STANDARD

Banlist Update

May 29, 2023

Wizards of the Coast has recently added three cards to the ban list for standard.

The three cards added are:
- Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki
- Invoke Despair
- Reckoner Bankbuster

This is just recently after extending their standard rotation to 3 years rather than 2 years.

It's interesting to see how Wizards have recognised how powerful Rakdos Midrange has, with these cards not only holding the Standard format in a tight grasp but also Pioneer too.

A lot of people are curious as to why Sheoldred, the Apocalypse did not make this cut either. As well as other cards such as Wedding Announcement, which are very strong within the Standard meta.

My main curiosity around the recent bans as well is what type of synergy will these cards have around newer cards being released soon. The most recent set, March of the Machine: Aftermath, didn't introduce any combos or huge changes to the decks running the cards above.

However, I think Wizards of the Coast put it best themselves by saying:
"Broadly, our goal of Standard remaining a fun and healthy play environment hasn't changed. However, we will be placing more scrutiny on cards and play patterns that have been in play longer to ensure Standard is a fresh, engaging, and continually exciting format."

Along with the bans they also announced that in addition to yearly announcements, they will update banned and restricted lists for all formats on the third Monday after every set release.

Overall, for the community it will be interesting to see Wizards trying to ensure a lack of imbalance. I think this is particularly smart for standard, as we obviously have no idea if the extension of standard was always on the books when designing sets from the previous 3 years or not.

With Rakdos Midrange having such a grasp on many formats, not just standard, I personally am overall happy with this announcement! Hopefully with Wizards being more on top of bans in the future too that this will help the meta across the ball.