My Thoughts on the Standard Bannings, How We Got Here, and Where to Start.

This past week, WotC made a highly anticipated B and R announcement. Standard hadn't changed in many months because red decks were overrepresented and oppressive. Before I dive into it, I'm going to explain my theory on how we got to this place where a card like Hopeless Nightmare would need to be banned.

It's not news that Magic design has catered to Commander, currently the game's most popular version. While Commander has its own sets and subsets, you can look at a set like Final Fantasy and see there's not much going on for the old-guard Standard player who wants to brew and play something new. Instead, we get countless amounts of legends and side quests, both figuratively and literally.

So we have a longer Standard cycle, and my gut reaction is to hate it. Standard is the one format left saved from the "Eternal" formula. Removing that makes it feel like Pioneer lite. We've also realized that each set has many more cards that are designed solely for formats other than Standard. Each set is more like a watered-down version of an older set that aimed its cards directly at competitive play.

Even with more sets, the efficient cards and decks outshine anything new. Final Fantasy was geared at casual play, and as a fan of the IP, they did an incredible job with the flavor and how it translates into Magic. As a Limited player, it's an all-time favorite Limited format. The flavor, the gameplay, everything is fantastic.

As it translates to Standard, outside of Vivi, we've seen almost no play from other cards in the set.

However, every couple of sets, we have a cheap, efficient, pushed card like Monstrous Rage, and they see more and more play. When something actually works, it's hard for other archetypes to break through because there are not many tools to compete.

Now, time to get into how I feel about the bans specifically. Here's the list of cards banned from Standard:

Full Article can be found here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/banned-and-restricted-june-30-2025

As you can see, this is basically at least one card from all of the most played Standard decks. It's funny to see a card like Hopeless Nightmare on the list, but their explanation for some of these bannings makes a lot of sense, and I applaud them for being proactive.

Rotation is around the corner, and they decided to make things interesting these last couple of months. Ban the obvious decks that we've seen before, and many of the cards will already be rotating. I'm curious about some of the choices, as they seem to be directed at uncommons and commons so as to not "ban" a card like Manifold Mouse and choose Heartfire Hero instead.

Regardless, they want to put Standard in a completely new state and give players a puzzle to solve. I absolutely love this. This is why I play Magic and other games. I want to play new cards and try new things. I didn't get into Magic to master a deck and play it for thousands of reps. I know there are players who love that, and if history is any indicator, that won't be changing once a new meta settles after rotation. Those players will still get to spend the entire year mastering a deck once the format ends and is inevitably solved. For those of us tired of the same old, now we have something fun to explore over the summer until it's time for a new set and a rotation.

Hopeless Nightmare stands out to me as a card that should indicate a problem, though. It's a weak card in a vacuum. It's an indicator that the card design is pushing certain mechanics, and Hopeless Nightmare is one of the things being exploited by that design philosophy. The same would be true for This Town Ain't Big Enough. These aren't strong cards in a vacuum, but in conjunction, they create powerful and annoying gameplay.

Cori-Steel Cutter, while I maintain it was a bit overhyped in Standard, was obviously quite strong. For years, we haven't had two-drops that push the envelope on being difficult to remove, create a snowball effect, and work best with other cheap cards. Dark Confidant, for instance, at least gets one-for-one'd when cast. Cutter, you have to kill the equipment, yes, but you also can get clocked by the first free prowess token that generally comes out during the turn the cutter is cast.

Abuelo's Awakening was obviously a powerful card that will only be exploited for its ability to put in an over-cost enchantment. There's plenty of available counterplay to it. I don't think it would be that oppressive, but it would force players to start with a lot of graveyard hate either in their main deck or sideboards. I'm fine with a card like this being banned in Standard since it plays way too much like a Pioneer deck that effectively ends the game after resolving one spell on a specific target.

Up the Beanstalk is a flat-out mistake. It's extremely powerful with any cost-reduction mechanic and creates game states that make it nearly impossible for decks like Domain to ever run out of cards at the cost of two mana. Multiple copies chain together and end up allowing players to chain spells, making it impossible to catch up. This card would potentially have been fine if they made it legendary. There are some flavor reasons that would "play," but they'd have to change the name to "Jack's Beanstalk" or something. Regardless, Up the Beanstalk is an example of what the ban list should be for—a card that's just too efficient and effective.

The last time I played Standard for any real amount of time was before players added the This Town Ain't Big Enough packages. I played Dimir Midrange, and it was excellent. I expect it to return as a heavily played deck again. On top of that, Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa, my GOAT, played an interesting Izzet Deck at the PT to an 8-1 record, and the deck continues to put up results.

This deck is losing no cards, and while that sounds exciting, be wary that the format is completely changed. A deck that's good for one environment may not be as good in another, but it could also be much better. This is where I'd start if I were going to be testing Standard.

PVDDR's Izzet Cauldron

I believe the next Arena Championship Qualifier will be Standard, so I may have to test the format a bit before playing. I have my qualification locked up, so I just have to figure out if I'm free that weekend and what the format looks like.

Overall, I think these Standard bans were well done, and I love the proactive philosophy. I am not a fan of the scheduled ban announcement as implemented because it's too slow. I love the idea in theory, but in practice, they should have more scheduled dates to allow for emergency bans that aren't instant.

For now, I'm still interested in Final Fantasy Limited and will continue to grind it until something new comes along.