We've got an update today for the MTG Banned and Restricted lists. Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath is the only card hit and only in Standard.
Quote From Wizards Announcement Date: September 28, 2020
Standard:
Effective Date: September 28, 2020
The list of all banned and restricted cards, by format, is here.
We’ve been keeping a close eye on the emerging Zendikar Rising Standard format over its first week of availability on Magic: The Gathering Arena and Magic Online. With millions of games having already been played on digital platforms, early data and results from events this past weekend have shown that multicolor ramp decks featuring Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, Lotus Cobra, and Omnath, Locus of Creation are a problem in the new post-rotation metagame.
While Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath was a powerful and contentious card in the pre-rotation Standard environment, we wanted to allow the metagame to adapt to the last set of Standard changes and the imminent rotation before making a decision on whether to let it remain a part of the environment going forward. This weekend's events underscored that the Four-Color Omnath decks are dominating early play, and that even the decks built to try to beat those decks utilized the powerful titan.
In order to weaken these post-rotation ramp strategies, we’re choosing to ban Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath in Standard. Our goal is to bring these decks down to a level where they are still appealing and competitive, but where natural metagame forces are enough to keep them in check. In general, we prefer this approach to overshooting the mark and removing an archetype from viability. However, we've certainly noted this weekend's strong results for the Four-Color Omnath deck and will continue to watch how that strategy and the overall metagame adjust in the coming weeks.
It’s unusual for us to make a change this early into the season, but in this case we’re targeting a card that has shown signs of being problematic in the past and which continued to display its dominance during events this past weekend. Additionally, the speed at which high-level digital play attacks new formats, particularly when digital play is the only high-level play available, means that metagames advance past the early stages far faster than they used to. We prefer to make this change now so that players can continue to get the most enjoyment out of post-rotation Standard, which is one of the most exciting times in Magic to explore and innovate.
Finally, I’d like to emphasize that for this B&R change our focus was primarily on Standard and Historic, with an eye for the upcoming 2020 Season Grand Finals. Changes to other formats, if needed, will be included in future updates.
Comments
Oh yes please. So much yes.
I am with green ramp decks, if they pull ramp and live long enough to play big stuff or other shenanigans I am ok with this.
Uro was so damn annoying, he gave you card draw AND land AND life AND potential 4 mana 6/6 that was giving you even more card draw/life/lands.
No more putting him in half of the decks I face.
Die Uro! No regrets.
Uro could be annoying, but I really think they should have banned the stupid Lotus Cobra instead. Never should have printed this pile of garbage. Its pretty much either instant removal or concede.
This could have been avoided...if they stopped printing blatantly broken shit. I mean Christ this thing was Growth Spiral with lifegain on the front end and a 4 mana 6/6 (the actual fuck) with a free Growth Spiral with lifegain on it on ETB and on attack on the back end. Did I mention it was unkillable? I think I didn't, sorry my bad. So here goes: it was unkillable. Exile it or steal it, otherwise it keeps coming back. With a Growth Spiral on play every time. And lifegain. Who could have seen that coming?
Hearthstone has definitely had a power creep problem as of late (in multiple game modes, in fact), but with the way MtG has been going recently, it seems Hearthstone still has a lot to learn from it about just how much power creep you can fit into a set.
And let's not forget, the majority of the blatantly overpowered, oft banned cards have been Mythic. The rarity that, in its original design, was not intended to just consist of absolute bombs that you'd want 4 of in every deck. But when they can get all that money, why wouldn't they.
Saw this coming, made sure my crafting since Zendikar came out didn't rely on Uro because of it. I'll miss the animation, I liked that giant creeper face. I'll also be sad because my Rogue deck loved to snatch him with Zareth San. That was normally an auto-concede.