DCI Banned Announcement

In Modern Bloodbraid Elf and Seething Song were banned.  Also, in Pauper 3 cards  Empty the Warrens, Grapeshot, and Invigorate were banned affective Feb. 1 2013.

While the rest of the format is quite diverse, the dominance of Jund is making it less so overall. The DCI looked to ban a card. We wanted a card that top players consistently played four copies of in Jund, but ideally was less played in other top Modern decks. That would give the best chance of creating a more balanced metagame. The card that best fits our criteria is Bloodbraid Elf

~ Officially from Wizard of The Coast

While I hate to see Bloodbraid elf go, it was much needed and will change the format a lot. Wizards of The coast is really pushing modern and with the release of Modern Masters on June 7, 2013 it will make playing modern cards less expensive and more accessible for a lot of players. I believe for a lot of players modern is a very nostalgic format as  many of grew up on those sets and Wizards understands that, hence banning Bloodbraid elf and making the format more diverse. Seething song was kind of a random ban but storm being the second top tier deck behind jund I can understand the ban if you are really trying to change the format.

The following cards are banned in Modern tournaments:

• Ancestral Vision
• Ancient Den
• Bitterblossom
• Blazing Shoal
• Bloodbraid Elf (banned effective February 1, 2013)
• Chrome Mox
• Cloudpost
• Dark Depths
• Dread Return
• Glimpse of Nature
• Golgari Grave-Troll
• Great Furnace
• Green Sun's Zenith
• Hypergenesis
• Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• Mental Misstep
• Ponder
• Preordain
• Punishing Fire
• Rite of Flame
• Seat of the Synod
• Seething Song (banned effective February 1, 2013)
• Sensei's Divining Top
• Stoneforge Mystic
• Skullclamp
• Sword of the Meek
• Tree of Tales
• Umezawa's Jitte
• Vault of Whispers
• Wild Nacatl

What does this mean for the future of modern, Honestly I do not know but the following decks will still be very strong:


Splinter Twin
4C Birthing Pod
Boggled Enchantments
Master Affinity


As for pauper its pretty much the same thing, Wizards wanted to make the format more diverse. Lets face it every pauper match that I played recently is either Goblins, infect, or storm and frankly it made me just lose interest. So I believe the banning of Empty the Warrens, Grapeshot, and Invigorate were a good call.

Strong decks still will be:

Goblins
White Winnie
Affinity

I am excited to see some  new decks being introduced with the release of Gatecrash this week and the banning of the new cards.


The Pauper banned list is:

• Cranial Plating
• Empty the Warrens
• Frantic Search
• Grapeshot
• Invigorate

Modo handle: Teamstoge


Please comment any thoughts that you may have on future decks or the banning themselves.