In recent years Magic: The Gathering seems to have gotten into the habit of printing some of the most powerful cards that the contemporary era of the game has ever seen, but it also hasn't been shy about dropping the ban hammer much more frequently than it used to. Even just a decade ago new bans and restrictions seemed fairly rare, but lately players have come to expect multiple updates to the B&R lists throughout any given format year.
The latest update arrived over the weekend and delivered a heap of changes to multiple formats that were scheduled to go live as of February 15, 2021. Luckily this time around there are no changes to Standard, which means that the most widely played format won't require any deck updates this week. That said, changes did go live for Historic, Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, and Vintage.
In addition to the banned and restricted card list changes, the developers also rolled out a slight change to the way Cascade works in Magic: The Gathering. The updates rules text is outlined below...
Historic
Omnath, Locus of Creation is banned (from suspended).
Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath is banned.
Pioneer
Balustrade Spy is banned.
Teferi, Time Raveler is banned.
Undercity Informer is banned.
Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath is banned.
Wilderness Reclamation is banned.
Modern
Field of the Dead is banned.
Mystic Sanctuary is banned.
Simian Spirit Guide is banned.
Tibalt's Trickery is banned.
Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath is banned.
Legacy
Arcum's Astrolabe is banned.
Dreadhorde Arcanist is banned.
Oko, Thief of Crowns is banned.
Vintage
Lurrus of the Dream-Den is unbanned.
Rules Change
Additionally, we are updating the rules for cascade to address interactions in older formats. This rule will be implemented on Magic Online on Wednesday, February 17. The new rule for cascade is as follows:
"702.84a. Cascade is a triggered ability that functions only while the spell with cascade is on the stack. "Cascade" means "When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card whose converted mana cost is less than this spell's converted mana cost. You may cast that spell without paying its mana cost if its converted mana cost is less than this spell's converted mana cost. Then put all cards exiled this way that weren't cast on the bottom of your library in a random order."
The changes are live now in the game's digital formats and should be in place at any in-person events as well (not that many of those are happening right now...). As always, WotC should continue to monitor tournament results and analyze the data to determine if these changes fixed the issues that were being seen and if the formats are more appropriately balanced now. If not, then expect another B&R update in the near future.
Magic: The Gathering's newest set, Kaldheim, is available now in game stores and digitally through Magic Arena.
Source: Wizards of the Coast