Apr 27, 2009

Banned List Update

There's been an update to the banned list. As of 01/04/2009 all the artifact lands are no longer banned in peasant tournaments in Groningen. To prevent Affinity from becoming the menace it was before the bannings in June last year, Cranial Plating has been banned. The organizers feel this should keep affinity in check, while allowing other decks (Esper, Neo Affinity) and/or interactions (Tinker Mage) to come forward. Disciple of the Vault has been added to the watchlist, as its interaction with sac outlets like Atog still raises questioning eyebrows.

Empty the Warrens has been removed from the watchlist. In the last six months, a healthy amount of storm decks have seen play, most of which chose to play the watched card. While the deck booked some solid results with at least one win and some high finishes, the peasant invite showed that a prepared field can easily deal with the card without clogging up sideboards. Two decks were played in a field of 16 players, neither of them made the top 8.

A final change concerns Wizard's new Gatherer (click here to open), which brings a few relevant updates. Amongst others, Mana Crypt is now listed with rarity "Special", instead of "Common", meaning you're no longer allowed to play it in peasant.