MTG Aug. 7 2023 Banned and Restricted Announcement

Following big news for Magic: The Gathering's 30th anniversary, revealing the future of Magic into 2024, Wizards of the Coast made a scheduled Banned and Restricted announcement impacting several Magic formats. Here's what's getting banned and why.

Magic's expansive, finely-tuned banned and restricted lists help modulate power levels in the game's wildly dissimilar formats. Due to the vast quantity of unique Magic cards in existence, balancing is a delicate process that takes into account the effects of new cards on decades-old strategies and vice-versa.

MTG August 7 2023 Banned and Restricted Announcement

In an official announcement, Wizards of the Coast said that they have made the decision to unban Preordain in Modern and Mind's Desire in Legacy. Unbanning cards is unusual for Magic, especially considering recent concern over cards from Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth like Orcish Bowmasters and The One Ring.

While it is true that these two cards made big waves at the Pro Tour and within the format, these cards—The One Ring particularly—can fit into a variety of decks and a spread of macro-archetype strategies to comfortably compete within the format without overshadowing everything else present in Modern.

- Michael Majors

With regards to Preordain, Majors explained that the decks the card helped have experienced nerfs in other ways, and concerns that Preordain made games too fast and un-interactive have been largely addressed, giving room for Preordain to boost "fairer blue decks."

On the subject of the Legacy unbanning, Carmen Handy explained that unbanning Mind's Desire is an attempt to strengthen combo decks in the format.

No changes were made to the Standard, Pioneer, Vintage, Explorer or Historic formats. All changes to Modern and Legacy are effective immediately.