I agree that Modern is quite diverse in terms of strategy and even decks, although there are some very clear forerunners. I think the argument that Lurrus makes the format less diverse comes from the restrictive effect it has on which cards are playable at all. Since the payoff for running Lurrus is so high, plenty of otherwise great three-plus mana cards simply don’t see any play, even in the decks they’re best in (e.g. Liliana of the Veil in black-based Rock decks). The ceiling of a Lurrus ban is unlocking all of those cards for plenty of decks, which I think is a significant upside for Wizards, which likes for as many new cards as possible to enter Modern through Standard and misc. products. They don’t necessarily want it to be as pillar-centric as Legacy.

I agree. I wouldn’t be surprised if they do ban it. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that a card like Lurrus came around almost immediately after the Pioneer format was created. It seemed like a deliberate attempt to turn Modern into the new Legacy, and have Pioneer become the new turn 4 format. Lurrus reminds me a little bit of Brainstorm. Everybody knew the card was too powerful for the format but so many different decks were already playing it that Wizards had no choice but to keep it around. It could go either way.

I don’t think Modern’s in a bad place, but there’s certainly some homogeneity in the format right now. If you’re not playing a big mana deck or a deck that wants to play free spells, it seems like dropping your curve and playing Lurrus is the correct thing to do. I don’t think that’s bad necessarily, but Wizards might not see things that way. It’s hard to gauge just what their expectations are for the format though. Modern used to be considered a turn 4 format, and it feels like they’ve abandoned that principle in recent years with the advent of the Horizons sets.

If they were to ban Lurrus, I don’t think it will be the only thing they hit. There’s also the possibility they could unban something, but that seems more unlikely. The list of things on the banlist that aren’t massively problematic is pretty small at this point. Blazing Shoal or, if I’m dreaming, Pod?

It was definitely sad to see Toothy leave Pauper. I agree it was the easiest target. What do you think they’ll ban in Commander? Dockside?

These bans are fine. Pauper is a degenerate format, and, it’s great to see lots of different decks in it, typically. If affinity is getting way too overrepresented, something needs to go. The colorless 5 color cards turned out to be too “free” so I can support their removal, for now.

Hopefuilly we will see some additionaly bans in Modern and Commander; but not too many Modern bans, I own too many cards in the format now!