Wow! In the heaviest drop of the ban hammer in recent memory, all your favorite cards just got banned, and not just from Standard either. Kiss your Teferis, Reclamations, and Growth Spiral goodbye, because we’ll be playing an entirely different metagame as soon as tomorrow.
Well, it’s not like we didn’t warn you or anything. Simply put, the Wilderness strategy was way too good, as shown by more than half of the players in the recent high-profile Players Finals tournament.
It was clear that Wizards can’t allow the reclamation to be that wild (pun intended, of course!), so something had to be done. To top it off, Teferi is also gone - a card very much playable not only in Azorious Control but also in some of the Reclamation builds out there. And for a good measure, Cauldron Familiar won’t be coming back from the deck a thousand times per game anymore.
And this was just the start. The same pieces are banned in Historic and Pioneer, alongside some cards that don’t concern MTGA players just yet. Announced on August 3 and taking effect immediately, the blacklist looks like this:
Standard
- Wilderness Reclamation is banned.
- Growth Spiral is banned.
- Teferi, Time Raveler is banned.
- Cauldron Familiar is banned.
Pioneer
- Inverter of Truth is banned.
- Kethis, the Hidden Hand is banned.
- Walking Ballista is banned.
- Underworld Breach is banned.
Historic
- Wilderness Reclamation is suspended.
- Teferi, Time Raveler is suspended.
Brawl
- Teferi, Time Raveler is banned.
Well, we had a good run, but let’s look at the bright side - Standard will be a whole different place from now on. Aggro players welcome back!
