September 28, 2020 Banned and Restricted Update
Wizards has updated the Banlist today, so let's take a quick look at the announcement!
Announcement Date: September 28, 2020
Standard:
Effective Date: September 28, 2020
What Does This Mean?
Wizards had announced on Twitter last week that a ban was coming, so players were expecting some kind of ban to the 4C Omnath, Locus of Creation
decks. SCG has a major tournament that coincides with every Standard set's Release Weekend and the results for Zendikar Rising's Release Weekend were not good. Nearly every single deck in the Top 32 played 4C Omnath and several additional decks also had Uro in the deck.
Early game metas are usually diverse or Aggro-heavy as it takes time for the meta to develop, but the advent of MTGA allows experienced players to solve the meta much more quicker as shown by the Top 32 of the SCG tournament. A lot of conversation online is now highlighting the now long-running issues with Standard and the issue of fast mana and how "free" it is. We've had a lot of bans in the past year that also tried to address this, but it is very clear that Wizards needs to solve this issue with Standard. Lotus Cobra
wasn't an issue in the original Zendikar, but releasing it alongside Omnath and the huge ramp package that is already in Standard is not good. In addition, Zendikar did not really bring any good RDW Aggro Cards, which means that going under the Ramp deck will be difficult and that is even ignoring all the free lifegain in the Ramp decks.
Wizards has stated that today's banning was forced on Standard and Historic which shows that Wizards believes that Uro is not a problem in Historic. The Historic metagame is in a much better place than Standard right now, so I believe this is the correct choice.
What are your thoughts about the banning? Do you think Wizards should've gone deeper?
About Kagros:
Aether Hub News Team member. Writing thoughts on Magic news and fun gameplay!
Yes Omnath is a sod when combined with other cards - but its only a small part of the meta Dimir flash / Rogues and RDW are still the main two Meta contenders
I can see Scute Swarm being banned eventually simply because of MTGA crashes. The lack of a powerful Aggro deck really lets these value engines run rampant.