Andrew Brown and Dan Musser of the Magic: The Gathering Play Design team joined Blake Rasmussen on today’s Weekly MTG stream to discuss yesterday’s Banned & Restricted announcement.
Brown kicked things off by saying they really love the current Standard metagame and that they are seeing a lot of things they like. Players can pick up any macro archetype and do well with it, noting that around five different decks revolve around the top of the metagame. Play Design is happy with the format after they expanded the amount of sets to include three years of releases and they are keeping track of things they can improve upon with the increased size of the format. If there will be any adjustments to the format, in terms of bans or unbans, those changes would be implemented before Bloomburrow‘s release, most likely sometime in June or July.
As for Pioneer, Musser said the story of Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor was really positive and the event showed the format is not stale, highlighted by a breakout deck winning the event. With RCQ season returning to Pioneer soon, they are interested to see what other innovations happen in the format and how players adjust to the Rakdos Vampires deck.
Musser also touched on two decks that dodged any action this time around: Izzet Phoenix and Amalia Combo. Izzet Phoenix only recently rose to the levels of popularity and power with the printing of Sleight of Hand and Picklock Prankster in Wilds of Eldraine. The deck appears to be safe for now and has weak matchups with multiple ways to attack it. While it had a very strong win rate at the Pro Tour with a high play rate, that was only one event. The deck doesn’t have game-ruining play patterns, and according to Brown, the deck is fun and lends itself to a part of the player base that enjoys a spell-based archetype with plenty of agency. Musser said they will wait to see how players react to it after its performance at the Pro Tour before taking any action on Izzet Phoenix.
Amalia Combo fills a desired slot of a competitive creature combo-deck in Pioneer and doesn’t have alarming numbers. The concern with Amalia Combo is the multiple ways intentional draws can happen from the person playing the deck or the opponent forcing a draw if the game isn’t going the way they want it to. Musser said the draws aren’t great, but it’s not at a level where they need to take action. Play Design also doesn’t want to use errata to fix the problem with draws — they want cards to do what they say they do.
In Modern, the banning of Violent Outburst was made to remove an unsatisfying play pattern exhibited by the cascade decks: Temur Rhinos and Living End. Musser said, “It’s not that we wanted to remove [the cascade decks] from the format, but we wanted to reallocate the power of the decks in terms of a pretty unsatisfying play pattern. It’s really strong when you can do things on your opponent’s end step when they are at the most vulnerable, and then untap with all your things — not to mention there is an active counter in Force of Negation without paying any mana on your opponent’s turn.”
By removing Violent Outburst from Modern, the cascade decks can operate more fairly at sorcery speed, leaving Force of Negation as a way to protect your creatures and not protect the spell that puts all the power onto the battlefield. Musser also reacted to player feedback of how certain archetypes like Amulet Titan and Goglari Yawgmoth could overtake the format as the top decks with the banning of Violent Outburst by stating that they would rather watch how the format plays out after a change than by making multiple cascading and anticipated moves that they are not confident in this far in advance.
Legacy talks revolved around two points: Orcish Bowmasters and the stickers from Unfinity. Orcish Bowmasters is continuing to be watched as it is the most-played new card in the format, but the fact that it shows up in a variety of decks, including multiple tournament-winning decks, alleviates the pressure of its overrepresentation. The rise in popularity and competitiveness of ________ Goblin is, however, an issue for tabletop play. While it is acceptable for the player that is opting into the Goblins deck and the requirement of bringing a sticker deck to accommodate ________ Goblin, it puts pressure on all opponents to also bring a sticker deck. This is because a player can bluff or represent a deck that requires stickers at the start of the match, but also cards like Phyrexian Metamorph or Phantasmal Image would likely want to copy ________ Goblin to net a bunch of mana and you must have a sticker deck to get that ability. “Neither of these things are ideal,” Musser said. “We are aware of it. It is an in-paper issue only, but it is something that we are currently in search of a solution for. I think we can promise by the next [B&R] window we will have a solution.”
Vintage’s spotlight was short and sweet, with Musser saying that Play Design isn’t going to spend a lot of time testing the format. He did say that spell-based decks could use a bit of additional power and that players already aren’t running four copies of Preordain and some decks don’t utilize the single copy of Ponder, making Ponder’s removal from the restricted list a safe move.
The stream concluded with a Q&A session leading to some quick hits for a variety of topics and formats:
- Brown noted that Play Design is always reading and listening to community feedback about cards in terms of unbans, but if the team feels good about a format they aren’t exactly looking for unbans.
- The unbanning of Splinter Twin in Modern was once again asked about and Musser reiterated that it isn’t likely and one shouldn’t hold their breath for that outcome.
- Unbanning Umezawa’s Jitte in Modern also looks unlikely, as it would further suppress creature strategies that are already facing an uphill climb in the format.
- Play Design isn’t the decision maker for changes in formats on MTG Arena, like Timeless and Historic. The Arena team will consult them for feedback, but ultimately makes the changes to those formats.
- Play Design wants Legacy to be as similar as possible in tabletop and online play, but that becomes less and less possible with the release of Universes Beyond sets where they don’t control the rights to cards using other IPs.
- The unbanning and rebanning of Golgari Grave Troll in Modern was the admitted biggest mistake in regards to bans and unbans in Magic.
- There isn’t enough data on Leyline of the Guildpact in Modern yet for Play Design to lean one way or the other on the card. Notably, the Rhinos deck took a hit with the banning of Violent Outburst, so even more time will be needed to evaluate the powerful enchantment.
Next week’s Weekly MTG stream will feature William Jensen to discuss changes coming to MTG Arena’s premier play.
