WOTC announced a significant change to the Standard format earlier this month. With sets now rotating out of the format after three years rather than two, a concern emerged about the format potentially getting stale due to overly oppressive cards. For example, many are tired of seeing yet another Sheoldred, the Apocalypse or Fable of the Mirror-Breaker come down during a game.

WOTC this week announced another change that it hopes will rejuvenate the Standard format. Bans will now take place on a more regular schedule and with less unpredictability. Instead of a reactive schedule, bans will now take place only once a year in late summer just ahead of previews for the rotation sets (or fall sets). For this year, that will be ahead of the release of Wilds of Eldraine.

The company did give itself some flexibility to deal with

Each set will be followed by a “mini band window” lasting three weeks with each set release. It will allow WOTC to make adjustments should a card have a “significant negative effect on a format.” These smaller windows will cover all formats, not just Standard. They expect bans in these windows to be “extremely rare” but would cover cards such as Felidar Guardian or Oko, Thief of Crowns that completely warp a format.

With the first ban window scheduled for this fall, WOTC did give itself an additional one-time ban window for Standard. It will take place on May 29th. While they did not actually confirm any bans, one can surmise that they would not announce such a special event without declaring some on that day.

Wilds of Eldraine, the upcoming Fall set, was not designed with a tree-year Standard rotation in mind. As a result, the May 29th band will look to ban cards that could prevent the new set from having an effect in Standard. I suspect that a few cards will get named and I would not be surprised if Invoke Despairs, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse and/or Reckoner Bankbuster would be among them.

The changes are meant to address complaints that bans are currently happening “too frequently, too randomly.” They will hopefully give users the confidence that their decks will not change with little notice.

WOTC also hinted that future announcements will cover play events.

What cards are you hoping to see banned? Drop us a note below.