Ian Duke is a developer in Magic R&D and has been with Wizards of the Coast since 2012. A gift of an Ice Age starter deck in 1995 sparked Ian's lifelong passion for Magic. He also enjoys math, physics, board games, and puzzles. To the surprise of few, his favorite guild is Azorius.

Announcement Date: October 17, 2017

All formats:

No changes

Effective Date: October 17, 2017

Magic Online Effective Date: October 17, 2017

The list of all banned and restricted cards, by format, is here.

Next B&R Announcement: January 15, 2018

The competitive balances of all the major formats are in healthy places at this point, so we are making no changes.

In the course of discussing options for this announcement, we did discuss unbanning in Modern. However, given the current healthy state of the format and the upcoming Modern Pro Tour, we plan to wait for the results of Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan to evaluate any potential changes for the format. We anticipate making an announcement in February after the results from that tournament come in.

Speaking of which, we do not anticipate making any changes to Modern with the January 15 announcement. We're sensitive to the timing of that announcement relative to the Pro Tour, and only would make a change if it were very clearly needed. Given the current state of the format, we believe that will be extremely unlikely.

As for other formats, Standard has a diverse, healthy metagame on Magic Online, and the general consensus is that you can play a variety of decks and find success. The Magic World Championship really only had three major archetypes, but the unique nature of that tournament makes those results less of an influencing factor. Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa explains this well if you want the perspective of a World Championship competitor.