As I discussed last week, there was no doubt that something big needed to change in Modern.

Well...

Modern:

• The One Ring is banned.
• Amped Raptor is banned.
• Jegantha, the Wellspring is banned.
• Mox Opal is unbanned.
• Green Sun's Zenith is unbanned.
• Faithless Looting is unbanned.
• Splinter Twin is unbanned.

Holy crap!

Bans were obviously expected, but four unbans of a bunch of previous Modern staples is quite the curveball! Each of the four unbanned cards has dominated Modern at one point or another, often being the focal point of the entire format. There's a big number of risks when it comes to unbans, as having to reban a card is not a good look.

With such big changes let's waste no time in breaking it all down.

Banned - The One Ring

While some elements of this announcement are surprising or even shocking, this is by far the most expected outcome.

If it wasn't the marquee card of the most important Universes Beyond release and one of the bestselling sets of all time, The One Ring would have likely been banned earlier, but here we are. At around a 60% play rate, The One Ring has clearly been far too much for the Modern format, with power level plus the ease of being a colorless card making the opportunity cost of playing it so low that it has been allowed to hit this absolutely preposterous play rate.

There's not much else to say here. If Wizards of the Coast wanted to get super creative and restrict it, citing flavor reasons for this extreme departure from typical policy it would have been interesting, but ultimately not worth the hassle.

As a note, this is a failure of development. If The One Ring gave the player the burden counters, rather than itself, and therefore wasn't allowed to reset itself with multiple copies, the card would both be far more flavorful as well as interesting to play with.

Oh well, good riddance.

Banned - Amped Raptor

The other clear issue with Modern, aside from The One Ring, was the success and proliferation of the clear number one deck in the format, Boros Energy (or its variants). A deck that is basically just a Modern Horizons 3 Block Constructed deck, the popularity of Boros Energy spoke volumes to the effect that these Modern Horizons sets have had on Modern, with each effectively rotating the format with new and powerful cards that all work incredibly together.

Something had to give in the Energy deck, but Amped Raptor is certainly an interesting choice.

When you look at the cards in Boros Energy, Amped Raptor is not the one that jumps off the page. Make no mistake, it is a good card and good piece of the energy puzzle, but it's not one of the best removal spells in the format like Galvanic Discharge, nor one of the best 1 mana threats like Guide of Souls or Ocelot Pride.

So why ban Amped Raptor?

The reasoning given was that it's a card for the deeply entrenched energy decks without touching the more universal cards, which is only partly true as Amped Raptor was seeing play in some very low curve decks with almost no other energy cards as a pseudo-Bloodbraid Elf.

I think one of Galvanic Discharge or Guide of Souls should have probably gone, but we shall see.

Banned - Jegantha, the Wellspring

Look, Colossapede is just too good!

Jegantha, the Wellspring joins Lurrus of the Dream-Den and Yorion, Sky Nomad as the third of the ten Ikoria companions to be banned, and this is after the mechanic was nerfed by three mana!

It's very clear that companion is one of the worst mechanics in the history of the entire and I wish they would just accept it, bite the bullet, and ban the mechanic in competitive play rather than slowly banning them one by one.

Jegantha is the perfect example of this, as the card is largely just an eight-mana 5/5 and that is still worth making concessions in deck-building for. Banning Jegantha removes this annoying stress in deck-building as well as opening the door for more cards that don't meet the deck-building restriction to have a chance at seeing play.

The bans are big, but the big part of this announcement is really the unbans.

Unbanned - Mox Opal

Holy cow what now?

Mox Opal is a truly obscene Magic card that somehow evaded the ban list for a long time until reality finally caught up with it, and now we see it once again let loose on the world.

This is by far the most dangerous of the unbans.

Mox Opal has the ability to be even better than the original moxen in the right deck, and there are already a ton of great artifact cards and synergies in the format. The ability to speed these artifact decks up by a turn, with perhaps the scariest and most common interaction being with one of the strongest cards in the whole format in Urza's Saga. Being able to play an Urza's Saga on turn one and start activating it on turn two is very powerful.

There are certainly a few more predators out there than there were during Mox Opal's last run, but most of the artifact lands in the format being indestructible does help mitigate this.

Mox Opal is the card most likely to be rebanned at some point in the future.

Unbanned - Faithless Looting

Less surprising but perhaps even more overall impactful is the release of Faithless Looting.

Faithless Looting was one of the most played cards in Modern the first time around, facilitating a wide variety of graveyard focused strategies - from all-in graveyard decks like Dredge, to fair midrange decks like Mardu Pyromancer. However, while it was widely played, it was also a card that was a great piece of the format because any deck that wanted to play it cared about something, unlike a generically good card like Brainstorm or Ponder. I wrote about this at great length here.

However, Faithless Looting was a card also right in the middle of it whenever things went sideways.

As far as I'm concerned, Faithless Looting died for the sins of others, and I'm very excited to have it back.

It is likely that Faithless Looting will see more overall play than Mox Opal, but it's just because of how versatile of a card is across a wide variety of different decks which is awesome.

Unbanned - Green Sun's Zenith

To those who weren't there the first time around, Green Sun's Zenith may feel like an odd card to even be on the Modern ban list. Sure, flexibly is great and all, but a one-mana tax on any creature you intend to get, meaning that Green Sun's Zenith is going to be woefully inefficient at any point on the curve, isn't really worth the toolbox utility in a format as powerful as Modern.

However, that's not the whole story.

Dryad Arbor isn't a particularly powerful card in and of itself, but because it is an effectively zero mana Llanowar Elves, you can cast Green Sun's Zenith with X = 0 to go get Dryad Arbor.

When you staple Llanowar Elves, a fringe playable card in Modern anyway, onto Green Sun's Zenith, now you've got an incredible main mode to go along with the flexibility of the "normal mode" of the card. Or you can just go get Primeval Titan, that works too.

Green Sun's Zenith is a sneaky one, but a clever unban into a format that is pretty hostile to 1/1 creatures.

Ah yes, and we've saved the best for last.

Unbanned - Splinter Twin

Splinter Twin is like the ghost of Modern's past.

Those who remember the early days of the format remember how dominant various Splinter Twin decks were. They were able to play a reasonable control/tempo game, and then all of the sudden end step flash in a Deceiver Exarch and combo kill with Splinter Twin out of nowhere. The threat of the combo was often more powerful than the combo itself, as it completely changed how your opponent needed to play the game.

Splinter Twin has been on the banlist ever since, with anyone who remembers those days very happy with this choice. However, this is not 2014.

Modern Horizons sets have obviously completely changed the landscape of Modern, but they have done so by introducing both a metric ton of cheap, often free, interaction, as well as a wide variety of cheap, excellent threats. Modern now bears little resemblance in any way to Modern even a few years ago, let alone the last time Splinter Twin was legal.

As such, Splinter Twin is the perfect unban.

It's fun, flashy, and exciting... but ultimately not that threatening at all. I would be very surprised if a Splinter Twin deck ends up being a major player in the format when the dust settles.

What's Next?

So, now we enter one of the best parts of Magic: The Gathering, the honeymoon phase of a new format.

We have no idea if this format is actually good; hell, it's possible that it's going to be the worst Modern format of all time. However, right now everyone is just happy to be playing with a bunch of new and old toys and excitement in Modern is the highest it has been in a very long time.

Yes, the issues of direct to Modern sets and their effect on Modern as a format overall still exist, but unbans like this go a long way towards making Modern at least feel more like Modern again.

This one's a win!