MTG: Winota And Tibalt’s Trickery Are Banned As Of Today
Your games of Magic are about to get a little less aggressive. The new explorer format’s banned and restricted announcement removes two cards.
With the Streets of New Capenna came a new format, Explorer. This “true-to-paper non-rotating format featuring all cards legal in the Pioneer format that appear on Arena” format feels promising. You have a curated selection of cards to pick from. Although that selection shrinks by two with the latest Banned & Restricted announcement from WotC.
Winota And Tibalt Gone – For Now
The banned and restricted list updates this time around are pretty simple. It’s just two cards: Winota, Joiner of Forces, who has very quickly come to dominate Pioneer decks. This is the first Explorer ban since the format’s launch:
Winota, Joiner of Forces is a known powerhouse, allowing aggressive decks to quickly present overwhelming boards against unprepared opponents. Although decks centered around Winota currently coexist alongside other viable archetypes within the full Pioneer format, she has proven to be just as effective when working within the confines of Explorer’s smaller card pool. Decks built around her are showing both an extreme amount of play and high win rates across Explorer game modes, and the card has quickly dominated the format. As a result, Winota, Joiner of Forces is banned in Explorer.
But WotC point out that cards specifically banned in this format, will become playable again. The bans will be in place only as long as necessary. With additional cards come reevaluations. And when Dominaria United releases this fall, Winota will be unbanned.
Tibalt’s Trickery, on the other hand, might stay in the no-no zone for a while:
Explorer has once again given Tibalt’s Trickery access to the cost-effective enablers and powerful payoffs required to threaten a very early combo kill. Even without Throes of Chaos to provide a backbone of consistency, these decks still aim to finish the game as quickly as possible, win or lose, without any opportunity for meaningful interactions from the opposing player. This creates an extremely negative experience when playing against the card, and its play rate is growing quickly. As a result, Tibalt’s Trickery is banned in Explorer.
WotC have specifically said “this ban will not be reevaluated as aggressively as Winota’s.” So keep an eye out for more info, but don’t hold your breath.
What do you think of the ban list?
