On Monday, March 31st, Wizards of the Coast banned many cards in various Magic: The Gathering formats. The bans affect the Modern, Legacy, and Pauper formats. Pauper, in particular, has gotten a major shake-up through these additions to its ban list. But what cards got the axe? What cards were unbanned? Read on, and let’s take a look!
Bans in Magic: The Gathering for March 31st, 2025
According to DailyMTG, Wizards of the Coast’s main news hub for Magic information, the following cards got the axe in their respective formats:
Modern
Legacy
Pauper
Meanwhile, Pauper also got two unbanned cards (albeit on a trial basis):
Modern Bans, Explained
Underworld Breach’s ban comes in direct response to the major unbans from December. Wizards feels that Mox Opal, while worth staying off the ban list, made Breach too strong. While Opal is relatively tame in their eyes, at least for now, Breach needed to go for the sake of the format’s health.
Legacy Bans, Explained
Legacy saw two bans this March 31st. The first, Sowing Mycospawn, is an extremely versatile card in the format and, according to Wizards of the Coast, “does it all” in the decks it featured in. It’s very good at fetching strong colorless cards, including lands. It’s also great at removing opponents’ lands as well. These kinds of things, according to Wizards, “[violates] format heuristics” and so, Sowing Mycospawn is now banned in Legacy.
The second card to be axed, Troll of Khazad-dûm, is banned in part because of Dimir Reanimator’s prevalence in Legacy. Troll is easy to discard, ramps players, and then can come back via a reanimation spell. The card causes a Reanimator build to be more of a deck centered around that synergy than a more fun version of what it could be. For the sake of keeping this deck from being too streamlined towards that playstyle, Wizards has banned Troll of Khazad-dûm.
Pauper Bans, Explained
This set of bans was so impactful towards the Pauper format that Wizards of the Coast wrote another article justifying its decisions.
Basking Broodscale, a card that defined one particular Pauper deck, is now banned. Due to its fast, powerful synergy with Sadistic Glee, Broodscale dominated tournament events across the board since its printing in Modern Horizons 3. Every deck needed some kind of answer to the deck, often dubbed “Gleescale” for obvious reasons. This warped the format around the combo deck. Wizards has now stepped in to quell that format-warping synergy. As such, Basking Broodscale is now banned.
Deadly Dispute was another problematic card in the format. This card was amazingly ubiquitous in most, if not all, decks running black mana sources. Gleescale ran it. Jund Wildfires ran it. Far more decks than we could mention ran Deadly Dispute. The card’s synergies with Ichor Wellspring made it effectively a two-card Ancestral Recall in black. Wizards disagreed with this line of play and so Deadly Dispute is now banned as well.
The last ban in Pauper for March 31st is Kuldotha Rebirth. Rebirth provided a similar amount of advantage to Deadly Dispute, but rather than providing card advantage it gave a player a seriously aggressive board state. As it stands, Kuldotha Red decks consistently had great win rates for Game 1 in Best of 3 matches. This meant that if players were not careful with their later games in said matches against Kuldotha Red, they’d be blown out. The data is something Wizards frowned upon (looking also at Monastery Swiftspear for precedent), and so they took action and banned Kuldotha Rebirth.
Pauper Unbans, Explained
Finally, there were two cards unbanned in Pauper. These cards’ unbannings are on a trial basis. If they prove too powerful, they’ll likely be banned once again from these Magic: The Gathering formats.
High Tide is a card that could see play in a few mono-blue builds. However, seeing as there hasn’t been much time in Pauper where High Tide was legal, we never got to see it shine. As such, Wizards wants to test the waters (if you’ll forgive the play on words) and unban High Tide. Will it see much play, especially now that Gleescale and Kuldotha Red are off the playmat? This remains to be seen. However, it may be pertinent to mention that Tolarian Terror is still fully legal and a strong deck, to boot. This unbanning may make that deck a little bit stronger.
Prophetic Prism was originally banned because Tron decks were getting too powerful for Pauper. This ban shook that up and lessened Tron’s viability. However, with Deadly Dispute now out of the format, Prism may be a weaker card. It may still boost Affinity decks and Tron decks, but it won’t necessarily be as impactful as it would be with Dispute still in the format.
Granted, the Pauper Format Panel is still watching these cards like a hawk. If any prove too powerful on their own merits, they’ll be removed from the format yet again.
Shake It Off
And now, let’s open the floor to you, dear readers. Are any of your decks affected by the Magic: The Gathering bans from March 31st? Are you excited to try out any of the newly unbanned cards in Pauper? Sound off below!
