Jadine Klomparens and Carmen Klomparens of the Magic: The Gathering Play Design team appeared on today’s Weekly MTG stream to discuss Monday’s Banned and Restricted announcement, answering questions that didn’t get fully addressed in the update article.
Jadine Klomparens spoke at length on the seven cards banned in Standard and even touched on other cards that were brought up in meetings that ended up not being banned. She started things off with a clear indictment of Cori-Steel Cutter, stating it was just a very good and very obvious ban that would have been hit in any ban window due to its play rate, win rate, and meta-warping presence.
The other two red cards were much more complicated. Monstrous Rage, according to Jadine, was the most fun card they banned, but it simply gave red too much strength and power against creatures. Play Design wants red decks to be stymied by bigger creatures that can block but Monstrous Rage removed blocking and chump blocking from the equation by gifting permanent trample to the target. As for Heartfire Hero, it was clear something else from the Mice package from Bloomburrow had to go as well. Jadine noted that they wanted to keep Mice as a viable strategy in Standard and also wanted to remove the combo-kill elements that Heartfire Hero provided in conjunction with Manifold Mouse and Monstrous Rage. She pointed out that these aggressive decks didn’t really need to concern themselves with early chip damage when they could burst opponents down for 16 or more damage out of nowhere.
“When the aggro decks have such wide power to end the game from high life totals, the balance of power really tilts in their favor in a way that isn’t very fun. We know players were pretty sick of that, we know it was very frustrating to have to play decks that could answer Heartfire Hero in a specific way and it was really limiting the card options in the format.”
Jadine Klomparens
While Abuelo’s Awakening took the fall for Omniscience in this B&R update, Jadine clarified that if a future Omniscience combo deck proves to be too strong once again they will take action on the 10-mana enchantment itself next time. For the time being, however, Play Design wants combo to be a relevant archetype in Standard and the team was happy for a while with Azorius Omniscience, but Abuelo’s Awakening made the deck too fast and too consistent. In addition, with the other bans that were planned it was evident the Azorius Omniscience would still be a top deck and possibly better than it was already.
Up the Beanstalk was already on its last legs prior to the release of Tarkir: Dragonstorm, but the joke of drawing cards off “expensive” spells being played for two or three mana was getting old. Jadine said the team wanted to open things up and see what ramp decks could look like without relying on Up the Beanstalk. Hopeless Nightmare, while appearing less problematic at face value, turned out to be the key card to ban in the numerous Pixie or “self-bounce” strategies. This type of deck is a fun and enjoyed archetype for many players, so Play Design wanted to keep the decks intact, but move away from the unfun play patterns of stripping resources from hand while enabling the Pixie deck to have aggressive draws at the same time.
Though This Town Ain’t Big Enough did show up in some builds of Pixie, its nail in the coffin was the loop it presented with the final level of Stormchaser’s Talent. With both cards being blue, it allows any blue deck to have an end-game board state that revolved around generating value off the enchantment while still providing additional value in bouncing another card.
The other big card Play Design talked about was Stock Up. Jadine admitted the card is quite strong and is likely to be played in every blue deck, but the team was happy a Divination variant was seeing play. Its numbers were exaggerated at Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY because Izzet Prowess played four copies and that deck was more than 40 percent of the field, but Jadine still said that she wouldn’t be shocked if Stock Up rotates early next year.
Carmen Klomparens tackled all the questions regarding non-rotating formats. She is aware of the concerns players have with the Mice package in Pioneer, but she reiterated many times that Pioneer is the place for players to enjoy their cards from Standard that no longer have a home. She said Play Design will keep an eye on the aggressive red decks and Izzet Phoenix which benefitted from the printing of Cori-Steel Cutter. Izzet Phoenix also takes advantage of Treasure Cruise and has been a top-tier deck for some time.
“We want to see how [Izzet Phoenix] plays out over time. Generally speaking, players have a lot fun doing more powerful things, so whenever we can preserve those things and the format can absorb it, we would like that to be the case. We don’t want to ban a card like Treasure Cruise until we are positive that it cannot hang in Pioneer anymore because that is basically the last place in Magic you can really play with it at this point.”
Carmen Klomparens
Much of the negative reactions from the B&R update came from the Legacy community, with the majority of it pointed at Oops! All Spells — the combo deck that often kills on Turn 1 through interaction. Carmen said the deck doesn’t violate play-rate or win-rate metrics and shows off the ingenuity of the community as deckbuilders find new ways to make the deck stronger, referencing cards like Jack-o’-Lantern and Memory’s Journey. However, she did point out that if the deck’s play rate climbs to around 10 percent, its win rate goes over 55 percent, or it wins multiple Eternal Weekend events, action could be taken on the deck due to is negative play patterns and perception. She also said that “we like to keep those things in-house” when asked about the possibility of a community panel, similar to the Pauper Format Panel, that handles the format’s bannings.
Lastly, Carmen also touched briefly on Historic, the Arena-only format, and the rise in popularity of decks abusing Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord. This past weekend’s Arena Qualifier events were dominated by Sorin decks cheating in massive Vampires, but Carmen noted that it is still too early to tell if those decks will be issues for the format long-term.
It is really hard to disentangle at this point if Sorin is going to be inappropriately strong for [Historic], or if a Tier-1 deck had a breakout weekend and this is something the format can absorb over time. The Arena team will need more time to look over the data to see how the deck performs week over week.”
Carmen Klomparens
Notably, The next scheduled banned and restricted announcement is set for November 24. It was mentioned that Legacy changes could be made in that window despite it being right before the European Eternal Weekend events.
