MTG Ban Announcement Bans The One Ring and UNBANS Modern Cards!

Last updated on December 26, 2024

The One Ring | Illustration by Veli Nystrom

Magic's last Banned & Restricted announcement of 2024 has come, and with it we have a suite of changes across multiple formats including Modern, Legacy, and Pioneer:

Modern

• The One Ring is banned
• Jegantha, the Wellspring is banned
• Amped Raptor is banned
• Mox Opal is unbanned
• Green Sun's Zenith is unbanned
• Faithless Looting is unbanned
• Splinter Twin is unbanned

Legacy

• Psychic Frog is banned
• Vexing Bauble

Pioneer and Pioneer

• Jegantha, the Wellspring is banned

The One Ring Is Banned, Splinter Twin Lives

The One Ring has arguably been the most anticipated ban in Modern over the last year and since its release. The card has bolstered a 60% play rate in Modern, which is more than most lands. It's also a 4-of in almost every deck which means its not only extremely powerful, but it's good in just about every deck you can put it in.

The time has finally come, and The One Ring is now banned in Modern alongside Jegantha, the Wellspring.

“The opportunity cost of including The One Ring in nearly any deck is too low, and its presence in events has become tiresome for many players,” WotC said.

Removing The One Ring is certainly a hit to Boros Energy, Modern's most played and most consistently dominant deck. But it also impacts several other strategies. We'd like to ensure that we reduce the overall win and play percentages of Boros Energy directly, though we don't want to eliminate it from the format like we did most recently with Nadu, Winged Wisdom. We considered many cards in deciding how to knock Boros Energy down a few pegs, with Guide of Souls; Ajani, Nacatl Pariah; and Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury among them. However, we landed on Amped Raptor.”

As for Splinter Twin, it's unclear just how strong it'll be.

“Twin was banned back in 2016 after consistently being at the top of the metagame and taking down a few Pro Tours. The fear of tapping out into three open mana and dying was real. Do you hold mana open for removal or try to progress your board state in hopes of getting the game over before they can assemble their one-two punch of Pestermite and Splinter Twin,” WotC said.

“Splinter Twin only supports one strategy. But the whole point of today's reversed bans is to call back to the Modern of yesteryear. Each card was justifiably removed from Modern in the past, but times change, and we've realized that Modern isn't what it used to be. Splinter Twin is symbolic of an era of Modern that people look back on fondly, and it is now free. Enjoy the memes.”

Psychic Frog and Vexing Bauble Banned in Legacy

Psychic Frog (Modern Horizons III) | Illustration by Pete Venters

Psychic Frog was another cards with a high potential for being banned, despite falling under the average player's radar compared to The One Ring or the EDH changes.

With a play rate over 30%, the frog has dominated the Legacy format since its release in Modern Horizons 3 and is consistently a top deck in every Legacy Challenge as well as Legacy leagues.

The Legacy Eternal Weekends highlighted another problematic card from MH3: Vexing Bauble, which gives combo decks an out against free counterspells like Force of Will and Force of Negation. Vexing Bauble had already proven problematic in Vintage, where it was set as restricted last August; it's now banned in Legacy.

“Psychic Frog plays extremely well within the general shell of a reanimator strategy, providing a threat that must be answered that is also able to give you value when drawing your expensive reanimation targets,” WotC said. “In addition to discussing Psychic Frog, we also went over some other cards we could ban to reduce the strength of Dimir Reanimator. Specifically, Entomb and Reanimate . It was our belief that removing either would not solve the issue of Dimir Reanimator having a solid, fair game plan, as the deck leans on the threat of Psychic Frog when folks are packing graveyard hate”

“While the inclusion of Vexing Bauble is a rather recent development in the Legacy metagame, it has proven to be a successful and powerful one. With a concerning win rate among decks that include multiple main-deck copies of Vexing Bauble and its inherent strength against a pillar of the format, it has been banned in Legacy.”