On, July 2nd, Deathrite Shaman (DRS) and Gitaxian Probe were banned from being played in Legacy. The justification was simple, DRS was both a threat and an early mana producer. It hosed graveyard decks all by itself and kept new strategies from emerging into the format. It was a key piece for most of the dominant blue decks such as Czech Pile and Grixis Delver.
On the other hand, Gitaxian Probe not only helped out Grixis Delver by filling the graveyard, cycling, and relieving key information, it did the same for Ad Nauseam Tendrils. Part of the justification for the banning of this card was to improve the modern format. Personally, I do not think that is any reason to ban the card in Legacy as the two are drastically different formats.
The overarching question is: was this the right time to ban key cards from most of the blue decks in the format, consequently warping the format completely? I do not believe so. The next B and R announcement is in late August, after the team pro tour. I think the cards should have been banned at that time instead so it didn’t shake up the legacy format for upcoming events. WOTC should focus more on modern and standard and only ban in legacy if one deck is winning every tournament, and this was not yet the case with delver.
In modern, no changes were made. This was definitely the right move. Some MTG players were calling for the banning of Ancient Stirrings or Mox Opal. Waking up early on Monday to catch a ride, I was ready for Mox Opal to be banished from the modern format and for my beloved lantern control to go from .01% of the meta to non-existent, but that did not happen.
However, the move to not ban Ancient Stirrings was an odd one in my opinion. Ancient Stirring powers decks like Tron and KCI to easy victories. It also helps the RG eldrazi deck to always have a threat. When you compare it to other spells on the ban list similar to it such as Ponder or Preordain, you realize that they should all either be banned or unbanned. They all do similar things and look at too many cards to be fair in modern.
Now I move on to the most controversial topic of the recent announcement, Goblin Chainwhirler. I am attending SCG Worcester with another Prismatic Defender teammate, as well as a friend of mine. I planned on playing standard and was ready to start using my favorite standard deck and tokens all over again. Then at 11am, horror struck me as the menace controlling standard for the past three months was allowed to keep on impaling small creatures with his chains.
I called my team up on Monday and after two of our formats being shaken up and after many hours of thinking, testing, and seeing our budget, we have decided on Temur Delver, Humans, and a standard deck that doesn’t lose to Goblin Chainwhirler. I know, right? Very specific standard decks. Below is a standard decklist that I’m debating playing. It’s fairly well positioned but the right choice for the first weekend will be a hard one to make.
U/B Midrange
4x glint-sleeve siphoner
4x champion of wits
3x the scarab god
2x torrential gearhulk
1x liliana, death’s majesty
3x fatal push
2x cast down
3x essence scatter
2x doomfall
2x supreme will
4x vraska’s contempt
1x murder
1x commit//memory
2x arguel’s blood fast
4x aether hub
4x fetid pools
4x drowned catacombs
2x field of ruin
4x island
8x swamp
Sideboard
3x duress
2x murder
3x gifted aetherborn
3x negate
2x essence extraction
1x glimmer of genius
1x doomfall
Overall, the recent announcement was not terrible for magic as a whole, but I am not sure that it has improved the quality of the game. Good luck for the next three months of Goblin Chainwhirler!
