing a ton of online representation despite their win rates, in part because of how cumbersome the deck is to manage in an online client. I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, but there are two versions of Nadu decks in Legacy, one is adapting decks affectionately referred to as “Cephalid Breakfast,” named after Cephalid Illusionist:

2 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
4 Force of Will
1 Windswept Heath
1 Memory’s Journey
4 Cephalid Illusionist
1 Savannah
1 Hedge Maze
2 Swords to Plowshares
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Ponder
4 Nomads en-Kor
1 Thassa’s Oracle
1 Ghost Vacuum
1 Tropical Island
1 Island
2 Shuko
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
1 Dread Return
4 Brainstorm
1 Meticulous Archive
1 Prismatic Ending
1 Daze
1 Plains
4 Nadu, Winged Wisdom
3 Urza’s Saga
2 Narcomoeba


1 Serenity
1 Pithing Needle
2 Swords to Plowshares
3 Force of Negation
2 Consign to Memory
1 Ghost Vacuum
3 Faerie Macabre
1 Prismatic Ending
1 Cavern of Souls

This is the highest-placing Nadu list from the previously referenced North American Eternal Weekend Legacy Championship and is closer to what we’d like to see out of a combo deck in an Eternal format: it’s often a deterministic kill when it combos, repeatedly targeting Cephalid Illusionist with a lot of the same cards that play well with Nadu in order to use a combination of Narcomoeba, Dread Return, and Thassa’s Oracle to seal the deal. With this deck, the opponent has very clear points where interactive hate is going to be effective. Its power level can vary a bit more week to week because of that interactivity, and it is cool for the deck to be part of the format. On the other hand …

1 Flooded Strand
1 Lush Portico
2 Tundra
4 Force of Will
4 Windswept Heath
1 Forest
1 Savannah
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Hedge Maze
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Karakas
4 Ponder
4 Nomads en-Kor
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
4 Delighted Halfling
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
1 Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath
2 Tropical Island
1 Island
4 Brainstorm
1 Prismatic Ending
4 Nadu, Winged Wisdom
1 Scythecat Cub
1 Boseiju, Who Endures
1 Endurance


1 Endurance
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Consign to Memory
2 Force of Negation
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Force of Vigor
2 Veil of Summer

The midrange versions of Nadu are incredible at going over the top of what other players are doing to a degree that feels like the opponent is comboing, albeit in a way that is non-deterministic, takes a long time to resolve, is physically difficult to represent, and can take a long time to kill the opponent despite the game effectively being decided. Nomads en-Kor targeting with its zero-mana ability at instant speed means that its controller can augment Nadu’s twice-per-turn restriction to a pseudo-four-times-per-turn one by repeating any activations it cashed in on its controller’s turn during the opponent’s upkeep. This compounds with a round of additional triggers either using Endurance or Scythecat Cub to drag games out for a long time, even if the raw number of additional turns isn’t obviously out of bounds.

The deck is also far more resistant to traditional hate than other combo decks by virtue of it being a bunch of creatures that can play a normal game of Magic in the face of cards like Pithing Needle that could aim to attack the “combo” angle. This mix of the deck’s power level, difficulty to attack, and undesirable play patterns has us acting against Nadu a bit more aggressively than we normally prefer to act against cards in Legacy, but we believe it is in the best interest of Legacy’s health.

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Vintage

Written by Eric Engelhard

No changes

The Vintage metagame coming out of the North American Eternal Weekend looks very healthy. Depending on how you categorize it, there were seven or eight different archetypes in the Top 8, including pillars of the format like Initiative, Dredge, and two flavors of Shops, in addition to three Lurrus decks with some notable diversity between them. Mono-White Initiative returned to take the crown after also claiming it in 2022, with a new addition in the form of Clarion Conqueror from Tarkir: Dragonstorm helping to keep other strategies in check.

Beyond just this tournament, the overall Vintage metagame looks similar. Decks using Lurrus as a companion continue to be a large presence, but it’s a presence that continues to support multiple archetypes. Some of us had thought that Tezzeret, Cruel Captain from Edge of Eternities might find a place in Vintage, and we’re pleased to see that he made the Top 8 here and has slotted into many Shops builds, powering them up against Lurrus strategies. We’re watching, but it seems stable for now. Vintage looks to be in a great place. We’re looking forward to two more Eternal Weekends this year and don’t anticipate any metagame issues arising.

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Pauper

Written by Gavin Verhey

High Tide is banned.

Back in March, we unbanned High Tide and Prophetic Prism as something new we called “trial unbans”—a novel and useful idea coming from the Pauper Format Panel. While Prophetic Prism went over without much discussion at all, High Tide was a much different story.

Quickly, people began building decks. The best minds in Pauper converged on a decklist that used, of all things, the splice onto Arcane mechanic to generate tons of mana by splicing Psychic Puppetry repeatedly. Here’s a recent list that won a Magic Online challenge:

13 Island
1 Gigadrowse
3 Hidden Strings
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Lorien Revealed
4 High Tide
4 Peer Through Depths
3 Pieces of the Puzzle
1 Deep Analysis
4 Psychic Puppetry
4 Brainstorm
2 Stream of Thought
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Muddle the Mixture
4 Preordain
2 Reach Through Mists


1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Muddle the Mixture
2 Dispel
1 Envelop
3 Fallaji Archaeologist
2 Gigadrowse
1 Deep Analysis
1 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Snap

We really wanted to take our time to review what happened in the format and how it evolved as time passed. Thank you for your patience as we carefully followed the format during this trial unban period.

Considering a combination of strong results, the exorbitant amount of time it takes to execute the combo, the unfun play pattern, and the polarity it causes in the format, we have decided to ban High Tide again at this time. It was a great experiment, and one I’m glad we ran. However, ultimately, we do not believe High Tide being legal has an overall positive impact on the format.

For more details on how we reached this decision, please check out our longer article here.

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Alchemy

Written by Daniel Xu

No changes

Our latest round of rebalances to Vivi Ornitier, various mobilize cards, and Fountainport Charmer has pulled back on the power level of the tier 1 decks in Alchemy while maintaining their playability, and we will wait to see how the format develops from there. We will monitor the Kona Omniscience combo deck, which has risen in popularity over the last few months and features a win-from-hand play pattern that we prefer not to have as a top deck in the format.

Although Screaming Nemesis is now banned in Standard, it is not a dominant card in the Alchemy metagame and will not be rebalanced.

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Historic

Written by Daniel Xu

Force of Negation is pre-banned.
Frantic Search is pre-banned.
Mystical Tutor is pre-banned.
Entomb is pre-banned.
Dark Depths is pre-banned.

With a plethora of cards from Arena Anthologies, bonus sheets, and Special Guests releases coming to MTG Arena this year, Historic’s card pool has expanded rapidly. For now, we are aiming to avoid format destabilization with pre-bans while monitoring the metagame to ensure that no individual deck is out of line. Eldrazi has been enjoying popularity and success in high-level Best-of-Three with the addition of Eldrazi Temple and is one of the decks we are keeping an eye on alongside aggressive Lurrus decks (Energy and Auras) and fast combo decks (Val Combo, Lotus Field Combo, and Persist Combo).

While the metagame at each level of the ladder is reasonably balanced, the power-level delta between the most-popular decks in the lower ladder and the top-tier decks is higher than ever before. You should expect to see more changes to Historic as we reexamine the format philosophy and banned list in the coming months.

In keeping with our current format philosophy on free spells, Historic players should not have to consider the threat of a free counterspell over the course of a game. As such, Force of Negation is pre-banned.

Frantic Search is a card applicable mostly to contexts as a free combo-enabler. While we are reevaluating the strength of combos that we are happy with in Historic, Frantic Search is a risk that we believe should be kept out of the format for now.

Mystical Tutor offers selection for some of Historic’s most powerful spells and is most relevant when tutoring up a combo piece. The efficient redundancy it offers for noninteractive strategies is undesirable for Historic.

Entomb may be more narrow than Mystical Tutor, but in a format with Persist and Necromancy, it is simply too powerful and consistent at enabling turn-two or -three reanimation. Such efficient two-card combos should be limited to Timeless.

The land tutors available in Historic make Dark Depths too consistent and noninteractive of a win condition with Thespian’s Stage. Few decks can deal with the threat of an instant-speed Marit Lage, especially when backed by redundancy in Crop Rotation.

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Timeless

Written by Daniel Xu

No changes

Timeless has adapted to the addition of Strip Mine and Ancient Tomb, with strategies revolving around Hydroponics Architect and Wary Zone Guard rising up to coexist with format mainstays Show and Tell and Mardu Energy. With the known polarity of Strip Mine focusing gameplay, we are prepared to make a change if necessary, but thus far, the format seems to have absorbed these powerful lands quite well. We’ll continue to monitor Timeless through upcoming events to ensure the format remains fun and diverse for enjoyers of high-power Magic.

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Brawl

Written by Daniel Xu

Strip Mine is banned.
Mana Drain is banned.
Chrome Mox is banned
Ancient Tomb is banned.

Brawl has been undergoing a lot of flux in the past few months. Many powerful and widely applicable cards have been added with Arena Anthologies, bonus sheets, and Special Guests releases, forcing players to adapt to new staples and playstyles that accelerate the game beyond the pace of Brawl of years past. We’ve historically taken a lighter touch to format management in the spirit of allowing players to play with the cards and commanders they want, but it’s become clear that certain shapes of cards are too impactful for a format that we want to be a safe place for casual fun. As such, we are reexamining the banned list and our format philosophy to preserve the fun, open-ended experience that Brawl promises in the face of continual change.

For these bans, we considered cards that satisfy three conditions: they are homogenizing, efficient, and polar. Homogenizing cards have a high format presence due to their popularity and strength. Powerful colorless cards and lands are inherently more homogenizing since they can be included in any deck. Field of the Dead and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon are cards on the current banned list that fell into this category. Efficient cards have high rates relative to their costs and can often make their impact early on in a game. Not all cheap cards are efficient, but the most efficient cards are cheap. Polar cards have a high upside, embodying a range of outcomes beyond what is typical for their cost; they can often win the game outright when played but can also be situationally useless. In other words, they make the game all about themselves. When combined, these conditions describe a class of card that players play against all the time and dictate the outcome of the game on their own. This can be stifling to deck building and gameplay diversity, which we are hoping to promote as much as possible.

Strip Mine is one of the most discussed recent additions to Brawl and emblematic of the type of card we believe should stay in more competitive formats. It is overwhelmingly homogenizing: It can be included in any deck and lacks deck-building and gameplay costs due to being a land. It is polar when its target happens to be land-shy, preventing them from casting spells altogether, but if they happen to have a land-heavy draw, it’s a minor setback at best. It is efficient on its own, but when built around options for graveyard recursion, it turns from an annoyance into a win condition. Overall, we expect the format will be more fun and diverse with Strip Mine gone.

Mana Drain has been controversial since its debut. Its overall win rate has never been high, but as we’ve taken a closer look at both the numbers and our format philosophy, we’ve found that Mana Drain fits the conditions that indicate a ban is appropriate. Due to its generic nature as a counterspell, it is an auto-include in any blue deck and is homogenizing. A well-timed Mana Drain will often prompt a concession; when used on a commander—or any spell worth a few mana early in the game—the swing in game state is enormous. And the numbers reflect that: players who draw a Mana Drain in their opening hand have a ten-percent higher win rate, a hallmark of a high-polarity card. Although Mana Drain evens out to a more reasonable one-for-one later in the game, the experience of having to play around or lose to an early Mana Drain against any blue deck is one that we’re happy to remove from Brawl for now.

Chrome Mox and Ancient Tomb fall into a similar category. Both are colorless mana accelerants that cost no mana but ask you to pay some other high-polarity cost; either a card or life. When you are the proactive player, these costs are small relative to the additional mana you gain, and it’s easy to pull out a win with your mana advantage. When you are being attacked and are on the back foot, Ancient Tomb becomes unusable and you are suddenly down a land. Chrome Mox can still be used in those situations, but is a uniquely poor topdeck and, depending on your draw, can easily be a blank card. Both cards can fit into any deck and are thus homogenizing, have unrivaled efficiency, and are highly sensitive to the game state. In the spirit of keeping Brawl more casual, they are banned.

Note that these bans mark a new approach toward our stewardship of Brawl, and we intend to watch and listen for community input as the situation continues to develop. For example, the Brawl Metagame Challenge we ran in early October is an experiment that is helping us gauge interest in a more competitive Brawl space that can be distinguished from the regular casual Brawl queue. We’re excited to explore and understand player interest here to see if the population is large enough to support a viable game mode.