Dan Musser and Carmen Klomparens of the Play Design team for Magic: The Gathering joined Blake Rasmussen on today’s Weekly MTG stream to discuss Monday’s Banned & Restricted announcement, talk about the decisions the team made, and answer questions regarding the bans, unbans, and potential future moves.
Musser and Klomparens both started by admitting that Modern wasn’t in a great spot and that sentiment had compounded from the previous B&R update where Nadu, Winged Wisdom and Grief had to be banned. Musser noted that the format’s health had reached a point where a couple more bans wouldn’t be enough this time around, so the Play Design team spent most of November working out not only the bans needed to fix Modern, but also some unbans that would help return the format to its glory days.
Klomparens pointed out that The One Ring had been adopted by more and more decks while also being a four-of in the Energy decks. Action had to be taken, so the most-played card in the format, which also could lead to unfun play patterns, had to be banned. Musser said it was abundantly clear now that Energy was the top deck and also runs The One Ring, so it was time to take care of the card despite it providing Modern with some amount of longer, more resource-intensive games. Musser also verified that the team had considered restricting The One Ring, but ultimately, making the exception to the 0 or 4 rule in a competitive format wasn’t appropriate even if the answer was flavorful.
As for taking the Energy decks down a notch, the team had narrowed down six possible cards to target but it was important that they didn’t completely invalidate the archetype. Because Amped Raptor was really only a player in the Energy deck, it took the ban so the other important cards like Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury, Ajani, Nacatl Pariah, and Guide of Souls could continue to find homes in other decks while keeping the Energy deck around at a lower power level.
Jegantha, the Wellspring’s banning in both Modern and Pioneer was a much simpler discussion — it took away deckbuilding decisions, went against the spirit of the companions, and was too present in both formats while providing small, but relevant, win percentage points to decks that could play it. Jegantha was the second most-played creature in Modern and was yet another piece of the puzzle for nerfing the Energy decks.
As for the unbans, Musser and Klomparens emphasized how important it was to bring Modern back to what players loved about it years ago. The format needs competitive decks in most macro archetypes and players want to play with the iconic cards of an eternal format. While tapping into nostalgia was a part of the decision to unban the four cards — Mox Opal, Faithless Looting, Splinter Twin, and Green Sun’s Zenith — boosting up lesser played archetypes or reviving fallen strategies was key. Mox Opal fuels many different artifact decks, Faithless Looting has a home in a ton of graveyard decks, Green Sun’s Zenith can bolster green creature decks, and Splinter Twin is an archetype all in itself. Many players have fond memories of at least one of these cards and letting them fall back in love with Modern was a goal the team championed.
While the Modern unbans are exciting, Musser and Klomparens acknowledged the risks involved with making big changes. Klomparens said the team wasn’t positive all the moves would work out long-term, but the unbans were a swing for the fences and a way to show players that Play Design is listening to players’ concerns and criticisms of Modern. She also pointed out that Modern is in a much different place now than when these cards were banned. If certain decks still don’t preform, especially green creature decks, other cards can come off the ban list as well.
Other notables from the stream include:
- Standard, despite this weekend’s Arena Championship meta being quite homogenized, is largely healthy and diverse. The data shows decks like Dimir Midrange and the red aggressive decks are not out of bounds.
- Play Design is keeping an eye on the builds of Nadu in Legacy. Action will be taken if the Bant build continues to grow in popularity and win rate.
- More Modern unbans are likely in the future, but Play Design still wants to avoid negative play patters such as ones like Umezawa’s Jitte completely dominating creature decks after one attack.
- Legacy unbans aren’t impossible, but less likely to occur due to many of the cards still being clearly too strong for the format.
Read the official B&R announcement from Monday.
