Banned and Restricted Update, March 7th 2022
Wizards released a Banned and Restricted announcement with changes in Pioneer, Modern, and Pauper
Pioneer
Lurrus of the Dream-Den is banned
Modern
Lurrus of the Dream-Den is banned
Pauper
Galvanic Relay is bannedDisciple of the Vault is bannedExpedition Map is unbanned
Changes for both tabletop and Magic online go into effect today.
You can read the full announcement over at Wizards, but I also put it in this article below.
Modern
Since the release of Modern Horizons 2, Modern has enjoyed a period of experimentation and exploration. Despite that,
Lurrus's play rate (31% in Magic Online League decks that started with four wins) points to a card that is contributing to the homogenization of the Modern play experience. There is not a significant enough deck-building cost to incorporate it into a wide variety of strategies.
As is often the case in larger non-rotating formats, there are already strong incentives to include as many cheap and efficient cards as possible in your deck due to format speed and a variety of other pressures. Lurrus compounds those incentives by providing a powerful additional resource that helps to alleviate the weakness of filling your deck with cheaper and often less impactful cards as games go on. For too many archetypes, Lurrus isn't a trade-off but purely additive.
Due to play data, community feedback, and a desire to keep as diverse a range of card options as possible available to players in Modern,
Pioneer
While considerably less dominant in Pioneer today (20% in Magic Online League decks that started with four wins), we expect that Lurrus's metagame share will only grow as Pioneer's card pool expands.
Our philosophy for Pioneer is to create the most compelling sandbox built from recent Standard formats. As Pioneer continues to grow over time, that incentive of non-rotating formats to pick and choose the most efficient cards from each release will become more pronounced and Lurrus will only serve to accelerate that process. In the interest of preserving the diversity that Pioneer is enjoying rather than waiting for the critical mass in which
Companions
While Lurrus's presence in Modern and Pioneer are large enough for us to act today, the rest of the Companions are seeing a play rate that is in line with a diverse and healthy metagame. Like other components of their environments, we'll continue to monitor them for undesirable and repetitive gameplay and make individual changes as necessary.
Pauper
For more information regarding Pauper bans, please see Gavin Verhey's explanation article.
