There are numerous mechanics in Magic The Gathering’s history that have ended up doing tremendous harm to the game. While some of these, like Phyrexian mana, have not returned, some of the others that were notoriously ranked as “never coming back” on the Storm Scale have, indeed, returned. These mechanics should not have returned and should be forced to remain in the history books of Magic. Reserved for powerful formats like Modern and Legacy, where players have access to more powerful tools to handle them.

Magic The Gathering Mechanics That Need To Go Away

1. Storm

Yes, I understand that only a single card was printed with Storm on it in Tarkir Dragonstorm. I do not care. I am afraid of the precedent that this sets with Mark Rosewater and the card development team. Stormscale Scion could be an attempt to make cards with storm that are “balanced”. Storm, from Mark Rosewater himself, is the most powerful mechanic ever printed into Magic. While I’m not certain that Stormscale Scion itself will be a broken card, Storm is a broken mechanic and should never have returned, especially not in a standard legal set.

2. Delve

Delve has resulted in some of the most powerful spells in multiple formats. Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise are banned in Modern and Legacy; Treasure Cruise is also banned in Pauper, and they are both restricted in Vintage. Murktide Regent dominated Modern and Legacy until the printing of Psychic Frog and Abhorrent Oculus. Delve is an inherently broken mechanic. Just like Storm, it’s only returning on a single card, but playtesting it seems like there is a way to make it very powerful. Overlord of the Balemurk will be legal with Teval, Arbiter of Virtue. It’s a mechanic that is too powerful for Standard, and I hope that it doesn’t get out of hand.

3. Prowess

Coming in with the Tarkir set of old, Prowess is returning with our return to the Tarkir set. Prowess is very powerful, and there is already a deck in Standard that enjoys abusing non-creature spells. Prowess is being more widely printed onto tokens than full cards, but we are also getting Flurry, a mechanic that works with Prowess extremely well. Monastery Swiftspear and Monastery Mentor are the best Prowess cards ever printed, and they have both had moments where they were simply the best creatures to be playing. Monastery Mentor is even restricted in Vintage. Prowess is powerful, but I am far less worried about its impact on Standard than the impact of the previous two.

4. Threshold

Threshold effects are generally not very powerful, save a notable few. Its return to Standard is not super scary to me, but there is already a plethora of cards legal in the format that enable Threshold. Overlord of the Balemurk is one of the greatest culprits in this, widely enabling graveyard strategies and making Threshold a reasonable goal to get to in a game of Magic. The primary good Threshold card that’s legal in Standard right now is Kiora, the Rising Tide, who is currently not played anywhere. Tarkir Dragonstorm is bringing in some extra graveyard synergies, though, so we could see some increase in the use of Threshold cards.

5. Harmonize

This is a brand new mechanic introduced in Tarkir Dragonstorm. It is, effectively, the new Flashback. Flashback is at least in the top 10 most powerful mechanics ever printed in Magic the Gathering, and Harmonize is better than Flashback. Being able to reduce the cost of your spell while recasting it, or after milling it into your graveyard to effectively draw a card, is very powerful. Your graveyard can already be effectively a second hand in many formats, and I believe that this type of power coming to Standard as well is unhealthy.