Wizards of the Coast is considering banning the new Duskmourn card Leyline of Resonance for best-of-one matches. This card is a terror which, anyone playing the ladder on MTG Arena will know all too well, can end games on turn two. “We are keeping an eye on this,” Wizards wrote, in the latest MTG Arena announcements update on October 14.
An enchantment card from the new Duskmourn MTG set, Leyline of Resonance has the powerful effect of doubling up pump spells that target just one of your creatures. Like the other leylines, if you have one in your opening hand, you can plop it onto the battlefield for free.
This makes it great in aggressive decks, which will never seek to cast Leyline, but rather keep mulliganing until they have one in their opening hand (or else scoop). But the real trouble is that the card is part of a combo that can deliver more than 20 damage on turn two, leaving opponents wondering what just happened.
You just need a Heartfire Hero, a pump spell like Turn Inside Out, and Burn Together (the adventure half of Callous Sell-Sword) to secure the win. You play your creature turn one, then buff it on turn two, swing, and then sacrifice for massive damage. With the Leyline, that’s a four-card combo, which doesn’t sound too troublesome, but the issue is there are multiple cards that can fill the roles of pump spell or turn one sacrifice fodder, making it more consistent than it would normally be.
While Leyline of Resonance may be banned for BO1 games on MTG Arena, it’s unlikely to find a place on the main MTG banlist, or even be barred from best-of-three. That’s because the Leyline of Resonance deck isn’t actually that good. It’s unreliable, luck-based, and easy to sideboard against in BO3 matches.
But it’s been particularly problematic on MTG Arena thanks to the way the game’s reward system is structured. Players grinding their dailies are incentivized to win games as quickly as possible to gain gold, XP and (at lower ranks) climb the ladder swiftly. Even if the win rate is pretty low, it’s still quicker to play three games with Leyline of Resonance and win one or two of them than it is to rack up a single victory with slower MTG Arena decks.
Players are pretty split on whether Leyline of Resonance is worth banning or not, and it seems Wizards of the Coast hasn’t made its mind up yet either. But it’s on notice, so don’t be shocked if it gets axed in the next couple of weeks.
For more Magic: The Gathering content, you should check out our MTG release schedule, to see what sets are still coming out this year.
Source: Wargamer
