Oko, Thief of Crowns, Once Upon a Time and Veil of Summer Banned in Standard

Over the past several weeks, the Standard metagame has been in an unhealthy state, so we’re taking significant steps to rectify it. The two major issues are the dominance of Simic-based Food decks featuring Oko, Thief of Crowns and the general overrepresentation of green in the competitive metagame.

Food decks featuring Oko, Thief of Crowns have been the most popular and most winning for the majority of the Throne of Eldraine Standard season. This culminated with almost 70% of decks at Mythic Championship Richmond including the card. Based on data from high-ranked Arena traditional (Best-of-Three) play, only one of the other ten most-played decks (Simic Flash) had a favorable matchup against Simic-based Food decks, and only just above 50%. Food decks maintained an average of about a 53% non-mirror match win rate, even with the metagame focused on beating them.

Oko, Thief of Crowns has also reduced metagame diversity and diversity of gameplay in Standard by shutting off build-around creatures and artifacts. Ultimately, Oko’s power level has proven higher than is healthy for the current metagame, and higher than intended for future environments, including Theros: Beyond Death and forward.

To address green’s general dominance, we’re also choosing to remove Once Upon a Time and Veil of Summer from the environment. Alongside Oko, Thief of Crowns, Once Upon a Time is one of the key reasons green has been overrepresented in the environment. It contributes to a high consistency of strong starts and provides a level of early mana fixing that other colors don’t have access to. This advantage is especially important in the context of a small five-set Standard card pool with less flexible mana bases. Arena data indicates that, without also removing Once Upon a Time, green decks would still continue to be too powerful and consistent going forward.

Finally, Veil of Summer is also playing an important role in preventing the metagame from being able to self-correct. Cards that played similar roles in the past, like Autumn’s Veil and Display of Dominance, proved a lower power level than desired in their respective Standard environments, leaving green with a weaker option compared to the other “color hate” cards in those cycles. Veil of Summer is at the other end of the spectrum. It’s too much more efficient than the other cards in its cycle, and by comparison to other tools available in Standard, gives green decks too much resilience against removal and disruption.

We believe these changes are necessary and sufficient to open up the Standard metagame to a much higher degree of diversity, and the resulting environment going forward will more closely match design intent.

For more information about what these bannings mean on Magic: The Gathering Arena for collections, pack collations, and events, click here.

Source: NOVEMBER 18, 2019 BANNED AND RESTRICTED ANNOUNCEMENT

MTG Arena Effective Date: November 18, 2019

Standard:

• Oko, Thief of Crowns is banned.
• Once Upon a Time is banned.
• Veil of Summer is banned.

The ban applies to both Traditional (best-of-three) and Arena (best-of-one) Standard constructed formats and events. This includes Play, Standard Ranked, Traditional Standard Play, Traditional Standard Ranked, Standard Event, and Traditional Standard Event. This does not include Direct Challenge matches except for Tournament Mode. As a general reminder, Brawl maintains a separate ban list from other Standard formats.

To read more about this change, please refer to today’s Banned and Restricted Announcement.

IMPORTANT: SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE

We will be deploying a data only patch to implement the changes outlined below. While no downtime is expected, these changes may not be in effect until maintenance is complete. Please refer to our status page for more information.

PLAYER COLLECTIONS

Players who have Oko, Thief of Crowns, Once Upon a Time and/or Veil of Summer as a part of their in-game collection on MTG Arena prior to 1.01.00.04 game update on November 18 will receive an equal number of Wildcards of the appropriate rarity to their collection as part of the update. Players will receive a notification in-game when the ban takes effect as well as the number and types of Wildcards they have received.

Players can still redeem Wildcards for Oko, Thief of Crowns, Once Upon a Time and Veil of Summer for play in non–Standard formats. There will be confirmation messages reminding players that these cards are currently banned in Standard.

PACK COLLATION

We will be adjusting the Throne of Eldraine pack collation to change the rate in which Oko, Thief of Crowns and Once Upon a Time appear in booster packs. After the 1.01.00.04 patch, players will only receive Oko, Thief of Crowns if they have collected playsets of every other mythic rare card and will only receive Once Upon a Time if they have collected playsets of every other rare card available in Throne of Eldraine boosters.

Veil of Summer will still appear in Core Set 2020 booster packs at its normal distribution rate.

These changes will not impact the collation of cards in Limited boosters used in Throne of Eldraine or Core Set 2020 sealed and draft events (cards will still appear at their original distribution rate).

INDIVIDUAL CARD REWARDS (ICRS)

Oko, Thief of Crown and Once Upon a Time will be removed from ICRs. Players may still receive Veil of Summer from ICRs. Players will receive vault progress for any copies of Veil of Summer they receive beyond a playset.

A NOTE ON IN-GAME EVENTS

STANDARD EVENTS

If you were participating in a Traditional Standard and/or Standard Event using a deck that included any of these cards prior to the 1.01.00.04 game update, you will still be able to complete the event with your current deck. Please note that your deck will be flagged as invalid because of the ban, however, this will not prevent you from finishing a previously entered event. Once you have finished the current event, you will no longer be able to submit decks that contain these cards.

STANDARD CASCADE

Oko, Thief of Crowns, Once Upon a Time, and Veil of Summer will remain playable in the Festival of The Fae: Standard Cascade event.

Source: NOVEMBER 18, 2019 MTG: ARENA BANNED ANNOUNCEMENT