Wizards of the Coast has announced that the controversial sticker mechanic is banned in Legacy, Vintage, and Pauper. Attractions are out too. This new list of MTG bans also removes All That Glitters from Pauper, but that is overshadowed somewhat by the axing of a whopping 56 cards that refer to stickers or attractions.
The MTG banlist update, posted May 13, 2024 to the official MTG website, explains that the ridiculously named ________ Goblin has become a competitively viable card in Legacy, meaning loads of players are having to bring sticker decks along, “leading to some awkwardness in tournaments”.
The stickers mechanic from MTG Unfinity was always controversial, not least because it was tournament legal. For Unfinity, Wizards decided to drop the silver border that had been utilized in other unsets and make some of its cards playable in eternal formats. It seems it now considers this a mistake, and says “we won’t be revisiting this kind of experiment any time soon.”
Obviously, stickers and attractions were intended to be a bit of fun in Commander, but making a card Commander-legal also drops it into other formats like Vintage and Legacy. “We had thought the power level of those cards was low enough that if people tried them in Legacy every now and then, it’d be a fun surprise” explains the ban announcement article – but it looks like one high power sticker card slipped through the net.
It seems like a pretty dire prognosis for stickers if the fact that “tournament players feel obligated to interact with the sticker mechanic” is considered “not a healthy or fun dynamic”.
The article clarifies that it’s not the common community complaints like the fiddliness of stickers, and the weakness of their glue that have led to the bans. It’s the requirement to bring along a sticker deck, just in case you happen to clone an opponent’s card that interacts with stickers, that’s the killer. That, presumably, is why attractions, which haven’t seen competitive play, are banned too.
Unfinity is known to be Magic’s best-selling unset, but that might not be enough to see another one made. The tactic of making the set partially legal has clearly been a mixed bag – good for sales, bad for the competitive scene. Attraction decks have been pretty fun in EDH, but I’ve never encountered stickers.
For more Magic content, check out the best MTG Arena decks or our list of every MTG set in order.