Welcome to a brand-new “2025 in Gladiator”! We’ve got some changes to make, so let’s get started.
Banned List Update
Banned in Gladiator
Mana Drain
Treasure Cruise
Ajani, Nacatl Pariah
Psychic Frog
Effective immediately - Saturday, January 25th 2025
Discussion and Voting
The following is a breakdown of the cards that were discussed during this format update.
Mana Drain - BANNED
At our first opportunity to ban Mana Drain, Reanimate was a far more popular strategy than the blue card, and it pushed itself and the format as a whole towards lower mana values that gave bigger effects. Mana Drain’s mana advantage was seen at first as a lower impact, and saw play in decks that were on the same level or worse than decks that could consistently put out 6/5s with protection held up on turn 2. Now, decks have pointed towards higher mana values and higher impact threats - meaning that counterspells have improved and mana gains from Mana Drain have caused frustrating play patterns and an undesirable swinginess in games.
- Ellesandra - Yes
- Howdy - Yes
- JRandomHacker - Yes
- SeismicLawns - Yes
- Wheeler - Yes
Treasure Cruise - BANNED
Treasure Cruise is an undeniably powerful card - much like the discussion with Mana Drain, there was a long discussion about the healthiness of blue in our format. Recently, it has been felt that blue has been pushing too many other options out of the format in viability and effectiveness. Treasure Cruise, as the most easily castable of the two major blue delve spells, makes it the most reasonable one to hit first. As had been discussed previously with Mana Drain before its banning today, blue is allowed to have good cards - but Treasure Cruise in the format’s current climate is too good. Allowing virtually any deck to spend (often) 1 to 3 mana to catapult forward in the card advantage game with virtually no downside leads to our decision today.
- Ellesandra - Yes
- Howdy - Yes
- JRandomHacker - Yes
- SeismicLawns - Yes
- Wheeler - Yes
Ajani, Nacatl Pariah - BANNED
One of the truths of Magic: The Gathering in 2025 is the power of cards from Modern Horizons 3 - they have provided some of the strongest on curve threats in all of magic across every colour in the game. Between requiring two removal spells to cleanly answer and the myriad ways the Ajani player can send the bonus cat on a trip to a farm upstate to provide a planeswalker that makes constant board pressure, as well as considering what happens if you have a red permanent in play - Ajani has constantly made games just about him enough that the council has decided he needs to be removed from the format.
- Ellesandra - Yes
- Howdy - Yes
- JRandomHacker - Yes
- SeismicLawns - Yes
- Wheeler - Yes
Psychic Frog - BANNED
To give a small peek behind the curtain - Psychic Frog was the most off-handedly suggested ban candidates when discussing what other cards in the format give negative play experiences, with members of the council noting its bad play patterns and immense quality, but being open to give it some space in a world where Jeskai decks aren’t overly dominant. Over the course of about four days, it became one of the clearest bans of our decisions: Psychic Frog requires very specific removal, rules over combat in both stats and evasion, and quickly drowns the other player with card advantage and multiple outlets to utilize those cards.
- Ellesandra - Yes
- Howdy - Yes
- JRandomHacker - Yes
- SeismicLawns - Yes
- Wheeler - Yes
Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury - NO CHANGES
During our discussions, one of the cards that came up was Phlage - it is undeniably one of the more powerful cards in our format being a removal spell that can constantly come back and provide immense pressure to your opponent on its own. At this time the council has decided that a ban of Phlage is not necessary as even if it is a powerful threat on its own, being a powerful answer is still quite important for the format overall, especially as creatures are getting better
- Ellesandra - Yes
- Howdy - No
- JRandomHacker - No
- SeismicLawns - No
- Wheeler - No
Solitude - NO CHANGES
Many members of the council are hesitant to push for a vote on answers to threats, but there has been a growing problem with the prevalence and play rate of white removal spells, pushing more and more decks to focus their colors into white and weakening the draws to play non-white decks. Solitude also represents the cycle of Evoke elementals from Modern Horizons 2 quite well for its versatility and raw power level comparative to the rest of the format, and both are aspects that we are watching for in the coming months. At this time, though, the council believes the issue of homogenizing decks to play white isn’t pressing enough to act before seeing how the format reacts to the rest of today’s changes.
- Ellesandra - No
- Howdy - No
- JRandomHacker - No
- SeismicLawns - No
- Wheeler - No
Dig Through Time - NO CHANGES
There was some discussion of which delve card should get banned - some of the council members initially thought that Dig might be the one that should go first, while others were considering the camp of taking them both out. As seen in the discussion in Treasure Cruise’s ban comments, its issue was its ease of casting - and while dig through time is only one more pip, this can be a real cost at times. So for now the council is going to be watching how things develop in a Treasure Cruise-less but Dig Present world
- Ellesandra - Yes
- Howdy - No
- JRandomHacker - No
- SeismicLawns - No
- Wheeler - No
Field of the Dead - NO CHANGES
The No-Banlist events that happened last year provided a lot of insight into how the seven cards on the banlist shape up to the format as it stands. Among the banned cards, Field of the Dead has felt the most safe to discuss re-entering the format, but the council believes that the card still has the danger of creating plenty of negative gameplay experiences that would overshadow the new opportunities it would provide at this time.
- Ellesandra - No
- Howdy - No
- JRandomHacker - No
- SeismicLawns - No
- Wheeler - No
Looking Forward
With new members on the council we’re excited to see what they both bring to the team and their insights have already proved to be incredibly helpful and verbose. Secondly, WE WILL NOT BE PREBANNING CHROME MOX - the council is aware of the card’s printing and addition to our format coming with Aetherdrift, and while fast mana is always a scary addition to a format, the council only has to say at this time that we will be keeping a close eye on how it plays in our format.
As always, we urge everyone to maintain a civil and respectful discourse surrounding this announcement. If you have any questions or require further clarification, please do not hesitate to reach out to me or one of the other council members. We’d be more than happy to talk.
Thank you for your continued support and dedication to the Gladiator format.
See you in the Arena, Gladiator 💖