Omnath, Locus of Creation made history in Magic: The Gathering today, getting banned from two formats and suspended in one just 18 days after its release within the Zendikar Rising set.
The ban hammer came down hard on Omnath today with WotC banning it from gameplay in Standard and Brawl formats. The legendary elemental was also suspended in the Historic Format. But Omnath wasn’t the only card hit with a ban today. Lucky Clover and Escape to the Wilds were also banned within Standard during today’s MTG Banned and Restricted announcement.
Banning Omnath, Lucky Clover, and Escape to the Wilds comes on the heels of the 2020 Grand Finals tournament in which 72 percent of the Standard metagame contained a running combination of Omnath Ramp and Four-Color Omnath Adventure. Of the 32 decks submitted, 23 of them ran Omnath.
“While it’s common in a small-field invitational tournament for players to test together and converge on a few decks, in this case, the field was a striking 23 Omnath decks out of a total of 32,” said Ian Duke of the MTG play design team.
To ensure the Standard metagame doesn’t shift from one problematic card to another, the Banned and Restricted team also banned Lucky Clover and Escape to the Wilds.
“Without Omnath in the environment, ladder play data makes it clear that Adventure decks would remain as the strongest strategy,” Duke said. “Finally, as a further step to ensure that ramp decks don’t continue to dominate the Standard metagame, we’re also choosing to ban Escape to the Wilds.”
Omnath has been suspended within the MTG Arena Historic format, too. Teferi, Time Raveler and Wilderness Reclamation were shifted from suspended to banned in Historic, while Bruning-Tree Emissary was unsuspended. Omnath was also banned from the Brawl format.
