By Cody Gravelle Aug 03, 2020 Wizards of the Coast shocked the Magic: The Gathering community today with a new MTG banned and restricted list update that placed a staggering 11 cards on the banned or suspended list across four different formats. Players who have Fires of Invention and/or Agent of Treachery as a part of their in-game collection on MTG Arena prior to the game update on June 4 will receive an equal number of rare Wildcards added to their collection as part of the update. 25 cards with the Card Type “Conspiracy.” Click, 9 cards that reference "playing for ante." When a card is banned or restricted, players using the newly banned card in a league have until the Magic Online effective time to finish their league courses. Outside of the very top levels of competitive play, including throughout most of the MTG Arena traditional Standard ladder, we're seeing a good distribution of deck diversity and win rates. The Magic community is coming together for our annual Magic Extra Life live stream charity event benefiting Seattle Children's Hospital. While hundreds of hours are spent rigorously playtesting sets before their release, the complexity of Magic makes it nearly impossible to accurately predict all the ways the new cards interact with older ones. Historic and Brawl sections by Jay Parker. For formats that exist in tabletop as well as Magic Online, banned and restricted announcements are announced on Mondays by Tabletop Studio (R&D), and are effective on Magic Online at noon Pacific Time on the following day. The effect of stealing any lands or key cards, when at a high play rate, reduces diversity in the metagame. Click here for the list. This should open up the field for more traditional midrange and control decks and put less pressure on aggressive decks to also focus on hand disruption and counterspells. As new sets have been released, we've seen the win rates of Fires of Invention decks increase compared to past Standard metagame environments. After the June 4 game update, players will only receive copies of these cards if they have collected playsets of every other Standard-legal rare card available in the respective boosters. In addition, as we craft and test future environments, we've found the card Fires of Invention to be a significant design and balance constraint. With the last banned and restricted list update, we chose to unban Oath of Nissa in Pioneer. For Teferi, Timer Raveler, we get much the same feedback in Historic that we get in Standard. Click. The Card Image Gallery is updated every day with the latest card previews. Wizards has been a proud partner of Extra Life si... © 1993-2020 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Cards that reference “playing with ante”. For these reasons, we are suspending Teferi, Time Raveler in Historic. These lists are made up of cards that are either not allowed at all, or allowed only in a very limited manner. Previous Updates – October 2nd,2020 July 10th, 2020 Jan 2020, October 2020, August 2019, April 2020. Those lists are maintained on the format pages themselves. While Magic rules changes aren't normally a part of the banned and restricted list updates, in this case, we're introducing a change to the companion mechanic that is motivated by game balance and metagame share across play environments. However, at the skill level of our most competitive tournaments and the Mythic ranking on the Arena ladder, we do see a small number of decks with high win rates and play rates that have remained in that metagame position for quite some time. on August 3, 2020. We want to ensure that Pioneer can deliver an enjoyable play experience to players who are looking for an accessible, nonrotating format that's closer to Standard in power level and offers a variety of archetypes and decks to choose from. As a group, decks using companions have too high of win rates and metagame share in Standard, Pioneer, and Modern, and have already necessitated bans in Legacy and Vintage. It's clear that many players who have been, or could be, interested in Pioneer are ready for a change. Tabletop Effective Date (Rules and B&R): June 1, 2020, MTG Arena B&R and Companion Rules Effective Date: June 4, 2020, Magic Online B&R Effective Date: June 1, 2020, Magic Online Companion Rules Update Effective Date: June 3, 2020. While we're past the phase of frequent weekly updates to Pioneer, we're still in a period where changes are necessary to help shape the format in its initial launch year.