5 Cards That Were Almost Instantly Banned in Magic: The Gathering 

honorable mentions: bit.ly/3ugq0j3

i was there for the lutri thing. off the top of my head the commander commitee mentioned they pre-banned it just so people wouldn't go buy/reserve their copy, and then when they drop the bomb on set release people wouldn't feel bad.

"Companions was a mechanic that brought lots of joy!" LMAO

I just want to say to Jamin that you’re owning alopecia. I have it myself and I know how difficult it can be to be around people when it’s present, and I want just to say that you’re a strong person putting yourself in a public eye like you are with patches. It’s a huge step for everyone suffering with it to see someone being comfortable in front of a camera having it. Thank you.

I remember playing in a regional right after Urza's Legacy was released. The opening rounds were sealed, then next round was type 2, then concluded with draft. To this day, the judge's repeated announcements that Jar was playable if opened in sealed or draft but banned in constructed sits in my head. They must've repeated that line 50 times throughout the day

Memory Jar should be on this list. It was legal for ten days in 1999 before being added to the banned list. However, the banned list wasn't published until the first of the month at that time so people were playing it unaware for a month.

You forgot the obvious one- Pot of Greed. Pot of Greed has NEVER been legal in any format

"Why would they print a card where half of your magic audience can't play it?" That's the perfect argument for never printing any card just for commander.

Leviathan in the intro is a deep cut at this point

I was surprised to not see Geological Appraiser on this list, i think it was banned in pioneer in 14 days or something like that

For those wondering about Lutri’s timeline, Wizards often gives the commander rules committee and advisory group a preview of new cards for discussion and consulting, and when they sent over the file for Ikoria, they said “hey you’re probably going to want to ban Lutri in some way”. The RC and CAG discussed whether or not to ban it fully or just as a companion (like they used to do with certain commanders like Braids and Kokusho), and they decided for simplicity to just ban it outright. The immediate announcement was so people didn’t try pre-ordering it. Fun fact: the only Highlander format where Lutri is legal as a companion is 7-point (Australian), where it sits at 2 points if it’s your companion, so you can only have 5 other points in your deck.

Kids today don't remember how big of a deal it used to be for a card to be banned in a format, particularly standard. From 2005 -2016, there were only ever 2 cards banned in standard: Jace the Mind Sculptor & Stone Forge Mystic. Between 2017 - 2024, 33 cards have been banned in standard.

Lutri is one of the reasons why I wish Commander would bring back the "Banned as" banlist instead of just banning everything altogether. I really loved the idea of an Elemental Otter, and as someone who couldn't care less about companions (and I feel like Commander should just ban that mechanic altogether), I wished that it could be used as my Commander. Yeah, sure, you can always Rule 0 it (and so far there has been zero problems with it), but this just perfectly represents how some cards are only problematic in ONE specific way, but easily could be used and utilized in another.

The one I remember most is Oko. Oko was in literally every single deck in Standard and it warped 6 separate formats. The litmus test for whether every other card was good was, "can I play this vs Oko."

"People sometimes complain." - The Internet, Explained.

As an addon to Lutri Yoshimaru from Kamigawa also got preemptively banned from duel commander, although it recently got unbanned which is... a decision...

I was thinking Skullclamp, but apparently it took over half a year for that to get banned. But that was the period where I really started to play Magic, so I have Affinity PTSD to this day.

Love you guys. Much love from Australia, you guys got me and my mates into proxying all kinds of formats!

Lutri's Companion criterion was super challenging for Commander! You couldn't play it in your Dragon's Approach/Persitent Petioners/Shadowborn Apostle/Rat Colony or these days Slime Against Humanity decks ;D

14:52 Honestly, it's probably my favorite part about Magic that they don't _just_ print stuff that will fit into an existing specific archetype or are obviously useful. Sometimes those cards become good later on (Lion's Eye Diamond was a junk rare for several years until "Burning Desire"/"Burning Academy"/"Long.dec" got it banned/restricted). Sometimes they enable a new archetype that hadn't existed before. And sometimes you just want to make a janky deck with a 10% winrate that is _really_ funny when it wins.

I was wondering whether they'd remember Mind's Desire. Oscar Tam broke that card in playtesting and wrote about it in his online column before it was even released. Wizards just forgot about vintage, which was called type 1 at the time

I started playing Magic on Arena and remember vividly how confused I was with Tibalt's Trickery. It had a mountain of text, I had zero knowledge of the game and once it resolved I was left more confused why does the opponent have a 8/8 on turn three on the board.

You guys are great, coming home from a crappy day at work and seeing a new video from y’all when I finally get to sit down makes my day. Keep on keepin on fellas.

Omnath was also the perfect pitch card for the elementals in mh2, it was sooo versatile

You guys should do a comparison of Old Legacy vs current Modern: When Modern first came out in 2011, Legacy had cards all the way back from 1993. That means it had 18 years worth of cards. Since modern includes all sets back to 8th edition which came out in 2003, that means Modern now has 21 years worth of cards. Can a 2011 Legacy deck beat a 2024 Modern deck? Are old cards really better?

1:17 Explorer is the MTG Arena version of Pioneer. Pioneer isn’t on Arena yet

Emerakul in standard for shadows over innistrad. That one FNM tourney was rough

No. 6: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV after I played it in my playgroup

Is the CGB clip foreshadowing for a future crossover? My fingers are crossed!

8:42 that's awesome, he got a laugh from off-camera, that's always the best.

I still remember seeing the spoiler for "Omnath, Locus of Creation" and thinking this was the best card in the set. Sure enough, there was an official Standard tourney on MtG Arena the next weekend and 80% of decks in the meta were using it, including a mirror match for the grand finals. The key thing about it was the amount of synergy it had with so many different things that were multicolored back then in Standard (especially Gruul) and which gave it triple Landfall every turn.

You guys missed Apprentice ban from ixalan. 17 days. The fastest pioneer ban ever

Great video! another day goes by without plancechase in constructed

Awesome content as always Think you guys should come over Birmingham uk for command fest April 😊😅

My first Cardmarket order came in the mail this morning! Got a bunch of commons & unco to try my hand at Pauper (I also grabbed a couple beautiful banned companions cards for dirt cheap so sometimes bans can be pretty great if you ask me). Anyway you guys & your amazing videos have really played a big part in getting me interested in (and excited for) paper Magic again after many years. Hopefully whenever you need to bargain for a raise you can show this comment to whoever's in charge :)

0:13 the worlds smoothest "now"

I thought number 1 was gonna be memory jar bcs I vaguely remember in the MTG manga (which was more like a retrospective through the OLD days of MTG) a tournament happened where memory jar turbo dominated it and the deck was promptly never used in the manga EVER after that single chapter or something

For the longest time while you were explaining minds desire i was just thinking "whats wrong with this, it looks fair" then you zoomed in on the storm part and i was instantly like "oh good lord it has storm". That card would actually be super fair if it wasnt for that one line of text

I remember opening Oko from a pack and just immediately handing it back to the store for credit. I knew it wasn't going to last.

You know, I always thought Skullclamp got banned really quickly after it got released. But apparently it took them a couple months to see its catastrophic effect.

People have been playing Ugin Spirit Dragon in T2 of trickery on Arena. But it was easy to spot them, they mulligan'ed hard to get their combopieces.

also geological appraiser was banned in 17 days, thats one of the most recent and fastest bans

This was the best. Love those long games.

actually they should allow lutri be playable regularly in a commander deck (not as companion)

IIRC, Lurrus (pre eratta) was also insta-banned in Vintage before the set was even released

small correction: Mind's Desire was not legal for 6 days. At the time new expansions became legal only the 1st of the next month and Scourge released on the May 26th so it didnt became legal until July 1st. (this was to give people time to aquire cards) The ban announcement came on June 1st going into effect July 1st which would be the day Scourge became tournament legal. Mind's Desire was also banned long before it was legal to play. Toffel should remember this tbh.

I remember that minds desire Were spoiled on the vintage restricted list, might be wrong, but back then all restricted vintage cards Were banned in legacy(type 1.5 back then)

Luttri is one of the main reason why they should bring back the "banned as" banned list for commander so cards like it can still be used in the 99 but not as commanders or in this case companion.

Editor error: in the description for Pioneer in the Winota entry, it said it was a format on arena. Not true. It’s a paper and MTGO format

I have a Killian Runes 5 color deck that runs Jegantha as companion just because he was free! Built the deck and after the fact found out it met the jegantha requirements!

Another day another great jacket worn by Carl 🔥🔥

We need a Cardmarket podcast.... PLEASE. Y'all are the only ones talking about 60 card formats first and commander second.

I'm not yet at the part of the video where you reveal the last card, but I feel like I know what it is - wasn't it something that was banned even before the set it was in was released?

blue shell at beginning killed me 🤣🤣🤣

In my opinion, Lutri got done dirty, they should of just banned it to be used as companion, having it as a commander is just fine

6:04 CGB appearance on cardmarket?! Please tell me this is a teaser for a future collab!

I love the irony that Tibalt sucked as a two mana planeswalker, then proceeded to have two cards that had a massive impact on the game (Trickery required banning and Cosmic Imposter required a rules change).

Never ever forget Rampaging Ferocidon, that card was too pure to exist in standard

I'm going to leave this here.... Winota into Auratouched mage, grab Colossification or Eldrazi Conscription. Now that's a lot of value!

Winota has seen occasional play in Legacy boros stompy decks, though it's fallen out of favor more recently. Playing turn 1 goblin rabble master into turn 2 Winota with 3 triggers that pull you into Initiative creatures is a hell of a drug.

I totally thought Oko would be on this list. Surprised Winota was banned faster.

Yoooo shoutouts to Leviathan. Even though Heart of Gold got broken harder

I'm sitting here, yelling "Memory Jar!" at every one after the first one because I know that card got banned early, 10 days or something, but not exactly how early. My disappointment to read the article, immeasurable, but it was fun to read the comments describing the banning at the time. And then I completely forgot just how long it took for Oko to get banned, but it was quite a few days wasn't it? Wild stuff.

I think they need to take advantage of Key words & rule books. Making an easy key word, where the meaning is only on something u get with the card but not on the card itself, so the word can be updated to mean something different.

Great video

Pretty sure I know what'll be number 1. Poor Otter. I get the reasons but he's so cute! Q__Q

Two related fun facts: Rampaging Ferocidon is the only card to have been unbanned in standard, and Lurrus is the first time (and only, so far) where a card was banned in Vintage for power level concerns and not because of the actual logistics, gambling laws, cultural insensitivity, or because it just doesn't work in constructed (chaos orb, ante, invoke prejudice, and conspiracies, respectively)

I'm surprised lurrus wasn't on the list, I don't know how fast it got banned but I do remember that it was incredibly fast. Then Companion mechanic was erratad and it was unbanned

The commander rules committee was aware of lutri before it was announced as a card in the set. Thats why the card was banned when it was

I have a plate full of tacos, a cold beverage and this video to watch. Lifes good

Before I see the list, number one has to be Tolarian Academy

Winota is playable in Timeless now :D

Memory Jar had a really fast banning as well

how fast was the Copy Cat combo banned in standard?

GODDAMN IT LIED TO BY A THUMBNAIL AGAIN WILL I NEVER LEARN

was that might of menethil at the beginning??

i gave up on arena when they added digital cards to historic and spent my money on paper pauper

What if you had Tibalt's Trickery say, Counter target spell an opponent controls? Wouldn't that have just been better? lol

Omnath, Lovus of Creation! Banned before he was paper legal

Regarding Tibalt's Trickery - to me it just shows how dedicated they are to one of my most disliked mechanics: Cascade. Cascade is the real culprit, but they can't have that go, unfortunately.

4 Goblin Guide 3 Wild Nacatl 4 Voice of Resurgence 4 Trostani, Three Whispers 1 Loxodon Smiter 3 Fleecemane Lion 4 Lightning Helix 2 Rift Bolt 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Anzrag, the Quake-Mole 23 Mountain 3 Aurelia, the Law Above 3 Bonecrusher Giant Toralf

Lutri? Banned? After seeing Filipa playing it as her companion in the video from the other day, I can totally see why hahaha

I can't believe you guys forgot about Oko

I don’t understand how Magic R&D can play test these cards, approve them for print, and then instantly ban them

I play an elementals deck in explorer… loaded with Spark doubles and other clones to copy risen reef… you feel like a super villain woth 3 Omnaths on board…

i get why lutri was banned, but only as a companion. why was it also banned from the 99? the commander committee should split the banlist into "banned as commander, banned as a card and banned for something else (companion)" just like ante cards are separately listed in banlists

Cadê os créditos do vídeo do UMotivo?

why does ledger shredder tell me that pioneer is an arena format?

my poor emrakul (2nd favorite card) that I'll never be able to play in Commander 😢

i would of loved to hear Thoralf talk about mental mistep. That was a treat in legacy

minds desire is really powerfull combined with Narset

I think its very apparent und obvious that 4 of 5 of those cards were released in the last decade. Playtesting used to be a thing, you know. Carl justifies Winota with "the designer could ahve missed this". its true. But the playtesters must not!

lutri genuinely should be allowed in the 99. izzet decks with dualcaster loops would be happy.

Wasn't Geological Appraiser also banned after 17 days?

You know that WotC has made some serious mistakes when Tolarian Academy and Memory Jar don't even make the list.

Memory Jar, was banned before it was released

So finally more broken cards are printed and memory jar is now able to rest in history..

Why no Mind Over Matter or Memory Jar. These got banned during the 1st tournament they were played. Should be mentioned due to the lack of online play I. That era.

I actually never got the Lutri ban. EDH doesn't have a sideboard, so you don't have a location for the Otter to hang out. Unless you're Rule 0'ing a companion zone, in which case I never want to play with your playgroup anyway.

I feel that lutri could be unbanned. Sure its an extra card but it's only in Izzet colours and now costs +3 mana to get going etc etc.