Wizards of the Coast has banned Veil of Summer in Magic: the Gathering’s Pioneer format.
In their announcement, Wizards said that they are “generally seeing positive changes to the metagame” after the banning of Felidar Guardian, Leyline of Abundance, and Oath of Nissa last week. “However,” they continued, “Green-based aggro and ramp decks still remain overrepresented in the competitive metagame at the expense of midrange and control. Therefore, we are banning Veil of Summer to better allow for natural metagame forces to provide counterpressure against these strategies.”
Wizards also said that they “expect this to increase incentive to play reactive strategies that will help keep the format in balance over the long term without fundamentally changing any of the diversity of decks currently available in Pioneer.”
The banning of Veil of Summer comes four days before the start of the Star City Games Invitational, which will use the Pioneer format alongside Modern. It is the second Pioneer banning in as many weeks, ensuring that the metagame will be unsettled as we head in to the Invitational this weekend.
