Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: magic, Magic: The Gathering, MTG, wizards of the coast

Magic The Gathering Has Banned A Card From Play To Prevent The Catpocalypse

Wizards of the Coast have issued an emergency card ban in Magic: The Gathering which is effective today. One card in a popular but dramatically overpowered two-card combo is now illegal in Standard play.  Wizards issued Felidar Guardian's emergency ban two days after they put out their April "Banned and Restricted" cards list, prompting players to raise an eyebrow at the delay.

Over the last few months, Wizards of the Coast noticed that when Felidar Guardian and Saheeli Rai are both in play, Felidar Guardian can be infinitely replicated until its owner has an army of lethal cats. This move is known as the Copy Cat Combo. Because alliteration is fun and it creates a Catpocalypse.

Many players are happy the cat combo is dead in Standard, but some are vehemently unhappy about how long Wizards took to kill it. Personally, I don't blame Wizards of the Coast. No one wants to kill a cat. And this is a game balance issue that I'm sure was a nightmare to suss out. Because there is no way to prevent Saheeli from copying just the Felidor Guardian, though I'm sure Wizards were looking for a way to break the combo without a flat ban on the Guardian. And separating this announcement out from the regular banned list gives it extra weight, doesn't it?

Wizards said they acted now because they wanted to "make sure we only need to take one and only one action to correct the Standard environment." And that action was banning Felidar Guardian from Standard play entirely.

"We also understand we shouldn't let combos like Saheeli-Felidar get out the door in the first place. For that we take ownership and are making changes to try to prevent this from happening again. But our highest priority is keeping Magic fun and enjoyable for our players. We believe this banning coupled with a number of internal testing process improvements will be significant steps toward making Standard the fun, dynamic format we all want it to be in perpetuity," Wizards told Kotaku.

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