[B&R] Banned & Restricted List – Grandi Novità 26.08.24

[fabrimagic]

bannati [Card]Chatterstorm[/Card] e [Card]Sojourner's Companion[/Card] in pauper

qui l'annuncio
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... t?squirrel

si deve aggiornare anche la lista delle carte bannate qui:
viewtopic.php?f=158&t=10200

[ExLo05]

Ban e Sban Commander
Bannato [Card]Golos, Tireless Pilgrim[/Card]
[Card]Worldfire[/Card] sbannata
Qua l'annucio con le motivazioni: https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/2021/09/

[il meglio emilio]

[Card]Worldfire[/Card] sbannata

Poetico, a pagina 1 di questo thread la vediamo bannata
(e per me così doveva restare)

Bannato [Card]Golos, Tireless Pilgrim[/Card]

Chi stappa lo champagne con me?

[Alex]

October 13, 2021 Banned and Restricted Announcement - Announcement Date: October 13, 2021

Standard: No changes

We've been carefully monitoring the Standard metagame since the format rotation and release of Innistrad: Midnight Hunt. As Innistrad: Midnight Hunt's Standard season winds down and we approach the release of Innistrad: Crimson Vow next month, we've been aware of some players' concerns about the impact of certain individual cards on metagame diversity, such as Alrund's Epiphany and Esika's Chariot. After reviewing MTG Arena metagame data and recent online events (including the World Championship), and in considering the upcoming release of Innistrad: Crimson Vow, we've decided not to make any changes at this time.

We'll consider changes to the Standard environment, if necessary, after evaluating Innistrad: Crimson Vow's impact on the metagame.

Historic:

[Card]Tibalt's Trickery[/Card] is banned in Historic.

[Card]Memory Lapse[/Card] is suspended in Historic.

[Card]Brainstorm[/Card] is banned in Historic (from suspended).

Five digital-only cards are being rebalanced:

[Card]Davriel's Withering[/Card] and [Card]Davriel, Soul Broker'[/Card]s third ability now only affect "target creature an opponent controls."
[Card]Faceless Agent[/Card] is now 2/2 (from 2/1).
[Card]Sarkhan, Wanderer to Shiv[/Card]'s second ability is now +1 (from +0).
[Card]Subversive Acolyte[/Card] now costs 1B (from BB), is 2/3 (from 2/2), and had the toughness increases from becoming Human or Phyrexian reduced by 1.

MTG Arena effective date: October 14, 2021

Jumpstart: Historic Horizons created a large amount of change in the Historic Metagame, and most of it looks very positive. But after watching initial reception, September's Historic Arena Open, and the response of the broader metagame to the Arena Open, there are a couple adjustments we feel the Historic format needs.

In addition to the normal bans and suspensions, the digital-only cards in Jumpstart: Historic Horizons give us a chance to return to a balance tool we haven't used in Magic for many years: functional rebalancing for cards. More on that below.

Bans and Suspensions

On the broader Historic metagame front, one of the big changes is the return of decks built around Tibalt's Trickery, now using Throes of Chaos to boost the hit rate on the combo dramatically. This has led to a marked increase in win rate for the deck relative to the prior version and a corresponding increase in popularity. The prior, less consistent version of this deck was borderline, and the increased hit rate in this version has pushed it over the line. Because we think it is unlikely for Historic to be able to safely include a combo of this speed and consistency, Tibalt's Trickery is banned in Historic.

In Banned and Restricted Announcements earlier this year, we have talked about the dominance of blue and red decks. Our past changes, along with the additions from Jumpstart: Historic Horizons, have done good work in addressing this, but we still see a slight issue here.

Looking at high-level play and the Arena Open in particular, Memory Lapse emerged as nearly a must-include in high-performing blue decks. It was the most played nonland card in the Arena Open as well as the Best-of-Three ladder, and it is one of the most played cards in Best-of-One as well. While we do believe that removing Memory Lapse from the format is likely to create further improvements in format diversity, we also believe the case is less clear than Tibalt's Trickery. As such, and in order to increase format diversity, Memory Lapse is suspended in Historic.

Rounding out the bans and suspensions, Brainstorm is currently suspended in Historic, and this has helped in shifting the metagame in a healthier direction. Because this suspension has proved positive, Brainstorm is banned in Historic.

Rebalanced Cards

In addition to these bans and suspensions, we are also rebalancing five cards with this announcement. Digital-only cards in digital-only formats like Historic give us the ability to functionally rebalance cards simply and clearly. We can simply update the text digitally, and the cards will remain accurate to their new function.

Functional rebalancing is a significant change in how we're managing balance for our formats, and it merits a bit of explanation around what it does and doesn't mean. Going forward, we will be managing formats on MTG Arena in two different ways. "Print" formats, like Standard, will continue to work exactly like they do in tabletop Magic. For "Live" formats, like Historic, we are adding live balancing alongside banning and suspension as a tool to address problems and make improvements to the format.

We are very aware that there are many MTG Arena players who want the game to be an authentic representation of tabletop Magic, and our "print" formats will remain exactly that. Here, a card will always work the same way that the printed version of the card does and balance will be maintained the same way it traditionally has been: through banning cards when they prove to be problematic.

In addition to being an authentic version of tabletop Magic, MTG Arena is also a digital game. Digital games often make use of a wider array of balancing tools, like live rebalancing, and for good reason. The increased play rates and data collection possible in digital games tends to magnify the impact of power imbalances, which makes it valuable to have more tools to restore balance.

Currently, we are restricting these changes to digital-only cards, where there will be no conflict between a digital and printed version of a card. We would like to expand beyond this (for example, by rebalancing previously banned cards so they can be safely returned to play in digital formats only). There are multiple clarity and communication problems we will need to solve before we can consider those types of changes. This is something we plan to work on in the coming months and, since it bears repeating, would only affect digital formats.

One of the big themes of Magic over the last several years has been recognizing and embracing the many ways that Magic is played. On the tabletop side, we have released new content focused on Modern players, Commander players, collectors, and other groups. On MTG Arena, we recognize that we have traditional tabletop Magic fans and fans of digital games. With this shift, we aim to fully support both—continuing to deliver an authentic tabletop experience in formats like Standard and embracing new balance tools for digital-only formats like Historic.

How Will Rebalanced Cards Work?

Since these digital-only cards are only on MTG Arena, we can cleanly update all existing cards at once. With MTG Arena's update on October 14, the text and stats on these cards will change to match their new values, exactly as if there had been an Oracle update. These changes will affect any format where these cards can be played (Historic, Historic Brawl, Direct Challenge, etc.). There will not be an in-game notification about the rebalancing, but that is something that we are working toward.

Much like with bans and suspensions, whenever we rebalance cards, we want to provide context around why we're making those changes. Read on for more info there from Donald Smith.
Introduction to the Changes

Hey, y'all. I'm Donald from the Play Design team. I've made a few appearances on the site talking about Challenger Decks, the genesis of Luminous Broodmoth's design, and how powerful Wily Goblin was in my deck at the 2017 World Championships (it wasn't). Behind the scenes, I worked on MTG Arena's Mirror Mirror event, and today, I'm here to give the rationale behind these rebalanced cards.

Like digital-only designs, live balancing is a new tool to maximize the potential of our digital formats. This first set of changes is not meant to significantly impact the metagame but improve the ladder experience. This will also give us a chance to collect feedback and data on how the environment reacts to these changes. While we will still ban and suspend cards, we will also look for opportunities to improve the competitive metagame and address other issues through live balancing.

The three buffs are aimed at popular cards that have room to be stronger to better serve the decks and roles they were designed for. The remaining two balance changes are not meant to reduce the playability of the cards, but to address an undesirable combo from Historic.

Rebalancing Notes

Davriel's Withering and Davriel, Soul Broker
Only affects "target creature an opponent controls"

Spoiler:

Old


New


Old


New

We are removing the undesirable interactions with Vesperlark that can easily result in a draw.

Faceless Agent
2/2 (from 2/1)

Spoiler:

Old


New

Faceless Agent is an important card for tribal decks that don't currently have the density of cards legal in Historic to fill out their curve. This is a simple buff to improve the experience of players using those tribal decks.

Sarkhan, Wanderer to Shiv
Second ability is now +1 (from +0)

Spoiler:

Old


New

Sarkhan's second ability is weaker than the other two, especially considering the tension between choosing to conjure Shivan Dragons versus using the first ability to fuel future -2 abilities. We are aiming to better balance and reduce the tension between the abilities.

Subversive Acolyte
Costs 1B (from BB), is 2/3 (from 2/2), and had the toughness increases from becoming Human or Phyrexian reduced by 1

Spoiler:

Old


New

Subversive Acolyte competes too directly with Gifted Aetherborn for black decks looking for defensive options, and changing its mana cost adds a defensive option for black decks without needing to commit heavily into black to play Gifted Aetherborn. Adding a toughness lets Subversive Acolyte better fill that defensive role early in the game, and we adjusted the ability's stat boost to preserve the Phyrexian Negator reference.

[ExLo05]

Annuciato Ban per pauper domani!
https://twitter.com/wizards_magic/status/1483559825833443328?s=20

Sono già pronto a togliere i [Card]Disciple of the Vau[/Card]l o [Card]Blood Fountain[/Card] da affinity, anche sotto sotto spero levino anche [Card]Ephemerate[/Card] dal formato

[Deugemo]

Annuncio per il pauper

BANNATE
[Card]atog[/Card], [Card]Bonder's Ornament[/Card] e [Card]Prophetic Prism[/Card]

La spiegazione qui


Sono le due di notte, sono sotto esami e caro il mio playset antiquities atog preparati ad essere osservato per un buona mezz'ora. rana di [Censurato]

Spoiler:

[alvoi]

Non so, mi fa sempre un effetto strano vedere una carta che è presente nel formato da 10 anni venire bannata solo perché hanno stampato roba sgrava nell'ultima espansione

[Alex]

ATOG

The first and clearest thing to us is that something from Affinity needed to go. There are two primary reasons:

Its popularity and impact were both extremely high. To help quantify this, we took a look at the play numbers on Magic Online, where it's the most popular deck—over twice as popular as the next most played deck! While it is, surprisingly, not dominant in overall win rate, that is in part because it is metagame warping. Dust to Dust is a card that had become a four-of sideboard option but was also reaching main decks. Cards like Annul, Ancient Grudge, Steel Sabotage, Shenanigans, Gorilla Shaman, Revoke Existence, and so on were all filling up sideboards. Its impact on the format was tremendous and unhealthy.
The play pattern of the deck can be very non-interactive and frustrating, killing in ways that happen quickly and can't be blocked. A lot of kills are fueled by Atog and Disciple of the Vault, or Atog with Fling or Wedding Invitation to do a "count to 20" style kill. Sometimes, this is even with countermagic backup like Spell Pierce. When Affinity has a powerful start, usually with an Atog and multiple Disciples, it can set up a kill within the first few turns.

We know that Atog is a beloved card and has been something people have enjoyed since it first appeared in Antiquities. There are a lot of people who like that Pauper is a chance to play with this card. So, we did investigate several other options.

We first talked about Disciple of the Vault, as a lot of the powerful starts are fueled by Atog with multiple Disciples. However, Atog is still the real problem card, giving you a free, repeated sacrifice outlet that can deal the bulk of the damage. Without Disciple, we predict you would just see a movement to more Flings or Wedding Invitations. Disciple was not even a card played in some previous versions of the deck.

We also talked about banning the Modern Horizons 2 Bridges. This would put the deck back to about where it was before Modern Horizons 2. However, that had some challenges.

For one, Bridges are enabling other cool things in the format. We've seen the synergy with Cleansing Wildfire, which, for now, seems to be a powerful but fun and fair Pauper interaction. There are fringe decks, like Rakdos Metalcraft, which have been using them to good effect. And with these bans, there may yet be more of an opportunity for them to see play. We could try banning one or two Bridges, but that very surgical approach has no guarantee to solve the issue given the number of colors Affinity plays. Additionally, we think there might be enjoyable versions of Affinity that use the Bridges but not Atog to kill quickly—the quick kills from Atog are a huge part of the issue.

We also investigated Deadly Dispute. This new card from last year gives the deck additional two-card draws while also fixing its colors. However, it is a card which helps you have resiliency and comeback potential in the long game, which is something that points the deck toward a longer game plan that we think is healthy, as opposed to the current version.

We tried to find reasons to not ban Atog, but ultimately, it seemed like the clear and correct choice. We investigated the other options and just kept coming back to Atog.

Our hope is that Affinity moves back to versions that run cards like Carapace Forger to be an aggressive large-creature deck, as opposed to this version that combo kills you with Atog. We know Atog appeared in those decks as well, and there is no easy replacement, but there are still many powerful artifacts-matter cards out there and more that will no doubt appear in the future. Disciple of the Vault with Makeshift Munitions still gives the deck access to reach as well, but in a way that requires mana to use.

Finally, because I am sure some people will be curious, with Atog banned, we also think there is a decent chance we can return Sojourner's Companion to the deck in a future banned and restricted announcement. However, we don't want to make that change currently, preferring to wait to see how Affinity turns out after these bans first.

Most of you likely expected an Affinity ban. The other ones might take more explanation, so let me dig in.

BONDER'S ORNAMENT AND PROPHETIC PRISM

With the Atog ban locked in, we looked for what other deck might emerge and be a new problem. We all agreed that we needed to hit something from the Urzatron decks. The reasons are many:

The data bears out that Tron is extremely powerful. Its win rate in Magic Online Leagues is among the highest (even higher than Affinity, though there was less hate being played against Tron), and when you look at its matchup win percentages after sideboarding, it had a positive win rate against almost every deck.
Affinity was advantaged against Tron in game one. While Tron did move to an advantaged matchup post-sideboard, it involved bringing in a lot of cards. With Affinity substantially weakened, it opens Tron up to reclaim those sideboard slots and become the dominant deck in the format.
Pre-Modern Horizons 2, the last time many players would say we had a stable Pauper format, Tron was the most dominant deck.
Tron pushes out a lot of midrange and control decks, because it's very hard to compete with the mana and card advantage that the deck creates.
We banned Expedition Map last year to try and make an impact, but that ban ended up doing very little.

We investigated several possible bans here to moderate the deck but not remove it entirely. While it is possible at some point that we could entirely ban the deck by way of removing the Urzatron lands, we would much rather find ways to reduce its power before going to such an extreme step. I'd like to walk you through what we didn't hit, and then the reason why we hit the cards we did.

One card we looked at was Moment's Peace, because the deck uses it to Time Walk the aggressive decks until it can stabilize. (Affinity's strength against Tron was that it could use Disciple and Fling outside of combat to kill them.) Its synergy with Mystical Teachings is also problematic: a single Teachings represents four skipped combat steps, which is likely to find you the time you need.

However, there are a lot of replacements for Moment's Peace: Tangle, while weaker, does a lot of what Moment's Peace does. After that, Respite is a card you could even consider. With Affinity gone, there's also a higher chance Tron lists could simply play additional copies of Stonehorn Dignitary. Additionally, this only hits Tron on the axis of weakening it against aggressive decks.

Another card we looked at was Mystical Teachings itself. The toolbox engine of the deck is a huge strength, where it can find whatever it needs in the long game. "Tutor with flashback" certainly fits the bill for a bannable card. However, replacing the Teachings engine with more raw card draw, with cards like Compulsive Research or Forbidden Alchemy, the latter of which digs for answers, would make the deck a little less versatile but still powerful in a lot of the same ways. And finally, Mystical Teachings is a card that was previously played in blue-black control decks—a deck that has mostly vanished from the meta because of other pressures but might be able to return to help create a control deck at some point.

We also looked at Crop Rotation, a card that you can Teachings for to make sure you hit your Tron consistently. They usually play two. However, that only slightly hits the deck's consistency.

Finally, we looked at bans that would impact the loops this deck can create with Mnemonic Wall and Ghostly Flicker or Ephemerate. It's also possible that some of these "blink" cards may end up being a health issue for the format in the future. However, those pieces have significant redundancy (Ghostly Flicker, Ephemerate, and Displace) and play only a small role in the deck's plan with one or two copies that are tutorable by Mystical Teachings. They do enable the deck to win and accrue advantage in the long game, but in a way that takes substantial time to set up and ultimately could be converted to several other win conditions.

However, as we were looking into options, above all else, there is one thing that the Tron decks get to do here that is wildly powerful: have access to tons of mana and play all the best cards of all colors. The fact that the deck can play all five colors "for free" is largely on the back of Bonder's Ornament and Prophetic Prism. Looking at what makes this deck so strong are things like casting Mystical Teachings for whatever the best answer is in any color and having access to anything post-sideboard. It's a deck that features twelve colorless lands and regularly wants access to all five colors of mana. In fact, in many Tron lists, these are among the only cards played in the full four copies. (Other ones are often Mulldrifter and Impulse.)

Bonder's Ornament is the more problematic of the two. It was never really intended for competitive Constructed formats as a card that is only at common as a technicality of how we do rarity in Commander decks, and it allows Tron to never run out of gas, keeping pace with both the Monarch decks and any control deck effortlessly. This is a huge problem. Previously, some of those decks could have a shot against Tron, but with the addition of Ornament, you have the long game covered—by a card that already lets you produce mana. Watching the deck play, Boros Monarch goes to great lengths to hold the monarchy and draw an extra card each turn, while Tron just shrugs and keeps drawing with its mana ramp artifact.

We did talk about just banning Ornament, but we did not think it would be enough—the five-color Tron decks thrived before Ornament as well. Prophetic Prism is a card which has long been a staple of decks trying to play as many colors as possible, with Tron chief among them. It fixes your mana at very little cost in a Tron deck and replaces itself. If people reverted to a version that put you down a card, like Prismatic Lens, or was not permanent, like Chromatic Star, that would still be a substantial change.

Additionally, a small part of Prism's ubiquity has been that it helps make another powerful engine, flicker effects, also not dead. Ghostly Flicker can always cantrip with a Prism on the board, and this slightly reduces the power of Ghostly Flicker both here and in other decks.

While Prism was played in other, fairer decks previously, like Boros Monarch, there are other two mana cantripping artifacts, like Spare Supplies, that have removed the inclusion of Prism for decks that don't need to fix their mana in an egregious way.

On a larger format scale, we think cards that let you easily play all five colors "for free" (replacing themselves) are probably not healthy for the format. Prism has done that for a while. To be clear: Manalith and Mana Cylix are not an issue; we're not going down some "ban everything until Manalith is too good" path. This issue concerns having the mana to cast combined with returning your card. The philosophy here is not that different from banning Arcum's Astrolabe, which has seen bans in multiple formats for both power and enabling access to colors too freely. While this does cost an additional mana, that is not much of an ask in a deck like Tron.

Continuing to look down the five-color issue, Prism is also played in the current Affinity deck (as a noncrucial two- or three-of) and is part of what fuels that five-color deck—which has ultimately turned out to be a problem given how many different colors it helps you play without a cost. The fact that Prism is also in Affinity and gets this as splash damage as an acceptable and likely upside.

With the color fixing banned, we expect to see more Temur-centered Tron decks focused around turboing into big creatures—there's a version right now played by a player named Horobi on Magic Online called Cascade Tron that has cards like Maelstrom Colossus, Boarding Party, and Annoyed Altisaur and sees powerful gameplay, but is also more answerable than the current five-color control versions. In the past, there was a Temur deck called Fangren Tron, which is similar and was widely accepted as a healthy Tron deck for the format.

Finally, like Sojourner's Companion in Affinity, it's possible we could return Expedition Map in a future banned and restricted update but would like to see how the metagame and Tron shake out before returning any cards to that deck.
TIMELINE

We talked a lot about how this would impact the format, and we expect this will cause a lot of movement in the format. It's tough to be sure of what's going to happen next.

Decks like Faeries, Monarch, and blink-focused decks were strong before and were not hit by these bans. Those decks may end up fine, and with predators, one of them (or some other deck) might take the top seat at the table. Rather than look ahead too many steps after these substantial changes, we would like to enact these and see how the format shakes out and what decks it opens up. Then, we will monitor the format throughout Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty preview season and release. If there are more changes to be made in the short term, you would most likely see them in March as we look at how the metagame after these bans has settled and whether Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty has impacted the format at all.

If you have any thoughts or questions, you're welcome to reach out to any of us on the PFP. We hope you enjoy the new Pauper format, and we're looking forward to watching the challenges (including the ones this weekend!) to see what shows up.

[Alex]

Non so, mi fa sempre un effetto strano vedere una carta che è presente nel formato da 10 anni venire bannata solo perché hanno stampato roba sgrava nell'ultima espansione

Questa la uso sulla pagina FB, garantito!

[fabrimagic]

cmq nel caso ve lo siate perso, da qualche settimana è stato creato il Pauper Format Panel, un team di 6 giocatori, coordinato da Gavin Verhey, che ha il compito seguire meglio il pauper e proporre modifiche al formato
il motivo è che la Wizard si è accorta di non riuscire a seguire bene un formato così di nicchia, per cui ha chiamato dei giocatori esperti per monitorarlo
probabilmente questo è il primo passo di una strada che potrebbe essere intrapresa anche per altri formati meno supportati (legacy e vintage?)

tra l'altro uno dei membri del PFP è un italiano, si chiama Mirko Ciavatta
ho trovato questa intervista online che secondo me è molto interessante, anche perché di fatto è il primo italiano ad essere assunto da un team Wizard ed è molto interessante quello che dice, sia su i motivi che hanno portato alla creazione del PFP sia sul futuro del cartaceo e del digitale, visto dall'occhio di chi sta con un piede dentro la casa madre