Let's face it. We all make mistakes. I should never have sold my set of 40 Dual Lands back in 2013. The New York Jets should never have pursued Aaron Rodgers. And Wizards of the Coast should never have printed Companions.

I think it's safe to say each of these decisions were equally poor.

If you've been hiding your head in the sand over the past few years, or if you're a brand-new player, you may not know the full history of Companions and how they have damaged Magic gameplay. It's certainly possible. I drafted a Yorion, Sky Nomad in a Mystery Booster 2 Draft at MagicCon Las Vegas, and one of my opponents didn't fully understand why I had a powerful creature sitting off to the side at the start of every game.

This week I'm going to briefly explain Companions and their history, and dive into the major problems they've created for Wizards of the Coast since their inception, culminating in the most recent Banned & Restricted announcement just last week.

What Are Companions?

I'm going to lean on the MTG Fandom Wiki for help explaining Companion rules so I don't miss anything. While they're not exactly complicated, they do interact with gameplay in a way that's never been done before.

Companions were created back in Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths (which I will shortcut as "Ikoria"). There are ten in total, and [thankfully] no new ones have been printed since...though these have been reprinted multiple times already.

"The companion ability lists a deckbuilding rule. If your starting deck follows that rule, then the creature can serve as your chosen companion." The Wiki goes on to explain how you can only have one companion in a game, it starts outside the game, and counts towards your sideboard size (i.e., in Constructed play it is one of the fifteen cards in your sideboard). Right before a game begins, you reveal your chosen companion to all players.

What kind of deck building restrictions do Companions require? They vary widely, ranging from building a deck with 20 extra cards (Yorion, Sky Nomad) to building a deck with only odd mana values and lands (Obosh, the Preypiercer). As long as you follow the requirement, you're allowed to include the creature as your Companion.

Sounds like an interesting spin on deckbuilding, right? Wizards of the Coast rarely innovates in the deckbuilding space, instead focusing on gameplay itself. To have something impact the deckbuilding rule set was novel and exciting.

At least, at first...

The First Issue: Casting Companions

Unfortunately, the fun nature of Companions stops there. Once you build your deck to follow a Companion's restrictions, all sorts of issues arise.

First and foremost, there's the method with which you cast your companion. When Ikoria was released, the rule was straightforward--you can cast your Companion as if it was in your hand. Easy, right? Unfortunately, such an effect is WAY too powerful in competitive gameplay. Imagine building a deck around a specific card and being allowed to start every game with that card in your hand. Every. Single. Game. That's extremely broken.

What's more, there are no cards that interact with the Companion Zone! So not only do you have access to your Companion every single game, but your opponents can't make you discard it! It's immune to their Thoughtseize, Hymn To Tourach, and even Timetwister. No matter what you do with your hand, that Companion is faithfully standing by waiting to be cast as if it was in your hand.

Do you see the problem here? It didn't take long for Wizards to see it. On June 1st, 2020, just 46 days after Ikoria's release, Wizards of the Coast overhauled the Companion rule. Of course, that meant the writing on the cards didn't explain the full rules of the card. Wizards of the Coast added something extra in the rules after the cards were printed. Major problem.

Below are before and after pictures of Lurrus of the Dream-Den; the former is the original from Ikoria, and the latter is the Multiverse Legends reprint. Can you spot the difference in the rules text?

The newer printings of Companions may contain additional reminder text. Instead of stating that you can cast the creature once from outside the game, the new rules state, "...you may put it into your hand from outside the game for 3 as a sorcery." Thus, instead of directly casting this creature from the Companion Zone, you first need to pay three generic mana to bring the creature into your hand. Only then can you cast the creature.

This was a major change intended to significantly weaken the broken nature of Companions. Instead of starting every game with a relatively free eighth card in your hand, you need to spend mana at sorcery speed to access that powerful creature you've built your deck around. This rule change immediately impacted the competitive scene, mitigating many of the issues.

Problem Solved?

You'd think this huge rule change would have been enough to right the wrongs done by Companions. Surely having to pay three mana to do nothing but bring this creature to your hand is bad enough to neuter the poor creatures, right?

Not in the slightest! It turns out even having to pay three mana at sorcery speed to access these Companions still wasn't a steep enough cost to counterbalance their power, at least for certain companions. Since their release in April 2020, we've seen numerous bannings and restrictions of various Companions. Let's take a look at the timeline.

• April 2020 (Day 0): Lutri, the Spellchaser is banned in Brawl and Commander
• May 2020 (Day 31): Lurrus of the Dream-Den and Zirda, the Dawnwaker are banned in Legacy; Lurrus of the Dream-Den is banned in Vintage. Note Lurrus was unbanned in Vintage in February 2021
• March 2022 (Day 689): Lurrus of the Dream-Den is banned in Modern and Pioneer
• October 2022 (Day 906): Yorion, Sky Nomad is banned in Modern
• December 2024 (Day 1,704): Jegantha, the Wellspring is banned in Explorer, Pioneer, and Modern

I never would have expected this latest one--Jegantha is a five mana 5/5 creature with a weird, niche ability. The story goes that the deckbuilding restriction Jegantha imposes isn't all that difficult nowadays, meaning the cost to Companion it is approaching zero. This leads to players frequently using Jegantha as a Companion, which in turn leads to repetitive gameplay.

Needless to say, simply adding that three mana cost wasn't enough to fix the problem. Half of the Companions from Ikoria had to be banned in at least one format. I can definitely see a day when some of the others get their turn as well. For example, Kaheera, the Orphanguard's restriction is that all creatures in the deck must be either a Cat, Elemental, Nightmare, Dinosaur, or Beast card.

This seems extremely restrictive. In reality, the most common use case for Kaheera, the Orphanguard is when a deck contains NO creatures! In that case, Kaheera's requirement is met, since every creature card in your deck--all zero of them--have the required creature type. It kind of reminds me of dividing zero by zero, but it works! There have been plenty of Eternal decks that play no creatures; I used to play a Storm deck in Legacy with no creatures myself. Therefore, that restriction may not be much of an issue, leading to frequent Companioning of Kaheera, leading to repetitive game play, etc.

Wrapping It Up

It seems that, for now, a couple of the Companions are relatively safe from banning. Umori, the Collector isn't very good no matter how you slice it, so that one may stick around. Despite this, you can't look back at the launch of Companions as anything other than a disaster.

Almost directly out of the gate, Wizards of the Coast knew they had an issue with these cards. Within a month, they saw that the problem was far worse than they anticipated, triggering a dramatic rules change--something that is almost never done in Magic! Even that change wasn't enough, however, leading to subsequent bannings across many of Magic's formats. This last B&R announcement was yet another blemish on Companions.

It's safe to say we won't see any new Companions in the foreseeable future. Companion is currently listed as a nine on the Storm Scale, meaning that Mark Rosewater will never say never, but introducing the Companion mechanic to Standard again would require a minor miracle. It's not quite a ten, like -0/-1 counters, but the only way it can happen is if Wizards of the Coast makes them drastically more restrictive.

Given the numerous issues these have caused over the past few years, I'd say this is highly unlikely. Wizards of the Coast was burned badly by Companions, and I don't think they're in a rush to experience something like this again.