July 2, 2018, Banned and Restricted Update
Announcement Date: July 2, 2018
Legacy:
Effective Date: July 6, 2018
Magic Online Effective Date: July 5, 2018
The list of all banned and restricted cards, by format, is here.
Next B&R Announcement: August 20, 2018
Deathrite Shaman
The popularity of
Over time, we've seen a reduction in diversity of blue-based non-combo decks, with what were once more differentiated aggressive, midrange, and controlling archetypes condensing into a similar core of the strongest cards.
While a card seeing lots of competitive play doesn't by itself necessitate action, in this case we also see a reduction in diversity in the environment, an inability for the metagame to adjust, and a dominant strategy that's particularly hostile to rogue decks and innovation. For these reasons,
Gitaxian Probe
In addition, the information advantage provided by
While
Standard
In light of community discussion and the B&R changes made earlier this year, we'd like to take this opportunity to provide an update on Standard. Throughout the Dominaria season, we've seen quite a lot of evolution of the Standard environment over time, and we're generally happy with how the format has been progressing.
Early in the season, Grixis Energy decks rose to popularity, followed by White-Blue Control deck variants and then White-Black Vehicles. Black-red decks had breakout performances at Grand Prix Birmingham and Pro Tour Dominaria, which were then attacked by a resurgence in low-to-the-ground aggressive mono-red decks. Since then we've continued to see the metagame adjust.
While mono-red and black-red decks are the most popular decks on Magic Online, their win rates are in a normal and healthy range. Throughout the past several weeks, Mono-Red had a 49.9% (non-mirror-match) win rate and black-red had a 51–52% win rate (depending on the variant). Both decks have strengths and weaknesses against the other top decks with, for example, Blue-Black Midrange being effective against Mono-Red and White-Blue Gift a (slight) favorite against black-red decks. Those decks in turn have weaknesses, and so on. We saw that in effect at Grand Prix Pittsburgh and Singapore, where Blue-Black Midrange and White-Blue Gift decks returned to Top 8 competition.
Here are the win rates of the most popular decks on Magic Online Competitive Leagues, taken as a snapshot from mid-June. While these numbers can fluctuate from week to week as the metagame churns, they're representative of the ranges we've been seeing over time. Note that the decks are automatically clustered by archetype through a computer algorithm, not manually categorized.
Monitoring these win rates and populations over time, we continue to see a shifting metagame even post–Pro Tour. Usually when the most winning decks aren't the most played decks, it's an indication that the metagame hasn't settled into an equilibrium state. At Grand Prix Pittsburgh and Singapore, we saw Top 8s with at least six distinct archetypes in the Top 8. White-Blue Gift, green Steel Leaf variants, Jeskai Control, Black-Green Snake, and others remain viable and important parts of the metagame.
On the topic of red aggressive decks,
A lot of the power of current red decks comes from last year's cards—
Meanwhile, the release of Core Set 2019 is bringing a set full of new tools to deck builders. While we don't necessarily expect any of these cards to singlehandedly crush red decks, the total package of new additions should shake up the metagame in general. In the meantime, there remain plenty of viable decks to choose from.
Other Formats
While there are no changes to other formats at this time, we do continue to monitor the health of Modern, Vintage, and Pauper. Across the board, those formats are looking quite healthy right now. We'll be sure to provide future updates as needed.