All B/R update speculation.

[Megadeus]

Maybe the "random" spike of Serras Sanctum is a foretelling of earth craft unban?

[JPoJohnson]

Is this legit...?
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...ent-2016-01-18

JANUARY 18, 2016 BANNED AND RESTRICTED ANNOUNCEMENT
Posted in News on January 18, 2016


By Wizards of the Coast
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Announcement Date: January 18, 2016

Effective Date: January 22, 2016

Magic Online Effective Date: January 27, 2016

Modern:

Summer Bloom is banned.

Splinter Twin is banned.

Pauper:

Cloud of Faeries is banned.

The list of all banned and restricted cards, by format, is here. The full list of cards banned in Modern is here. The full list of cards banned in Pauper is here.

Next B&R Announcement: April 4, 2016

EXPLANATION OF CHANGES
Wizards of the Coast examines tournament results from each competitive Constructed format. When a format becomes imbalanced, or too many games are not interactive, we examine the cause.

Here are our changes:

Modern

We look for competitively viable decks that frequently win before the fourth turn. The Amulet Bloom deck has reached a performance level that is consistent with those criteria. In the past year, Justin Cohen finished second at Pro Tour Fate Reforged and Benjamin Miller made the Top 8 at Grand Prix Oklahoma City. At the StarCityGames.com Cincinnati Open, with over 1,000 competitors, Bobby Fortanely won and Bill Comminos finished in the Top 8.

This deck frequently wins before the fourth turn. With an Amulet of Vigor, a Summer Bloom, a bounce land such as Simic Growth Chamber, and another land such as Gemstone Mine, the deck can generate seven mana for additional plays on turn two. Primeval Titan, or Hive Mind with a Summoner's Pact, can end the game very quickly. For these purposes, we are treating a turn-three Hive Mind with a Pact (which forces your opponent to pay 2GG next upkeep or lose the game) as a turn-three win.

We looked into which card could be banned to reduce the frequency of the very early wins. When the deck generates seven mana on turn two, there are a lot of cards that could lead to a quick finish. So we focused on the cards that lead to that explosive mana, and that led us to choose between Summer Bloom and Amulet of Vigor.

Since either card would be sufficient, the issue turned to what possibilities remained after either card was banned. Banning Amulet of Vigor leaves a Summer Bloom ramp deck. Banning Summer Bloom allows Amulet of Vigor with tapped lands. While it was not clear that either of these has all the tools to form a competitive deck today, the deck with Amulet of Vigor is more distinctive and has more potential as more tapped lands are printed. Azusa, Lost but Seeking is a potential replacement for Summer Bloom, but it is less efficient—so while there is a deck to play, it won't have frequent turn-three wins.

For those reasons, Summer Bloom is banned from Modern.

We also look for decks that hold a large enough percentage of the competitive field to reduce the diversity of the format.

Antonio Del Moral León won Pro Tour Fate Reforged playing Splinter Twin, and Jelger Wiegersma finished third; Splinter Twin has won two of the four Modern Pro Tours. Splinter Twin reached the Top 8 of the last six Modern Grand Prix. The last Modern Grand Prix in Pittsburgh had three Splinter Twin decks in the Top 8, including Alex Bianchi's winning deck.

Decks that are this strong can hurt diversity by pushing the decks that it defeats out of competition. They can also reduce diversity by supplanting similar decks. For instance, Shaun McLaren won Pro Tour Born of the Gods playing this Jeskai control deck. Alex Bianchi won our most recent Modern Grand Prix playing a similar deck but adding the Splinter Twin combination. Similarly, Temur Tempo used to see play at high-level events but has been supplanted by Temur Twin.

We considered what one would do with the cards from a Splinter Twin deck with Splinter Twin banned. In the case of some Jeskai or Temur, there are very similar decks to build. In other cases, there is Kiki-Jiki as a replacement.

In the interest of competitive diversity, Splinter Twin is banned from Modern.

PAUPER
The format currently has poor color balance. Of the ten most played nonland cards, nine are blue; the tenth is Lightning Bolt. We looked into the cause of this.

The Esper Familiars deck uses Sunscape Familiar and Nightscape Familiar to reduce the cost of blue spells, which include "free spells" such as Cloud of Faeries and Snap. Combined with the bounce lands, this means the "free spells" effectively produce mana. Here is a typical winning position: One casts Ghostly Flicker targeting Cloud of Faeries and a Mnemonic Wall, netting mana and getting back the Ghostly Flicker. Once enough mana is produced, the Ghostly Flicker can target a Sea Gate Oracle instead of the Cloud of Faeries, repeatedly looking for Sage's Row Denizen. From there, the flickering mills the opponent's deck.

Because of all the card-drawers here, it is difficult for non-blue decks to defeat this deck. It pushes the metagame to the imbalanced state where blue is heavily overplayed. Cloud of Faeries is likely the most problematic card in the deck.

In the interest of color diversity, Cloud of Faeries is banned from Pauper.

[Technics]

Is this legit...?
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...ent-2016-01-18

Yes. New MTGO beta "leaked" the changes so it looks like they released this early.

[Barook]

Yes, it is legit. They pushed it forwards since they leaked it with the MTGO beta.

That's how you react to leaks. Not "Hurr durr, let's ban multiple judges in a Facebook group and insult the community with a shitty article."

[Ephemeron]

As real as it gets: https://twitter.com/mtgworth/status/688226026497818627

[ReAnimator]

This line is super interesting and should keep this thread going for a long time:

" In the interest of color diversity, Cloud of Faeries is banned from Pauper."

[Barook]

" In the interest of color diversity, Cloud of Faeries is banned from Pauper."

(Disclaimer: Color diversity does not apply to Legacy.)

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Surprised by the twin ban, from the outside looking in, it seemed everyone thought it was strong but had it's place in the format and their reasoning was a tad strange. For one, to my knowledge, RUG tempo was never really a thing, and I believe the UWR Twin deck was came around the same time (or at least something like it, believe Caleb Durward or someone did something with it). The format seemed fine (if not too my taste), and outside of a bloom ban possibly, nothing seemed real necessary.

I'm curious if this means things will shift back into squabbling over what strain of BGx midrange is the best, or will this be the reign of burn.

[blubberpompnao]

I'm curious if this means things will shift back into squabbling over what strain of BGx midrange is the best, or will this be the reign of burn.

I'm hoping it means the reign of Burn. It seems likely that RG Tron gets even more popular and Burn has a FANTASTIC Tron matchup. Also I'm pretty happy that Burn is the only deck I still have for Modern

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

I'm hoping it means the reign of Burn. It seems likely that RG Tron gets even more popular and Burn has a FANTASTIC Tron matchup. Also I'm pretty happy that Burn is the only deck I still have for Modern

The reign of burn sounds genuinely awful for anyone that isn't a sadist or a mouth breathing lout.

Now where exactly did I put my lava spikes and boros charms at.

[blubberpompnao]

The reign of burn sounds genuinely awful for anyone that isn't a sadist or a mouth breathing lout.

Oh stop you're going to make me blush.

[sjmcc13]

This line is super interesting and should keep this thread going for a long time:

" In the interest of color diversity, Cloud of Faeries is banned from Pauper."

To make it worse, the card they are banning for color diversity is sees play in like 30% of the meta game. and the most common card in Pauper is just over 40%. The ban is because blue dominated the top 10 most played cards (which will happen if you have 1 deck that dominated the metagame %s by a large margin) and that is mostly because the various delver decks (which are the only decks that use all of the 9 blue cards in the top 10) are like 29-30% of the meta game, (mono blue delver is the most common deck at just a fraction over 18%) but they blame the ban on a single deck that is just over 9% of the meta game, and does not use 4 of the top 9 blue spells.

Legacy has 6 blue spells in the top 10, the other 4 being Deathrite and the 3 best removal spells.

[Jamaican Zombie Legend]

Ha ha, oh wow. Wizards really does not want a Modern Pro Tour nor players feeling comfortable buying into Modern decks.

Gotta keep 'em playing Standard.

Edit: Just read the rationale for the bannings. Lolling hard at Wizards citing "color diversity" in both the Pauper and Modern ban explanations combined with the "No changes" in the Legacy line. It's like we don't even exist!

[Maro]

Miracles is fine, OP but not broken. Delver is fine, adds diversity as it's played by 2,3,4-color decks. Hope you enjoy this format for many, many years to come.

[Lemnear]

Ah, the usual happened in Modern again: WotC kills a combo deck which can actually kill before play-creature-attack-go.dec which is sure not allowed in a format which should evolve around creature combat. If Ascension would be a tad faster or less conditional it would be banned as well. Nothing to see here. Crap format remains crap ... now with cream

I'm surprised Petition escaped the Vintage restricted list for now.

No changes in Legacy were to expect. 20,7% of all decks in the format playing SDT and Miracles winning several GPs now seems to be no reason to at least look at the deck

[bruizar]

Hopefully this will free up scalding tarns and snapcaster mages in the market. I doubt it but oh well.

[Crimhead]

Edit: Just read the rationale for the bannings. Lolling hard at Wizards citing "color diversity" in both the Pauper and Modern ban explanations combined with the "No changes" in the Legacy line. It's like we don't even exist!

It's more like we play a format with a different (minimist) banned list philosophy. Nothing new here.

[Serch]

There is no changes for Legacy banlist?

[Dice_Box]

If there was this thread would be a lot more explosive.

[phonics]

It's more like we play a format with a different (minimist) banned list philosophy. Nothing new here.

They didn't unban anything either, they aren't even trying. The last time they unbanned anything relevant was over 5 years ago.