Ring the church bells, put down the pitchforks, and take out those Leyline of the Voids, Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis has been banned in Modern. Perhaps one of the most dominating cards to ever arrive in the format, Hogaak has finally been hit with the ban hammer along with Faithless Looting. Revealed via Magic: The Gathering’s Ban and Restricted Announcement, the scourge of Modern is gone and the wildly popular Stoneforge Mystic has been unbanned.
Along with Hogaak and Faithless Looting’s banning, a number of cards in various formats have either been unbanned or restricted. Here’s a quick look at what has changed:
Standard
- Rampaging Ferocidon – Unbanned
Modern
- Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis – Banned
- Faithless Looting – Banned
- Stoneforge Mystic – Unbanned
Vintage
- Karn, the Great Creator – Restricted
- Mystic Forge – Restricted
- Mental Misstep – Restricted
- Golgari Grave-Troll – Restricted
- Fastbond – Restricted
All of these changes will go into effect starting today for paper and Magic Online users, while the Rampaging Ferocidon will be live on MTG Arena on September 4. Ferocidon’s unbanning is no surprise since Hazoret the Fervent is no longer Standard-legal. While the dinosaur was never a massive issue, working in combination with Hazort made it quite potent. We expect the Ferocidon’s unbanning won’t shake up the meta too much with the exception of Mono-Red Aggro and Jund Dinosaurs.
The Modern bannings are far and away the biggest and most needed. Hogaak was making up a staggering amount of the format thanks to the deck’s sheer speed and efficiency. Even following Bridge From Below’s banning, Hogaak was still an unstoppable force that literally bent the format around it. Here’s what Wizards of the Coast had to say to about the Hogaak banning:
Coming out of this period of an unhealthy Modern metagame, we want to avoid taking a half step that once again leaves the metagame in a place where it can’t self-correct. Over the past year, graveyard-based strategies have been occupying a large portion of the Modern metagame, to the point where deck-building diversity is being suppressed. This is reflected in the rise of heavy-handed main deck anti-graveyard cards like Surgical Extraction, Leyline of the Void, and Rest in Peace. We’d like to shift gameplay a little bit away from the graveyard and back toward the hand and battlefield.
Stoneforge Mystic’s unbanning was a real surprise, as the card was initially banned for being too oppressive and strong. While WotC acknowledges this happening again, we doubt it will reach the levels that Hogaak did. However, there is a chance – especially with Jace, the Mindsculptor currently unbanned – for this card to take over the format.
Surprising absolutely no one, Stoneforge Mystic has already begun to sell out across all the major online retailers. Previously a $30 card, prices on TCGPlayer have skyrocketed up to $65-90 dollars a piece. If you managed to purchase yours before the announcement, congratulations you just saved yourself a lot of money.
You can read Wizards of the Coast’s full thoughts on the banning, unbanning, and restricted selections, here.