Vivi OrnitierVivi Ornitier | Art by Toni Infante

November's regularly scheduled Banned & Restricted Announcement brought news both expected and unexpected to players across several formats on Monday.

Standard

In Standard, the banning of Vivi OrnitierVivi Ornitier came as many assumed it would. Along with Vivi, both Screaming NemesisScreaming Nemesis and Proft's Eidetic MemoryProft's Eidetic Memory were shown the door.

According to Lead Play Designer Jadine Klomparens, the now-infamous Izzet Cauldron deck has had "an unacceptably high win and play rate" over the past few months, leading to the ban of Vivi and Proft's Eidetic Memory, key components of that particular deck.

As for Screaming Nemesis, Klomparens said the card's catching a ban to prevent Mono-Red Aggro from filling the vacuum left by the dismantling of Izzet Cauldron. "It may prove to be the clear front-runner in Standard in a post-Izzet Cauldron world," wrote Klomparens. "Metagames where an aggressive deck is clearly the best deck are often painful for diversity because many slower decks can't compete."

While there were no changes to Modern, Vintage, Alchemy, and Timeless, other formats saw bans alongside Standard.

Pioneer

Over in Pioneer, the "core problem" of the format, according to Senior Game Designer Carmen Klomparens, is too large a portion of the Pioneer meta features either Mono-Red Aggro or decks built to counteract Mono-Red Aggro.

That's why Heartfire HeroHeartfire Hero has to go, she said. By removing the offending mouse, "we believe Mono-Red Aggro should be able to comfortably adapt, and lessening the inevitability that comes with its early pressure will broaden what its players can explore," said Carmen.

Legacy

The pair of bans to EntombEntomb and Nadu, Winged WisdomNadu, Winged Wisdom have come as somewhat of a surprise to many Legacy players.

According to Carmen Klomparens, Dimir Reanimator has been a very resilient strategy with the classic Entomb/Reanimate synergy at its core. So resilient, said Carmen, the deck was barely phased by a ban to deck-favorite Troll of Khazad-dûmTroll of Khazad-dûm in March of this year.

During the North American Eternal Weekend Legacy Championship that occurred last month in Pittsburgh, Dimir Reanimator still had a strong showing despite continuing to be a meta boogeyman.

"Over the last couple of years, the details of Dimir Reanimator have changed, but the big picture shell has remained: EntombEntomb's incentives in deck building make it too easy to leverage high-impact threats without having to commit to the fail states that normally come with a synergistic enabler-plus-payoff combo deck," said Carmen. "Entomb specifically allows these decks to circumvent this issue and simply have the card translate to having one of the two or three most powerful creatures ever printed into the graveyard."

Then there's Nadu, Winged Wisdom, a creature that's no stranger to the ban-hammer. Already banned in Modern and Commander, Nadu's on the outs in Legacy as well as of today. It's so banned the image above says so in giant, bold, red letters.

According to Klomparens, decks built around Nadu are difficult to interact with, slow to win with, hard to represent on-board, and extremely resistant to traditional hate-pieces.

"This mix of the deck's power level, difficulty to attack, and undesirable play patterns has us acting against Nadu a bit more aggressively than we normally prefer to act against cards in Legacy," said Klomparens, "but we believe it is in the best interest of Legacy's health."

Today's banned cards join the growing list of format ne'er-do-wells, which can be found here.

Pauper

High TideHigh Tide was unbanned in March in what Designer Gavin Verhey dubbed a "trial unban." That trial is over.

Verhey said the result of that unban led to a wide swath of decks that achieved strong results while taking an "exorbitant amount of time" to execute their core combo, as well as the decks' general "unfun play pattern and polarity it causes in the format."

So, High Tide's back on the shelf in Pauper.

Historic

The team monitoring the health of Historic have used Monday's announcement to "pre-ban" Force of NegationForce of Negation, Frantic SearchFrantic Search, Mystical TutorMystical Tutor, EntombEntomb, and Dark DepthsDark Depths.

All five cards are heading to the format thanks to their inclusion in Avatar: The Last Airbender. However, none will see the light of day in Historic, at least any time soon.

Brawl

Speaking of Arena-specific formats, Brawl's getting in on the ban action with Strip MineStrip Mine, Mana DrainMana Drain, Chrome MoxChrome Mox and Ancient TombAncient Tomb all being excised from the format.

Each has been introduced to Arena over the past year or so via Arena Anthologies, bonus sheets and Special Guests releases.

According to Klomparens, to stay on top of format health, Banned & Restricted announcements will be more frequent in 2026. The next scheduled Banned & Restricted Announcement is slated for Feb. 9, 2026.