Magic: The Gathering's Latest Banned and Restricted Announcement Is Not What Players Expected

Magic: The Gathering just made its latest banned and restricted announcement. The news is not what players were expecting. Many Magic: The Gathering players expected Wizards of the Coast to ban The One Ring from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set (the run-of-the-mill version, not specifically the one-of-a-kind card that Post Malone recently acquired) since it quickly became the most played card in Magic's Modern format following its release in late June. Orcish Bowmasters from the same set was also considered a potential ban target. "When the metagame preview for the Pro Tour was showcased, it was initially concerning. While the metagame share of decks is in normal ranges and is relatively diverse, the play rates of brand-new cards in The One Ring and Orcish Bowmasters as the number-one and number-two cards, respectively, is something we rarely see in high-level Eternal tournaments," Magic: The Gathering Play Designer Michael Majors writes in the Modern format portion of the announcement.

But Magic: The Gathering chose not to ban The One Ring or Orcish Bowmasters. Majors says that decision came after seeing the results from the Pro Tour and speaking to the players who competed and attended MagicCon: Barcelona. "As we watched the tournament unfold, and after we had many conversations with players both competing in the Pro Tour as well as attending MagicCon: Barcelona to play Modern, much of our concern subsided. A variety of decks were performing well, and the games and interactions within those games looked healthy. We saw some amazing matches over the weekend that were textured, interesting, and interactive." Majors concludes by saying that they won't be taking any actions against cards from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth with this announcement. However, Wizards of the Coast will continue monitoring The One Ring and Orcish Bowmaster's influence on the Modern format metagame.

Magic: The Gathering Unbans Preordain and Mind's Desire

Instead, Magic: The Gathering chose to unban the card Preordain in the Modern format. Wizards of the Coast banned Preordain in 2011 to try to temper the dominance of blue-based combo decks in the format's metagame of the era. However, it's been over a decade, and the Modern format has changed, especially with the introduction of sets specifically designed for the Modern.

"On average, Modern is a lot more interactive now, in part due to the Modern Horizons sets," Majors writes. "It was a goal of those releases to offer powerful options to stop your opponents' combos and play longer, more interactive games. As a result, we believe that Preordain will do more to boost fairer blue decks rather than simply increase the consistency of combo strategies."

Wizards of the Coast also chose to unban the card Mind's Desire in the Legacy format. Wizards of the Coast banned Mind's Desire 20 years ago, in 2003, because it offered nearly unfettered access to powerful spells when there were few answers and creature cards were vastly underpowered compared to non-creature cards. Since those standards have changed, Wizards has decided that it is safe to allow Mind's Desire back into play.

"Two decades have passed since Mind's Desire was banned, and in that time, creatures have become more powerful, new planeswalker cards have been introduced, and there are multiple cycles of free spells that have made it much harder to be a lover of the storm mechanic," writes Carmen Handy of the Magic: The Gathering Play Design team in the Legacy portion of today's announcement. "In the interest of making sure that combo players also get the same level of new content and strength that other archetypes incidentally gain through our tentpole offerings, we've decided to unban Mind's Desire in Legacy."

The announcement goes into effect today for both tabletop play and Magic Online. The Standard, Pioneer, and Vintage formats are all unaffected by today's announcement. Magic: The Gathering Arena does not feature Modern or Legacy format play. Thus, MTG Arena is unaffected by today's announcements.