Announcement Date: October 22, 2024

MTG Arena:

  • Leyline of Resonance is banned in MTG Arena Standard Best-of-One Constructed formats. It is not banned in Traditional Standard (Best-of-Three), Limited formats (Draft/Sealed), or special formats.
  • Leyline of Resonance is suspended in MTG Arena Alchemy Best-of-One and Best-of-Three Constructed formats, pending a rebalance.

Effective Date for MTG Arena: October 22, 2024

View the list of all banned and restricted cards by format.

Leyline of Resonance

We love fast and fun Magic. This is especially true for MTG Arena, where the guiding philosophy is fast, fun Magic for everyone, anywhere. What's critical is that it be fast and fun for both players involved. Fast without the fun undermines the purpose of playing the game, and this is the issue both we and the player community have observed with Leyline of Resonance on MTG Arena. It disrupts normal play in Best-of-One Constructed matches, and it has led us to the decision to ban the card in Best-of-One Standard Constructed—only in MTG Arena—and to suspend it in Alchemy until the release of a rebalanced card.

What Led to the Decision?

Back in 2019, we made a similar targeted adjustment with Nexus of Fate for similar reasons. Where Nexus of Fate made gameplay unfun through a long loop that couldn't be shortcut to the win, Leyline of Resonance has made gameplay unfun by … making it so there isn't much "playing" involved. Either folks playing Leyline of Resonance decks concede with their initial hand because they're dissatisfied with the draw and are unable to mulligan down to a winning solution, or they win within the first few turns of play.

This is especially problematic in Best-of-One Constructed formats, where players on the opposite side of the battlefield win or lose the game (and subsequently, the match) with little or no decision-making on their part and no option to sideboard in possible solutions for subsequent games.

While Nexus of Fate created non-interactive win conditions that could take a half hour or more to finish, Leyline of Resonance is creating non-interactive win conditions within two turns. Both disrupt what we would consider "normal play."

Timing of This Decision

Alongside fast and fun, another one of MTG Arena's guiding principles is to provide an authentic Magic: The Gathering experience. This includes alignment of banned and restricted announcements whenever possible to ensure the play experience is the same regardless of when, where, or how you play. As we noted in our recent MTG Arena announcements blog, this is a card we've been keeping an eye on, with the goal to answer two essential questions:

  1. Does the data support Leyline of Resonance disrupting what we consider normal play?
  2. If yes, is it happening often enough to warrant action on MTG Arena outside of our normal banning cadence?

This kind of data aggregation and analysis takes time. The first week or so after a major card set release is often incredibly chaotic, and the meta can go through several radical iterations before settling on the new "normal." For every screenshot or post shared on a social channel, there are thousands upon thousands of other matches being played quietly in the background. We wanted to be sure that the problem shared with us by some of our most-engaged players had the data to support it, and that the data continued to support it even after the meta settled.

The answers to both of those questions were ultimately "yes" and "yes." The number of Best-of-One Standard Constructed games ending before turn four has essentially doubled since the release of Duskmourn: House of Horror. That number has remained consistent in the weeks since release, and there's a big, red, (allegedly) four-cost enchantment reason why. With the updated banned and restricted announcement cadence, we didn't feel comfortable waiting until December 16 to make this change.

To be clear, this is an issue unique to MTG Arena and only in Standard Best-of-One Constructed and Alchemy matches. The banning is not based on the general power level or the overall health of the Standard format—far from it.

Player Collections and Leyline of Resonance

Players who had Leyline Resonance as part of their MTG Arena collections prior to this ban's implementation will receive rare wildcards equal to the number of Leyline Resonances in their collection. Players will receive an in-game notification of when the card is banned, which will include the number of wildcards they have received.