What the Uro ban really meant

Article by Steps

So, right off the bat let’s get one thing straight, Uro was not the main problem in standard. The meme above is one of the funniest and truest statements in a while. When they announced that somethin was going to happen Monday I was sure that Uro was gone (because he was from an older set and an easy target), but I also thought that he would not be the only one to take the fall. I figured they would only pick maybe one from the newest set if that or maybe one or two from Core Set 2021 but of all the issues, they went with a card that’s been around since the start of the year and for most decks is easy enough to work around. To me, and it seems (and many others from the way Twitter and/or Reddit has been talking about it) they decided to remove something that we complained about months ago and decided that would be enough… it’s wasn’t.

Now to be clear, I personally hate all the bans, but what this ban truly meant was that WoTC is not willing to ban a card from the current set. Even if these cards come in and completely runs the current standard. We know the Omnath decks are running standard and that it is the top of the tier list. We all saw the list of decks from the latest tournament and they were mainly all Omnath decks, but yet it was Uro (A card that most Omnath decks were running maybe 2 copies of). This was WoTC telling us that selling more of the current set (digital or not) is more important than the health of the current standard. They have proven in more ways than one this week that money and profits come before a lot of things, like the enjoyment of the players. The cards they are so worried about not selling would still sell, they would still be used for draft, modern/legacy, or EDH if they were useful there. We see this all the time with cards banned from standard, but for some reason, they are still refusing to remove the right cards and make a more playable and enjoyble standard.

For me, this just meant I will go back to my old ways of ignoring that standard even exist. When I got into Arena I gave it the old college try again and had decent amounts of fun. My favorite decks were my mono red aggro deck and Winota when Ikoria released. Was Winota and Agent broken, yes. Was it fun as hell, yes. When they banned it, I saw it coming and wished I could still play it on my way to mythic but had to try and move on… then I moved to a Rakdos Sac deck… and we all know how that went, RIP Cauldron Familiar. Now I am afraid to invest in a deck, or hell, even waste my time trying to find a new way to play off powerful cards cause in a blink of an eye, they will just ban another piece of it and all the effort and fun is gone. Leaving us to start over and try again.

In the end it just leaves me in this place where I wish bans didn’t happen, but if they are going happen at the frequency they are, can we at least ban the cards that are oppressing standard to the point of pushing all the other good decks to the wayside? In the end though, it’s just to much to ask for I guess. They have showed us time and time again that this is what is going to happen… So i’ll just stick to my Commander decks. Anyone one up for a game? Maybe we can have actually have some fun and bring a little bit of the gathering back to Magic.