Not since the days of Caw-Blade has the ban hammer come down on standard in Magic. It's been five long years since Jace The Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic bowed out after a lengthy rein of standard domination, so what's getting the boot this time?
Smuggler's Copter: I don't think anyone can deny this card power from the moment it was spoiled, it almost seemed to good to be true, however the Copter has now smuggled its last, in standard anyway. Having it on turn two was such a beating and the fact that it was colourless mana, and only two mana to play, meant that I could fit nicely on curve in pretty much any deck. Adding in the Crew 1 ability meant Smuggler's Copter was difficult to hit with creature removal outside of combat but very easy to enable. Three power with a loot ability (draw a card then discard a card) when attacking or blocking would all be fine at four, maybe five mana, and definitely in a colour to add some restriction to its play-ability. This may be more of a hindsight view of Smuggler's Copter though, one that may have been shared by many a player that have been on the receiving end of one in standard. I think we can all agree that playing with a card with this much power felt unfair and playing against it didn't feel fun at all.
Emrakul, the Promised End: Speaking of no fun, it looked for a while like Emrakul was going to dictate standard for the months to come. If you weren't playing a Delirium build or Aetherworks Marvel, and most people were, then you were futilely trying to find a way to beat the 13/13 with added Mind Slaver. Even though it had its bad days, Delirium and Marvel decks were still the top tier decks to beat, solely because of Emrakul and the worst part being, even if you could deal with the 13/13 body, and the protection from instants made that really hard, the "Take your turn" effect was as a result of casting Emrakul anyway which is a lot harder to answer than an enter the battlefield trigger. As flavorful as it is, Emrakul was very pushed and I think if left unrestrained could have warped the meta game, creating one end goal for the majority of decks which takes away from the variety and diversity of Magic.
Reflector Mage: A little odd this one. Reflector Mage isn't by any means a format warped though it is very powerful. U/W flash is the other big deck of the moment and having a creature that is able to bounce an opposing creature and delay the replay of that creature without any additional cost, not to mention being able to Crew your Smuggler's Copter in the and turn for more of a tempo control strategy, can be devastating. In my opinion Reflector Mage hasn't been banned because it's super powerful or unfair, but in conjunction with Copter and Emrakul, you can't get rid of the best without keeping an eye on what could take its place. I'm not saying Reflector Mage could've taken over standard but if left untamed it definitely would have shown it's power just like in its Collected Company days and could have shut down aggro decks left right and center. A nice ability on a low cost creature, just not its time for play right now.
Golgari Grave-Troll: Grave Troll has been on and off the banned list in modern over the years, part of the reason I can think they keep taking it off the list is to test how good the modern format is. Dredge is easily a top tier deck with or without Golgari Grave-Troll but when you have access to a dredge 6 not just once but multiple times per turn, it gets quite a big speed boost. A lot of decks pack their sideboard with graveyard hate because of dredge, but I guess modern isn't consistent enough to beat it with Grave-Troll so back on the list it goes, but like I said, dredge is still a big thing so beware.
Gitaxian Probe: Phyrexian mana (coloured mana that you could pay 2 life for as an alternative cost) was absurd. At first, 2 life seems reasonable, maybe even a little much for certain spells or depending how much Phyrexian mana they have in their cost, but then you start playing with spells like Gitaxian Probe and it very quickly becomes negligible in comparison to the benefit you gain. Peek was an alright card, it was an instant so you could play it at the end of your opponents turn to get maximum value, Gitaxian Probe isn't an instant but it makes up for that deficiency by being free. If you're on the play, you can start with a Git Probe to get perfect information on your opponents hand and it replaces itself. It sits nicely in combo decks to let you know if the coast is clear and it adds to your storm count, oh and it's FREE! I think the reason for the banning here is the versatility more than anything, it's not particularly unfair but when you give this effect to any deck for real low cost of 2 life, you should probably keep an eye on it.
These bans take effect on the 20th of January 2017, so that gives everyone out there time to reconfigure their decks for any upcoming tournaments, instead of being blind sided with major meta game bans a week before. I'm sure some people are happy with the standard bans but I'll say now, Wizards don't like banning cards and try to do it as little as possible but there are some times when it is unavoidable. They action these bans to keep the game that we all love fresh and balanced not to alienate players, however I'm sure there will be players out there outraged at these bans.
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