March 20, 2012, DCI Banned & Restricted List Announcement

Announcement Date: March 20, 2012
Effective Date: April 2, 2012
Magic Online Effective Date: March 21, 2012

Innistrad Block Constructed
Intangible Virtue is banned.
Lingering Souls is banned.

Standard, Extended, Modern, Legacy, Vintage
No changes

Innistrad Block Constructed

Block formats have a significantly smaller card pool than Standard. They tend to be about half as large. As a result, it is easier for a strong deck or strategy to go unanswered, as there are fewer potentially competitive strategies.

The DCI examined the current block format and found that creature-token based strategies were dominating and largely competing with other creature-token based strategies. In particular, Intangible Virtue and Lingering Souls were very prevalent. There were some variations to the base white-black deck. One could add green mana, which adds Gavony Township, gives Ray of Revelation flashback, and allows the option of Garruk Relentless. One could add red mana, which adds Hellrider and Devil's Play. However, this isn't the diverse format most people enjoy.

In the interest of making Innistrad Block Constructed a more diverse and healthy format, the DCI is banning Intangible Virtue and Lingering Souls.