Magic The Gathering Nerfs Pauper's Most Popular Deck With Atog Ban
Magic the Gathering's Pauper format is getting a major shakeup, as the latest ban announcements have confirmed one of its most-played cards is getting the chop.
Atog was a key part of the 'Affinity' decks, which revolve around using lots and lots of artifacts. Atog was a really powerful card for this, as you could simply have it 'eat' all of your artifacts, getting +2/+2 until the end of the turn. Combine that with a Fling, Wedding Invitation, or Disciple of the Vault, and you've got a win condition that's very difficult to interact with in the commons-only Pauper.
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Talking about the ban on the official site, senior designer and head of the newly-formed Pauper Format Panel Gavin Verhey said that everything was done to try and avoid hitting Atog. It's an incredibly old and iconic card, but investigating other potential bans would always "just [keep] coming back to Atog".
While Affinity can work without Atog, this ban is likely going to be the end of it as the top deck in the Pauper metagame, a position it's enjoyed for at least a year. That being said, it isn't the only ban coming out of this announcement.
Two other cards were also banned: Bonder's Ornament and Prophetic Prism. Both are mana rocks that can produce mana of any colour, which made them incredibly useful in five-colour "Urzatron" decks, an old favourite of many formats that uses Urza's Mine, Urza's Power Plant, and Urza's Tower to produce massive amounts of mana.
These bans are more preemptive, as the Pauper Format Panel believed that Urzatron would return to the number one spot in the meta after Affinity was so badly hit by the Atog ban. Bonder's Ornament was considered the
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