Wizards of the Coast has officially announced the Modern constructed format today, and with it comes some pretty big news about what the format will look like. After their initial analysis of what the decks looked like at the Community Cup using the Unified Modern format deck construction rules, they have introduced a new very large Banned list for the format going forward. Check out all the details after the jump!
The new offical Banned List for the Modern format will be as follows:
Ancestral Vision
Ancient Den
Bitterblossom
Chrome Mox
Dark Depths
Dread Return
Glimpse of Nature
Golgari Grave-Troll
Great Furnace
Hypergenesis
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Mental Misstep
Seat of the Synod
Sensei’s Divining Top
Skullclamp
Stoneforge Mystic
Sword of the Meek
Tree of Tales
Umezawa’s Jitte
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Vault of Whispers
That’s a whopping 21 cards, up from their initial Banned list of 12 cards that are off limits to deck builders. So what does that mean for Modern? It means no Scapeshift or Valakut decks, no Stoneforge decks, no CounterTop, no Depths, no ThopterSword, (effectively) no Affinity, and no good Dredge decks. Wizards’ justification for many of the bans can be found on the official announcement, and most of it has to do with things that they just identified that they felt would warp the format going forward.
At Eternal Central we plan on bringing you all the latest news, results, and deck tech on the Modern format, and will be fully supporting it, including a new forum as well! Check back Monday for our initial take on what you can expect in the “new” Modern format. It’s an exciting time to be gaming!