On Dec. 16, Wizards of the Coast released the updated banned and restricted announcement, sharing which Magic: The Gathering cards are no longer allowed in competitive play – along with a few cards that they’re bringing back into the fold. While there was a ban announcement for MTG: Arena in late October, this is the first update to competitive play since two major shifts occurred in the MTG ecosystem: a new release schedule for ban list updates and Wizards of the Coast’s newly-assumed stewardship of the Commander format.
While the previous banned and restricted announcement for these formats came in August, it was the first to diverge from the previous update schedule – which used to align with new set releases in the middle of competitive seasons. The June banned and restricted list came a week prior to the Pro Tour event. “This can make it difficult for players to have confidence in their deck selection for events they’ve planned for, both from a testing perspective and a logistical one,” Magic designers Dan Musser and Dave Finseth stated in their August announcement.
They also announced Magic would be reducing the cadence of their updates to align with Regional Championship events. “We’re nearing the end of a round of [championship events],” the Dec. 16 announcement stated. “In addition to gameplay on both MTG Arena and Magic Online, this gave our team substantial data to address any issues with each of the various competitive formats.”
These types of changes to playable cards in sanctioned Magic events typically are made under the auspices of making the various formats more fair and fun to play. In her explanation of the banned cards, designer Arya Karamchandani wrote that cards which disrupt play too significantly can homogenize the decks people play because it’s “hard to justify playing a personal favorite card or a metagame-specific call if it means giving up Jegantha [the Wellspring].” This becomes an increasingly more dire problem as the rate of releases dramatically increases with IP tie-ins like the Universes Beyond Lord of the Rings set, which saw a card banned on this list.
The full list of updates covers 10 Magic formats, with no changes being made to Standard, Vintage, Alchemy, Historic, Timeless, or Brawl. The Modern format saw the biggest changes, because “this is the beginning of a new era,” the design team said in the Dec. 16 announcement. “Many of you have given feedback time and again about the good old days of Modern, before Modern Horizons sets started increasing the power level of the format and making iconic decks obsolete. After long consideration, we’ve chosen an initial list of cards to unban,” those being Mox Opal, Green Sun’s Zenith, Faithless Looting, and Splinter Twin.
Notably missing from the update is the Commander format – which only came under the control of Wizards after the volunteer-led rules committee stepped down after allegedly receiving death threats for banning cards which disrupted play, but were highly valued by collectors. This most recent update does not seem to have drawn the same level of ire from the most vocal online segments of the community. Legacy players on Reddit seem to feel particularly overlooked, noting that Nadu, Winged Wisdom – a card that was the subject of an emergency ban request before being ultimately banned in the Modern format – was still playable. Many in the forum felt this was a delay of an inevitable problem with the card, assuming the final ban would come on March 31, 2025 when the next announcement is scheduled for release.