Felidar Guardian Banned from Standard Magic: The Gathering after Amonkhet Release
On April 26th, Aaron Forsythe, Sr. Design Director of Magic: The Gathering, posted an addendum to the to the April 24th MTG Banned and Restricted cards announcement. Forsythe announced that Felidar Guardian would be banned from Standard play as of April 28th, changing both the meta and culture of the game.
Felidar Guardian was banned because of the devastating combination it could perform with the planeswalker card, Saheeli Rai. Felidar Guardian’s ability allows a player to exile a target permanent that they control, then return that card to the battlefield under its owner’s control. Saheeli Rai has an ability that allows the user to create a token that’s a copy of target artifact or creature that they control, with the added bonus of haste. These copies are exiled at the end of the turn they are created, but that little caveat rarely matters. Saheeli can clone Felidar Guardian in an endless loop, because each time a Felidar Guardian (real or cloned) enters the field the user can exile Saheeli with Felidar’s ability and then bring her back to use her cloning ability again. This combination, dubbed Copycat by fans, has lead to many victories.
Felidar Guardian Magic: The Gathering card designed by artist Jakub Kasper. May. 5 2017. (Photo: Mal Carney)
From Monday April 24th to Wednesday April 26th, the Copycat combo “made up approximately 40% of 5-0 and 4-1 decklists” on Magic Online according to data from Forsythe’s addendum. That information is presented on the pie chart below. This boost in the Saheeli-Felidar win ratio correlates to the recent release of the Amonkhet expansion, which is why the Felidar ban is happening now and did not occur in September 2016, which is when Saheeli Rai’s expansion, Kaladesh, was released.
While many fans were happy with the ban, some were not. @TheManaSource, popular MTG YouTuber, was “10 days into developing a standard Cat tribal deck” when the addendum hit and Banned Felidar, the feline base of the deck.
Has the Felidar ban affected your play style? What cards do you think should be banned to adjust the meta game?
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