Felidar Guardian

Banning Cards Together

Has it ever been considered for cards to only be banned *together*? For example, felidar guardian is banned in pioneer because of how it combos with Saheeli Rai. Would it ever be considered to ban those cards being in the same deck, but still allowing them separately?

It’s a much more complicated message, and is significantly harder to track. If a card is banned and you see your opponent play it, you know they’re doing something they shouldn’t. But if it’s banned only under certain circumstances, now you don’t know, and there isn’t a good way for you to know. That’s a problem.

Bannings Felidar Guardian Format Legality Format Legality Format Legality Pioneer Saheeli Rai

Request for Instant Flicker Cards

Can I request more cards that blink any nonland permanent and have it come back right away rather than at the end step? Cards like Felidar Guardian and Flicker are the types of cards I'm talking about. I know they are more powerful but it seems like they've almost completely fallen out of favor in recent years.

We do both instant flicker and end of turn flicker. A set usually only does one and it depends on the synergies of the set. Repeatable ones tend to be end of turn for play design concerns.

Felidar Guardian Instants Play Design

Question about Card Banning

My roommate and I were debating bans. He was upset by not being able to run Felidar Guardian in a cat tribal deck in standard back in the day. He wanted to know why cards are banned outright rather than banning specific combinations when a card is only a problem in a combo.

Conditional banning is just much harder to message and monitor.

Bannings Cat Felidar Guardian Format Legality Format Legality Kindred / Typal Standard

Flickering Planeswalkers Impact

Is flickering planeswalkers something you would (could?) do?

It’s something we did do and it caused a card to get banned. (Felidar Guardian)

Bannings Felidar Guardian Format Legality Planeswalkers

Card Changes Timing

How soon before a set releases can you still change cards? If you had found out about the Felidar Guardian combo a month before Aether Revolt was set to release, could you have changed it in time?

The earliest set we could do a last minute fix on if today we realized there was a problem would be Archery (the October set).

Aether Revolt Felidar Guardian Revolt

Banning Criteria

I know you guys don't really want to ban your key art mythics (or any cards really) but do you agree with the banning of Felidar Guardian instead of Saheeli when Felidar Guardian could have seen much more play. For example it would let me bounce form of the Dinosaur.

When given a choice between banning an uncommon and banning a mythic rare, we lean towards banning the uncommon.

Art Bannings Dinosaur Felidar Guardian Form of the Dinosaur Format Legality Mythic Rares Uncommons

Last-Minute Card Adjustments

Ian Duke mentioned in his article today that Rampaging Ferocidon was designed after Saheeli Rai- Felidar Guardian became a thing, but before the banning. This seems pretty recent. What’s the absolute latest that a card can get thrown in a set or reconfigured order to respond to the standard environment?

We can still make minor last minute changes to Spaghetti, the fall set.

Bannings Felidar Guardian Format Legality Rampaging Ferocidon Saheeli Rai Standard

First Banned Cat Correction

in your cats history article today you say felidar guardian is the first cat ever to get banned in any format, even though now unbanned, wouldn't that title belong to wild nacatl?

Yes, I forgot about poor Wild Nacatl.

Bannings Cat Felidar Guardian Format Legality Format Legality Format Legality Format Legality Wild Nacatl

Banning Criteria

Was any thought given to banning Saheeli Rai instead of Felidar Guardian? Clearly neither card is ban-worthy alone, and at least for myself, Felidar Guardian+Cloudblazer is great standard whereas Saheeli is barely playable.

History has shown us that players are happier the lower the rarity of the card banned.

Bannings Cloudblazer Felidar Guardian Format Legality Format Legality Rarity Saheeli Rai Standard

Portions of Marodigest are unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Wizards of the Coast Fan Content Policy. The literal and graphical information presented on this site about Magic: The Gathering, including card images and mana symbols, is copyright Wizards of the Coast, LLC. Marodigest is not produced by or endorsed by Wizards of the Coast. All other content © 2024 Webscape Internet Engineers. All rights reserved.