I find this to be a pretty crappy argument and outcome. Essentially it’s a lame duck standard with Vivi completely warping the format for 2 months because we need to “think of the RCQ players.” Doesn’t even acknowledge how many will not play an RCQ because of this crappy meta.

So play Vivi or anti-Vivi the next few months (or get destroyed) then replace your deck when Vivi eats an all but certain ban. Great plan.

I find it more alarming that they’re doubling down on the overall ban strategy. While they plan to add a few more times during the year, they’re still dodging the real issue. They won’t acknowledge that turbo charging cards over 18 sets in a standard window will require (quite a few) emergency bans!

But recently, players have found a version of Mono-Red that is rebalancing the scales. Not only is it more played on the MTG Arena ladder, but it has a better win percentage against the field and is knocking off Vivi Cauldron decks at a clip above 60%.

People play mono red on Arena because it’s easy to craft, especially if you already crafted mono red the last time it was the best deck in standard. Also, mono red having a good winrate against Vivi means nothing. There were only two colors represented in the top 8 of the spotlight series, and all 8 decks had red. That’s not exactly a sign of a healthy standard.

We believe Standard play may be hurt in the short term by one or two dominant decks. Long term, it is certainly hurt by banning decks out from under players in a surprise move.

Long term, the format is hurt by players not playing it at all. Who cares about banning cards in a format nobody plays. RCQ players are supposed to be good at Magic. Let them adapt their strategies.

While we acknowledge that high-level competitive Standard is lopsided, the majority of Standard play is not. The MTG Arena ladder isn’t nearly this distorted,

MTGA ladder is a garbage test for the decks people play in standard. To begin with, matchmaking affects what decks you play against, whether it’s based on MMR or card scoring.

and in-store play isn’t nearly this distorted.

What in-store play? We’re talking about standard, right?

Anyway moving the ban date up is good, but it’s still 2 months away, and this doesn’t address the core of the issue at all. Why do cards need to be banned this frequently? I think we all know why, but WOTC sure seems to not care.

To that end, we’re going to be more aggressive next year with the number of banned and restricted announcement windows and the timing, adding more. We’re still fiddling with that cadence, but our aim is to have one for each major set release (or close to that amount) to maintain a sense of predictability and avoid disruptions during play seasons. It’s not always possible to have that particular cake and eat it too, but we hear loud and clear that we don’t have enough windows of opportunity.

We’re also going to slightly move up our previously announced banned and restricted announcement date from November 24 to November 10. This keeps the basic premise of not interfering with players who had planned their decks and travel for the Standard RCQ season while still moving up the announcement and giving players more time to prepare for the World Championships should something change.