Season 9 Banned and Restricted Announcement

“Shaking things up.” Written by Quentin C

Good morning, fellow Fantasy Standard enthusiasts. Season 9 has been an exciting chance to play some very powerful Magic. We have had such a draw to this unique opportunity that four-round events have become the norm for our tournaments. While today’s Banned and Restricted announcement may be surprising, I assure you it is the result of much analysis and deliberation. We noticed some patterns that detract from the play experience and identified a few cards most instrumental in these play patterns. But before we get into the cards individually, I’ll share a bit of our framework for identifying problematic cards.

We aim to take a rather measured approach that maintains the identity of everyone “playing with power” and “popping off.” This is Season “Power” 9 after all—we still want to play with powerful cards. There will still be explosive openings and quick wins; however, the potency, abruptness, speed, and consistency of these occurrences will be reduced. There will be more opportunities for points of interaction between decks, giving players greater agency and skill expression. Without the squeeze of speed, we hope for a more diverse meta that allows players to explore the card pool.

With that said, the following cards are banned in Season 9 of Fantasy Standard effective April 2, 2025:

● Black Lotus

● Karn, the Great Creator

● Ancestral Recall

● Sol Ring

Black Lotus

An iconic piece, but one that encourages a “mulligan simulator” strategy due to its efficiency. The burst often slips under the opponent’s interaction, especially when Black Lotus dodges Mental Misstep, one of the format’s few ways to interact against fast mana plays on the draw. While fast mana is a defining feature of FS9, going up 3 mana for one card enables the Lotus player to maintain enough resources for defending their game-ender or deploying another threat. The compactness of Lotus further acts as an unhealthy safety net for aggressive mulligans, as even a two-to-three card hand can cast a wheel with Lotus’s help and undo the mulligan. Removing Black Lotus from the format will reduce the feeling of “losing because of the die roll” and will give players a greater sense of skill expression.

Black Lotus encourages a homogenous metagame when any card can be splashed despite its restrictive costs. The largest and most ubiquitous offender is a Jace, Wielder of Mysteries cast right after Ancestral Recall, despite most decks inadequately supporting blue mana for the four-pip line of play. This burst of colored mana enables a noninteractive Turn 1 win when combined with Doomsday—we would rather give players more agency by removing this possibility than allow it to remain. As Black Lotus is removed from play, so too will this line for anyone to end the game uncontested.

Karn, the Great Creator

Karn is a card that interacts with a core Season 9 feature, fast artifact mana, in an overbearing way that often leads to non-games. Games can end as a noninteractive Turn 1 win when Karn is combined with Channel. The more common pattern, however, is an early artifact-ramped Karn shutting out the opponent’s mana before they can use it. This disparity increases when the Karn player can use their artifact mana to win quickly. In this scenario, the opponent requires an extremely narrow set of answers while starved for mana to disrupt the infinite-turns combo. Unlike Doomsday, where a disruption of the combo leads to a loss, disrupting Karn usually means that the non-Karn player has spent all their resources and is now too weak to prevent the rest of what the Karn player can do. Banning Karn, the Great Creator, will allow for more interesting games.

Karn, the Great Creator encourages a homogenous metagame by allowing everyone to play it as a one-card combo. At minimum, it nibbles at sideboards with Time Vault and Mirage Mirror. Often, this singleton card consumes sideboards with an artifact toolbox rather than allowing the sideboard to consist of careful responses to the perceived metagame, discouraging interaction. Too many games revolve around a search for Karn and a denial of the opponent’s Karn, which ends in an abrupt combo that is tough to interact with without falling too far behind. With Karn gone, decks can focus more on interacting with their opponent.

Ancestral Recall

Too efficient for what it does. Ancestral Recall pressures all decks into playing blue, which eats up card slots and limits creativity and exploration of other colors while deckbuilding. This can encourage a homogenous metagame. Decks are running little risk by adding all the best expensive spells when Ancestral can so cheaply draw them out of their situation. It also negates the cost of emptying your hand early by too reliably drawing you into action that can be cast right away. Removing Ancestral Recall will reduce the homogenization of deck construction and play patterns.

Additionally, games are often reduced to simply having seen more cards than your opponent as a fact of the metagame rather than being an archetypal strategy. A control player’s careful rationing of interaction, or an aggro player’s meticulous risk calculation when determining how to overwhelm, is undermined by a ubiquitous refuel engine that doesn’t cost any significant resources to deploy. Without Ancestral Recall, archetypes will have clearer identities, highlighting their specific strengths.

Sol Ring

Sol Ring also represents the efficiency and ubiquity of the other three cards being banned today. Its cheap, colorless cost allows it to be slotted into any deck. Its effect allows for explosive mana starts. It sticking around as a compact mana source narrows the interaction needed to overcome a fast start, as the Sol Ring player has the resources available to deploy more threats and/or protect their threats.

Closing

The cards discussed today enable frequent explosive turns that greatly advantage being on the play, promoting aggressive mulligans that often go unpunished because of their hyper-efficient effect-for-cost. Sometimes this manifests in noninteractive turn 1 wins. Such a dominant strategy undermines a player’s decision-making during deck construction and tournament play. With the changes in effect starting April 2nd, 2025, we expect players to feel a greater sense of agency, a tenet that makes Fantasy Standard special.

Thank you, everyone, for your continued support of the format. We enjoy hosting the tournament, as well as publishing the stats and content that you have come to love. With your feedback, we always seek to improve the Fantasy Standard experience, and we hope these legality changes do just that. Thank you for your time.