Wow There Were a Lot of Bans This Week!

The February 15 B&R Announcement was more like a bag of hammers rather than the usual single swing of the old ban hammer. While Standard was untouched, sweeping changes to Historic, Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, and even Vintage will transform each of those landscapes.

We’ve already talked about Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath being banned. That move is going to open up a lot of strategies that weren’t previous viable (or at least attractive). But it was only the beginning…

Pioneer is Losing Multiple Staples and One of Its Pillars

On the one hand, both Balustrade Spy and Undercity Informer were banned. Goodbye Oops, All Spells!

But in the same stroke, Wilderness Reclamation and Teferi, Time Raveler were also banned in Pioneer!

Modern is Completely Transformed

• Field of the Dead! Gone! Goodbye Primeval Titan backup plan.
• Mystic Sanctuary! Gone! Sayonara attrition re-buy strategy.
• Simian Spirit Guide! Finally! He was always hanging out in sketchy neighborhoods, don’t you think?
• Tibalt’s Trickery… We hardly knew ya. Patrick makes the cogent argument that the alternative would have been banning twenty other cards… But not guaranteeing that the Trickery wouldn’t still ruin the format.

You might have noticed that Valki, God of Lies – slash – Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter is not on the list. No. It was not banned.

But was it effectively banned?

So What Happened with Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter?

A slight change to the Cascade rules means that when your Ardent Plea turns over Valki, God of Lies you have to play it as Valki, God of Lies. That is, you can’t get the five mana boost for free and on the spot.

Valki is not banned. Theoretically Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter isn’t either… But it’s a heck of a lot more difficult to get into play.

The great part about this rules change?

It’s kind of how the rules should work, don’t you think?

More here:

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