MTG B&R Update July 2

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

First of all - a very happy Canada Day to all of our fellow Canadians.  There is a massive heat wave in Southern Ontario, so be sure you hydrate.  

A quick word about the updated Magic: the Gathering Banned and Restricted list announced today by Wizards of the Coast.  Essentially, just an adjustment to Legacy with the banning of Deathrite Shaman and Gixtaxian Probe.

Here's the full article link including observations of the metagame : https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/july-2-2018-banned-and-restricted-update-2018-07-02

For standard, no changes - here is the existing list -

Revised: January 19, 2018
• Aetherworks Marvel
• Smuggler's Copter
• Felidar Guardian
• Attune with Aether
• Rogue Refiner
• Rampaging Ferocidon
• Ramunap Ruins
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Modern UnBan News

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Last weekend was rather busy with work, but we were still able to take an occasional break to catch up on coverage of Grand Prix Toronto, February 9-11, 2018.  A number of players from our local gaming store OMG Games here in Barrie took the 50 minute drive down to attend, but this was quite an international event.  Visitors to Canada were greeted by typical February weather in Toronto - cold and a lot of snow-covered lands.

If you have not yet, click on over to the coverage summary here at Wizards.  Results indicate that Modern format is in a really good place right now with ten players finishing Day 1 undefeated, with 10 different decks.  Compared to a few short years ago where Day 2 decks essentially were restricted to just a handful, it has improved rather well.  Check out the Top 8 Decklists linked right here.  Of note, we are rather happy to see GP Toronto winner Dan Ward and his Bogles - we are being biased of course as we run a Bogles decklist.

Since the mini-preview of Big-Daddy Jace (Jace the Mind Sculptor) with the packaging preview of the upcoming Masters 25 release (March 16th), many were anticipating the un-banning of Jace in Modern in today's announcement (linked here).  A number of Magic: the Gathering community members had been also calling for Bloodbraid Elf to be unbanned as well.  For a very good (and prophetic) article written ahead of today's announcement, read SafronOlive's article linked right here.


In short, we think these are rather acceptable given the state of Modern and although we do not have plans on playing these in the near future, we do personally know a few players who are likely very happy to see these cards back.

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January BanHammer

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

Today, January 15th, is supposedly 'Blue Monday', a name given to this day in January, which is claimed to be the most depressing day of the year.   Well we do have some good news to nudge you out of your mid-Winter malaise.  Or - perhaps not.

Many Magic: the Gathering players have been anticipating today's Banned and Restricted Announcement for some time.  The general consensus, from our own limited discussions with a number of players over the last few weeks, was that Wizards of the Coast may hobble the popularity of the ubiquitous Energy decks.  We did express this somewhat sarcastically last Monday (here on MTG Realm on Tumblr) when WotC had been pumping the Rivals of Ixalan PreRelease with the quip of 'Who will claim the golden City of Orazca?'.  Certainly not one of the four tribes in the new post-RIX standard but an (Temur) Energy decklist.  The smart money was on Attune with Aether or Rogue Refiner.

Today's official announcement (linked right here), was not surprising / was certainly surprising :

• Four cards have been banned in the Standard format - Attune with Aether, Rogue Refiner, Rampaging Ferocidon, and Ramunap Ruins. 

Two additional cards hit the list in addition to the two we had prognosticated.  Whether you fully, partly of completely disagree with the announcement today, we believe that most will agree that the supporting article was well written with a satisfactory explanation as to the changes.  

Attune with Aether and Rogue Refiner were most decidedly, the most common inclusion in all the energy variants we had seen some time, and those decklists were dominating everywhere from Friday Night Magic to Pro-play.  Coming up behind this top shelf list was Ramunap Red with Ramunap Ruins being an 'auto-include' in essentially every aggressive red list.

As we had waited for Rivals of Ixalan to deliver a fun and functional tribal build, we were more than cognisant that consideration for any tribal list we could imagine relying too heavily upon the generation of 1/1 (Vampire or Merfolk) tokens would need a plan against Rampaging Ferocidon.  This red Dino was the go-to sideboard answer for token lists and of course lifegain strategies.

We loved our Energy decklists we had built - the first was Electrostatic Pummlerer which evolved into Temur Energy.  We will admit that our interest did wane after a time, as games did often come down to who was on the play or who had the better sideboard.  


Although we do not doubt that Energy and aggro Red will be around until rotation, we do feel as if a large weight had been lifted off the lists we wanted to build with Rivals of Ixalan.  We will get to dust off our Anointed Processions, collect a full deckset of Radiant Destiny and get totally tribal.  

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