Another short-term reign of an imbalance card in Standard. What is worse is that there were other casualties. As for the Rare Cards Decimate or Casualties of War, there are separate targets. In the current case, there were three and they were Oko, Thief of Crowns, Once Upon a Time and Veil of Summer.

We all know the dominance of the Simic Food decks that is starred by this planeswalker and in effect has made the format unhealthy. Having maindeck Noxious Grasp just to deal with this archetype is one major indication. That I did in my Mardu Knights deck.

What I somewhat do not understand is the inclusion of the other two Green cards. Thankfully, Wizards made an explanation in the B&R announcement last night that the main reason is to “address Green’s general dominance” in Standard. The also added that “Once Upon a Time is one of the key reasons green has been overrepresented in the environment. It contributes to a high consistency of strong starts and provides a level of early mana fixing that other colors don’t have access to.”

The same case with the color-hosing card Veil of Summer as it is quite indifferent than the other cards in the color cycle. First of note is the cantrip effect or the self-replacement effect. Drawing a card while nullifying your opponents’ removals gives a huge gap in card advantage.

You can check the full article of the November 18 2019 B&R Announcement here.