0 
0 Wizards of the Coast announced new cards to be added to the ban list of several formats today. Most anticipated were the bans of Vivi Ornitier, Screaming Nemesis, and Proft’s Eidetic Memory from Standard. For the last few months, Izzet Cauldron has been bending the Standard format to its image. After its omnipresence in most major Standard tournaments, it became clear that the Izzet Cauldron deck had to go for the sake of the meta. It is simply too fast, too powerful, and most importantly, too many people play it, hence warping the entire format around it.
Izzet Cauldron Takes Over Standard Meta
Instead of an emergency ban, as they used to call them, Wizards of the Coast moved up their ban schedule from November 24th to Monday, November 10th. This announcement was made shortly after the shockingly strong performance of Izzet decks in several Standard tournaments.
There is nothing wrong with a strong strategy that performs well. The problem lies when a huge number of players all decide to play said strategy, thus hurting what is known within the MTG community as the meta health. According to WotC, a “healthy” meta has several decks, all with varying strategies that pull from the wide pool of cards in their format. This has not been the case in official Standard tournaments such as the Magic Spotlight: Spider-Man in Liverpool, where Izzet Cauldron dominated the meta with an astounding 60.8% non-mirror Day 1 win rate.
Bye Bye Vivi
Wizards of the Coast has targeted Vivi Ornitier as the main culprit for the spike in popularity of Izzet strategies in Standard. And they are not wrong, the cute little wizard from Final Fantasy does everything a blue-red player can possibly want from a three-drop creature. Vivi generates mana out of thin air whilst growing into a large threat. The card is really the tipping point that pushed the meta over to an overwhelming amount of Izzet presence, thus hurting the game’s diversity.
More Bans in Standard
Another card to get the axe is Screaming Nemesis. As soon as he hit the board, games turned from midrange battles to a real nightmare of inevitability. It punished players whether they’re blocking against it or attacking into it. There is really no way around it, except targeted removal spells. Screaming Nemesis turned strong red decks into oppressive powerhouses, in some cases shutting down entire archetypes.
Proft’s Eidetic Memory might seem game-changing at first glance, but like many blue cards, it becomes better and stronger with time. Putting +1/+1 counters on creatures equal to the amount of extra cards drawn this turn, in a blue deck, means turning small creatures with evasion into massive monsters that put your enemies on a clock. Pairing this with Vivi Ornitier, for example, can lead to very explosive turns.
Bans in Other Formats
Most notably, Wizards also banned High Tide in Pauper. For anybody familiar with this card, it shouldn’t come as too big a surprise. Who could have thought that doubling mana until the end of the turn in a spell slinger deck can lead to chaining one spell after another, inevitably leading to an easy combo win with cards that have Storm?
Entomb and Nadu, Winged Wisdom were both banned from Legacy. Entomb, well, it’s a one-mana instant tutor. It gives graveyard strategies consistency and an almost toolbox-style of response to any threat on the board. Nadu was banned because it single-handedly induces opponents into a state of hibernation. No, seriously, it might be the most boring non-interactive combo card ever printed in MTG history, and that is saying something. Nadu will not be missed in any of the formats it has been banned.
To take a look at the full list of bans, check out Wizards’ official website.
What do you think? Is this latest Wizards of the coast ban list justified?
Find all our Magic The Gathering articles here
YouTube | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Discord | Podcast
About Author
