The Impact of the 2023 Dec 4 Banned and Restricted Announcement on the Metagame

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Dec 4 Banned And Restricted Announcement

Original R&B announcement link

First, let’s see what this R&B announcement actually banned:

• Standard:
  No Changes
• Pioneer, Explorer:
  Karn, the Great Creator banned
  Geological Appraiser banned
  Smuggler’s Copter unbanned
• Modern:
  Fury banned
  Up the Beanstalk banned
• Legacy, Vintage:
  No Changes
• Pauper:
  Monastery Swiftspear banned

Below are the detailed reasons for the bans. I skipped the formats with no bans, since they just say why things are balanced right now.
The Pauper ban article was too long and full of fluff, so I didn’t finish reading it.

Pioneer, Explorer

In past metagames, Karn always had a high play rate (in mono-green devotion), until it dropped noticeably after LCI’s release, when the deck got beaten down by the Discover Combo.
Karn’s presence turned many decks into decks that are written as 60 cards but are actually 75, increasing the flexibility of matches. At the same time, it served as a combo component, added board pressure (Esika’s Chariot), provided board disruption (the God-Pharaoh’s Statue, The Stone Brain, Skysovereign, Consul Flagship, the Cityscape Leveler), and locked down artifact activation. Doing too many things at once made it very hard for certain decks to fight against it.
From a Yu-Gi-Oh! perspective, Karn is Crystron, and deserved to be banned.

Geological Appraiser, on the other hand, is unquestionably environment-breaking. With a small bit of acceleration beforehand, the whole combo is done on turn three, and who can stand that? Even against matchups with counterspells or removal, it can wait until you have multiple copies in hand before coming out.
Because of this deck’s appearance, the metagame became quite unhealthy, and basically every deck without instant-speed answers disappeared from the metagame.

Smuggler’s Copter was banned back when the Pioneer format had just come out and didn’t have as many cards, and most decks had trouble withstanding a turn-two Copter that starts looting by crewing on turn three.
Four years later (it was banned in Dec 2019), Pioneer has many more sets, and the current metagame should be able to withstand this card.

Note: Currently the MTGA card pool does not include Smuggler’s Copter, so although it was unbanned in Pioneer, Smuggler’s Copter is still unavailable in MTGA’s Explorer.

Modern

Scam kept rising in performance after LTR added Orcish Bowmasters, and topped the PT after LTR, becoming the overlord of the metagame.
Although a turn-one Grief scam really ruins the game experience, what truly made the metagame unfriendly and its pace quite fast was Fury. Fury usually shows up alongside various Undying spells, and usually stands on the battlefield as a 4/4 while also dealing a total of eight damage divided among any number of targets.
Also, at five mana it dodges Fatal Push, a 4/4 body is out of the range of Lightning Bolt, and a 4/4 double striker basically ends the game just by attacking and connecting with the player twice, plus a little extra damage.
At the same time, Fury’s presence meant many decks full of small creatures couldn’t survive.

Up the Beanstalk became the darling of the metagame in the mid to late WOE period. A two-mana enchantment that keeps generating resources is a bit too much. Although after Fury was banned, the four main draw spells are fewer, the resources it generates are still too many, so it was banned anyway.

Meta Impact

The scope of this ban is quite broad. Here again I’ll explain by format.

Pioneer, Explorer

1. Mono-Green Devotion is probably dead. The combo is gone, so it may switch to Stompy or need to find another mana outlet
2. Discover 3 Combo is dead, and its key engine piece is gone
3. Rakdos Midrange is estimated to firmly hold the top spot in the metagame. One hard-to-beat mainstream deck is gone, and it gains Smuggler’s Copter as reinforcement
4. Rakdos Sacrifice will also return to dominance, for the same reason, though it has more bad matchups than the midrange version (control, Phoenix)

Rakdos Midrange was already comfortable in the LCI environment, because green devotion was being suppressed by the Discover Combo and so lowered in numbers, and control also increased to counter the Discover Combo, which is a rather comfortable midrange matchup to begin with.
Other hard matchups like Convoke, Greasefang, and Gruul Midrange also dropped in numbers because of the Discover Combo.
Not to mention that with Smuggler’s Copter unbanned, I believe the play rate of Reckoner Bankbuster should drop. Paying two mana to cast it and two more to draw is still not as good as just attacking and looting. Although Bankbuster gains cards and Copter only loots, in terms of tempo Copter should still be smoother, and if you discard a permanent card it can also pair with Molten Collapse.
So should we call it a pity? The MIT didn’t wait for LCI to be released, but thinking about that disgusting tournament distribution, never mind.
Similarly, the numbers of Rakdos Sacrifice will also increase, but since it already struggles against control or Phoenix, its play rate should not be as high as Rakdos Midrange.

Is Discover Really That Damn Bad?

This is an article I recently saw on a forum. The text said that the Greasefang deck is technically also a turn-three combo (pull Parhelion II, crew it and hit for 13, leaving two 4/4 vigilance Angels), and most decks that don’t deal with it at instant speed by turn three have basically lost, but there are still some differences.

First, the Greasefang deck is not a deck that wins just by having Greasefang, Okiba Boss. It needs a means like Grisly Salvage to put a Vehicle into the graveyard, and it has to be the right Vehicle to hit for 13 on turn three, and even after doing all this, the opponent may still turn things around with a sweeper.
Now look at Discover: once it has accelerated with Magma Opus and Creative Outburst, it can slam Geological Appraiser on turn three to finish with the combo. Even if it never drew those two cards to accelerate, it can still naked-cast Geological Appraiser on turn four to complete the whole combo. Discover is a combo that can be completed without any other cards, and I personally think this is the reason it was banned.

Pioneer’s other combos (Lotus Field Combo, Rona Combo, Metamorphic Dross, etc.) almost all need two or even more cards to complete and carry some uncertainty. In contrast, Discover ends the game as soon as it draws the key card.

Modern

1. Scam will probably have to change colors, most likely Orzhov, or die entirely
2. 4C Omnath goes back to its pre-WOE version, but may need to run a few more sweepers
3. Cascade Beanstalk is dead, so stop thinking about drawing cards

I can hardly think of any reason for Scam to keep red anymore. Apart from Fury, the red cards are all replaceable, and without Fury’s disgusting board wipe mentioned above, it’s really worth considering switching color combinations outright.
4C Omnath goes back to its pre-WOE version, but you’ll need to think about what to put in Fury’s slot.
Cascade Beanstalk, a new deck, got locked away after only a bit more than a month, which is a bit of a pity.
Finally, my personal pet deck: Izzet Murktide. Murktide can be said to have been stabbed and then fed. With Fury banned, Murktide’s sideboard loses a handy board-clearing card, but at the same time, in game 1 it avoids the situation of having its board wiped by two cards in the opponent’s hand.

For other decks, the Stone of Erech and Stern Scolding commonly seen in sideboards now probably no longer need to be brought, freeing up those sideboard slots that were used to deal with Scam.

Pauper

I’ve been cursing Monastery Swiftspear since before Double Masters 2022 was released, up until now. I don’t think Pauper can withstand multiple Swiftspears, which makes red tempo or RDW decks too strong.
And remember that Gut Shot and Mutagenic Growth are both in the metagame, not to mention various fierce one-mana burn spells…

Personal Opinion on This R&B

In my eyes, Wizards’ bans this time were quite uncalled for, and I am quite disappointed in the balance team.
First, back in May, Wizards swore that from now on, eternal formats would only have ban list updates announced before the preview of the new September set begins. Although there was a proviso (they would still act if it’s very urgent), the annual ban list would basically be the standard.
Then, the annual ban list in early August put out Preordain and touched nothing else. You must have known the impact of Fury and Grief on the metagame.
Later in October, when everyone was most dissatisfied with Scam, they didn’t act either. Only when the metagame had started to balance itself did they suddenly announce they would deal with Modern.
If new cards from WOE or LCI had had a terrible effect on these formats, that would be one thing (like Geological Appraiser coming out and blowing up the Pioneer metagame). But instead they chose to touch a deck that had been out for at least half a year, had passed the annual ban list, and had not been greatly affected by the new sets.
Even the last time Pioneer was touched was like this too: they waited until the metagame was almost done balancing itself (even Winota itself knew it would be heavily targeted and had other strategies in sideboard games) before announcing that Winota would be banned.

In any case, as I wrote in the Rakdos Scam article: ”…Now it is instead awkward. Whatever they do will be a joke. If they act, their own earlier statement of touching eternal formats once a year is a joke; if they don’t act, then the Modern format itself is a joke.”
In the end, Wizards chose to slap their own face and banned the annual ban list.

Last time R&B banned the draft boosters, and this time it banned the annual ban list. What will it ban next?
Could it be banning the players? I hope not.