Wizards of the Coast is refusing to move its next ban announcement date, despite pressure from fans who want the powerful MTG card Nadu, Winged Wisdom knocked out of the Modern format as soon as possible.
The next MTG banlist update comes on August 26, and after it dominated the Amsterdam Pro Tour, Nadu is definitely on the chopping block – even the guy who came first place with the card knew it wasn’t long for this world.
Many fans want to see this bird boffin’s day of execution brought forward, however, for the simple reason that the Modern RCQ season starts on August 3. Banning the best deck slap bang in the middle of qualifiers isn’t great – the only thing worse would be not banning it at all. But Wizards isn’t budging to Modern players’ pleas.
“We firmly believe that sticking to our announced date and not surprising people with random dates is the best for Magic and the best for players,” explained communications director Blake Rasmussen, on this week’s WeeklyMTG stream.
He added that Wizards wants people to have confidence in their decks and cards, which is why Magic switched to fixed ban windows in the first place. Ensuring fans know in advance of any upcoming changes is “kind of the greater good here,” Rasmussen explained.
But the company is now reconsidering the timings on its ban announcements as a result of this situation. Right now bans are tied to set releases, coming just before previews start. “However this can put, and is putting a B&R announcement, one where changes do seem likely, right in the middle of an RCQ season. We know that’s not ideal either.”
For competitive Modern players, “not ideal” is a bit of an understatement. As things stand, this is going to make the RCQs a disaster. Players will be pressured to buy up expensive MTG cards (just look at the price of Shuko!) that are guaranteed to plummet in value. They’ll also need to have two decks ready and playtested for when Nadu catches a ban on the 26th.
We understand Wizards of the Coast wants to be seen to be keeping its word, but we’re not sure how this situation is going to give anyone more confidence in anything. We all know Nadu’s days are numbered, so who really benefits from beating around the bush and waiting another month?
I suppose it’s the people who bought the Nadu shell early, but they’re only going to get an extra few weeks with the deck. Its cards are going to drop in value regardless – in fact they already are. I suppose they might now be able to offload those cards for a decent price on any poor RCQ players who don’t already have the deck, but this seems like a zero-sum game, and not a situation that’s inherently “best for players”.
Fingers crossed a new B&R schedule fixes things somewhat, but really, the only surefire way to give players more confidence in their paper Magic cards is to not design busted spells that need to be banned.
For more Magic: The Gathering content, check out this list of every single MTG set ever released. If, after that history lesson, you’re ready to look to the future, here’s our MTG release schedule guide.
Source: Wargamer
