Magic: The Gathering Play Design Manager Jadine Klomparens and Senior Game Designer Carmen Klomparens joined Blake Rasmussen on today’s Weekly MTG stream to discuss Monday’s Banned and Restricted update and announce the seven tentative B&R windows for 2026.
One of the major lessons the Play Design team learned from this year is the need for more B&R dates to address problematic decks, especially after what happened with Izzet Cauldron’s dominance in Standard over the past couple of months. Play Design didn’t want to stray from its few scheduled updates to the Banned and Restricted list so players could feel comfortable investing in decks to play for a season, but a dip in play numbers for Standard events – particularly competitive tournaments like Spotlight Series events, Standard Showdowns, and RCQs – during Vivi Ornitier’s reign proved that system needed a quick change.
Jadine noted that with more B&R windows, the Vivi + Cauldron problem could have been addressed after two months rather than three, which would have resulted in more diverse Standard formats for events like the two Magic Spotlight: Spider-Man tournaments. She also reiterated what was said in yesterday’s announcement, pointing out how everyone saw the Vivi ban coming after overwhelming win rates and play rates for Izzet Cauldron. The deck and the surrounding shell was so strong the Play Design team also went after Proft’s Eidetic Memory to prevent the Izzet decks with Quantum Riddler and Steamcore Scholar from being too strong following the most recent bannings.
Jadine clarified that it became pretty clear that Mono-Red Aggro, the only other deck many players thought could hang with Izzet Cauldron, couldn’t compete with Vivi and the win rates at recent tournaments was quite low. Despite it not fairing well against Izzet Cauldron, Mono-Red Aggro did threaten to become the de facto best deck after Vivi and Proft’s banning so some action was required there. Screaming Nemesis was the target as it rendered most counterplay useless and was an unfun card to play against.
Legacy also saw significant action yesterday with the banning of Entomb and Nadu, Winged Wisdom. Carmen started her answer on how the bans were decided on by referencing how Play Design tried its best to ban around Entomb for a long time. She said it was the hardest call she had to make since her start at Wizards of the Coast (WotC), but after Dimir Reanimator remained the best deck by a large margin for multiple years it was time to finally ban Entomb. She pointed out the difference of cards like Brainstorm and Entomb being the former goes into many decks and strategies while Entomb props up basically only one archetype.
Carmen said that some of the previous cards that were banned to nerf Reanimator might come back in future unbannings, but this announcement was to take the top off the format and allow the community to explore Legacy with a major shift before tinkering more with other cards. Similarly, this is why cards like The One Ring and Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student were not addressed in Monday’s announcement. If those cards turn out to be problematic long-term, Carmen said there is nothing special about either of them and Play Design would take action on them if warranted.
When discussing the ban of Heartfire Hero in Pioneer, Carmen said the data Play Design saw proved Mono-Red Aggro to be the best deck by a wide margin. She said that in Best-Of-One play on MTG Arena, Mono-Red Aggro had the highest win rate of any deck she had ever seen and that its play rate was higher than the second and third-most played decks combined. The deck was still the best deck, by a smaller a margin, in Best-Of-Three play but still was beating almost everything else in the format, only showing weakness in a couple of matchups.
Play Design wants to keep Mono-Red Aggro as a viable deck in Pioneer, but it clearly needed taken down a peg. While Mono-Red Aggro is typically a good deck to have in an environment, when it is the best deck is shoves too many other decks and ideas out of the format. The deck simply made brewing and piloting pet decks a non-starter in Pioneer.
Read the Monday’s official B&R announcement from WotC.
The next banned and restricted update will be on February 9, 2026.
