Introduction
Hey there, Elle here
It’s been a wild ride this year for the Gladiator format - a few months ago I would have told you that Strip Mine would be the single biggest impact on the format from 2025, and while that might be technically true, it turns out a rising tide raises all ships in the Gladiator stage as set releases have become even more common on the client from a week to week basis over this string of three months. From Arena Anthology 1 to the first iteration of powered cube (known to the Gladiator populace as set:”CUBE-52.60”), we have seen the power outliers from every era of Magic: the Gathering join our motley crew of Creatures and Spells. The Council, as always, has done their best to keep an eye on what’s making an impact and what’s causing problems. Stating this plainly - it is incredibly difficult to do, and the bans we made not too long ago as a way to address the current state of the format do not entirely fit in the upcoming era that our format is entering.
To this point, the Gladiator Council would like to introduce a series of experimental unbannings. We cannot accurately analyze whether or not certain cards should and should not stay banned by just looking at them. But also, we’re not just going to unban everything, because the cards staying on the banned list still have strong reasons for their place.
Banned List Update
Legal in Gladiator
Field of the Dead
Demonic Tutor
Emperor of Bones
Guide of Souls
Minsc and Boo, Timeless Heroes
Oko, Thief of Crowns
Solitude
Tajic, Legion’s Valor
Tasha, Unholy Archmage
The One Ring
Treasure Cruise
Effective - Tuesday, November 18
Following is a discussion of the cards remaining on the banlist and why.
The New Banlist
Strip Mine
Likely a card that needs the least explanation, Strip Mine is both still a card that can decide things from opening hands out of a large variety of decks - and a card that Lands decks especially (or even more accurately decks that can cast Wary Zone Guard) can use to create game states where the only conclusion is Player A winning and Player B losing with very little room for counter play. If a list wants to destroy lands, there are still options - Ghost Quarter, Field of Ruin, and even Boseiju, Who Endures - all of which have different benefits in how they can keep certain problematic lands in check as well as advancing the user’s gameplan.
Reanimate
Full transparency - this card was still going to continue to be banned even before Entomb was revealed as a card coming to MTG Arena with TLE. Reanimator is arguably one of the strongest decks in the format - still putting up consistent results despite nearly every successful deck in the format running a reasonable amount of graveyard hate, despite the fact that Reanimator does have to lean on MV 2 and 3 options for Reanimating creatures. Pairing this information with the fact that Demonic Tutor and Emperor of Bones are both going to be unbanned with this announcement, we did not feel the need to give Reanimator decks yet another tool for accelerating the pace of matches.
Ajani, Nacatl Pariah
This is likely one of the cards that will get a lot of questions from folks who do not regularly play the format, as it did when it was originally banned. But Ajani is not a card that would be healthy for the format, to say the least. To keep this brief, Ajani is powerful enough on its own to keep an eye on it, and with the right support, it becomes overwhelmingly powerful. This support also happens to be some of the most powerful cards to cast on curve after Ajani - whether it is Broadside Bombardiers, Gut, True Soul Zealot, or even just something as simple as a sacrifice outlet. Because of that, there is not a good reason to give Ajani a chance off the banlist at this time.
Mana Drain / Invert Polarity
The discussion of these two cards is being paired together for a simple reason - the two more-or-less do the same thing in regards to how they affect the flow of a game. Both cards counter a spell at an on-rate cost, with a secondary effect that can swing the game irrevocably in your favor. Starting with Mana Drain: it adds mana - pretty simple in what it does, but as we have seen, it gave blue control and midrange decks too much ground. Whether it enabled a turn-3 end game threat or a turn-3 end game value engine (Teferi, Hero of Dominaria being the most reasonable example of both), or even if it enabled you to play out a card like Palantir of Orthanc and then pass back with the rest of your mana open, all of those possibilities without even needing a nonland permanent in play before your opponent goes to cast a spell after your second land. Invert Polarity next: this one has a bit of a harder time to understand if you haven’t seen it in action. It uses a coin flip to decide whether you counter a spell or steal the spell for yourself. If you just counter the spell, that’s fine - it does what a Cancel would for a red pip instead of a colourless. But if you win the coin flip and take the spell, that’s an entirely different ball game. You have now taken their pressure/value engine/reanimation spell/etc and cast it for yourself, and now your opponent is not only down their card but now has to actively answer their own spell. For 3 mana, you get this effect when comparable versions of that effect can cost 5 to 7 mana to be able to steal it off the stack, usually with conditions applied as well. So even if in a perfect world Invert Polarity should be a fine card because it is just Cancel 50% of the time, it isn’t a fine card because the other 50% it can singlehandedly dominate or swing a game with little room for counter play.
Psychic Frog
This frog is a war criminal. More seriously - this card is too powerful as a midrange card and also too powerful as a tool for reanimator. While red has gotten better removal to offer it more chances to technically try and answer Psychic Frog, it is still more or less a card you answer by having certain white spells in your deck or certain black spells in your deck. Pairing this with Psychic Frog being extremely efficient in what it does in both being able to draw a card off of hitting a player or a planeswalker doesn’t really help the frog’s case. All of that without really touching on it as a discard outlet, whether it enables itself to just kill your opponent in as few as 3 to 4 swings, or if it enables other powerful cards like Abhorrent Oculus or Necromancy. Another key consideration with this card is that the council really wants to watch the impact of Force of Negation in the format, as it would also significantly bolster the power of Psychic Frog in being able to defend it early.
Natural Order
Much like Strip Mine, I don’t think I need to tell you why this card is continuing its tenure on the banlist. Even though it is not the card with the shortest time legal (shoutouts to Oko, being banned on format inception), it definitely had the largest ratio of ruining games to time legal. Whether it goes back to getting Koma (either of them honestly), or going for cards like Atraxa, Grand Unifer, Craterhoof Behemoth or Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant - at this time, Natural Order would still be outside the scope of what our format can handle in the eyes of the council, as every Green deck would be able to use this tool to its maximum efficiency in a way that would negatively impact games.
Looking Forward
So you may be asking yourself - as a Magic: The Gathering player, does this mean that this new wild west is what we’re guaranteed to be stuck with for the next 3 months? No - as a council we will be keeping a close eye on all of the cards that are coming off the banlist here to adjust and twiddle with as necessary. None of these changes are set in stone - there could be an announcement for a change as little as a month out from these unbans being tested. If there are any concerns or questions, I ask that you make sure to communicate with us in the Discord about them so that we can make sure Gladiator is the best it can be for everyone.
Thank you for your continued support and dedication to the Gladiator format.
See you in the Arena, Gladiator 💖