When Was Golgari Grave Troll Banned Again
Last updated on April 12, 2022
Uro, Titan of Nature'south Wrath | Analogy by Vincent Proce
August 2021 was Modern's 10th birthday, and the format has a long and storied history. I call up playing in the beginning ever sanctioned Modern tournament held in the UK, a side event at the 2011 National Championships. I of class lost spectacularly, though a friend of mine won using the other deck I'd built, so I conspicuously just chose the wrong deck.
One of the ways that WotC keeps Modern under control is by periodically banning cards that have become likewise powerful for the format to keep in check. Today I'one thousand going to share some stories behind the banning of every bill of fare on Modern's banlist and why they deserve their spots on it.
Ready? Permit'due south get started!
The First Modern Bans
Ancient Den | Illustration by Rob Alexander
Modern came nigh as a replacement for Extended. Extended was a rotating format with over iii times equally many legal sets as Standard. It was never very popular since keeping up with two formats that periodically rotated just wasn't great for players. So Modern was built-in in the summer of 2011. Modern was just as big equally Extended at the time but it never rotated which was a big striking with players. Extended had a sizable banlist at the time so information technology was obvious that Modern needed one also.
WotC was very forthright with their plans for the format'southward banlist when Modernistic was announced. While they were obviously concerned most the power levels of certain cards, their main concern was making certain the format didn't get as well fast. They publicly said that Mod should be a "turn iv format," meaning that no deck should exist able to consistently win before turn four. Many of the banned cards in Modern were banned because of this very rule, though 10 years afterward the dominion has become more and more than of an afterthought.
The outset Modernistic tournament in history happened in early June 2011 before Modern became a sanctioned format. The 2011 Community Cup was a contest betwixt a team of WotC employees and Magic Online community representatives. They'd play a series of often wacky formats to determine a winner and this year their job was to examination the waters and come across what powerful decks they could come up with for this new format.
The banlist for this event was very small, and it was these decks that formed the ground of the first Modern banlist. While some of those initial cards, like Stoneforge Mystic and Jace, the Mind Sculptor, have since been unbanned, many of them are even so banned today and have never seen the inside of a Modern tournament since that kickoff event upwards at Wizards HQ.
Now it's time to go down the whole Modernistic banlist carte by carte du jour and talk about why they deserve to be on the list.
The Antiquity Lands
The original artifact lands (Ancient Den, Seat of the Synod, Vault of Whispers, Great Furnace, and Tree of Tales) have never been allowed in Modern, for more often than not adept reason.
Affinity decks accept been a function of Modern's metagame since twenty-four hours 1, and that'south without access to these. While the number of actual affinity cards has gone upward and downward over the years, every version of this deck greatly benefitted from having more free artifacts available. We saw 11 new antiquity lands over 2021, including one that doesn't enter the battleground tapped (Treasure Vault).
While analogousness got a big boost from these printings, it'due south still nowhere about the best deck in the format. Affinity was so powerful and oppressive in its time that it'south easy to see why WotC would desire to get out these lands banned. They work especially well nowadays with Urza, Lord Loftier Artificer and Urza'southward Saga, two cards you lot don't exactly want to make stronger.
I think the data we've gotten from the recent artifact state printings tells us it might exist okay to unban these at some point. Information technology'due south just very dangerous to do that and be wrong.
Arcum's Astrolabe
1 of the newest additions to the banlist, Arcum's Astrolabe was ridiculous for the format. For only one mana yous get an artifact that replaces itself and fixes all your colors for the rest of the game. Once again, it's just one mana! Costing snowfall mana turned out to be little since your deck didn't even need to run every bit many dual lands whatever more. You could trim duals for more snow nuts and fetch lands to make casting Astrolabe more consistent, and so it stock-still your colors for you anyhow.
On top of that information technology had the hidden mode of existence a cantrip-ing artifact, meaning that even mono-color artifact-based decks similar Whirza wanted information technology. The carte du jour was just ridiculous, and while it'southward strange to recall how an innocuous mutual could warp a metagame, it did only that under the hammer came down.
Birthing Pod
1 of my favorite cards to play with on this list, Birthing Pod had an entire deck centered around information technology until information technology got hit past the ban hammer. Pod decks used a curve of silverish bullet creatures to grab for their abilities at just the right times along with the infinite combo of Viscera Seer plus Melira, Sylvok Outcast with a persist creature, allowing the it to persist back over and once more and non receive a -1/-i counter each fourth dimension.
You got infinite life with Kitchen Finks and space damage with Murderous Redcap. Both combos also got yous infinite scrys with Viscera Seer, letting you perfectly prepare the combos. It also helped that persist creatures were uncommonly strong when sacrificed to Birthing Pod.
The biggest problem with Pod decks is that they naturally keep getting stronger and stronger. The more than cards that get printed, the more than options these decks had access to. If Pod didn't become banned when it did, odds are information technology would needed to accept been banned downwardly the line anyway.
Blazing Shoal
Blazing Shoal just lasted until the get-go banlist update in September 2011. This card was one of the more dominant showings at the offset Mod Pro Tour in Philadelphia. This deck wasn't known before the tournament if I call up correctly, so when Sam Black showed upward with an incredibly powerful and fine-tuned list, it took him all the way to the finals.
The idea was that if yous pitch Progenitus or Dragonstorm to Blazing Shoal, then your infect brute tin can deal lethal harm in a single hitting. Sam Black's deck was a mono-bluish list designed to do exactly that, attacking with Blighted Agent or Inkmoth Nexus.
The list didn't really accept a lot of fourth dimension to get going and it was arguably not the about powerful thing to do in the format, merely the ability to win every bit early as turn ii thanks to Blazing Shoal existence a free spell meant that information technology broke WotC's fundamental rule of the format: that no deck should be able to consistently win before plow 4. As such, the card was immediately banned.
Bridge from Below
Bridge from Below has always been an unfair card, only being playable in 1 specific category of unfair decks like Dredge. It was pushed over the summit in the summer of 2019 by the printing of Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis.
The Hogaak decks were oppressively powerful in the format and while WotC was very resistant to banning Hogaak itself since it had only just been printed, they decided that banning a primal piece from the deck was necessary at least. They banned Bridge in an try to curb the power of the deck in July of that yr.
I'll talk about Hogaak itself in a bit and go over if that ended up being a good idea.
Chrome Mox
The about cleaved cards in Magic'south history have been easy-to-play fast mana cards. Chrome Mox did a lot of work in powering out 2-drops on turn 1 in the quondam days of Extended. Information technology didn't matter what they were (though Bitterblossom and Dark Confidant were usually stiff choices), they were too good if they came downwardly on turn 1 unopposed and under counterspells.
This play pattern is i that WotC wanted to avert in Modern from the get-go, so Chrome Mox has never been immune in the format.
Cloudpost
Another card that only made information technology as far equally i tournament before getting axed, Cloudpost is the carte that asks the question, "what if Tron was ridiculously cleaved?" It generates more mana based on the number of Locus permanents you lot control. The Cloudposts themselves are Locuses (Loci?), as are your Glimmerposts and Vesuvas when they copy your others.
12-post is a very powerful deck in Legacy that functions similarly to a green Tron deck in Modern, except it can cast much bigger threats thanks to its absurd quantities of mana. We only got the chance to scratch the surface of what Cloudpost was capable of in Modern , simply that was more than enough to ban this obviously broken card as soon equally possible.
Dark Depths
Dark Depths has never been legal in Modern, with skilful reason. Yous tin can combine it with Vampire Hexmage to remove all of its counters in one get, or Thespian's Stage to make a copy of information technology with no counters on. Both of these combos result in an firsthand Marit Lage token, which doesn't need any aid winning the game by itself.
This philharmonic was legal for a while in the old Extended format following the printing of Vampire Hexmage, where it was nothing brusk of dominant. The most annoying curve was a plough 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth into Thoughtseize to clear the way. Urborg lets your turn 2 Depths tap for black mana, casting Hexmage and giving you a Marit Lage on turn ii.
Given the power level of this philharmonic in Legacy, this is i ban that I don't run into beingness overturned any time soon.
Deathrite Shaman
I often phone call Deathrite Shaman the all-time ane-drop of all time since whatever one-drop capable of getting me a Pro Bout invite has to be the best of all time.
DRS is an obnoxious creature that does everything you could expect a i-drib to practise. It's a mana dork when combined with fetch lands. It hates on the graveyard, information technology keeps y'all alive, it's a win status that wins without attacking, it's randomly an Elf for tribal shenanigans, at ii toughness it survives hate similar Gut Shot, and information technology tin even exist cast with black mana. Card advantage is about the only thing it doesn't give you merely exiling the correct cards out of the graveyard is good enough against right the decks.
DRS gave Jund midrange a huge boost and catapulted it into the peak tiers of the format, most notably in the easily of Yuuya Watanabe and David Ochoa at Pro Tour Return to Ravnica (though many other players, including Willy Edel, hadn't discovered how skilful the carte was yet). In the weeks following that Pro Bout, DRS solidified itself as one of the near powerful creatures in both Modern and Legacy and eventually earned itself a ban forth with Bloodbraid Elf equally a bit of collateral damage.
Dig Through Fourth dimension & Treasure Cruise
When WotC first created delve back in Future Sight, they only made two cards with information technology, and they were both reasonably fair cards. How could they have mayhap known that making it a theme in a set and printing blueish cards with delve was always going to be a problem?
Equally it happens, mechanics designed to brand cards cost a lot cheaper than they ought to is always going to be problematic. The big trouble, as it turns out, was that Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise were trivially easy to cast for merely and respectively. Fetch lands, cantrips, and cheap removal fill up your graveyard incredibly quickly and yous don't even demand to give it that actress button with a card like Thought Scour most of the fourth dimension. Not to mention that nearly decks that took advantage of these cards didn't fifty-fifty employ the graveyard for anything else, and so yous could exile anything and it wouldn't matter.
Dig and Cruise were banned very chop-chop in both Modernistic and Legacy and are as well restricted in Vintage. They were huge mistakes that really demand to be avoided in the futurity. At that place was fifty-fifty talk at the time that Treasure Cruise was a better carte du jour in Vintage than Bequeathed Recollect. After all, Cruise didn't go countered by Mental Misstep and it wasn't affected by Misdirection.
Dread Render
A theme you'll see very often with this list is that free spells are too powerful. Not to mention gratuitous spells that exercise something you'd happily pay four or v mana for. Dread Return has long been a key piece of the puzzle for Dredge decks, and ane that WotC didn't want to requite a chance; this menu has never been legal in the format.
Narcomoeba comes direct out of your graveyard for complimentary when milling your deck, giving you the perfect fodder to pay the flashback toll on a Dread Return and get you all sorts of powerful threats. Either catch an Iona, Shield of Emeria to lock your opponent out of the game or Flame-Kin Zealot to requite you the push y'all demand if you lot have a lath total of creatures. Whatsoever you're getting, information technology'south a bit too powerful for Modern if you're getting it for no mana.
Eye of Ugin
Eye of Ugin is i of the most infamous bans of all time. WotC intended for all the Eldrazi to toll upwards of seven mana when this card was designed. With the big titans costing , , and , reducing their costs by two mana but doesn't seem besides bad.
Enter Adjuration of the Gatewatch, a ready that brought Eldrazi dorsum. And that rule didn't apply this time. Between 1-mana Eldrazi Skyspawners and Matter Reshapers and 0-cost Eldrazi Mimics, Eye of Ugin was no longer a somewhat off-white land. Instead it was a land capable of the sorts of crazy plays that only Tolarian Academy or Gaea'southward Cradle are known for.
Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch was a bloodbath, with the players who figured out practiced Eldrazi lists crushing anybody who didn't. Hall of Famer Luis Scott-Vargas made the Top 8, one of x to his proper name, claiming information technology was the about broken and powerful deck he'd e'er played in his career. The hits didn't even terminate in that location.
This happened at a time when banlist updates happened on to a strict schedule, so WotC didn't ban Eye of Ugin until subsequently 3 more than Grand Prixes had been played despite knowing how powerful it was. Across that one PT and iii GPs, Eldrazi decks claimed xx of the bachelor 32 Top 8 slots and three out of the four titles. This makes it one of the nigh dominant showings of any Mod deck in the format'due south history, i which earned the season the infamous proper name of "Eldrazi Wintertime."
Faithless Looting
Faithless Looting is probably one of the most off-white cards on this list. It was one of the most prevalent cards in the format when it was banned, interim as a key slice in non only the oppressive Hogaak decks simply besides the height tier Arclight Phoenix, Dredge, and Hollow One decks as well as a bunch of others.
While it's a relatively fair carte it still concluded upwards being used in a whole manner of unfair ways and its banning caused all these decks to drift off into obscurity.
Field of the Dead
Field of the Dead is 1 of the newest additions to this list and maybe the one that players never expected to stop upwards here. Having done a number on Standard, Historic, and Pioneer, it looked too slow for Modern, a format that almost never gets up to as many as 7 lands.
Simply the carte du jour gave a huge boon to Amulet Titan decks with yet some other angle of attack that was also hard for other decks to interact with. The aforementioned went for Scapeshift decks which could win longer games far more than effectively, something that was historically been a big weakness for the deck.
Information technology was far too like shooting fish in a barrel to go these lands out of the deck and start creating free tokens between Golos, Tireless Pilgrim and Primeval Titan. Above all else it meant that a lot of games were reduced to the aforementioned battle between 2/2s, and this just became repetitive too chop-chop.
Gitaxian Probe
Say it with me once more: free spells are too adept.
Gitaxian Probe is definitely too good since knowing what your opponent is working with while replacing itself and non costing you whatsoever mana is a ridiculous prospect. What finally got this card banned was the power level of Death's Shadow decks in the format, which really turned the cost of 2 life into a huge advantage rather than a disadvantage.
The menu had to go at that bespeak, and information technology wasn't doing any particularly fair things in the first identify.
Glimpse of Nature
Glimpse of Nature never got a moment to shine in Modernistic for very good reason. Glimpse was the key piece of Elf philharmonic decks since they appeared after Lorwyn and Shadowmoor. Glimpse immune Elf decks to combo impale equally early equally turn ii or three since each 1-drop Elf you lot played drew yous another card while the Heritage Druid and Nettle Lookout combo netted you mana each time.
We've seen watered down versions of Glimpse printed recently in the forms of Beck // Call and Rite of Harmony, just the original is nevertheless likewise powerful. Information technology but costs one mana and doesn't need a second color.
Golgari Grave-Troll
Golgari Grave-Troll owns an interesting honour in Modernistic: information technology'southward the but card to have ever been unbanned in Modernistic only to then get re-banned a year later.
WotC foresaw Dredge decks being too powerful when they created Modernistic and banned both the Troll and Dread Return in their initial banlist. When Dredge didn't do a single affair in the format, they felt it was reasonable to unban Grave-Troll. Merely then they felt it had been a step too far after a year of Dredge ruining events for players.
Dredge decks are definitely still present nowadays, but they're non acme tier. They're a slower and much more beatable deck with access to just Golgari Thug and Stinkweed Imp to turbo-manufacturing plant themselves than if they had Grave-Troll. And that's absolutely fine for where the format wants to settle.
Green Sun's Zenith
Some other prey of the format's offset Pro Bout in 2011, Green Sun's Zenith is a powerful carte capable of getting you whatever creature suits your needs when you play it. It seems like a off-white card and you'd be correct to assume that, only what actually fabricated it too proficient was its interaction with Dryad Arbor.
With just a single Dryad in your deck, all four Zeniths functioned as Llanowar Elves when you had them on turn 1 while being existent creatures when yous drew them later. This meant that either Zenith or Arbor had to be banned, and like to Birthing Pod, if yous don't ban Dark-green Dominicus's Zenith then it would somewhen reach a point where it had too many options and needed to be banned anyhow.
Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
It turns out that WotC'due south plan to ban Bridge from Below didn't pan out, because the Hogaak menace remained just as dominant over the format as before. Wizards decided to go ahead and ban Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis and finally put a stop to its shenanigans but a month after banning Bridge.
I recall playing at 1000 Prix Birmingham in August 2019, one of the most poorly attended Mod GPs ever. Players just didn't want to deal with Hogaak all the time. I chose to non play the deck myself just made sure I was prepared and just nearly managed to pull off a two-1 record against it in the tournament. Information technology was however obvious that it had to go.
Hypergenesis
Temur Crashcade is making itself known in the current Modernistic metagame, and that's a deck that merely makes a pair of 4/4 rhinos whenever it plays a cascade spell. Imagine if your cascade spell put Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, Progenitus, and Terastodon onto the battleground instead of the rhinos. At least this deck isn't good plenty against the slew of Forcefulness of Wills it's probable to have to contend with in Legacy, but odds are this deck would be absurdly powerful in Modern.
We've never gotten a adventure to encounter what Hypergenesis tin can do in Modern, only believe me when I say we probably don't want to observe out.
Krark-Association Ironworks
Krark-Association Ironworks is one of the weirdest decks to have e'er graced a Modernistic table. This incredibly weird combo deck made utilize of certain lesser-known rules interactions, which is ultimately what acquired its ban.
The play tricks was to combine KCI with cards like Scrap Trawler and Myr Retriever to generate loops that get the artifacts you sacrificed for mana dorsum while giving you more than than plenty mana to recast them. These loops let yous generate infinite mana which you can and then plow into a win through a mountain of card advantage or something more than decisive like an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
The deck was well-nigh unstoppable with the right airplane pilot backside it, and the right pilots certainly pulled information technology off a few times. Expert combo pilots like Piotr Glogowski, Sam Pardee, and Matt Nass all picked the deck up and got great results with it until it was eventually banned at the showtime of 2019.
That said, this is definitely a card I could run into making its way off the banlist at some indicate with Mox Opal gone. It does take Urza things to brand apply of, but there's notwithstanding the possibility to make a render without some of the fast mana that originally made it good.
Mental Misstep
Costless spells, something something something.
Like nigh free spells, Mental Misstep looks similar it isn't very powerful. But existence free makes all the difference. It's also fun when you point out that Misstep can target other Missteps. When this was briefly legal in Legacy you ofttimes had epic counter wars over resolving something like Aether Vial and having multiple Mental Missteps thrown at each other from both sides of the table.
The card is actually only dumb, doesn't make for very fun play patterns, and is obnoxious to play against.
Mox Opal
Mox Opal is probably one of the most controversial bans in Modern history. Most cards that end upward getting banned are fairly inexpensive cards or only banned to hose a specific kind of deck.
Non only was Mox Opal the nigh expensive card in terms of budgetary value to ever exist banned in this format (it was around $100 at the fourth dimension), simply its banning besides caused significant damage to decks that the ban wasn't intended to hit. It was a role of tons of competitive decks in its long tenure in the format, just the straw that finally broke the camel'southward back was the influx the Urza decks made possible by Mod Horizons.
But banning information technology also crushed any hopes that analogousness decks had of remaining relevant in the format, which annoyed a lot of players since the deck was extremely popular amid regular Mod players. As I already mentioned a couple of times, fast mana is a quick and easy style to break Magic, and Mox Opal is a very piece of cake way to break the game. Something Wizards has never wanted Modernistic to be about.
Mycosynth Lattice
As Urza decks rose to prominence in the latter half of 2019, Commander all-star Mycosynth Lattice bellyaching players at tournaments for quite some fourth dimension. Karn, the Dandy Creator was printed in the aforementioned twelvemonth and created a rather troubling interaction with the card.
If y'all happen to control a Lattice and Stony Silence, neither thespian can activate abilities on any of their permanents, which includes not being able to tap lands for mana. Karn not just let you fetch the single copy of Lattice out of your sideboard, it'due south likewise a one-sided version of that Stony Silence ability. Karn was already a powerful card that gave any deck access to a bunch of silver bullet options in the sideboard, only having one of those options exist an automobile-win in many scenarios was a footstep too far.
Mystic Sanctuary
They really tried their all-time to make sure that none of them were too good with this country bicycle. After all, if Mystic Sanctuary doesn't become you a spell dorsum to your mitt, it can't be that good, correct?
Well, thanks to the teeny little word they added to the end of the card's type line, information technology becomes airheaded all suddenly if you're able to fetch this using a Scalding Tarn or a Misty Rainforest.
Sanctuary likewise forms function of a repeatable loop where it gets bounced every turn past Cryptic Command and and then replayed to return said Cryptic. This card is silly and probably a mistake that WotC should accept seen coming, like with much of Throne of Eldraine if I'm to be honest.
Oko, Thief of Crowns
Speaking of Throne of Eldraine…
I never in my wildest dreams imagined that they'd print a planeswalker better than Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Information technology took Wizards about ten years to do information technology, but by gods they did information technology. Oko, Thief of Crowns will near likely go downwardly in history as 1 of WotC's nigh ridiculous card design mistakes (hopefully it'southward never beaten, only I wouldn't get my hopes up too high on that).
What makes Oko then expert? The main reason is that its +one ability can nuke whatsoever annoying permanent you're playing against. Annoying creatures and artifacts are cipher in the confront of Oko. It can turn off a Chalice of the Void that'southward locking you lot out of casting spells, stop that Reality Smasher from trampling over your blockers, and whatsoever else you can recollect of.
The 3/3 Elks that take their place aren't large enough to have out Oko'south obscenely high loyalty and you'll be able to make some of your own to block with in due time. There are a lot of other reasons why Oko is icky, merely this is the principal one that's relevant to Modernistic. WotC merits they never realized that Oko could be used to target your opponents' permanents which is why they made that mistake.
But any. Oko is dumb and banned in every format. Let'due south move on.
Once Upon a Time
Free spells that do things are never a skillful sign for a salubrious metagame, and Once Upon a Time has to be one of the about egregious examples of this. A lot of decks were able to run this to improve the consistency of their opening easily and make them too strong.
This is one of the most contempo additions to this list and that should give you lot some sign as to how good free spells are in Magic since it was eventually banned in every format.
Ponder & Preordain
Another pair of cards that were never given much time to shine in the format. Ponder and Preordain had a number of applications in Modern, from making blue decks very consequent to being virtually essential to the game programme of Tempest decks.
Anyone who's played at least a picayune fleck of competitive Magic is likely aware of only how potent 1-mana blue cantrips are in this game. Begin, Ponder, and Preordain accept long been the best of the best in this category and these cards were being played nearly everywhere in Modern's early days. Tempest, command, and Splinter Twin decks all benefited from streamlining their draws and casting inexpensive spells.
Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand were the only viable replacements when this card was banned, both significantly worse cards that helped to tedious down these decks just enough to permit others to compete. Both Opt and Consider have been added to the format since then, giving usa plenty of skillful options for their replacements.
Punishing Burn
I bet Wizards never expected Punishing Burn to be the incredible powerhouse that it is when they printed it. It looks similar an innocuous and pretty bad burn spell, but you can trigger its ability and purchase it dorsum if you force your opponent to proceeds life.
Grove of the Burnwillows not only forces the lifegain, it also gives you the blood-red mana you need to purchase it back and lets y'all do this over and over once again. This combo turns Fire into a repeatable source of damage that lets you lot pick off opposing creatures turn after turn. It even acts as a win condition that lets you deal two damage for every one life your opponent gains from your land. This engine is very potent in Legacy and was deemed to exist far too powerful for Mod very early.
Rite of Flame
I of Magic's nigh powerful ritual spells, Rite of Flame made waves in Modernistic's early days by powering upwards Tempest and other similar decks like ones built around Pyromancer Rise. While information technology starts out no different than Pyretic Ritual and Desperate Ritual, it rapidly gets bumped upwards to a red Dark Ritual and then presently surpasses it.
But above all else, costing one mana means this Rite breaks the central rules of Modern. It allowed these decks to philharmonic off with less starting mana and made them a lot faster than the turn 4 rule.
Second Sunrise
Another striking from Pro Tour Return to Ravnica, Second Sunrise is responsible for ane of the greatest runs in Pro Tour History. Stanislav Cifka stunned everyone by winning the championship and all but i of his nineteen rounds, a record that remains unbeaten to this day.
Cifka's "Eggs" deck revolved around cheap artifacts that could sacrifice themselves to draw cards, then buying them all back in one become with 2d Sunrise or Faith's Reward. Cifka had absolutely mastered and honed his deck to perfection. The deck cemented itself in the Modern metagame in the months that followed his historic win to the point where action needed to be taken.
Seething Song
The history of Storm decks has been a turbulent one to say the to the lowest degree. Tempest has probably seen more private cards banned to slow information technology down than any other deck in the history of the format. And yet despite all of these bans, information technology nonetheless manages to remain a steady strength in Modern.
Seething Vocal was determined to be also powerful for the deck since the ritual spells putting you up by two mana rather than only 1 (like Pyretic Ritual and Desperate Ritual) made the deck too consistent. Even more so when you start reducing its cost. Like Rite of Flame before information technology, Storm became besides powerful and consequent and yet another menu needed to be banned to curb its dominance in the format.
Sensei's Divining Top
Much tin can be said about Sensei'due south Divining Top and its power to tiresome down tournament play, with players activating information technology all the time and taking far as well long to brand each determination with it. This is ultimately what caused it to be banned in Legacy. But the main reason it was on the original Modern banlist is considering of its very powerful interaction with Counterbalance.
Divining Top let y'all repeatedly rearrange the height cards of your deck to brand sure you lot had the right mana-value card to counter your opponent's spell. "Countertop" decks were legendary when they were legal in Legacy, and Wizards didn't want this interaction present in their new format.
Simian Spirit Guide
I've talked a lot already well-nigh how gratis spells and fast man make for ban-able cards. Simian Spirit Guide was a adequately mutual feature in a lot of these interactions in Modern for quite some time. Information technology was played in the Eldrazi Winter decks, in annoying Blood Moon decks, and all sorts of others before eventually getting banned in Feb 2021.
The mana monkey finally went ane pace too far as the double-faced country cards from Zendikar Rise created landless combo decks that Spirit Guide played a large part in helping brand piece of work. It's a card that WotC was keeping a close eye on in the showtime place, and it used up all its strikes.
Skullclamp
Skullclamp is still one of the most famous design errors ever made in Magic. And then the story goes, WotC had this card in the file for Darksteel as the same card but granting +1/+one. They idea the card was too good as it was so they decided to modify it to +ane/-ane to nerf it.
The irony being that this made information technology stupidly broken since information technology at present allow you impale off 1-toughness creatures to describe ii cards, and it merely toll one mana to activate. I don't know exactly how true that story is, merely information technology's what I was told when I first learned about the bill of fare.
Anyway, the card is dumb, has always been banned in Modern, and always will be.
Splinter Twin
Probably the almost talked about candidate for being unbanned, Splinter Twin is a menu that absolutely should never come off this list in my humble opinion.
Many players enjoy the Twin decks. If y'all're unfamiliar with the philharmonic, it works past combining Splinter Twin with Deceiver Exarch or Pestermite. This allows you to tap the original animate being to make a hasty re-create of itself which enters and untaps the original with its trigger.
Then y'all make another one, and another one, and another one, until you have a ridiculously large number of creatures. This combo doesn't break any of Modern's central rules and information technology's not besides fast, but it is very consistent and lends itself very naturally to being played in an otherwise strong deck. Already being in blue and cerise lets information technology play with some of Magic's about powerful cards to back it up.
The reason I don't think it should ever be unbanned is a simple one. The deck is extremely unfun to play confronting, fifty-fifty when you accept a good matchup. You take to presume y'all're expressionless every single plough as soon every bit they hit their third land in guild to play well confronting a Twins deck.
If they have three mana open and you tap out for a threat, they can simply flash in their Exarch, untap, and slap on the Splinter Twin for an auto win. If yous have cards in your deck that counter the combo like Sharp Disuse, and so yous could leave ii mana open at all times, but that'southward a play pattern that leads to more misery than joy since you know you can never use your mana for annihilation else. What if y'all don't draw your interaction? What if they bait out your removal spell considering they've drawn two of each combo piece? Not to mention that Twins is often only too powerful and consistent confronting decks that can't interact with the combo.
When Twin was eventually banned, many of its fans were upset since the deck was never too oppressive, just a good and strong part of the metagame. Players online discussed the possibility of information technology being unbanned considering of this, but I honestly think it would be a bad thing for the format overall. It's not fun to play against, it has great matchups against too many decks in the field (especially other combo decks), and I call back would finish upward being a large fault.
Summer Bloom
There's a reason Amulet Titan used to exist known as Amulet Blossom. Amulet Titan combines Amulet of Vigor with the bounce lands from Ravnica and multiple state drops to generate a lot of mana. Summer Bloom was the become-to style to become multiple extra drops, and it gave the deck the ability to brand a Primeval Titan on turn ii.
You play a turn ane Amulet of Vigor so play a green bounce state on plough 2, untap it, bladder mana, and bounciness information technology to its ain ability to utilize your floating ii mana to cast Summer Flower. Y'all tin play the same bounce land 3 times with your 3 extra land drops, tapping it for two mana each time, and that six total mana lets you lot cast a Titan. In that location's a number of different possible ways to combo kill from in that location, but it should be adequately trivial once yous've made a plough two Titan to a good airplane pilot.
This card'southward existence broke WotC'southward fundamental rule of Modern: that no deck should be able to consistently impale before plough 4. So the key card needed to exist banned as the deck became more consistent.
Tibalt's Trickery
4 copies of Violent Outburst, three Emrakul, the Aeons Torns, 51 lands, and one Tibalt'southward Trickery are all you need for a Modern deck that can win games.
Even though this deck lacks an obvious amount of consistency, the power to mulligan until you find a cascade spell mitigates that somewhat. It creates a horrible play pattern where the game is decided almost by pure luck. Some decks can collaborate with the combo and it'south still vulnerable to counterspells, but you lot take to get out up mana at all times since tapping means you lose on the spot.
Trickery is but a nonsensical card to go on around and was a very easy and deserving ban.
Umezawa'southward Jitte
Another one of Mod'south original banned cards, Umezawa'south Jitte was preemptively banned in an attempt to make sure aggro decks had a place in the format. Jitte's ability to completely hose aggro decks was something that WotC just didn't want to have around.
I think that statement doesn't hold true anymore. Aggro decks aren't adept anyway, and unbanning Jitte might help to keep sure annoying pirate monkeys at bay.
Uro, Titan of Nature'southward Wrath
Finally we have Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, a carte du jour that surely needs no introduction or explanation if, like me, yous played a decent amount of MTG Loonshit during the pandemic.
Escape was a tricky mechanic for WotC to get right. The escape spells could be bandage over and over again as long as the player has enough forage to exile to it, unlike flashback. Both Uro and its counterpart, Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, made an impact in Modernistic, only what fabricated Uro actress busted was the fact that its power to depict you a carte du jour often meant that it found y'all more cards to fill up your graveyard for the side by side fourth dimension evert time you cast information technology.
Giving you lot some extra life and an additional country drop also kept you lot in the game longer, and so it was going to take over the game very speedily unless you had an easy style to exile Uro. Drawing cards is a good thing in any Magic format and having a Titan that draws you cards every turn and never really dies is a ridiculous thing to have admission to. So Uro became i of Mod's virtually recent bans.
Are There any Possible Unbans?
Preordain | Illustration by Svetlin Velinov
Magic players love speculating near banlist updates. I even had to hold off on submitting this piece in example whatever changes were made in the Jan 2022 update.
I personally think Modern is in a very healthy identify correct now and no changes are likely to be made any fourth dimension soon. While possible cards to ban are e'er at the forefront of players' minds, possible unbans are less easy to effigy out. What's difficult most unbanning cards is that there'southward very little upside to doing so and a lot of potential downside if Wizards gets it wrong. We saw this happen when Golgari Grave-Troll was unbanned only to end up banned over again just a year afterwards.
That being said, reintroducing cards to the metagame might be simply the kind of milkshake upward the format needs every bit Modern and Magic evolve over fourth dimension.
Are in that location any candidates to be unbanned? I reckon so, and here are my thoughts.
The Antiquity Lands
The artifact lands have long been necessary inclusions to keep affinity at bay, but affinity needs a flake of help right now since the metagame shifted around and made information technology virtually obsolete. Even printing eleven new antiquity lands, despite ten of them entering tapped, didn't practise much to assist the deck.
I'grand non sure if Ancient Den and Seat of the Synod specifically will make the deck too consistent or not, but the deck could apply a little bit of help. At least with Mox Opal gone this definitely feels like a alter that could happen in the future.
Krark-Clan Ironworks
The KCI deck had one very central weakness when it was effectually in Modern: information technology was extremely hard to play. Information technology fifty-fifty made use of certain rules manipulations that nigh players aren't even aware of. It was extremely hard to optimize plays with in my experience having judged a number of GPs with this deck legal, as well equally having played against it at qualifiers.
Mox Opal has been banned and Karn, the Great Creator was printed and became a popular card in the format since Krark-Clan Ironworks was banned. Opal and Karn being gone should have weakened the power level of the deck such that KCI is safe to make a render.
Preordain
If we introduced Preordain to the current Mod format, it would be the all-time 1-mana blueish cantrip. But the fact that we have so many decent ones already tells me that this won't be a pregnant upgrade compared to if the format had only bad ones like when it was showtime banned. While I recollect Ponder is still a little too expert considering of its synergy with fetch lands, Preordain would probable be a nice addition that could help improve a couple of decks.
That said, those decks are already pretty expert and don't really need any aid right now. Unbanning this could be exactly what Modernistic wants at some betoken in the nigh future when blue decks aren't quite every bit powerful equally they are now.
Umezawa's Jitte
Similar I said above, Umezawa'southward Jitte was banned to allow aggro decks to thrive. Now it's ten years later and aggro decks basically don't exist in Modern anyhow. I bet unbanning Jitte might even help them out since they could make skillful utilize out of the +2/+2 way with the counters.
Jitte'southward ban fabricated sense at the time, but it doesn't seem like it needs to stay there anymore. Hating on Dragon's Rage Channeler and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer also seem like some positive things going for it.
Wrap Upwardly
Tibalt'due south Trickery | Analogy by Anna Podedworna
I hope you lot enjoyed this little trip down what would be memory lane for some players. Modernistic has been one of the near fun formats to play in the concluding decade of Magic, and I sincerely hope it stays that mode going forward.
What are your thoughts on Modern'southward history with bans? Do you concur with my unban suggestions? Do you recollect i of my selected cards should stay banned, or is there some other contender yous call back should be reinstated? Let me know in the comments down below or discover united states over on Draftsim's Twitter.
Adjacent I'll be breaking downwards every card in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty for Limited play. I'm incredibly excited for this set, and I hope yous are too. Take care of yourselves until so!
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Source: https://draftsim.com/mtg-modern-ban-list/
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