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Magic: The Gatheringfinallydropped the ban-hammeron Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, barring one of the game’s most powerful Saga cards out of the Standard format. With it gone, lots of once-powerful decks will lose one of their most versatile tools, and other decks have room to rise up the ranks to take their place.
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Fable of the Mirror-Breaker was one of the most-played cards in MTG’s Standard format before its ban, enjoying over a year of near-total domination of the game. Here’s everything you need to know about Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, why it was so good, and why it’s now banned.
What Is Fable Of The Mirror-Breaker?
First printed in 2022’s Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker isa double-sidedSaga enchantmentthat costs two generic mana, and one red.
Like all Sagas, it enters the battlefield with one lore counter, and at the end of each of your draw steps, it gains another and activates the next ability on its list:
While Neon Dynasty was full of excellent Sagas, likeKumano Faces KakkazanandMichiko’s Reign of Truth, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is often considered not just one ofthe best Sagasfrom it, but alsoone of the best cards from Neon Dynasty in general.
Why Is Fable Of The Mirror-Breaker Good?
Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is so good for a few reasons.
Reflection of Kiki-Jiki is a good card that has lots of uses – such as cloning a Bloodtithe Harvester to make extra Blood tokens each turn. However, the real power happens as soon as you play Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, with that 2/2 Goblin Shaman token.
For three mana, you’re getting adecent blockerthat canproduce more resources for you every single turn. Fable of the Mirror-Breaker could be blown up the second it enters play, and you’ll still be up on your opponent thanks to the advantage the Goblin Shaman gives you.
In certain Standard decks, the second ability was also incredibly powerful. For instance, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker was used in lots ofreanimation-focused decksasa way of putting Atraxa, Grand Unifier into your graveyard, ready to cheat it back out into play with a Cruelty of Gix. Thanks to that Goblin token, you likely already also had the mana needed to play Cruelty of Gix, getting Atraxa, Grand Unifier out sometimes as early asturn four.
Why Was Fable Of The Mirror-Breaker Banned?
Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is a ‘generically good’ card, meaning you can jam it into any deck, and it’ll work incredibly well. The promise of easy Treasure tokens and filtering your hand for better cards is too much to pass up on.
Talking about the ban,Wizards said,
Its ability to generate resources, card flow, and be a must-kill threat is unmatched at its level of efficiency. Counterplay available to it is low and frequently costs much more than three mana, and it is especially difficult to beat on the draw. By removing Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki, we hope to reduce the power of black-red decks but also make deck-building choices for these strategies more meaningful as to whether they want a threat, card selection, or the ability to enable reanimation.
Before the ban, MTG Goldfish reported that Fable of the Mirror-Breaker wasthe seventh most-played card in Standard, which for a Saga enchantment is utterly unheard of. More importantly, though, is that it wasalmost always played as a full set of four cards, rather than maybe the one, two or three copies you saw with other staple cards like Abrade or Duress.
These are both the hallmark of a format-warping card, and that can be seen by Rakdos Midrange (black/red) and Grixis Midrange (blue/black/red), which both used Mirror-Breaker extensively, collectively commanding a whopping44.4 percent of the Standard metagame.
Can I Still Play Fable Of The Mirror-Breaker?
Youcannot play Fable of the Mirror-Breaker in the Standard format.
However, Standard is the only format it has been banned in, and so you’re able to still play it inCommander, Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, Vintage,andOathbreaker.
