Wizards Confirm Next Banned and Restricted Announcement on March 11, 2024

Wizards of the Coast has confirmed the next Banned and Restricted announcement is scheduled for Monday, March 11, 2024 on their WeeklyMTG stream.

Banned and Restricted Announcement Schedule

The Banned and Restricted Announcement schedule is more set in stone since the update to Standard Rotation from a once a year event to every two years. Here, they discussed the future of bans where announcements were to happen at least once a year, and anything outside of that will happen in a small window after a new Standard expansion release.

Here is the statement from the previous Banned and Restricted Announcement on December 4, 2023 that confirms the date for March 11, 2024:

We have a lot to discuss today, but before diving into each of the formats, we’d like to provide a bit of clarity to our announcement dates and windows. Going forward, we’ll be operating with a slightly more flexible announcement cadence. Future banned and restricted announcements will occur two to five weeks after each set’s release. This allows us to capture data from large events like Pro Tours while ensuring we make changes before the next set begins previewing. We want to establish a clear picture of each format before you start evaluating and collecting cards from the next set.

So we have a window following each main set release. It is still our goal that most and/or all changes to Standard happen once per year during the fall banned and restricted window that’s associated with the new three-year Standard rotation. Changes to Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, and Vintage can happen during any main set release window. The next such window in 2024 will be around March 11 following the release of Murders at Karlov Manor.

December 4, 2023 Banned and Restricted Announcement

Current Standard Banned Card List

With no cards banned from Standard since May 2023, the below four cards are currently banned:

• The Meathook Massacre
• Fable of the Mirror-Breaker
• Invoke Despair
• Reckoner Bankbuster

With rotation is coming up in August with Bloomburrow, it’s hard to say whether the format actually needs any more banned cards. A stale meta may feel more like a symptom of a format that has a lot more sets than usual. Having said that, after rotation, with set design keeping longer rotation periods in mind, it should feel a lot better.

WeeklyMTG