The latest update to the MTG banlist is here, and fortunately Wizards of the Coast has axed the card everyone was hoping to see banned, Vivi Ornitier. This legendary wizard appeared in the Final Fantasy set earlier this year and has helped Izzet decks maintain a chokehold on the Standard format for all of 2025. But now he’s gone, and I sincerely hope I never have to see a red or a blue Magic card ever again.
The situation was so bad that Wizards pushed its scheduled ban update forward by two weeks – we would normally have had to wait until November 24 for this decision. And the designers haven’t stopped at Vivi, they’ve taken out Proft’s Eidetic Memory and Screaming Nemesis too.
WotC hinted back in September that the Final Fantasy legend would be the card to go when the banhammer fell, but we were still a little fearful that Vivi’s main accomplice, Agatha’s Soul Cauldron would be made to die for its master’s sins.
What made Vivi so broken? Well, it would be a decent Magic: The Gathering card even without its main ability. Just a straightforward pinger that gains power when you cast noncreature spells can cause a lot of damage and quickly become a huge beater in a Prowess deck.
Then on top of that you add on the ability to create a load of free mana to fuel even more spell-slinging shenanigans and you have the makings of a completely busted card.
Fortunately, other red cards like Cori-Steel Cutter and Monstrous Rage were removed from the format lickety-split after Vivi came on the scene. We saw one ridiculous Pro Tour where they were all legal and, of course, it warped the entire thing. The only successful decks were Izzet Prowess and a mono-red list that main-decked Magebane Lizard of all cards, specifically to combat the Prowess decks.
Unfortunately, Standard remained pretty similar even after these red cards got banned. The best Standard decks by far after the bans were a new Vivi Ornitier/Agatha’s Soul Cauldron build, which used the Cauldron to give Vivi’s mana-making power out to other creatures and… an aggressive red deck that tried to go under it.
Despite Wizards’ claim in September that the meta wasn’t settled yet, and that mono red was even more popular than Izzet Cauldron on Arena (of course it was; it’s the fastest deck and people are trying to grind out games) this status-quo showed little sign of changing.
Now Wizards has made good on its hints that Vivi would be removed from Standard, but it’s also banned a couple of other problematic cards alongside it. Pleasingly, they’re also found in the Izzet colors.
Proft’s Eidetic Memory is gone, as this card draw spell turned out to be a bit too much like Up the Beanstalk. It’s an engine which, senior game designer Carmen Klomparens writes in the announcement article, “is hard to profitably interact with”.
And mono-red decks have lost Screaming Nemesis. This card was axed for being too hard to counteract, since it easily shuts down the usual defences against aggro: life gain and large blockers.
The question is: what comes next? With Izzet Cauldron gone, will the remaining top decks like Mono Red and Dimir Midrange simply shuffle one place to the left, or will new archetypes that were held in check by Vivi suddenly spring up like fresh shoots? And, of course, Avatar The Last Airbender is on its way – we’ll see if that set can shake up the now less stupid Standard meta.
Will Standard finally… be good? To be honest it’s been completely pants since Bloomburrow. Despite WotC’s promise to fix paper Standard, the whole thing’s been looking distinctly unwell.
We’ve focused on Standard for this article, but other formats, from Pauper to Legacy, to Brawl, were affected too. you’ll be able to find all the changes over on our MTG banlist guide. And you can let us know what you think of this update on the Wargamer Discord.