Monday Miscellany 4-24

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

The big news out today everyone had been anticipated and now talking up a storm about is the Banned and Restricted Update.  You can have a looky-loo at it over here.  Not to spoil anything, but here is a relevant picture -

Legacy:  Sensei's Divining Top is banned.
and
Vintage:  Gitaxian Probe and Gush is restricted.

Anywhoos, as we do not play Legacy or Vintage, this subject is not our forté.  We do know enough that the Miracles decklist in Legacy just took a direct hit, but what we are curious about is why the reprint of Counterbalance (another integral piece of this list) in Amonkhet's Invocations ?

Righto - onto our fav format - standard constructed.  Firstly, bans in standard is a rather tricky piece of work, and would be generally discouraged.  Having said that, we should note that there have been essentially two top decks since the last banned and restricted update - that of Mardu Vehcles and the Saheeli combo.  There may be answers, existing and new (and perhaps somewhat poor) for the Vehicles list, but not very much for the Saheeli combo.  Playing against this is honestly quite 'un-fun'.  We've talked to quite a few Magic: the Gathering players (email, on-line, and in-person) and most have indicated that standard constructed is taking a hit for attendance at their local game stores.  Stores who are running a Modern or Commander event during Friday Night Magic are seeing these standard players now come back in to play that format.
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Moving on to last weekend's Amonkhet PreRelease, which we attended at OMG Games, in Barrie, Ontario.

We did not pull anything very special and attempted a Blue / White 'good stuff' thing which did not do very well at all.  Guess you can't win 'em all.

Rares Pulled :
• Regal Caracal
• Bounty of the Luxa
• Cruel Reality
• Oracle’s Vault
• Vizier of Many Faces
• Glyph Keeper 
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