Banned and Restricted Announcement - Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, and Vintage Affected

It's finally here. One of the most highly anticipated B&R annnouncements of recent memory, and it does not disappoint.

August 2024 Banned and Restricted Announcement

The biggest, and most anticipated, bannings of this announcement are Nadu, Winged Wisdom in Modern, and Grief in both Modern and Legacy. 

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Wizards felt the Nadu banning was so important that it deserved its own article, which you can read here. The article begins with a very blunt statement from the lead designer of Modern Horizons 3, stating that "Nadu, Winged Wisdom was a design mistake." 

Regarding Grief, the announcement had this to say:

For some time now, Grief has been maligned as one of the least fun parts of competitive Modern events. Starting the game down two or three cards from the various one-mana ways it can be returned is quite brutal. Having to mulligan is already painful, but being double Griefed directly afterwards just exacerbates an already unfun experience. Even outside of mulligans, having a turn one answer to a three- or four-power menace creature after an opponent has taken away your best cards is just asking too much.

Also of note, there were many people anticipating a banning or restriction of The One Ring, but this ubiquitous card lives to fight another day.

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Two cards were also restricted in Vintage: Urza's Saga and Vexing Bauble. And over in Pioneer, Amalia Benavides Aguirre and Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord are both getting the axe due to the overwhelming power of Vampires in the format.

There are no bans or restrictions in Standard at this time.

An Update on B&R Timing

In this announcement Wizards also took time to mention a plan to change the timing of these announcements going forward, citing player dissatisfaction:

Moving forward, we will be aligning our B&R announcements to the RC and RCQ seasons. This will allow us to make adjustments to our play environments to ensure the best experience possible for our competitive play pipeline. Our plan is to use the RC and RCQ season (which includes Pro Tours) to gather data and observe the evolution of how each format absorbs each new release. This also means fewer B&R announcements overall.

To that end, our next B&R announcement will be on December 16, 2024.

What do you think of this announcement? Did Wizards make the right calls?