Much like with other Banned and Restricted Announcement posts from Wizards of the Coast, June 30 was a big day for Magic: The Gathering players as they found out which cards are now banned. These announcements are typically controversial due to their nature, with the most infamous example being the MTG Commander bans in 2024 that ended up with several Committee members being harassed for their decisions. Still, the general consensus regarding the June 2025 Banned and Restricted post is that it was good for Wizards of the Coast to ban seven cards in Standard, reshaping the meta. One deck was even unluckier than others, though, and now it’s borderline unplayable.
Magic: The Gathering‘s Standard format has been getting a few fundamental changes lately, with the big rotation occurring every three years instead of two, and the addition of Foundations as a set in semi-perpetuity. With the addition of some powerful cards or even entire packages, Standard has become a turn-three to turn-four format lately, and this makes it a bit too fast, favoring aggressive decks or decks that can ramp up a lot. For these reasons, Wizards of the Coast intervened with an “early rotation” post, and the main deck hit with the bans is mono Red aggro.
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MTG’s June 2025 Standard Bans Explained
The bans affected multiple Magic: The Gathering decks, essentially gutting all the top performers in some way. The seven cards banned in MTG Standard are:
- Cori-Steel Cutter
- Abuelo’s Awakening
- Monstrous Rage
- Heartfire Hero
- Up the Beanstalk
- Hopeless Nightmare
- This Town Ain’t Big Enough
Why Magic: The Gathering’s Mono Red Aggro Deck is Now Unplayable
For mono Red aggro, this ban list makes the deck as it was before the announcement unplayable, as the ban of Monstrous Rage and Heartfire Hero is huge. Monstrous Rage was most likely going to be on the chopping block with all the fan requests to ban it, and arguably for good reason. It’s a one-mana Instant that gives target Creature +2/+0 and gives it a +1/+1 counter alongside Trample.
Monstrous Rage is one of the single best combat tricks ever added to the game, and giving it to Red is incredible alongside the Mouse package introduced with Magic: The Gathering‘s Bloomburrow set last year. Before Bloomburrow, Monstrous Rage didn’t even see a lot of play, but it created an OP combo with Heartfire Hero, Manifold Mouse, and other powerful Red cards. Since Heartfire Hero is also banned, one could argue that between Monstrous Rage and Heartfire Hero gone, Manifold Mouse is also “soft-banned,” in the sense that it’s no longer as strong and reliable as before.
These bans were introduced to make sure the format would slow down a bit, and it makes perfect sense. After all, Magic: The Gathering‘s Leyline of Resonance in Duskmourn created conditions for players to win the game on turn two, making the format too fast to adapt to, and that’s why this card was banned. Mono Red aggro remained consistently strong, though, and it’s why Monstrous Rage and Heartfire Hero were banned. With two fewer one-drops that enabled Manifold Mouse, mono Red is not entirely off the menu, but its aggro, combo version may be repackaged as burn decks instead.
The bans also affected Izzet Prowess, Azorius Omniscience, and more decks, but mono Red aggro arguably took the biggest hit. As much as fans of the deck may be sad about it, this is most likely good for Magic: The Gathering‘s Standard format as a whole, and it may even allow midrange decks to regain some traction after being relegated to fringe status (or lower) for far too long. It’s still too early to determine which decks are going to be the true winners in the aftermath, but this may be the end of mono Red aggro the way players have come to know it.
- Original Release Date
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August 5, 1993
- Designer
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Richard Garfield
- Player Count
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2+
- Age Recommendation
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13+