Welcome back Oathbreakers to the (hopefully) final announcement of 2020. While there are no changes at the moment the new year holds much potential and excitement with the prospect of bringing back some of the comforts of pre-2020.
January 1-3 there will be a community organized event raising money for MagiKids on Twitch. Three days of Oathbreaker from multiple hosts and two members of the rules committee will be joining them for a few slots. With the generous support of sponsors there are some great prizes available to viewers. [Click here] for more info.
With the release of Commander Legends we had to act quickly in response to Black Lotus Jeweled Lotus []. All joking aside we still strongly believe the card would have warped Oathbreaker more than any other format and demanded action. We will continue to discuss its status internally, and while unlikely to change we will officially end its review with an announcement 90 days from its release, February 18th.
Worldfire [] is next up on the un-chopping block following the unbanning of Sway of the Stars [] and though they leave the board in the same state – the resulting state of every other zone is entirely different and there is concern that where Sway provides a soft reset, Worldfire can (and likely will) completely stall out a game until the first person draws lands and a threat providing little counterplay and interaction post-reset. We’ve tested it’s ability to win and so far found it quite weak, and are now moving on to test with the intent of creating the environment mentioned earlier.
Moving along the list of potential unbans, we see that the list is getting quite solidified, but there are a few candidates left for review. Panoptic Mirror [] is a card that gives repeated access to instant and sorcery spells that somewhat invalidates the singleton nature of a format. In Oathbreaker we already have repeated access to a specific instant or sorcery in the signature spell slot, so the mirror might just be a redundant rather than exploitative. We have not begun testing and will update in our next full announcement on May 7th.
Thank you for keeping Oathbreaker growing strong through the nightmare of 2020. We can’t wait to see what new opportunities 2021 brings. Stay safe, and keep breaking oaths.
The Oathbreaker Rules Committee strives to keep your Oathbreaker playing experience Social. Generous. Inclusive. To donate to the charity behind it all, please visit magikids.org.