Today’s Magic: The Gathering Banned & Restricted announcement removed Violent Outburst in Modern and unrestricted Ponder in Vintage.
Modern
As many predicted, Wizards of the Coast (WotC), took action against Modern’s Cascade decks by removing Violent Outburst from the format. According to WotC, decks like Temur Rhinos and Living End saw a huge uptick in metagame share following the last Banned & Restricted announcement back in December, and have begun to “approach previous levels of Rakdos Midrange metagame dominance.”
Removing Violent Outburst from the format will necessitate cascade players to adopt Ardent Plea or Demonic Dread and force them to play on their own turn more often, weakening both cascade strategies and reducing them to an acceptable level of metagame share, much like the Fury ban did to Rakdos Midrange.”
Dan Musser
Vintage
It’s not often that things change in Magic’s most powerful format, but WotC decided it was time that a classic cantrip returned. Ponder has been restricted since 2008, but current play patterns and metagame shares suggested that allowing players to play the full four copies would not make any drastic changes to the format, but give a little boost to spell-based combo decks in the format.
While this shouldn’t cause a huge shift, it should give a few percentage points back to decks looking to find specific cards to enact their strategy more consistently.”
Dan Musser
Standard, Pioneer, and Legacy
According to WotC, no changes were needed in these three formats. Standard is diverse and new archetypes continue to form weekly, and cards from recent sets have been adopted successfully by the format’s existing power-houses. Impressively, Standard has also reclaimed the title of “most-played 60-card tabletop format.”
After December’s bans, the Pioneer metagame shifted in a healthy manner. Combo decks like Amalia and Lotus Field have risen in metagame share to compete with format veterans Izzet Phoenix and Rakdos Midrange, and with the release of Murders at Karlov Manor, Rakdos has evolved to support a Vampire shell, based around Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord and Vein Ripper.
Finally, the Legacy metagame has undergone some micro-changes, with red decks adopting cards like Broadside Bombardiers. In a format based heavily on the power and prevalence of blue cantrips, Orcish Bowmasters has quickly risen in the ranks since the release of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. As such, WotC is currently monitoring the situation, but has decided that no action is needed against the powerful two-drop at this time.
The next Banned and Restricted announcement is scheduled for May 13, 2024. You can view a complete overview of Magic’s currently banned and restricted cards here.
Read the original article from WotC.
