Banned And Restricted Update Coming Monday

For this week's Weekly MTG stream this past Tuesday, Blake Rasmussen sat down with Play Design members Andrew Brown and Dan Musser to talk about Banned and Restricted philosophy. In this conversation, they discussed a lot of the hows and whys of B&R updates, how recent unbans affected Modern and Legacy, and the state of various formats.

As part of this, the two noted that there will be bans impacting both Modern and Pioneer this upcoming Monday, December 4th. The pair dropped hints about Geological Appraiser and Karn, the Great Creator being on the chopping block for Pioneer. For Modern, cards from Rakdos Scam and Up the Beanstalk lists, as well as ones that make it harder to play 1-toughness creatures (Fury, Orcish Bowmasters) may be getting hit with a hammer soon. If you want to watch the whole video in the lead up to the announcement, you can find the VOD on YouTube here.

Additionally, Gavin Verhey noted yesterday on Twitter that there will be a ban list update for the Pauper format as well. This was announced separately because the Pauper Format Panel (which I am a member of) provides B&R updates separately alongside WotC. You can expect to see this update on Monday alongside the updates for Modern and Pioneer.

Ravnica Remastered Serialized Cards Revealed

At the end of the Banned and Restricted discussion held on Weekly MTG, Blake noted that next week would be the first look at Murders of Karlov Manor. In addition, the week after would play host to a two day reveal of Ravnica Remastered. As a little teaser to the Ravnica Remastered reveal, the official Magic: The Gathering Twitter page shared a spicy preview: serialized retro frame cards! Only three cards were shown: Birds of Paradise, Steam Vents, and Niv-Mizzet, Parun, though it can be inferred that we will see all 10 shock lands presented in this manner. Each one will have 500 numbered copies out there for the most diehard players to collect.

Twitch Rivals Hosting MTG Arena Showdown

Streaming service Twitch has seen a large share of gaming competition, to the point that it runs Twitch Rivals as a way to showcase high level play for various games! MTG Arena announced this week that there would be an MTG Arena Showdown event held on the official Twitch Rivals stream page on December 4 at 12PM PST (or 3PM EST). Check it out and watch your favorite streamers duke it out!

Commander Cards Coming to Arena

This month on December 15-17, a The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander Party is being held at your local game store! When you go, you'll get a sweet Unclaimed Territory promo card for playing. But wait, there's more!

If you play in the event with your Wizards Account tied to your MTG Arena account, you'll have four cards exclusive to The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander release. These cards had previously been discovered in the MTG Arena client, though players had no clue how to get them until now! While most Standard or Explorer players won't get to enjoy these, Historic and Historic Brawl players might find some new toys to play with in these!

For full details, check the official Wizards announcement page here. You can find details on the Commander Party event specifically here.

Hipsters of the Coast Halts Content

Longtime content website Hipsters of the Coast has put a halt on their site's content production, as announced on Twitter yesterday. While Hipsters was not clear on the reasoning, Sam Black noted that it seemed to be a funding/sponsorship related issue. Regardless of the reasoning, Hipsters has noted that they hope to bring content back to their website in 2024. Many authors, myself included, cut their teeth writing for the long-running website, and it will be a great loss to the content scene if they are unable to return to content production. I wish them the best of luck in getting things back off the ground once more.

Decklist of the Week

Simic Artifact Aggro | Standard | Icywolf, 2nd place MTGO LCQ

• Creatures (24)
• 2 Nicanzil, Current Conductor
• 2 Surge Engine
• 4 Gingerbrute
• 4 Sentinel of the Nameless City
• 4 Spyglass Siren
• 4 Teething Wurmlet
• 4 Tough Cookie

• Instants (4)
• 4 Disruption Protocol

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Zoetic Glyph

• Artifacts (6)
• 2 Agatha's Soul Cauldron
• 4 Subterranean Schooner

• Lands (24)
• 3 Forest
• 4 Island
• 1 Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1 Otawara, Soaring City
• 3 Dreamroot Cascade
• 4 Mirrex
• 4 Restless Vinestalk
• 4 Yavimaya Coast

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Cankerbloom
• 2 Haywire Mite
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 2 Tishana's Tidebinder
• 2 Wrenn and Realmbreaker
• 3 Royal Treatment
• 3 Witness Protection

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I'd initially hoped to cover the other big Discover combo deck that's been tearing it up in Pioneer given recent tournament results and popular buzz. However it sounds like a ban is right around the corner, so there's not much point in doing so. Instead, I took a look at some of the recent Standard events to see if anything fresh and new stood out utilizing the new cards from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan.

This list comes in at second place in one of the MTGO Last Chance Qualifier events for the upcoming Regional Championships. As the deck's name suggests, the idea is to utilize artifacts to push through significant damage fast. Tough Cookie makes big creatures with ease, and dropping more artifacts also pumps your cheap creatures like Teething Wurmlet as well. You can also use explore effects to generate +1/+1 counters to utilize Agatha's Soul Cauldron to utilize abilities such as Gingerbrute's evasiveness or Surge Engine's various modes of buffing. It's a great option for the Standard Store Championship events being held for The Lost Caverns of Ixalan this weekend, so give it a shot!

Paige Smith

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