Magic: The Gathering on Monday introduced one other spherical of shock card bans. While Wizards of the Coast didn’t reveal the upcoming ruling till Sunday after the tip of the Magic 2020 Grand Finals, the rulings’ contents ought to shock nobody who watched that occasion. Wizards of the Coast banned Omnath, Locus of Creation in Standard, Historic, and Brawl play. Omnath, Locus of Creation appeared in 72% of decks within the Grand Finals. That’s a extra extreme overrepresentation than Oko, Thief of Crowns noticed earlier than its banning. Though the Grand Finals occasion was Standard format, Omnath, Locus of Creation has confirmed highly effective sufficient in Historic and Brawl to be banned from these codecs as properly.
Wizards of the Coast additionally banned Lucky Clover and Escape to the Wilds in Standard. Those two playing cards are essential to producing the worth and card benefit central to Adventure decks, which reached their peak with Omnath, Locus of Creation’s launch in Zendikar Rising.
Additionally, Wizards of the Coast banned the beforehand suspended Wilderness Reclamation and Teferi, Time Raveler from Historic play whereas restoring Burning-Tree Emissary’s legality. Here’s the total checklist of adjustments, that are efficient at the moment:
- Standard:
- Omnath, Locus of Creation is banned.
- Lucky Clover is banned.
- Escape to the Wilds is banned.
- Historic:
- Omnath, Locus of Creation is suspended.
- Teferi, Time Raveler is banned.
- Wilderness Reclamation is banned.
- Burning-Tree Emissary is unsuspended.
- Brawl:
- Omnath, Locus of Creation is banned.
Explaining the choice behind these bans, designer Ian Duke writes, “The two hottest decks within the Standard metagame, Four-Color Ramp and Four-Color Adventures, each characteristic Omnath, Locus of Creation as a key part. While we did see a marked decline within the win fee of Four-Color Ramp after the banning of Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath, significantly towards purple and inexperienced aggressive decks and Blue-Black Rogues, Omnath ramp decks proceed to have a warping impact on the metagame. Moreover, Four-Color Adventures has change into the deck with the very best general win fee and has a positive matchup towards 9 out of 10 of the opposite prime decks that do not play Omnath.
“This metagame dominance manifested itself in gamers’ deck decisions for the Grand Finals. While it is common in a small-field invitational match for gamers to check collectively and converge on a number of decks, on this case the sector was a putting 23 Omnath decks out of a complete of 32. To tackle the dominance of Omnath, Locus of Creation, it’s banned in Standard.”
Duke goes on to elucidate that the designers anticipate that Adventure decks would nonetheless dominate even with out Omnath, Locus of Creation. To curb that, they eliminated Lucky Clover from play, however hope that the continued existence of Edgewall Innkeeper will imply that the archetype would not disappear totally. Wizards of the Coast banned Escape to the Wilds to additional curb the continued dominance of ramp decks.
The bans go into impact at the moment in Magic: The Gathering tabletop play, Magic: The Gathering Arena, and Magic: The Gathering Online.
