Summary

  • The Nadu ban shakes up Modern, while Grief bids farewell to multiple formats, changing the competitive landscape of Magic: The Gathering.
  • Standard is healthy and sees diverse decks dominating, while Modern and Legacy take biggest hit with bans targeting powerful cards.
  • Wizards has also adjusted the ban schedule to be based on the competitive play calendar to maintain balance in the game.

Wizards of the Coast has unveiled the latest banlist updates for Magic: The Gathering, and Nadu Summer is finally over. Nadu, Winged Wisdom has been banned in Modern.

The bird isn't the only thing to have eaten the banhammer, though, as Grief has also been cast out after years of terrorising eternal formats.

As revealed on the Magic: The Gathering website, the full list of banned cards is:

Modern

  • Nadu, Winged Wisdom
  • Grief

Pioneer And Explorer

  • Amalia Benavides Aguirre
  • Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord

Legacy

  • Grief

Vintage

  • Urza's Saga (restricted to one copy)
  • Vexing Bauble (restricted to one copy)

Standard has been singled out by Wizards as being an incredibly healthy format, with the endless sea of midrange decks we saw previously giving way to a more varied environment. Decks like Domain and black/red Lizard Kindred have been particularly big without being too all-imposing.

Hot Bird Summer Is Finally Over

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Modern and Legacy have been where the biggest problems have lay. Nadu has been a terror since it was released in Modern Horizons 3, powering combo decks that can build resources and draw their entire decks with ease.

Talking about the ban, Modern Horizons 3 lead designer Michael Majors has said that Nadu was designed primarily for Commander play, and the way it interacts with zero-cost equip abilities, like with the Shuko that has consistently been run alongside it, was missed during design.

Wizards has also revealed that it will be changing the schedule of Modern, Vintage, Legacy, and Pioneer bannings to go by the pro-level competitive play calendar, rather than set releases. This is because of the backlash Wizards received by choosing to wait until after the current Regional Championship Qualifiers (RCQs) to ban Nadu.

Grief, on the other hand, has been a longer-lasting problem. Alongside Fury, banned in December 2023, it is a key part of Rakdos Scam decks, which find ways to recur Grief after evoking it. You can pull this off on turn one, leaving your opponent down two cards and you with a 3/2 with menace on the board.

Since Fury's banning, Rakdos Scam has dropped in popularity, but Grief continues to cause problems in other decks. This even carried over to the more powerful Legacy format, where blue/black Reanimator decks made good use of it.

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Speaking of Legacy, one card was singled out as potentially getting a ban in the future - Psychic Frog. Its ability to allow you to discard cards at instant speed to put +1/+1 counters on it makes it hard to remove, and can even exile the cards you discarded to deal with flying threats. However, it was decided that Psychic Frog can stay a little longer, to see how it adapts with Grief being gone from the format.

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Vintage's restrictions of Urza's Saga and Vexing Bauble aren't as ground-shaking as Legacy and Modern's bans, but they do help hammer back down Lurrus of the Dream-Den decks, which have been creeping back up since its unbanning in 2022. These restrictions are to make the deck slightly less consistent without completely nuking the archetype.

Taking The Bite Out Of Vampires

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A surprise banning came for Pioneer, and by extension its Arena counterpart, Explorer. Black/red Vampires have been killing it in the format lately, to the point where they've become too powerful. Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord can provide too good of a buff to Vein Ripper for opponents to deal with.

Despite being a Vampire too, Amalia is obnoxious to play against in its own, special way. It can quickly combo out of control with Wildgrowth Walker to get to its requisite 20 power and become nigh-on unstoppable, or leave your opponent too far behind to catch up even if they do manage to get rid of her.

The One Ring Survives Another Day

These are massive bans that are going to change up Modern, Legacy, and Pioneer in big ways. But one big question still looms: The One Ring from Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. Wizards has explained that its impact on the game isn't as clear-cut as Nadu or Grief, but it will reconsider it once the dust has settled.

These bans come into effect immediately for tabletop and MTG Online. On Magic Arena, which only has Explorer, the Amalia will be out of the way tomorrow, August 26.

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Magic: The Gathering

Franchise Magic: The Gathering Original Release Date August 5, 1993 Publisher Wizards of the Coast Player Count 2+ Age Recommendation 13+ Length per Game Variable

Created by Richard Garfield in 1993, Magic: The Gathering (MTG) has become one of the biggest tabletop collectible card games in the world. Taking on the role of a Planeswalker, players build decks of cards and do battle with other players. In excess of 100 additional sets have added new cards to the library, while the brand has expanded into video games, comics, and more.

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