January 25th, 2022 Banned and Restricted Announcement

Announcement Date: January 25, 2022

Standard:

Alrund’s Epiphany is banned.

Divide by Zero is banned.

Faceless Haven is banned.

Legacy:

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is banned.

Historic:

Memory Lapse is banned (from suspended).

Teferi, Time Raveler has been rebalanced and unbanned.

Tabletop Effective Date: January 25, 2022

Magic Online and MTG Arena effective date: January 27, 2022

The list of all banned and restricted cards, by format, is here.

Standard

In the October 2021 banned and restricted update, we announced no changes to Standard in anticipation of Innistrad: Crimson Vow‘s release soon following. Since then, we’ve heard community feedback that there hasn’t been enough change in the metagame over time. While a good number of decks are seeing success on the MTG Arena ladders and each has strengths and weakness against the others, the most played archetypes have remained largely the same over the past months.

As such, we have a set of changes targeted at some of the top decks, including Blue-Red Epiphany and other blue control decks, Mono-White Aggro, and Mono-Green Aggro. Our goal is to create some churn among the current top decks, open up additional angles from which to attack the metagame, and leave room for more experimentation and innovation with the release of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty.

Alrund’s Epiphany is a card we highlighted in the October announcement as having potential for negative impact on metagame diversity. While blue decks with powerful late-game spells can sometimes do good work as natural predators of midrange decks, a deck that chains together extra turns can be particularly difficult to stop and frustrating to play against when it represents too large a portion of the metagame. The foretell ability of Alrund’s Epiphany makes it even harder interact with, as one of the traditional answers to big spells is hand disruption.

While not entirely dominant throughout the MTG Arena ladders (especially in Best-of-One), Alrund’s Epiphany decks have been particularly popular and successful at the highest levels of competition and in tournament play. To create space in the metagame for more mid-speed and slow archetypes, and to address the often-frustrating play pattern of chaining extra turns, Alrund’s Epiphany is banned in Standard.

Even without access to Alrund’s Epiphany, our data gives us concern that other blue control decks are poised to reduce metagame diversity by shutting out certain types of strategies. In particular, Divide by Zero gives those decks flexible, early interaction that is especially effective against slower, more powerful spells and permanents. The ability of Divide by Zero to cover a variety of angles of attack frequently gives these decks enough time to enact and protect a powerful endgame soft-lock state, often using Lier, Disciple of the Drowned or Hullbreaker Horror. Therefore, we’re choosing to ban Divide by Zero to make blue control decks less effective against other mid-speed and slow decks and force them to be more intentional about which threats they choose to prepare for.

The most winning decks on the MTG Arena ladder, and among the most popular, have been Mono-White Aggro and Mono-Green Aggro. While each owes part of its success to preying upon Blue-Red Epiphany decks, both decks also have high win rates against the field, especially against many of the less popular decks on the fringes. Faceless Haven represents a lot of the power of these monocolor aggro decks by virtue of being efficient on its own and by providing resilience against creature sweepers and targeted removal. To weaken these two aggressive archetypes without fundamentally changing their core game plan, Faceless Haven is banned.

Legacy

Last summer’s Modern Horizons 2 release introduced several high-impact cards to the Legacy card pool, and since then, we’ve been watching the metagame develop and listening to community feedback. While players’ feedback was not unanimous, many have expressed concerns about Blue-Red Delver decks, which picked up some powerful new options from recent sets.

Although recent tournaments (including Eternal Weekend in November) haven’t been conclusive in terms of Blue-Red Delver’s overall win rate alone, the deck has represented a very large portion of the metagame and posted many top finishes. Magic Online league data shows Blue-Red Delver at over a 56% non-mirror match win rate and more than twice as many trophies earned as the next highest archetype over the past weeks.

In addition to the high league win rates and large tournament metagame population, we’ve heard much discussion of the tendency of games to snowball from an early Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer backed up by protective spells like Daze and Force of Will. Because of the high power level and efficiency of Legacy’s card pool, early mana and card advantage can take over a game even more so than in other formats. To weaken Blue-Red Delver decks and encourage more back and forth exchange before a game is effectively decided, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is banned in Legacy.

We’ll be keeping an eye on how the Legacy format continues to evolve in the coming weeks and are willing to make further adjustments soon, if needed. However, we feel this is a large change and would like to see how the metagame adapts before considering if other changes are necessary.

Historic

Blue decks in Historic continue to remain strong, so Memory Lapse is officially moving from the suspended list to banned in Historic.

Additionally, as we have rebalanced Teferi, Time Raveler into a form we believe is safe for Historic, and it will be removed from the banned list. Read more about the rebalances and the rebalanced Teferi, Time Raveler.

Alchemy Rebalancing for January 27, 2022

Since Alchemy’s launch, we have been happy with the overall deck diversity in the format. Our intent with this round of changes is to better balance the play rates between the top decks while ensuring they all remain viable. We also hope that the minor adjustment to some of the top decks alongside buffs to other cards will allow more decks to compete at the highest level of play.

After closely monitoring our first round of Alchemy rebalances, we’re happy to report that they had minimal impact on Historic win rates among existing decks, but we also understand players’ concern over future unknowns. Based on that feedback, we will be weighing the potential Historic impact more heavily in our rebalance decisions, starting with the adjustments we’re announcing today.

As with all balance and card pool changes, we will be carefully watching the way the metagame evolves as a result. If we see signs in Alchemy or Historic that these changes have had an unintended impact, we will move to correct that. If we see that these changes have not done enough, we will correct that as well, and continue doing so as often as necessary. As we’ve stated before, our goal for Alchemy and Alchemy rebalances is to keep the format interesting and engaging every time players sit down to play.

In addition to the 18 rebalanced cards, we rebalanced Teferi, Time Raveler, and the updated Alchemy version will be legal in Historic play. In the future, we’ll be looking for similar opportunities to rebalance and unban cards currently on the Historic banned list, with the understanding that we have no intention of rebalancing iconic cards with significant Magic history (e.g., Brainstorm). And before you ask, you get to keep your Wildcards from the original banning.

January 27, 2022, Alchemy Rebalance Changes

The two primary goals with this set of changes are to make decks centered around the venture keyword action less clunky and more reliable at winning games. For example, too many venture cards were clustered at three mana, and we hope that decreasing the mana value of various cards will open up more options to build around cards like Acererak; Nadaar, Selfless Paladin; and Varis, Silverymoon Ranger. Similarly, by making Triumphant Adventurer hit harder, turning Cloister Gargoyle into a two-mana threat, letting Ellywick Tumblestrum ultimate one turn quicker, and having Acererak always create a zombie token, we are aiming for decks built around venture to win more consistently after completing a dungeon.

Card Buffs

Acererak the Archlich – Rules adjustment
Removed opponent’s option to sacrifice a creature on the attack trigger.

Assemble from Parts – Lowered overall cost, now requires two black mana
Ability costs 1BB (from 3B)

We felt the dream of reanimating a creature on turn four with Assemble from Parts was too difficult to achieve. Changing the ability’s mana cost will make a turn-four reanimation much more consistent but will require a heavier commitment to black to support the adjusted cost.

Bloodrage Alpha – Increased toughness
Is 4/4 (from 4/3)

As cards with a high deck-building cost, we felt this card alongside Puppet Raiser should be more resilient to make them more competitive when compared to some of the more universal four-mana options.

Cloister Gargoyle – Lowered cost, increased toughness
Costs 1W (from 2W), is 0/3 (from 0/4)

Dungeon Descent – Rules adjustment, decreased cost
Removed “enters the battlefield tapped,” costs 1 mana to activate (from 4 mana)

Ellywick Tumblestrum – Decreased activated ability cost
Third Planeswalker ability is now -6 (from -7)

Fate’s Reversal – Lowered cost
Costs B (from 1B)

Find the Path – Rules adjustment
Now adds two mana of any one color (from adding GG)

Puppet Raiser – Increased toughness
Is 3/4 (from 3/3)

Precipitous Drop
Costs 1B (from 2B)

Triumphant Adventurer
Is 2/1 (from 1/1)

Card Adjustments

Divide By Zero – Rules adjustment
Only Learns if it targets a spell or permanent with mana value 4 or less

We are aiming to promote higher mana value cards in Alchemy. Divide by Zero was stronger as it targeted more expensive cards, and this change will more evenly distribute its power.

Fearsome Whelp – Rules adjustment
Now triggers on upkeep (from end step), gains haste

We are looking to make the explosive starts with Fearsome Whelp easier to interact with. Changing the trigger from end step to upkeep will give decks an additional turn to profitably interact with Fearsome Whelp. Giving Fearsome Whelp haste is a small way to compensate and make it more relevant in combat.

Hullbreaker Horror – Rules adjustment
Removed “This spell can’t be countered”

Removing “This spell can’t be countered” will make Hullbreaker Horror easier to interact with in both control mirrors and other blue decks. Since blue control decks also have access to Malevolent Hermit and Lier, Disciple of the Drowned, we felt removing the third instance of “can’t be countered” will make the mirror more fun. This change will also make aggro-control more viable as cards like Disdainful Stroke can more reliably interact with threats in the pure control decks.

Inquisitor Captain – Rules adjustment
Added “if you cast it and” to the enters-the-battlefield ability

We are making it more difficult to overwhelm the board with Inquisitor Captain. The interactions with cards such as Glasspool Mimic in Alchemy and Soulherder in Historic made it too difficult for creature-based decks to attack advantageously without relying on flying or forcing them to ignore combat altogether.

Lier, Disciple of the Drowned
Added “during your turn” to the flashback ability

We are aiming to make Lier, Disciple of the Drowned less effective when combined with Fading Hope and Divide by Zero. The two bounce spells are very effective at protecting Lier and controlling creatures. This change will help players remove Lier, favorably attack, and interact with the opponent’s graveyard on their turn.

Sanguine Brushstroke
Removed life gain from sacrificing Blood token trigger

We are specifically targeting how Sanguine Brushstroke matches up against aggressive strategies. We opted to change Sanguine Brushstroke instead of The Meathook Massacre to minimize the impact to Historic and to have less of the deck’s power concentrated in a single card. Removing the life gain from the enchantment will allow aggressive decks to focus their answers on the conjured Blood Artist and overall increase their chances of pushing through lethal damage.

Town-Razer Tyrant
Added “nonbasic” as a targeting restriction

We are aiming to promote more monocolor decks in Alchemy and provide a few opportunities to play around the Dragon’s ability. Multicolor decks can include more basic lands to reduce their chances of being denied a specific color of mana and play around turn-three Town-Razer Tyrants.

Card Legality

Teferi, Time Raveler – Balance adjustments, now legal in Historic
Costs 2WU (from 1WU), now has 5 starting loyalty (from 4), static ability becomes “Your opponents can’t cast spells during your turn.”

We are aiming to move Teferi, Time Raveler away from a generically strong card to a specialized anti-control tool. Increasing the mana cost will make Teferi less effective at controlling the board, and the new static won’t incidentally stop cards like Finale of Promise and Dreadhorde Arcanist from working.