October 12, 2020 Banned and Restricted Update

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

Standard:

Omnath, Locus of Creation is banned.

Lucky Clover is banned.

Escape to the Wilds is banned.

Historic:

Omnath, Locus of Creation is suspended.

Teferi, Time Raveler is banned.

Wilderness Reclamation is banned.

Burning-Tree Emissary is unsuspended.

Brawl:

Omnath, Locus of Creation is banned.

Effective Date: October 12, 2020

What Does This Mean?

A lot of players were expecting Omnath to NOT be banned since it's one of the banner cards of the new set and were expecting Wizards to wait until the next set is out. Well, Wizards decided otherwise and banned Omnath out of Standard. This weekend's 2020 Grand Finals tournament Top 8 proved that when the three non-Omnath decks went a combined 1-6 in the Top 8. With the continuing dominance of Omnath in Standard, it is no surprise to anyone that it got banned.

The other two bans are fail-safe bans to ensure Ramp decks will not dominate. One might argue that Lotus Cobra should've been banned too, but Lotus Cobra is a lot easier to interact with than Lucky Clover and Escape to the Wilds.

Moving onto Historic, Wizards solidified the Teferi, Time Raveler and Wilderness Reclamation suspensions. I'm a Bo1 Historic player and I haven't really seen Omnath be a problem there, although Wizards quoted Bo3 data for the suspension. Bo1 Ladder is dominated by Goblins, so I'm a little surprised why there are no suspensions in that deck. With the continued dominance of Goblins though, Burning-Tree Emissary isn't as big as a problem as it used to be, so the unsuspension here makes sense.

In Brawl, Omnath decks dominate and any Brawl players have seen their share of Omnath decks. According to AetherHub's data, Omnath is 25% of the meta, which is unhealthy for the format. Brawl should be a diverse format, so it's a good thing Omnath was banned out of it, although I think they only should've only banned him as a Commander.

What are your thoughts about the banning? Do you think Wizards was too heavy-handed this time?