Magic Banned & Restricted Updates April 2016

With the release of Shadows Over Innistrad, all sanctioned formats and the group that oversees the Commander format announced their updates to banned and restricted lists as well as any pertinent rules changes. This one is going to be quick, because there’s fairly little to report. Which in some ways is a good thing.

The following changes are:

 

Standard, Legacy, Online Formats

No changes

 

Vintage

Lodestone Golem is restricted.

The main reason for this is that they want to have artifact-based Vintage decks be viable, but this one can make it prohibitive to diversity.

 

Modern

Eye of Ugin is banned.

Ancestral Vision is unbanned

Sword of the Meek is unbanned.

In a move that most tourney players saw coming, the big announcement was the banning of Eye of Ugin. Eldrazi decks have been running roughshod in Modern over recent months, and the Eye significantly fuels the acceleration of those decks. While it does also effect some artifact-based “Tron” decks, it proves an unintended consequence Wizards was willing to make as a means to curb the most aggregious of the Eldrazi engines of late.

Sword of the Meek on the other hand was a mild surprise to many in being freed up. Part of a known combo engine that saw it banned in the first place, it seems it was decided that the format was stable enough to support it. But we’re sure the abundance of Thopter-based cards released in Magic Origins didn’t hurt its chances either.

 

Commander

No changes

 

Functional Errata and Relevant Rules Changes

So, there is next to nothing of major note with the latest update. Most of the stuff mentioned is bookkeeping updates pertaining to cleaning up card text and new material from Innistrad being added to the Comp Rules. The only real changes of note were already announced via the set’s FAQ, which outline new rules for transform cards. Namely, that the back of a transformed card has the same CMC of the front, and that you can’t stack transform triggers and have them do anything of consequence. (Read: no new Archangel Avacyn shenanigans).

 

The explanations of the non-Commander Banned & Restricted changes can be found here.

The Commander announcement can be found here.

The full list of rules clarifications can be viewed here.