Wizards of the Coast has officially banned Field of the Dead from the Historic format in MTG Arena today.
The Banned and Restricted announcement scheduled for today has removed Field of the Dead from gameplay in the Historic format due to it being a “powerful force” in the meta, according to Jay Parker of the Banned and Restricted WotC team. The unconventional land, which was able to create a 2/2 Black Zombie when a land entered the battlefield upon having seven or more lands in play already, has terrorized multiple MTG formats since its release in Core Set 2020.
Recent additions to the Historic format, like Cultivate, Explore, and Hour of Promise, created “extremely polarized” matchups with Field of the Dead that the Banned and Restricted team doesn’t see being resolved in the near future.
“Having watched the progress of this deck closely, we feel that this trend is unlikely to change,” Parker said.
Field of the Dead had been previously suspended in Historic but was unsuspended prior to the addition of Jumpstart and Amonkhet Remastered because there were answers to the detrimental land in the meta once again. But those answers never truly diminished its power in either best-of-one or best-of-three gameplay. Rather than suspending Field of the Dead again, the Banned and Restricted team decided to ban it instead.
“We also feel that Field of the Dead is unlikely to be a healthy part of the format anytime soon, so suspension is the wrong approach,” Parker said.
The ban of Field of the Dead will go into effect immediately, on Aug. 24. Several major tournaments in the Historic format are scheduled to take place in the coming weeks, including the 2020 Mythic Championship via MTG Arena.
