Vivi is a small and unassuming Black Mage caught in an existential crisis in Final Fantasy IX and an absolute wrecking ball in Magic: The Gathering. The clever, lovable riff on a classic RPG archetype was responsible for what many considered the most busted deck in the card game’s current format. Fans have been waiting for him to be banned from Edge of Eternities Standard for months. Today, it finally happened.
Wizards of the Coast revealed its updated banned and restricted list on November 10 as promised and, sure enough, Vivi Ornitier was on it. The 0/3 Wizard gets a +1/+1 counter and deals 1 damage to each opponent every time you cast a noncreature spell, but that’s not all. Once per turn, players also get to use Vivi to generate red and blue mana equal to his power.
At just three mana to play, Vivi’s a very powerful, very versatile card. Pair it with Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, which stacks more +1/+1 counters and gives creatures access to all exiled creatures’ abilities, and you have a recipe for the most dominant and annoying deck of the year.
“God, Vivi-Cauldron decks make for miserable games,” wrote one player months ago. “The worst part are repetitive, monotonous play patterns and waiting for my opponent to take 5-minute turns when they had lethal on board after 30 seconds.”
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As a result, Vivi Cauldron was dominating top-deck lists and driving up the prices of the relevant cards to ridiculous post-launch levels. Some players were looking at prices of over $400 to build competitive decks with Vivi Ornitier, only falling below $30 apiece once the autumn hit. Things got so bad in competitive MtG that Wizards of the Coast stepped in back in September to try and quell frustrations.
“With the results of the latest Spotlight Series arriving on the heels of several high-profile Standard events, the conversation around the cards Vivi Ornitier and Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, and speculations on ’emergency’ bans in Standard, we thought now would be a good time to check in,” read a blog post from September.
While Wizards didn’t act then, it took the unusual step of bumping up its normal ban date by two weeks and promised a stricter crackdown on broken cards in 2026. The saga of Vivi Ornitier, while great for Final Fantasy fans happy to see one of the series’ unsung heroes shine, reinforced skepticism that many MtG players have had for the Beyond Universes sets, which some feel prioritize flashy fan service at the expense of obvious power creep.
“To open up the Standard format for innovation and a wider variety of decks, it’s clear we need to disrupt the Vivi Ornitier and Agatha’s Soul Cauldron combo,” Wizards wrote in today’s banned card update. “That interaction is too much stronger than the rest of the format. We are opting to ban Vivi Ornitier as it is the card that’s more likely to create future balance problems if allowed to remain in the format. We believe Standard will be more fun and diverse without Vivi Ornitier in it.”
