July 13, 2020 B&R Announcement

[Oversoul]

July 13, 2020, Banned and Restricted Announcement | MAGIC: THE GATHERING

Announcing changes Historic, Pioneer, Modern, and Pauper.

magic.wizards.com

Historic
Agent of Treachery is banned (from suspended)
Winota, Joiner of Forces is banned (from suspended)
Fires of Invention is banned (from suspended)
Nexus of Fate is banned
Burning-Tree Emissary is suspended

Pioneer
Oath of Nissa is unbanned.

Modern
Arcum's Astrolabe is banned.

Pauper
Expedition Map is banned.
Mystic Sanctuary is banned.

 

[Mooseman]

Wouldn't Stony Silence be a must for sideboard against Arcum's Astrolabe ?
Maybe I'm not understanding the use of Arcum's Astrolabe as a mana color fixer in Modern.

 

[Oversoul]

Maybe I'm not understanding the use of Arcum's Astrolabe as a mana color fixer in Modern.

I don't closely follow Modern, but I know Arcum's Astrolabe has been controversial in Legacy. Previously, the presence of Deathrite Shaman in Legacy meant that fetchland-heavy 3C & 4C decks could reliably fix their mana and just always be able to cast all the best cards in the format, generally referred to as a "pile" because it doesn't really look like a cohesive or sane sort of thing to be playing (it's just a pile of powerful cards that don't have much of anything to do with each other). Without Deathrite Shaman, that sort of approach was weakened because Wasteland and other nonbasic land hate could knock a player out of access to a certain color. Arcum's Astrolabe revitalized this style of deck and is arguably stronger in this role than Deathrite Shaman was. You mostly just use your fetchlands for snow basics and have Arcum's Astrolabe to grab your missing color. It's replaces itself, so it's like you have another cantrip in a format largely defined by cantrips. Running a snow-heavy manabase also means you get the full upside of the amazing Ice-Fang Coatl. And a lot of these decks are also Yorion decks, so you get to draw a card for each Arcum's Astrolabe and each Ice-Fang Coatl. That's pretty much gamebreaking in control mirrors and creates a nearly inevitable turn 5 clock against less controlling decks. It's not uncommon to draw 5+ cards off Yorion. And then once you don't need Arcum's Astrolabe for fixing anymore, you just use Oko to turn it into a 3/3.

It looks like the Modern version has a lot of overlap. I didn't think it was as powerful there, but the principle seems to be the same.