July 13th Banned and Restricted Update

Wizards has updated the Banlist today, so let's take a quick look at the announcement!

Announcement Date: July 13, 2020

Historic

Agent of Treachery is banned (from suspended)

Winota, Joiner of Forces is banned (from suspended)

Fires of Invention is banned (from suspended)

Nexus of Fate is banned

Burning-Tree Emissary is suspended

Pioneer

Oath of Nissa is unbanned.

Modern

Arcum's Astrolabe is banned.

Pauper

Expedition Map is banned.

Mystic Sanctuary is banned.

Tabletop Effective Date: July 13, 2020

Magic Online Effective Date: July 13, 2020

MTG Arena effective date: July 16, 2020

What Does This Mean?

We previously speculated on what could be banned here. We missed on two of the formats, but I think the biggest surprise is the unbanning of a card in Pioneer, rather than a ban, as what most people had expected.

The Historic suspensions were expected as were the bannings of both Nexus and BTE. I personally do not encounter a lot of Nexus decks when I play Historic, but Wizards said that Nexus is the most-played deck. They see a lot of problems with Nexus moving forward, so Wizards has decided to ban it rather than suspending.

Pioneer is the big surprise here. Even with the prevalanece of all the combo decks, Wizards has stated that they are "generally happy with the shape of the metagame in Pioneer". They have even unbanned Oath of Nissa as they see that Nykthos decks aren't as dominant as they once were. To me, not taking action on the combo decks is a huge misstep, because even though Wizards says the data shows that combo decks aren't as oppressive as they seem, players certainly view them as oppressive which will drive people away from the format.

As discussed in the previous article, snow decks in Modern are very dominant and they get a lot of free mana fixing through Astrolabe. Hence, it's not surprise why it is banned.

Meanwhile in Pauper, Wizards decided to ban a card out of Tron. In addition, Wizards believes that Mystic Santuary needed action as it's one of the cards that will always get stronger and stronger as more cards are released.

Wizards ended their article talking about Standard. Although ramp is very prevalent in the metagame, Wizards said that they are fine with the metagame and allowing rotation to correct the meta.

What are your thoughts on the Banlist update? Do you think Wizards should've acted stronger on a format?