

Related: Why Magic: The Gathering Is Crossing Over With Fortnite Ragavan is rigid in what it can do, but basically, every red aggressive deck wants a copy, causing the format to be less diverse and making the case for a ban. However, Ragavan’s card advantage matched with its stats mean it must be answered early and doesn’t need to be paired with anything besides removal, much like Hullbreacher when it was banned in MTG's Commander format earlier this year. Deathrite is a good threat early and late in the game while Ragavan can sometimes fall off later in the game. Both can generate mana and incredible amounts of value on their own, but Deathrite Shaman can act as a damage clock as well as incidental graveyard hate. Ragavan is a different case from Deathrite Shaman, as Shaman’s power comes mostly from its flexibility. Its acceleration early paired with its game-ending activations made it an auto-include in nearly every midrange MTG deck in the format. In 2018, Deathrite Shaman was also banned in Legacy mostly due to the same reasons. The card was great in a variety of decks and in the words of Wizards itself, the card made Modern's Standard-like 60-card Magic deckbuilding more about the individual power levels of cards rather than the synergies between them. Around 2014, Deathrite Shaman was banned in Magic's Modern format due to having too much late-game power.
