Vivi Ornitier’s Price Drops 50%, WotC Says They’ll Likely Ban It

Last updated on September 10, 2025

Vivi Ornitier – art by Toni Infante

Two weeks ago, Izzet Cauldron was the Big Bad of Magic’s Standard format. The Vivi Ornitier + Agatha's Soul Cauldron shell was smashing events, and talks about the need for an emergency ban were heating up among MTG players.

Then Orlando’s Magic Spotlight happened – and while it’s perhaps a bit out-of-character for Mono-Red aggro to be the deck wielding the fire extinguisher, it was indeed a RDW brew that cooled down Vivi’s heater:

And yesterday we learned that Wizards of the Coast was very close to implementing an emergency ban and hit either Vivi or Cauldron; the Izzet menace is still in WotC’s crosshairs and may very well get struck in early November. But, for now, WotC will let the Standard meta adjust.

The Orlando Plot Twist

Nova Hellkite – Illustration by Raymond Swanland

Everybody was expecting a field utterly dominated by Izzet Vivi for Orlando’s Magic Spotlight, and the Final Fantasy mage did not disappoint: He was 30% of Orlando’s Day 1, punched up to 54% of Day 2, and took a crazy 75% of the Top 8.

But that’s when the hero we need came down from the Mountains, with Brennan Roy’s Mono-Red claiming the #1 spot and showing that Vivi, while unarguably a powerhouse, still had weak spots. 

“Mono-Red Aggro proved it had the firepower to take down the format’s top contender: Izzet Cauldron,” wrote Magic Hall of Famer Frank Karsten in his Metagame Mentor article. He also posted matchup data which showed RDW had a nearly 60% win rate against Vivi Cauldron.

… but, in the week after Orlando, results from MTGO Challenges amply supported the argument that Vivi’s brew can indeed be attacked:

Vivi’s Prices Are Seeing Red

Vivi Ornitier is a multi-format powerhouse – including being the #2 most popular Izzet Commander right now – but a lot of what kept it above $50 was its Standard punch.

Yet, as soon as Orlando was over, it fell off a cliff: From those 58$ all the way down to $50 when you look at average prices, and at the time of writing there’s ample supply of near-mint copies listed in the $29-$33 range: Close to a 50% dip in less than a week.

Source: TCGPlayer – Vivi Ornitier (FIN)

Agatha's Soul Cauldron‘s price graph shows an even starker trend. Like Vivi, the Cauldron sees plays across different formats, including cEDH, but its Standard stardom pushed it sky-high during July, more than doubling in price that month all the way from close to $25 to nearly $60.

Yet, like Vivi’s case, it went down a cliff since then, with lots of near-mint copies listed again at $30.

Source: TCGplayer – Agatha’s Soul Cauldron (WOE)

WotC’s Stance on Standard

“Vivi Ornitier is warping the Standard format and likely needs to go,” WotC’s Carmen Klomparens wrote yesterday in the official On Standard and Moving the Banned and Restricted Announcement article. “We’re unsure about Agatha’s Soul Cauldron. But we also don’t think the format has reached its final form, which would give us the clearest direction to set Standard up for long-term success.“

According to Klomparens, WotC is very aware that Vivi Cauldron decks have taken the spotlight with disproportionate metagame shares and top finishes. “But recently, players have found a version of Mono-Red that is rebalancing the scales,” Klomparens wrote. “Not only is it more played on the MTG Arena ladder, but it has a better win percentage against the field and is knocking off Vivi Cauldron decks at a clip above 60%.”

They are definitely not saying that all is fine now, and the next Banned & Restricted announcement will happen two weeks sooner: November 10, rather than November 24. And, according to Klomparens, they believe that they’ll likely have take action in November.

What Will Happen in November?

Agatha's Soul Cauldron – Illustration by Jason A. Engle

Nobody – not even Wizards! – knows for certain; and I’ll go as far as to say that anybody that claims otherwise is talking out of their Cauldron.

And the Standard meta is up in the air right now: The latest development seems to be Orzhov Aggro punching up hard – and top cuts where there’s not one mono-red deck to be seen, even when they were all over the top just a few days ago.There’s absolutely no denying that Vivi Cauldron is a powerhouse and very much still a menace; but the Standard format and its best decks are far from solved.