7 Cards Banned in MTG Standard, Overdue But Still Worth It

June 30, 2025 will go down as one of the most significant dates in Standard history.

Well… for me at least.

Seven cards banned in a single announcement, which is the largest culling since Mirrodin's artifact lands got the axe twenty years ago. The recent Pro Tour results painted a grim picture almost immediately: Izzet Prowess made up over half the top tables, with most other decks forced to warp their entire game plan around surviving the early onslaught.

And if you've been playing Standard lately, you already know why and have probably been waiting for this to happen. But if you want brief refresher on everything, here’s a reminder blog post for you to read.

The Carnage Report

Cori-Steel Cutter finally met its maker. This thing was generating a 1/1 prowess token every single turn while giving everything haste, but the real problem was the mathematical inevitability. Even if you removed the creature carrying it, the equipment stuck around, and sometimes Izzet players even opted to just generate a new token just make things snowball even harder. Twelve one-mana cantrips specifically to trigger prowess, anyone? Cori would often create 2/2 or 3/3 tokens that demanded immediate answers. Board wipes became temporary setbacks, and not even Temporary Lockdown was really good enough to stop it.

Monstrous Rage real crime wasn’t the individual compounding effects themselves. It’s the package of when and where this seemingly innocent combat trick is used. Manifold Mouse with double strike plus Rage dealt ten trample damage on turn three. Heartfire Hero scenarios were even nastier since if it died, it dealt damage equal to its total power. Which is a very easy thing to do with Callous Sell-Sword (and doubling the damage!).

Speaking of which, Heartfire Hero is technically a necessary collateral damage in the combat combo soup of Mono Red during the last few months of Standard. Just within its typal combo alone, a Hero into turn-two Manifold Mouse threatened twelve damage on turn three with any pump spell, and that's before accounting for additional creatures or multiple spells. Prior to Mono Red’s latest mutation, Felonious Rage and Turn Inside Out even kept the explosive potential of the mouse alive, without any of the typical downsides of combat trick spells!

This card cheating Omniscience into play on turn four was exactly as miserable as it sounds. Once Omniscience is found via massive self-mill and resolved, the game was effectively over. Win conditions can be anything you wish to hand fix, but if feel lazy, just cast an Invasion of Arcavios // Invocation of the Founders and get anything that you want. You can also use the same battle card to fetch the card combo, of course. Although at that point, you may have other bigger problems to handle. Nonetheless, tournament coverage showed these games regularly ending in five-minute blowouts for something that was supposed to be a control deck in the first place.

The almighty high-mana-value card engine had been living on borrowed time since Domain decks first broke it. The card turned every Overlord of the Hauntwoods and Zur, Eternal Schemer into cantrips, creating absurd card advantage engines. Domain lists were running multiple cost-reduction effects specifically to trigger Beanstalk multiple times per turn. In fact, pretty much amy deck that runs on alternative casting costs while having high mana values can run this thing to absolute great effect.

The bounce package wasn't dominating tournament results.. Actually, it is even apparent at all why they are even broken at a first glance. But the gameplay pattern was oppressive regardless. Orzhov Pixie lists would play turn-one Nightmare, turn-two Nurturing Pixie bouncing Nightmare, then replay it for six damage and three discarded cards by turn three. This Town enabled infinite loops with Stormchaser's Talent in Esper variants, creating games that technically had win conditions but practically went on forever.

Deck Obituaries

Mono-Red Aggro isn't dead, but it's definitely wounded. The core mouse package loses its most explosive elements, but the deck still has Manifold Mouse, Cacophony Scamp, and efficient burn spells. Expect lists to shift somewhat away from Callous Sell-Sword and other two-drops that don't rely on specific synergies. The deck's tournament win rate will likely drop from its previous dominance, but it is still Mono Red. It’s going to keep its aggro dominance no matter what.

Izzet Prowess needs major surgery. Cori-Steel Cutter was the engine that made the deck resilient to removal and board wipes. Luckily, we already found the template for a new, and probably even more innovative Izzet deck in the form of PVDDR’s Vivi Ornitier + Agatha's Soul Cauldron combo. It is fun to use, and pops off as crazy as expected, while still being competitive enough to be usable in Standard.

Azorius Omniscience is functionally dead in my opinion. The next-best reanimation option for enchantments in Standard, Repair and Recharge, costs five mana, making the combo significantly slower and more vulnerable. Yuna, Hope of Spira requires specific setup and happens at end of turn, removing the explosive potential. Without a four-mana enabler, the strategy becomes too slow for competitive play.

Orzhov/Esper Bounce lost half its engine with Nightmare and This Town banned. The core concept of bouncing cheap ETB effects remains, but without repeatable damage and discard, the deck lacks the grinding power that made it oppressive. Expect cards like Nowhere to Run to still execute multiple creatures in a row, however.

Resurgence Considerations?

With the major oppressors gone, several tier-two strategies suddenly look much more appealing. Dimir Midrange has been riding the high tide all this time despite the hostile metagame, and as such might even surf even higher. The deck's combination of efficient removal, card advantage through Enduring Curiosity, and powerful threats like Kaito, Bane of Nightmares positions it well to stay without much changes even as these monumental bans take place.

Insidious Roots combo has been lurking in the shadows, waiting for aggro to calm down. The deck can still threaten turn-four kills through Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler (pre-rotation), but requires specific setup and dies to targeted graveyard hate. Unlike the banned strategies, Roots creates interactive games where opponents have multiple opportunities to disrupt the combo.

Jeskai Control with Abhorrent Oculus might actually return to its original Azorius form. Nah, just kidding! But seriously, the deck was always powerful in longer games, but is a bit finicky in a three-turn format, even with the addition of cards like FOMO. Stock Up remaining legal provides strong card selection, and the deck's removal suite becomes much more relevant when opponents aren't threatening lethal by turn three.

Don't sleep on the Final Fantasy cards either! If there is anything that the recent Pro Tour has proven, is that we already have a solid lineup of MTG Final Fantasy cards that are ready to swoop into the meta. Cards like Cecil, Dark Knight // Cecil, Redeemed Paladin with its recursion loops, Self-Destruct being the new fancy Mono Red finisher (and solidified Hearfire Hero’s ban), even Town Greeter fulfilling the landfall acceleration predictions that players have made for the card since day one. I will be writing a separate blog post all about it, so stay tuned!

Everybody Knew the Symptoms Already

Back in October 2024, everybody already understood that the mouse tribal package would continue causing problems even after Leyline of Resonance got banned in BO1. The core issue of Heartfire Hero enabling explosive starts with any pump spell remained unaddressed. Tournament results over the following months proved this analysis correct, with red aggro variants consistently using the exact same strategy despite the Leyline ban.

Unsurprisingly, the massive ban hammer move has been received with overwhelming positivity. Players are genuinely excited to try Standard again after months of avoiding the format. When the majority response to seven simultaneous bans is relief rather than outrage, you know the format was in serious trouble.

WotC's response also shows a major shift in how they're managing the 3-year Standard experiment. They explicitly called this an "early rotation window" rather than emergency bans, essentially announcing that annual format resets are now part of the plan. They admitted needing to be "more precise with our one-mana cards" going forward and acknowledged that the larger card pool creates design constraints they're still figuring out.

With the next announcement scheduled for November 2025 and two more "early rotation" windows planned before 2027's actual rotation, it's clear they're treating periodic format surgery as routine maintenance rather than crisis intervention.

Whether this will be their go-to excuse and crutch for poorly designed cards or heavily marketed cards in the near future (just like what eventually happened to Yu-Gi-Oh!), remains to be seen.

Read the WoTC's official announcement here.