We’ve generally been happy with how the metagame has been evolving and have determined no need for changes at this time. We feel this is warranted based on the popularity and strength of those decks in the metagame. While the primary motivation for this last change is the unfun play pattern, we also intend for this to be a small but meaningful balance change to Eldrazi and other Tron decks. As a result, we are banning Mycosynth Lattice in Modern. While decks featuring this combination often win in other ways, the deckbuilding cost to include this interaction is low, causing it to show up more often than is fun in competitive play. This combination, popular in Eldrazi and other Tron decks, can completely lock the opponent out from casting further spells. Lastly, we'd like to take this opportunity to address another problematic interaction between Karn, the Great Creator and Mycosynth Lattice. As the strongest enabler in the recent Urza artifact decks, and a card that has been concerning in the past and would likely cause balance issues in the future, Mox Opal is banned in Modern. While none of these decks previously warranted a ban of Mox Opal, it has historically been a part of decks that approached problematic impact on the metagame or did indeed necessitate other bans. Ultimately, we determined that banning Mox Opal was the correct option.Īs a source of fast mana in the early game, Mox Opal has long contributed to strategies that seek to end the game quickly and suddenly, whether with explosive attacks, one-turn win combos, or by locking out the opponent with “prison” elements.

We considered options that would further weaken Urza-based artifact decks, while still allowing for decks based around that general strategy. Our data indicates that removing Oko alone would still leave Urza decks in a dominant position in the metagame. In addition to being an important part of blue-green Urza decks, Oko was also used by a number of other top Modern decks. In order to improve the health of game play and to weaken Urza decks and other top decks, Oko, Thief of Crowns is banned in Modern. In additional to having a high overall power level, Oko has proven to reduce metagame diversity and diversity of game play patterns in Modern. Oko, Thief of Crowns has become the most played card in competitive Modern, with an inclusion rate approaching 40% of decks in recent league play and tabletop tournaments. The cards most strongly contributing to the high win rate of these decks are Oko, Thief of Crowns and Mox Opal. These decks also have a winning matchup against nine of the other ten most popular competitive decks, indicating an inability of the metagame to adjust on its own. Over the last several weeks, base blue-green decks using Urza, Lord High Artificer have risen to the top of competitive Modern, earning the most 5-0 trophies in Magic Online league play and maintaining a non-mirror match win percentage of more than 55%. The list of all banned and restricted cards, by format, is here. It’s unattached the next time state-based actions are checked, and then immediately put into its owner’s graveyard as a second state-based action.Effective Date ( Magic Online and tabletop): January 14, 2020 An Aura that’s also a creature can’t enchant anything. Combined with March of the Machines from the Mirrodin set, this can then make those Auras become creatures. The Lattice’s first ability causes Auras to become artifacts. For example, Mycosynth Lattice doesn’t allow mana from Vedalken Engineer to be used to cast a nonartifact spell. However, it doesn’t remove restrictions on the mana. The Lattice’s third ability lets players spend even colorless mana as though it had a color. Mycosynth Lattice’s second ability makes everything, in every zone of the game, colorless. Spells on the stack and cards in other zones aren’t permanents, so those spells and cards don’t become artifacts. Mycosynth Lattice turns all permanents on the battlefield into artifacts.