Yesterday was banned and restricted day, and what a day it was! While all eyes were primarily fixed on Standard, many were hoping for changes in other formats, and boy did they get them!

A grand total of six formats received ban list updates. Those formats include:

• Standard
• Pioneer
• Legacy
• Pauper
• Historic
• Brawl

Today, I'd like to take a look at this announcement and look at why these decisions were made. As you can imagine, there is a ton to cover with this update. It was a really chunky one so let's not waste time and get right to it, starting with the big one: Standard!

Standard

Card game tournaments don't sound so fun now, do they, Vivi?!

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past five-ish months, you probably saw this one coming a mile away. Vivi Ornitier is officially banned from Standard, with Wizards having noted just how powerful the Izzet Cauldron deck was, inevitably making it one of the all-time egregious mistakes in the format's history. The deck used this card in conjunction with Agatha's Soul Cauldron to create a combo-heavy victory condition that could win games with ease.

Despite this powerful interaction, though, it wasn't the only powerful axis the deck played on. The deck also utilized Proft's Eidetic Memory in conjunction with tremendous card draw effects to make outrageously large creatures. Even without the Vivi-Cauldron combo online, it wasn't that difficult to utilize Proft's to score some quick wins. Even with Vivi gone, there's no doubt the deck would still be incredibly powerful if Proft's was left unchecked. Thus, it too is banned.

Additionally, it's been noted for a bit that Mono-Red Aggro was still one of the best things you could do in the format. Not only did it have the one solid matchup into Izzet Cauldron, but it also maintained a strong win rate following the banning of Heartfire Hero and Manifold Mouse. Given this, Wizards sought to find another card to bring the deck down a peg and found it in Screaming Nemesis. In their words, it ultimately pushed the envelope for rate just a little harder than they ultimately wanted it to.

So, we have our Standard bans now, and it's going to be exciting to see how the format shakes out going into the new RCQ season! Though Standard was clearly the main focus, there's still plenty of other formats that were impacted by the day's announcement. The team also noted that they intend to take a lot of the design mistakes that led to the many bans this year and find better ways to improve counterplay in decks going forward.

Pioneer

Speaking of powerful Mono-Red decks, Heartfire Hero also eats a ban in Pioneer following its ban in Standard back in August. Yes, for as much of a meme as it is, people still play and enjoy the Pioneer format (I should know, I'm one of them) and it deserves as much attention as any other format.

If you remember when Standard was wondering if you'd die on turn three or not and struggling to deal with it, the same proved true in Pioneer. That format had even more pump spells and, with the right hand, can kill you as early as turn two. Given the deck's tremendous play numbers and win rates, it's hardly a surprise that Wizards decided to take action. I, for one, remain optimistic and excited to see what the format brings going forward.

Legacy

Now we get into another heavy hitter. Legacy has been talked about for a long time as needing bans and players were loudly frustrated to read the words "no changes" in the August update. Now, shortly before the European Eternal Weekend event, we have our changes.

First up is Entomb. If you've ever played Legacy in the past 15 or so years, you're probably well acquainted with this card. Reanimator has been a staple of the premier eternal format for a long, long time, fueled by powerful spells like Entomb and Reanimate to cheat out massive threats quickly. Back in the day, these were - as noted in the article - more modest threats like Inkwell Leviathan and Tidespout Tyrant, and then later included things like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Ashen Rider.

As time went on, though, the threats simply became too powerful to ignore. Griselbrand was the card of choice for a long time since the printing of Avacyn Restored in 2012. For some time, it was the cornerstone of the deck, until cards like Archon of Cruelty and Atraxa, Grand Unifier came into the picture. Several newer cards like Psychic Frog, Grief, and Troll of Khazad-dum were banned already and even those weren't enough. The deck merely adapted additional tools to help itself power out threats and win the game.

At some point, enough is enough. As such, Wizards has banned Entomb from the Legacy format, signalling a death knell to Reanimator as many players have come to know it over the years.

Would you be shocked if I told you one of the biggest design mistakes in recent memory was still a problem? Well that would be the case because the second card banned from Legacy is the big bird who loves counting to two. Nadu, Winged Wisdom hits the ban list after being banned in both Modern and Commander last year.

Many players hoped this might happen sooner. With multiple ways to build Nadu decks in Legacy, it became a powerful way to win games in quick succession. Some say this may not have been the right call or that the deck was fine at the moment, but by all accounts, the majority of Legacy players I've seen aren't sad to see it go.

Other cards like The One Ring, Balustrade Spy (and Undercity Informer), Kozilek's Command, and Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student // Tamiyo, Seasoned Scholar were also frequently called out by players. Each has been seen as having a detrimental impact on the format in one way or another and many would've liked to see them go. Still, for the moment, this is a step in the right direction. If issues persist, players will only need to wait 3 months for another shot at bans.

Pauper

Now we've got Pauper! As a member of the Pauper Format Panel myself, this is very much my wheelhouse. Only one card was banned this time around and it was, you guessed it, High Tide.

High Tide has proven a controversial card. It's given spell-based combo lovers something to enjoy, but sadly this causes it to have some very polarizing gameplay. It leads to the High Tide player solitairing for often upward of ten minutes with minimal interaction from the opponent. Despite this, it didn't have the biggest numbers or winrate... at first at least. These numbers have been slowly creeping up, with some really high finishes in a number of events. It's likely these numbers would continue to increase and - combined with the horrible tournament logistical issues it caused - led to a re-ban.

If you really want a good example of the play patterns and turns this deck enabled, I highly recommend checking out this TCC Shuffle Up and Play video. The link is timestamped to the High Tide finisher at the end of the video and goes on for a long, long time. While Gavin plays it up for very comedic effect, the fact remains that many games do, in fact, go that long - especially if the player doesn't draw the right cards to keep enacting the combo.

Tolarian Terror decks and Balustrade Spy Combo were also discussed as being on the Panel's watchlist. We'll be monitoring to see where these decks go from here and how the format evolves. Overall, I think the format is in a great spot. Pauper's an awesome format, and well worth your time to check out!

Historic

In the case of Historic, the Arena team noted a variety of interesting decks not needing much of an impact at this time. In fact, several cards were recently rebalanced for formats such as Historic and Alchemy to make for a better experience. However, it has been noted that there have been a large amount of high impact cards coming in at a rapid pace lately and it's making the format a bit stronger and more narrow than they would like, so they will be keeping an eye on it from there.

Despite the existing format seeing no real changes, however, there are several cards coming to the client shortly. Thanks to the Source Material Cards bonus sheet with Avatar: the Last Airbender as well as some other high profile Eternal Legal Cards, a few things were removed preemptively. Four of these cards - Frantic Search, Mystical Tutor, Entomb, and Dark Depths - are well known for benefitting and enabling powerful combo decks. Each of these was determined that it would fuel these kinds of play patterns in Historic as well and are therefore pre-banned in the format.

In addition, Historic was noted for having a format philosophy where free spells - particularly free counterspells - shouldn't be allowed. This is mainly being done to allow players to experience shields down moments where they can do their thing without the fear of opponents taking surprise actions out of nowhere. To that end, the team has pre-banned Force of Negation as well.

Brawl

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the announcement, however, was Brawl receiving multiple bans. These mark the first bans in Brawl since 2021 - quite a long time for a format to go without any action being taken in regards to bans! In truth, though, many players have had concerns about some cards being a bit too strong for the format, creating what's known as a "hell queue" for some players. As such, Wizards stepped in at last and took some action against a handful of problematic cards.

The most obvious of this batch of cards was Strip Mine. Recently added to MTG Arena via the Edge of Eternities Stellar Sights bonus sheet, the land is considered one of the strongest and most busted cards of all time. It's banned in Legacy, Restricted in Vintage, and as such is mostly left to just Commander and Cube. In a format like Brawl where you can repeatedly recur it with Crucible of Worlds effects and the like, it was too much for the 1-v-1 setting and was banned.

Additionally, Mana Drain was also banned. This one has been hotly debated for some time and now Wizards has finally taken action against it. This was one you would frequently hear many Brawl creators complain about, even though it has never had a profoundly high win rate. Many players rejoiced, and now it's out of here.

Last but not least were two historically busted pieces of fast mana: Ancient Tomb and Chrome Mox. Both of these have enabled extremely powerful plays right out of the gate in games across multiple formats. In all of these cases, it's caused some truly broken things to happen. Wizards has opted to ban these cards to help slow the format down.

Additionally, it's worth noting that while these cards are not being pre-banned, the Historic bans revealed that the Commander Bundle promos are coming to Arena. The dev team later confirmed that all but Sol Ring are coming to the client, which has raised some concerns from the community about how the Fierce Guardianship cycle of cards will play out in the format. Time will tell, and the Arena team has noted they're taking a much stronger stance and evaluation of the format going forward.

Modern, Vintage, Alchemy, and Timeless

For the other four major competitive formats, Wizards noted that they think things are by and large in a pretty good state. Both Modern and Vintage were noted as having good evolution and churn that made them largely enjoyable to play, watch, and engage with. Some potential outliers were noted for both - Amulet Titan in Modern and perhaps Tezzeret, Cruel Captain in Vintage - but for the time being, they're making no changes.

Alchemy once again noted that the format had recently received rebalances that I mentioned in the Historic section above. The big standout here is the rebalancing of Vivi Ornitier, which will hopefully make that card more palatable in the format going forward. Last but not least, the Arena team did note that while they're generally happy with the state of Timeless, they are monitoring Strip Mine in the format. They're not against taking action on it, but want to see how it continues playing out a bit more before doing so.

That wraps things up for this banned and restricted update! Like I said: it was one doozy of an update! There was something here for just about everyone and it's exciting to see where things go from here. Between a new Standard format, a slightly refreshed Legacy, and bettered formats like Pioneer, Pauper, and Brawl, there's tons of new options to explore.

If you'd like to check out the official resources behind this announcement, you can check out these links for more info:

• Banned and Restricted Announcement - November 10, 2025
• Explanation of the Pauper High Tide Ban for November 10, 2025
• The Fate of High Tide! A Pauper Ban Update (video version of Explanation article above)
• WeeklyMTG B&R discussion VOD

I highly recommend checking out the WeeklyMTG stream in particular. Much of this article was naturally written before the stream in question, and thus the discussion elements couldn't be included in this piece. However, the roughly one-hour length streams do a ton of work to help expand on the points made in these announcements as well as answer community questions regarding them. Check it out if/when you have time to do so!

The next update has been currently slated for February 9, 2026 - a few weeks after the release of Lorwyn Eclipsed. There's sure to be even more to cover, particularly as the Modern Regional Championship season will have come to a close. With luck, this will be the start of a much more regular update cadence as promised by the team.

Good luck to all the gamers trying out these new formats. I'm excited to check out the new Standard, Pioneer, and - of course - Pauper formats myself. What will you be jamming next?

Paige Smith

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