On December 16th, after close to 8 months of Modern being the worst it had ever been Wizards of the Coast released the most consequential ban announcement in Modern’s history.
Wizards banned Jegantha, the Wellspring, Amped Raptor, and The One Ring. Wizards Unbanned Mox Opal, Green Sun’s Zenith, Faithless Looting, and Splinter Twin. This was after two effectively dead formats in a row.
With the release of MH3 Nadu, Winged Wisdom was incredibly broken and dominated the Pro Tour. It was boring to play a format with such a clear best deck, not to mention its play patterns were non-deterministic and unfun. Nadu was banned along with Grief, however this left a 3 month gap in ban announcement that people feared would be filled with a new one-deck format. They were correct. Boros Energy became the most played deck by far. There was some innovation with archetypes like Mono-Blue Belcher but overall Boros Energy was the best deck around. It eventually started playing The One Ring aswell to make itself stronger in the mirror-match.
All this to say: Modern has been very bad. First the Nadu format, then Boros Energy fighting itself, it was not very fun at all.
Bans
Jegantha, the Wellspring was a free 8th card at zero cost deckbuilding cost. Not having any double-pipped cards is not actually very uncommon for many modern decks, so to those decks their 15th sideboard slot was simply an 8th card in hand that gave them the ability to pay three mana for a five-mana 5/5. Jegantha was banned in Pioneer aswell.
Amped Raptor was banned because it as a creature was the most powerful thing to do. Despite others opinions, AspiringSpike called it: Amped Raptor is busted. 2-mana aggressive body that casts a card for free is pretty insane. If you think a turn 2 Ajani is good how about casting an Amped Raptor that then free casts Ajani with it! Obviously what Amped Raptor cast was random and it could hit a card of too high a cost but on average the card did too much.
The One Ring was banned because it was the most powerful card advantage engine ever printed. It was colorless, aggressively costed and gave protection from everything. It was made to be splashy and powerful, and it certainly was. However, what goes up must come down and now The One Ring has been Cast Into Fire (include this card) by WOTC. Wizards included in their reasoning to ban it that it was not only played by the most dominant deck, Boros Energy, but many other decks aswell.
Unbans
Faithless Looting is one of the best graveyard enablers ever printed. At one mana putting two cards of your choice in the graveyard is incredibly powerful. Frankly, I am surprised it was unbanned at all. I do not believe fair Faithless Looting will be a good plan. Sorry, to everyone excited to sleeve up Young Pyromancer and Lingering Souls. Unfortunately, those cards are still unplayable. I do believe that using Faithless Looting to do something broken is far better. A turn-2 Archon of Cruelty or Abhorrent Occulus of of Persist will be very good. The same is true for a Goryo’s Vengeance’d Atraxa, Grand Unifier or Grizelbrand. If you are feeling extra spicy reanimating Kaalia with Goryo’s to put Atraxa or Grizelbrand into play from your hand is also very cool and something AspiringSpike has been working on. Faithless Looting will also be able to power out Delirium for Ravenous Flytrap, Fear of Missing Out and Shifting Woodlands.
The decks I will be interested in trying with Faithless Looting are Creativity-Persist shells, Goryo’s Decks, Woodlands Combo, Jund or Rakdos Delirium and Breach Combo.
Mox Opal is one of the most powerful mana engines to ever grace Modern. It’s “restriction” is metalcraft but Modern is not lacking in powerful or cheap artifacts so it can be enabled quickly and easily in the right decks. It was banned during the days of Urza, Highlord Artificer being at the top of the format but is now looking to reclaim its position back on top. There are going to be many ways to build Affinity and artifact focused decks moving forward but the one I will be most excited for is Breach Combo. Breach combo received both Faithless Looting and Mox Opal giving it two huge boons. Between Mox Opal and Mishra’s Bauble Kappa Cannoneer may now have the density of competitively viable 0-mana artifacts for it to be played at a high level. Simply put, I don’t know where or how Mox Opal will be broken but when it is, I will not be remotely surprised.
Green Sun’s Zenith was banned after the first Modern tournament ever. It is a heavily played Legacy card that allows green decks to play a powerful toolbox of creatures. At only 1 additional mana for any green creature it provides a great deal of flexibility. It also acts as a Llanowar Elves by finding Dryad Arbor with X=0. I believe the deck that gains the most from the Zenith unban is Amulet Titan because it can use the tutor to find all of its creatures including, Aftermath Analyst, Dryad of the Illysian Grove, or Primeval Titan. Kethis Combo also gained from the unban top 4ing the first post-ban announcement challenge with 4 GSZ in the deck.
Overall, this card will be awesome in modern. Players love toolbox strategies and Green Sun’s Zenith is the perfect card for it.
Splinter Twin is unplayable. It has long since passed it’s window of playability. The combo piece was debatable a bit too good 8 years ago when Lightning Bolt and Path to Exile were the best removal spells, but now a 4 mana creature enchantment is unlikely to really be competitively viable, especially when its other combo pieces are equally as unplayable (I am sorry Pestermite and Crab). At best Splinter Twin combos with Fear of Missing Out for infinite combats with a single 2/3 but even that is not fantastic.
In conclusion, Wizards of the Coast had to do a lot right to fix modern or at least get people back to playing it and this achieved that goal. If unbanning Faithless Looting, Mox Opal, or Green Sun’s Zenith prove to be a mistake it may not end well but I would far prefer for Wizards to re-ban a card than have dealth with yet another unexciting, boring format. I know I am gonna be playing and testing with Green Sun’s Zenith in Yawgmoth and Looting + Opal in Breach Combo in the coming days. What will you be playing?