The recent Magic: the Gathering banned and the restricted announcement has finally hit the Standard format and the cards that got the ban hammer were Alrund’s Epiphany, Divide by Zero, and Faceless Haven. Wizards explained in the announcement article the reasons for the bannings, mainly on the effect of the power of the Epiphany which negated the metagame diversity in the format.

They might have hoped that the addition of Innistrad: Crimson Vow may have a significant effect by having players more archetype options than that of only playing Izzet Turns decks. To quote, “In October 2021 banned and restricted update, we announced no changes to Standard in anticipation of Innistrad: Crimson Vow‘s release soon following. Since then, we’ve heard community feedback that there hasn’t been enough change in the metagame over time. While a good number of decks are seeing success on the MTG Arena ladders and each has strengths and weakness against the others, the most played archetypes have remained largely the same over the past months.”

They also have powered down Standard Control decks by taking out the spell that is most likely relevant in suppressing other slow, midrange decks. That card identified is Divide by Zero. Bouncing back spells while also getting a card via Learn gets them a huge tempo gain which they explained as “gives these decks enough time to enact and protect a powerful endgame soft-lock state, often using Lier, Disciple of the Drowned or Hullbreaker Horror.” I might have noticed it initially since it is just a higher-cost Remand that just delays spells but the tempo loss for the opponents playing high-mana spells is very relevant.

What would these Izzet decks look like post-banning? Pretty much a less-abusive version. They still have the burn spot removals, and other counterspells to deal with threats, and later on, stabilize with Lier. But the turn-lock is now gone. You still get your turn for developing your board or killing their threat, or just plainly alpha striking them when you get ahead. No more cheap chump-blocking Birds.

Izzet can always get a substitute for the Zero while maintaining the Learn strategy, though they are down one relevant tempo spell. In total, eight cards are gone in the list and they can substitute for more threats like combining Horror and Lier, and maybe resort back to the Goldspan Dragon.

We can hope that the Standard format will now see Tier 2 decks getting more gameplay in F2F events, MTG Arena, or MTGO. I hope my Rakdos Vampires fave will now get higher tournament finishes now that Izzet is fairly balanced.

You can check the full announcement article here.