Magic: The Gathering’s Standard format is under scrutiny as Wizards of the Coast prepares to shift its banned and restricted announcement from November 24 to November 10. This decision comes in response to mounting concerns over format imbalance, particularly surrounding the dominance of Vivi Ornitier and Agatha’s Soul Cauldron.

While emergency bans were considered, the developers opted for a more predictable cadence to preserve player confidence and tournament stability. The move aims to give competitors ample time to adjust before the World Championships, without disrupting the ongoing RCQ season.

The announcement reflects a broader philosophy shift: Wizards is prioritizing long-term format health over reactive decisions. Past attempts at flexible ban windows led to chaos and uncertainty, prompting a return to structured timing. Although Vivi Ornitier is likely to be banned due to its overwhelming metagame presence, the emergence of strong contenders like Mono-Red and Mono-Green Stompy suggests the format may still be evolving. Wizards is watching closely to determine whether the current imbalance is temporary or symptomatic of deeper issues.

Importantly, the team acknowledges that while high-level competitive play appears skewed, the majority of Standard games—especially on MTG Arena and in local stores—remain relatively unaffected. This duality complicates ban decisions, as changes must consider both headline-grabbing tournaments and everyday gameplay. The upcoming November 10 announcement will cover all formats, but Standard remains the focal point. Wizards hopes this proactive approach will restore balance and trust in the format’s future.

Read the full announcement here:

On Standard and Moving the Banned and Restricted Announcement to November 10

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.

For today’s Magic: the Gathering news on the upcoming set Innistrad: Crimson Vow, Maro, or Mark Rosewater posted on his Tumblr account and on a Tweet earlier about a list of teasers on what cards will contain the previews. As we all love to ponder and guess on partial information, he posted the teasers ala-Duelist style.

Here they are below.

• The following counter types: bloodline, croak, invitation, judgment, omen, slime, and suspect

• A new mechanic that removes something never removed before

• A popular and powerful creature card from an Innistrad set gets reprinted

• A new artifact token, along the lines of Clue, Food and Treasure

• A card that makes red Dragon Illusion creature tokens with flying and haste

• A mechanic that first appeared as a faction mechanic returns

• A new legendary creature card that combines two characters that previously each had their own legendary creature card

• A new card that lets you cast certain cards off the top of your library

• A new mechanic which is a mirror of an already existing mechanic

• A legendary character returns, but now as a Vampire

Next, here are some rules text that will be showing up on cards:

• “Choose a number between 0 and 13.”

• “with mana value less than or equal to the number of Vampires you control”

• “If it’s red, you may cast it this turn.”

• “Zombies you control have flying.”

• “At the beginning of your upkeep, any opponent may sacrifice a creature.”

• “Kraken, Leviathan, Octopus, or Serpent”

• “twice that many of those tokens are created instead.”

• “Whenever a Human you control dies,”

• “equal to the number of permanents you control that are Spirits and/or enchantments.”

• “Then if you control exactly thirteen permanents,”

Finally, here are some creature type lines in the set:

• Creature – Human Ranger Werewolf

• Creature – Angel Soldier

• Creature – Zombie Scorpion

• Creature – Serpent Egg

• Creature – Eye Horror

• Legendary Creature – Human Peasant

• Legendary Creature – Spirit Warlock

• Legendary Creature – Slug Horror

• Legendary Creature – Kraken Horror

• Legendary Creature – Vampire Noble (two new ones)

The official Innistrad: Crimson Vow previews start on October 28th. You can check here the list of various websites as to where to find these previews.

Wizards has recently announced a new product they call the Holiday Gift Pack which is to replace the Holiday Gift Box that is yearly released. While I prefer the former as I used the box for my card storage, this new product’s contents might be appealing to the new players of the game. The new components include:

• 5 premium basic lands by artist Mark Poole (known as the “Shooting Star Lands”)
• 2 premium creature cards (Metalwork Colossus and Kari Zev, Skyship Raider)
• 3 booster packs (Ixalan, Hour of Devastation, Amonkhet)
• Spindown life counter
• Exclusive mini-poster (Featuring art from Hour of Devastation)

In comparison, the old gift box included 5 boosters, a few basic lands and a special promo foil. It looks a little different at the same MSRP of $19.99. It would probably benefit the players that are just starting with a card pool for Standard or at the least for casual play. The collector inside me are looking to buy those premium lands and that maybe is my only reason to buy this one. Or I should extend my budget a little bit and buy an Ixalan Bundle. We shall see.

This week will hold the biggest events in this year of Magic: the Gathering. It will be the Worlds Week, wherein the World Championship and the World Magic Cup will happen in the city of Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands. For a quick info (and to quote from the mothership arcana):

World Championship – This was known as the Magic Players Championship last year. It is the sixteen best players in the world battling it out in a high stakes tournament that pits them against each other round after round.

World Magic Cup – This tournament features national teams from countries around the world. Last year, Puerto Rico and Chinese Taipei duked it out in the finals before Chinese Taipei won it all.

The coverage will start on Wednesday, July 31, with Day 1 of the World Championships. The rounds for the day will consist of Modern Masters Draft (Rounds 1–3) and Standard for Rounds 4–6.

On the second day, the players will be drafting Magic 2014 (Rounds 7–9) and then playing Modern to finish the day for Rounds 10–12.

On the third day (August 2, 2013) will start the World Magic Cup as seventy one countries from all over the globe sent in their best players to form a team to battle it out. The teams will build Magic 2014 Sealed before then competing with Unified Standard. Unified Standard means that the teams must play Standard decks, but no card can be represented more than four times total in all of each team’s decks.

I am wishing the best of luck for the Team Philippines to bring home the bacon. Go Team Ph!

The rest of the info and schedule of live broadcast can be found here.

*banner pic from Twitter

Earlier today, Wizards has revealed the cards that will be included in the recent edition of From the Vaults exclusive cards series. The most shocking reveal as most would agree was the inclusion of Jace the Mind Sculptor in the set. He has been the talk of the town since this morning. Some were happy that he was reprinted while others don’t agree and feared that this will greatly raise the price of the FTV product. The suggested retail price of From the Vaults: Twenty is at 39.99usd and set to be released on August 23, 2013.

The product details are as follows:

– Twenty premium foil cards, including some with new art.
– An exclusive Spindown life counter.
– A collector’s guide.
– Each card has been printed using a foil process unique to the From the Vault series.
– The twenty cards are all printed in the current card frame. For some, it is for the first time.
– From the Vault: Twenty will be available worldwide in English only, and will have an extremely limited print run.
– All cards are black bordered and tournament legal. This means that these cards are legal for use in any tournaments where the original printings are still legal.

Here are the cards revealed today:

The Pro Tour Dragon’s Maze was concluded moments ago with Craig Wescoe’s Selesnya tokens defeating Dusty Ochoa’s Esper Control three games to nothing in its Finals. Wescoe of Team TCG Player made an impressive showing all throughout the first two days of the event, beating down opponents with an interesting build of the Selesnya deck.

The deck curves out in the first turn with Dryad Militant and Experiment One into either Call of the Conclave or Voice of Resurgence, and into Loxodon Smiter and fourth turn Advent of the Wurm. It also has a lot of defense against removals with Judge’s Familiar and the backbreaking Rootborn Defenses against Supreme Verdict.

Check out the winning decklist below.

Maindeck
9 Forest
9 Plains
1 Selesnya Guildgate
4 Temple Garden

4 Judge’s Familiar
4 Experiment One
4 Dryad Militant
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Loxodon Smiter

4 Call of the Conclave
4 Selesnya Charm
4 Advent of the Wurm
4 Rootborn Defenses
1 Civic Saber

Sideboard
4 Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice
2 Druid’s Deliverance
1 Gift of Orzhova
2 Glaring Spotlight
2 Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage
4 Unflinching Courage

It looks basic with a lot of four-ofs on the list, but its match ups resulted pretty well. Again, congratulations to Craig Wescoe for winning Pro Tour Dragon’s Maze.

*the event coverage can be found here.

There was another announcement yesterday on the DCI Banned & Restricted List and the latest casualty were in the Modern & Magic Online Pauper format. Bloodbraid Elf and Seething Song are banned in Modern, while Empty the Warrens, Grapeshot, and Invigorate are also banned in MTGO Pauper.

The effective date for the banning is February 1, 2013 and for Magic Online effective date is February 6, 2013. It can’t be denied that Jund is the current best deck in Modern, and its recent trend & dominance in the format might caused the banning of one of its main components. The small discussion of the banning can be found here.

Even though I didn’t got to play alot of the Modern format, I think Jund is not that affected with the loss of Bloodbraid Elf. They can surely find other cards to fill the spot like Huntmaster of the Fells.

For the complete list of all banned and restricted cards by format, see it here.

The third set completing the Return to Ravnica block has been finally announced just recently. The set is called Dragon’s Maze and to be released to the market on May 3, 2013. It has a total cards of 156, and it will include all ten of the Ravnica guilds.

Prerelease Events will be on April 27-28, 2013, and the set’s Gameday will be on May 25-26, 2013. More info the set can be found here.