MTG: Banned And Restricted – White Plume Adventurer And Expressive Iteration Banned In Legacy
A new Banned & Restricted announcement takes two more cards out of the Legacy pool. Expressive Iteration and White Plume Adventurer are gone.
Legacy players are in for a change up to the meta as two more cards are taken out of the official pool. A new Banned & Restricted announcement brings the banhammer down on Expressive Iteration and White Plume Adventurer.
After looking at the state of the metagame, WotC has tightened the reins just a bit on the Legacy pool. Expressive Iteration’s powerful draw will be gone, while White Plume Adventurer will no longer be able to delve every dungeon and untap all your creatures.
Here’s a look at the announcement.
New Magic: the Gathering Banned & Restricted Announcement
The biggest reason listed for the change was dealing with two major archetypes that have been especially dominant. “Izzet Delver” and “Mono-White Initiative” both account for almost a third of the current matches. What was so tricky about Expressive Iteration? Per WotC:
Izzet Delver has been popular for quite some time in Legacy, and it has picked up some notable recent additions, including Dragon’s Rage Channeler , Murktide Regent , and Expressive Iteration . While we acknowledge and agree with the many Legacy players who enjoy the play patterns of Izzet Delver and similar archetypes, our data indicates a need to take the win rate and popularity of the deck down a notch to allow for more metagame diversity and innovation. Our choice is to ban Expressive Iteration , as the card quality and quantity it provides allows Izzet Delver to easily adapt to stay on top of any changes in the metagame.
In addition to removing a generally strong card, our hope is that by removing Expressive Iteration , we reinforce Izzet Delver’s historical strengths (efficient one-for-one exchanges) and weaknesses (lack of sources of card quantity) in a way that leaves the deck more vulnerable in the metagame.
As far as the Mono-White Initiative enabled by White Plume Adventurer, here’s a look at why this was banned:
Since the release of Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate, the initiative mechanic has had a large impact on the Legacy format and continues to rise in popularity. The current second most popular deck uses fast mana to power out an initiative creature, gaining an early advantage that’s difficult to recover from. To reduce the consistency and speed of this gameplay pattern, we’re choosing to ban the efficient three-mana initiative creature White Plume Adventurer .
More Banned and/or Restricted cards coming soon, no doubt
