Banned and Restricted Announcement - June 11, 2018

By Errant Foresight

STANDARD: No changes

You read that correctly. Goblin Chainwhirler remains Standard-legal, and that will be the case until Dominaria rotates. We simply cannot keep banning cards every few months just because the internet has allowed the competitive Magic community to distill a format to its most cold-blooded essence in record-breaking time. Banning kills consumer confidence and creates a general feeling of uncertainty and paranoia, even if it does make Standard reasonable for a few weeks until you all break it again.

In this particular instance, well...Dominaria has the makings of a classic set. The cards are fun, powerful, and appealing, and the draft format may legitimately be the best of all time. We don't want a blemish on what we hoped would be our signature offering for years to come.

That's why we're asking for your help. We believe--and we think everyone would agree--that everything would be a lot better if you just...chose not to play Goblin Chainwhirler in your Standard decks. Please? The card has fostered an unhealthy homogeneity in deckbuilding and created negative net fun for everyone who plays our most popular format. If you all could reach a mutual agreement to leave it out of your decks without us actually having to ban it, everyone wins.

We're not decreeing that you can't keep playing the Chainwhirler deck--and don't kid yourself, there's only one actual deck there. But what does it say about you if you continue to play it in light of the damage it causes? I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I wouldn't sleep well at night if I were contributing to a poor experience for Magic players the world over. The "win at all costs" mentality has deleterious effects on others and on yourselves.

Furthermore, isn't the card what some would call "training wheels"? Are you really so bereft of talent that you need some undercosted development failure to do your heavy lifting? Are you incapable of winning two rounds at FNM without freerolling your opponents' Llanowar Elves and Glint-Sleeve Siphoners? You don't actually want to play Magic; you just want the automatic wins. Luis Scott-Vargas himself has gone on record that he looks down upon this play pattern. Maybe you don't need Chainwhirlers--maybe what you really need is practice.

If you insist on continuing to ruin everyone's fun because you suck at Magic, I challenge you to the following: the next time a young mage shows up to your LGS with a Saproling deck, I want you to look his or her parents in the eyes and tell them that YOU'RE the reason their kid will be having a horrible time this evening. Tell them it's more important for you to win a couple of boosters than for their son or daughter to find fulfillment in expressing themselves creatively. If you can bear to do that, by all means, keep whirling those chains. But the least you can do is take a little responsibility for your behavior.

Now, we understand that not everyone will be amenable to this line of thinking, because not everyone is as smart and reasonable as we're hoping you'll be. If your friends or someone else at your LGS continue to play Goblin Chainwhirlers, we're giving you the green light to ridicule them. If we're all being honest, some of you don't like this sanitized, kumbaya environment we've been trying to foster, and you've got a lot of pent-up hostility. This is your ticket to berate a host of people consequence-free. If the Chainwhirler stalwarts in question are your friends, it might be time for some serious soul-searching. Why would you want to associate with someone who's willing to win at the cost of literally killing the game you love? Stop inviting them to your group outings until they put the goblins down. They'll come around.

We are also changing the way we report winning decklists from the Magic Online metagame. Standard League decklists will continue to be curated in a way that ensures that a diverse array of decks is shown, and to make that even more effective, any deck that manages to win with multiple one-toughness creatures in it will be displayed at the top of the list and will be displayed the following week as well. This is not intended to "trick" you into playing one of these decks, but rather to show you the possibilities that are unlocked when the players who insist on playing Goblin Chainwhirler (who we refer to internally using the "SpikeWhirlers" psychographic) decide to embrace their inner "Richie/Rachelle" (psychographic for players who are insensitive to entry fee losses).

So to reiterate, Goblin Chainwhirler is NOT banned. But we'd really prefer if you didn't play it.

MODERN: Mox Opal, Scalding Tarn, and Cavern of Souls added to Reserve List

Not every Spike is what we would call a Spike-Richie or Spike-Rachelle. With increasing frequency, a new player looking to join in on the Modern format fun faces a significant and difficult investment decision. Some Modern decks now cost what Legacy decks cost just a few years back. That investment requires trust in Wizards and for some it requires putting money they might need later in life into a Magic collection. In order to protect that investment, we are adding Mox Opal, Scalding Tarn, and Cavern of Souls to our Reserve List.

This ensures that Modern remains an accessible format by protecting the investments new and existing players make when buying into decks like Affinity, Lantern (a popular entry-level choice), Storm, Humans, and others. What makes Modern great is _____ [Note to editor: please ask around and find someone who knows the answer, nobody on our floor had it], and we think these Reserve List additions will give more players access to that experience without having to risk financial ruin if we reprint their cards.

There is one more detail here I need to mention quickly. Our Reserve List commitment is to protect not only valuable cards as the stated intent might suggest, but also random cards that are not yet valuable, but could someday become valuable by virtue of being on the Reserve List. Would we structure our promise this way if making it today? No we wouldn't, but it is the promise we made. So we are also adding Gideon's Phalanx; Chandra, Bold Pyromancer; and Rimefeather Owl from Modern to the Reserve List.