Wizards of the Coast (WotC) took action in multiple formats — four tabletop and two digital — in today’s Banned and Restricted announcement that finally put an end to Vivi Ornitier’s stranglehold on Standard.
Standard
Izzet Cauldron, which combined Vivi with Agatha’s Soul Cauldron and a surrounding shell of card draw and scaling threats, dominated Standard for multiple months in a way not seen since the days of the Urza’s block from the late 1990s. The deck took up more than half of the Top 8 slots in each Standard Spotlight Series event following the release of Magic: The Gathering – FINAL FANTASY and totaled more than 50 percent of the Day 2 metagame in Orlando and Baltimore.
Creatures (18)
Lands (23)
Spells (19)
The deck’s play rate and win rate were both too high while also exhibiting poor play patterns of extended turns when one player takes countless game actions. Despite it actually only winning one of the Spotlight Series events, Izzet Cauldron had to go to make Standard a healthy format. Not only does Vivi need to leave Standard, but Proft’s Eidetic Memory has to join it thanks to its part in buffing the deck and any other strategy that wants to snowball an early advantage through drawing cards.
“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 … 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.”
Jadine Klomparens
Jadine Klomparens noted that the Play Design team opted to ban Vivi over Agatha’s Soul Cauldron as the legendary creature is more likely to cause problems down the line. She said that Proft’s Eidetic Memory felt a lot like Up the Beanstalk in that players couldn’t interact profitably with it due to it replacing itself on resolution.
Screaming Nemesis is the only other Standard ban — and the only card not targeted to take down Izzet Cauldron. Mono-Red Aggro has been the only other reliable deck in the format that has a fighting chance against Izzet Cauldron while also keeping other decks from appearing in the meta due to the speed and consistency of the red decks. Screaming Nemesis removes counterplay options that other decks typically have against aggressive decks: gaining life and blocking with larger creatures. Ultimately, something had to go from Mono-Red Aggro or it would have almost certainly established itself as the strongest deck post-Vivi ban.
“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.”
Jadine Klomparens
Pioneer
Though Pioneer hasn’t been the focus of competitive Magic throughout this year, Mono-Red Aggro has been the most-winning deck according to internal data. The meta can be diverse, but it is clear that Mono-Red Aggro is the marquee deck and the litmus test for all other strategies. Taking the one-drop creature that allows it to win reliably on the third turn is the first step Play Design is taking in Pioneer to bring the red deck in line with the rest of the format.
“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
Carmen Klomparens
puts on the format.”
Legacy
Talks of banning Entomb in Legacy have been entertained for more than a decade, but the time has come for the Reanimator staple despite Play Designs attempts at banning around it for the past year or so. Entomb + Reanimate has been the strongest reanimation combo in Legacy for its history but the evolution of the deck from strictly combo to midrange with a combo backup plan has proven too problematic for even one of the most powerful formats in Magic.
Reanimator being able to move away from high-risk gameplay and toolbox type reanimation targets to ubiquitous threats like Atraxa, Grand Unifier and Archon of Cruelty has made itself too resilient and consistent while being the main target in Legacy. Without having to play handfuls of reanimation targets, the deck gets to round itself with midrange threats like Murktide Regent, Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student, and Brazen Borrower.
“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.”
Carmen Klomparens
Nadu, Winged Wisdom, unsurprisingly, has seen its time run out in another format. After terrorizing Modern, the Bird Wizard migrated to Legacy to power up the Cephalid Illusionist + Nomads en-Kor combo that has existed for years. Nadu’s resistance to hate, power level, and negative play patterns led to its ban.
Pauper
High Tide was one of the “trial unbans” from March as the card has been a fan favorite for many years. The community joined forces to find the strongest build of High Tide and it met the trifecta of being too strong, cumbersome to play and execute the combo, and generally unfun to play or play against relatively quickly. Because of these reasons, the Pauper Format Panel has decided to return High Tide to the banned list. Extended thoughts from Gavin Verhey on Pauper and the High Tide ban can be read here.
As for MTG Arena’s digital formats, Historic and Brawl were impacted in today’s B&R update. A handful of cards from Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender’s bonus sheet were pre-banned in Historic and four cards were banned in Brawl.
Read the official announcement from WotC.
The next banned and restricted update will be on February 9, 2026.
