Ce n'est pas particulièrement moi qui veux, mais une annonce officielle de pre-ban ! (-:
As part of the release of Secrets of Strixhaven, we're pre-banning five cards in Historic. Keep reading for a list of the cards and a bit of insight regarding why they're being banned in Historic.
Armageddon
Daze
Force of Will
Vampiric Tutor
Library of Alexandria
We were excited to see the variety of decks from the Historic Qualifier earlier this month and are looking forward to featuring the format at Arena Championship 12 on May 23–24. Izzet Phoenix and Golgari Yawgmoth were two of the surprise performers from the Historic Qualifier event, while the pre-event favorites, Jund and Dimir, fell behind on Day Two. We will continue to monitor ladder and event data to ensure that there are no egregious power outliers ahead of the Arena Championship, but for now the format appears to be in a healthy spot. To maintain that, we are pre-banning several of the most powerful Mystical Archive cards that have been added to MTG Arena with Secrets of Strixhaven.
Armageddon is a transgressive, swingy spell that violates our format heuristics on land destruction. It's possible that it is at an acceptable power level for our most competitive players, but it's not an effect we want available in our Historic queues and at less-competitive levels.
Daze is a free counterspell that is widely applicable to blue decks in formats with condensed games. On top of violating our heuristics on free spells, we believe that the combination of Daze with threats such as Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student and Psychic Frog is too much for the Historic format as a whole.
Force of Will is perhaps the most powerful counterspell ever printed, allowing any deck with blue cards to answer threats at any time. Although Historic may be a high-power format, we aspire to keep it slow enough that Force of Will is not necessary to keep proactive strategies in check.
Vampiric Tutor is a quintessential combo enabler, allowing players to find their missing combo piece at the cost of one mana. Its speed and efficiency for decks such as Reanimator or Aquatic Subtlety Combo is unmatched. We are willing to try it in Timeless but suspect it may even need to be restricted there.
Library of Alexandria offers the rare effect of one-mana card advantage from the land row, provided your deck is built to meet its requirements. Drawing even one card off of Library is powerful, and in a format with efficient spells like Historic, many different strategies are poised to take advantage of it. As an overall power outlier, Library of Alexandria is pre-banned.