In a surprise announcement, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) has suspended Winota, Joiner of Forces in Historic today, just a week after an update to the Historic Banned and Restricted List.
The news comes at an interesting time after the June 1 B&R update received a week’s warning and suspended Agent of Treachery and Fires of Invention in Historic, while banning them in Standard. The suspension is happening today at 5 pm ET/2 pm PT after the Magic: The Gathering Arena update. The announcement sites “rising popularity” and a “problematically high” win rate for the suspension.
Though the article doesn’t mention deck specifics, the Winota deck being refereed to is most likely the Naya build that had an incredible performance in the Hooglandia Open 3 tournament, ran by Jeff Hoogland and MTG Melee on May 23. The deck had a win rate of over 70% in the one-day event held two days after Historic returned to Arena with Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths and Historic Anthology 3 legal.
The update says WotC wanted to monitor the deck since its emergence and let the format adjust. They made the decision stating, “though the field has recently shifted due to last week’s announcement, the data shows that this is not significantly reducing the performance of this deck.”
Not mentioned in the article was any adjustment to win rate or popularity in Winota decks following the companion mechanic change that didn’t come to Arena until Friday. It is notable that the Winota decks use Umori, the Collector, and some lists like the one streamer Crokeyz posted didn’t sideboard any non-creature spells.
The announcement said that because Winota is still legal in Standard and is only being suspended in Historic, they will not be issuing any wildcard refunds. Players registered in events with Winota in their decks will be able to finish those events, but the card will be suspended immediately in Historic play queues.
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