Ban & Restricted Announcement — February 16th 2024
Check out this week's B&R after the conclusion of Ascent Ontario!
February 16th, 2024
Summary
Effective Date: Friday, February 16th, 2024
Next B&R: March 4th, 2024
This week, for the Watchlist, Scepter of Lumina and Erupting Rhapsody have been added to Category 1. Crystal of Empowerment has been banned and moved to Category 3.
Watchlist
Category 3
This category will contain all cards that are banned and restricted, proving to be too powerful or too impactful and limiting tournament deck diversity and meta health. Currently, Sword of Avarice, Reckless Conversion, and Crystal of Empowerment are banned.
Cards in Category 3
Crystal of Empowerment has been a mainstay in the competitive meta persistently. While the intention was to provide a cog in the strategy of level manipulation primarily for Mage and Cleric, it has proved to affect the game in more facets than intended, warping the tempo of the game. It limits design in other classes where it should be much harder to modulate levels compared to Mage and Cleric. However, an additional reason to ban it now rather than later, is that Crystal has been overperforming in the current meta even when used for its intended purpose.
Category 2
This category contains cards that we consider very problematic and are heavily watched for potential future legality changes and category shifts. There are no cards currently in Category 2.
Category 1
This category consists of cards that we don’t consider problematic in the current environment, but are unhealthy for future balance and game design space. This category currently has six cards with the addition of Scepter of Lumina and Erupting Rhapsody.
Cards in Category 1
Scepter of Lumina has proven to be extremely well-utilized in Water decks across the board. While there is the caveat that there is still a relatively limited card pool, we hope to see Scepter of Lumina become more of a conscious choice as opposed to an auto-include as we release more sets.
As for Erupting Rhapsody, we acknowledge its function in a combo deck that can create some polarizing match-ups that can make for unenjoyable experiences. While we anticipate greater degrees of counterplay and more diverse decks to keep any one strategy better in check, we are closely watching the meta develop into the release of MRC with the ban of Crystal of Empowerment.
Level modulation is a core design of the Mage, Cleric, and Tamer classes, and we feel like it serves the power fantasy well. However, "until end of turn" level bonuses can often lead to uncontrollable exponential increases in value which makes it hard to plan future set design around. We plan to lean away from these types of effects in future sets in favor of more meta-sustainable designs.
That's all for this B&R update! The next update will be March 4th, 2024!
