In a surprise announcement this morning, Wizards of the Coast banned Wilderness Reclamation, Growth Spiral, Teferi, Time Raveler, and Cauldron Familiar from Magic: the Gathering’s Standard format.
Don’t miss today’s other bannings in Historic, Pioneer, and Brawl.
They join six other cards—Agent of Treachery, Field of the Dead, Fires of Invention, Oko, Thief of Crowns, Once Upon a Time, and Veil of Summer—on Standard’s largest ban list in recent memory.
“In the last banned and restricted list update, we chose not to make any changes to Standard,” Wizards said. “At that time, the environment had just seen the results of Players Tours 3 and 4, the companion rules change was recent, and Core Set 2021 had just entered the format. While we saw new decks emerging, ultimately the top decks were able to adapt and retain their metagame share. After watching the environment progress for several weeks and reviewing the decklist entries for the Players Tour Finals, we’ve decided to make some changes to shake up the metagame.”
To that end, “we’re making bans targeted at weakening decks that have been strong and popular at the highest levels of competitive play and at some cards and combos that have overstayed their welcome in the eyes of much of the Standard community.”
Wilderness Reclamation, Growth Spiral, Teferi, Time Raveler were banned despite being scheduled to rotate in September with the release of Zendikar Rising. “[W]e view this set of changes as an early rotation for those cards to help freshen up the remaining summer metagame,” Wizards said. “In the case of Cauldron Familiar, we’re taking the opportunity not only to improve the metagame short term but also remove a balance risk and undesirable play pattern leading into next year.”
Wilderness Reclamation and Growth Spiral
Ramp strategies have been at the top Standard since Fires of Invention was banned from the format in June. They made up over two-thirds of the metagame at last week’s Players Tour Finals in the form of Temur/Four-Color Reclamation and Bant Ramp—up from about 40% of the metagame at Players Tours Online 1, 2, 3, and 4 a month and a half ago. According to Wizards, the decks also made up “approximately 25–30% of the metagame at Mythic ranking on the Arena ladder.”
Therefore, Wizards is banning Wilderness Reclamation (plus suspending it in Historic) and Growth Spiral in Standard “[i]n order to remove Reclamation decks from this most played spot,” as well as “to reduce the metagame share of ramp decks in general.”
While Growth Spiral may seem innocuous, two-mana ramp cards are historically quite powerful. Rampant Growth, for example, is the archetypal two-mana ramp spell and it hasn’t been printed in Standard since M12, having been deemed too powerful. Growth Spiral trades a guaranteed land for drawing a card and putting a land into play at instant speed but has proven too consistent at allowing ramp decks to get extra lands into play.
Wilderness Reclamation, on the other hand, is a mana-doubler (or tripler, or quadrupler…) that could be powered out a turn early thanks to Growth Spiral. Cards like that become dangerous when they can effectively use that mana with powerful cards like Expansion // Explosion.
Standard Temur Reclamation by Allen Wu (Top 8, Players Tour Finals)
| Creatures (5) 2 Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath 2 Nightpack Ambusher 1 Brazen Borrower Enchantments (8) 4 Wilderness Reclamation 4 Shark Typhoon Instans (18) 4 Mystical Dispute 4 Growth Spiral 4 Expansion // Explosion 3 Aether Gust 3 Negate | Lands (29) 4 Ketria Triome 4 Breeding Pool 4 Fabled Passage 3 Steam Vents 3 Stomping Ground 3 Castle Vantress 2 Forest 2 Island 2 Blast Zone 1 Temple of Mystery 1 Mountain Sideboard (15) 4 Scorching Dragonfire 2 Mazemind Tome 2 Elder Gargaroth 1 Narset’s Reversal 1 Commence the Endgame 1 Flame Sweep 1 Storm’s Wrath 1 Brazen Borrower 1 Negate 1 Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath |
Cauldron Familiar
Perhaps the most unexpected ban in today’s surprise announcement was given to Cauldron Familiar, a common from Throne of Eldraine. It was designed specifically to combo with Witch’s Oven to form a slow—but very effective—loop that served the basis of both the Rakdos and Jund sacrifice archetypes.
These sacrifice decks have “maintained a high win rate over a long period of time,” similar to the Simic-based ramp decks. “In addition to having high overall win rates, these decks put considerable pressure on aggressive and midrange creature decks,” Wizards said. “Further, the number of triggers generated by these decks can be cumbersome for both players in digital play.”
Wizards is therefore banning Cauldron Familiar in order to “weaken these sacrifice strategies, open up more metagame diversity, and create a more fun gameplay environment.”
Standard Jund Sacrifice by Christoffer Larsen (Top 8, Players Tour Finals)
| Creatures (24) 4 Cauldron Familiar 4 Gilded Goose 4 Mayhem Devil 4 Woe Strider 3 Priest of Forgotten Gods 3 Solemn Simulacrum 2 Korvold, Fae-Cursed King Artifacts (6) 4 Witch’s Oven 2 Bolas’s Citadel Enchantments (4) 4 Trail of Crumbs Sorceries (2) 2 Claim the Firstborn | Lands (24) 4 Blood Crypt 4 Fabled Passage 4 Overgrown Tomb 4 Stomping Ground 3 Forest 3 Swamp 1 Castle Locthwain 1 Mountain Sideboard (15) 4 Agonizing Remorse 2 Claim the Firstborn 2 Lava Coil 2 Noxious Grasp 2 Return to Nature 1 Cindervines 1 Duress 1 Bolas’s Citadel |
Teferi, Time Raveler
Finally—in both senses of the word—Wizards has also banned Teferi, Time Raveler from Standard (and suspended it in Historic). Teferi has upended almost every format it is legal in since it was printed in 2018’s War of the Spark. The combination of being able to immediately impact the board with its -3 ability and shut down opponents’ instant-speed interaction allowed Teferi, Time Raveler to warp formats around itself.
“We’ve often heard the feedback that the repetitive play patterns and reduced capability for interaction that Teferi, Time Raveler can create feel oppressive and limiting,” Wizard said this morning. “While we’d considered banning Teferi, Time Raveler in past updates, one reason we didn’t was evidence that it was helping hold Wilderness Reclamation decks in check. With Wilderness Reclamation leaving the environment, we feel it’s also time for the Standard metagame to move on without Teferi, Time Raveler.”
That last point was borne out at last week’s Players Tour Finals event, where over half of the players played Wilderness Reclamation decks. Of those, the most successful players were those that splashed White for cards like Teferi, Time Raveler and Dovin’s Veto in order to beat other Wilderness Reclamation decks. In fact, over 70% of Four-Color Reclamation players advanced to Day 2 of the tournament, while barely 50% of Temur Reclamation players did so.
Standard Four-Color Reclamation by Kristof Prinz (1st Place, Players Tour Finals)
| Planeswalkers (3) 3 Teferi, Time Raveler Creatures (6) 3 Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath 2 Brazen Borrower 1 Kenrith, the Returned King Enchantments (8) 4 Shark Typhoon 4 Wilderness Reclamation Instants (14) 4 Growth Spiral 3 Expansion // Explosion 3 Mystical Dispute 1 Dovin’s Veto 1 Aether Gust 1 Scorching Dragonfire 1 Negate | Lands (29) 4 Fabled Passage 4 Ketria Triome 4 Raugrin Triome 4 Temple Garden 2 Breeding Pool 2 Castle Vantress 2 Hallowed Fountain 2 Island 2 Stomping Ground 1 Forest 1 Mountain 1 Plains Sideboard (15) 2 Kenrith, the Returned King 2 Solar Blaze 2 Spectral Sailor 2 Justice Strike 2 Dovin’s Veto 2 Glass Casket 1 Aether Gust 1 Deafening Clarion 1 Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath |
A Surprise Announcement
For the last few months, Wizards has taken the approach of announcing Banned and Restricted updates a week ahead of time. But Wizards decided not to give any advanced notice for today’s bans.
“Because of the increased focus on digital play environments during this time period, we’re choosing to forgo that advanced notice and roll out these changes as soon as possible,” Wizards said, rather than creating one-week lame duck formats. “This isn’t necessarily indicative of how we’ll announce and implement in the future, and we’re continuing to look at how we balance giving players advance notice versus staying agile with respect to changing metagames.”
While the return to unannounced Banned and Restricted updates was certainly unexpected, especially on the Monday after a major tournament, the surprise was magnified by the large number of cards banned and formats affected. Four cards were banned in Standard, four in Pioneer, one in Brawl, and two were suspended in Historic.