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Wizards of the Coast released its new banned and restricted update for Magic: The Gathering on Monday afternoon (24), in an announcement without any changes to the main competitive formats. However, the company took the opportunity to give an overall look at the health of the formats in this announcement, where they delved deeper into the Metagame of each one.
For Standard, Wizards mentions that they considered banning Atraxa, Grand Unifier and Knight-Errant of Eos for the notable results that both archetypes had during the 2023/2024 season. However, both archetypes in which these cards are found lose key pieces with the next rotation that takes place in August, with the release of Bloomburrow.
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In Modern, it comments on how Modern Horizons 3 has affected the Metagame, and that despite some cards like Nadu, Winged Wisdom raising some concerns, there is still time to see if other decks can adapt, such as Ruby Storm, which responds to Nadu by being one turn faster.
The announcement was more objective for Pioneer, where it openly comments on the problems that the archetype known as Amalia Combo has caused at major events:
“We are seeing a flood of results and decklists stream in from Pioneer Regional Championship Qualifiers, and it's a mixed bag. The biggest positive we are seeing in the format is that almost every macro-archetype is viable in the format. One thing that we are going to keep a close eye on is the evolution of the Amalia Combo deck. As a creature combo deck, we are generally positive on it; unfortunately, its ability to draw the game is a negative play experience. We are making no changes to the format today, as we still see room for the Metagame to shift around the surge of Amalia Combo, and because Regional Championship Qualifiers for Pioneer continue to mid-July, we don't like to disrupt those events mid-season.”
- Wizards of the Coast
The Amalia Combo is an archetype aimed at the interaction between Amalia Benavides Aguirre with Wildgrowth Walker and the Explore mechanic to create a life gain loop that culminates in a combo-kill with Amalia having 20 power and a clean board to attack, but in other situations, players can force draws in the middle of the combo by giving Indestructible for Wildgrowth Walker, forcing the interaction between them to be repeated indefinitely.
This situation occurred in the quarterfinal matches of Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor, where Simon Nielsen used Loran's Escape as a means of preventing Christoffer Larsen from winning the game when he performed the combo, forcing a draw.
The announcement also mentions Legacy's current situation, where Reanimator decks have grown by changing from combo to an attrition-oriented archetype, increasing its Metagame share. The company states that it will pay more attention to the format in the next announcement, in late August.
With information from: DailyMTG
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