It's the Monday after a Prerelease and that means it is time to update the Banned and Restricted lists. In the wake of Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch many words have been written about the state of Modern and what piece of the Eldrazi deck would be removed. Today we have the answer. These updates take effect on April 8th, 2016 and will be implemented on Magic Online on April 13th, 2016.

Modern

Vintage

From the official announcement on Eye of Ugin:

If Eldrazi Temple is banned and Eye of Ugin is legal, the deck focuses on playing multiple lower-casting-cost Eldrazi per turn. A discount of two mana for each Eldrazi becomes a discount of four or more over the course of a turn. The deck becomes more explosive, more focused on a single build, and the powerful draws are still not interactive.

If Eye of Ugin is banned and Eldrazi Temple is legal, the mana supports a more diverse set of builds. There still is a small percentage of games with two Eldrazi Temples powering out huge plays. However, there are more games where only one Temple is drawn, and the deck is powerful yet beatable.

We also considered that Eye of Ugin is played in other decks, most notably "Tron" decks using Urza's Power Plant and similar lands. While the Eye does add a lot of late game power to the deck, the core gameplay of the deck—casting large threats with the Tron lands—remains intact. It is regrettable that banning Eye of Ugin also impacts these Tron decks, but weighing everything in consideration, we feel this is the correct solution to the Eldrazi menace and makes Modern the most fun overall.

The announcement also discussed unbanning Ancestral Visions to aid blue decks and Sword of the Meek to give control-combo decks a boost.

Lodestone Golem was restricted in Vintage to help rein in Mishra's Workshop powered decks.

The next Banned and Restricted announcement will be on July 18th, 2016.