In today’s Banned and Restricted Announcement, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) has banned Oko, Thief of Crowns, Mox Opal, and Mycosynth Lattice in Modern.
Now banned in Standard, Modern, Pioneer, and Brawl, Oko has proven to be one of Magic’s biggest design mistakes of all time. The Simic planeswalker has dominated every format he has been legal in, with many players stretching their mana base in unique ways to have access to the powerful planeswalker.
Mox Opal has been on the Modern watch list for some time, as players have felt the zero-mana accelerant was the most objectively powerful card in Modern for the past few years. And while many agreed with this thought process, its banning still took many by surprise and for some, even feels bittersweet:
But what comes as the biggest surprise from WotC’s B&R announcement is the banning of Mycosynth Lattice , a mostly irrelevant artifact originally printed in Darksteel until the printing of Karn, the Great Creator. Karn’s ability to find the six-mana artifact with such ease, as well as the two together on the battlefield locking opponents from taking a game action was, per Ian Duke, “causing it to show up more often than is fun in competitive play.”
No changes were made to Pioneer in today’s B&R announcement, though WotC did let players know that they’re keeping their eyes on the Heliod Sun-Crowned + Walking Ballista combo that many are concerned about:
“We’re also aware of the community buzz around the combination of Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Walking Ballista in Pioneer. In keeping with our philosophy of letting the Pioneer metagame prove itself through play results, our plan is not to take any preemptive action against this combination. If, after the Pioneer Players Tour and Grand Prix tournaments, the results of league and tournament play bear out that this combination is a long-term threat to the health of the format, we’ll consider changes at that time. “
Read the January 13, 2020 Banned and Restricted announcement from Wizards of the Coast.