Sometimes aMagic: The Gatheringcard gets a little too powerful to be left to its own devices. That’s when the Magic team has to step in and take a long, hard look at the most problematic cards in the format.
That’s exactly what the team did when it came to the surprising upstart Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord. The story behind this banning is a little more interesting than your average ‘whoops we printed a card that was too strong,’ so let’s take a look at why Sorin was banned in Pioneer and Explorer.
What Is Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord?
Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord is a three-mana black planeswalker that comes loaded with three abilities and four loyalty counters to start. At first glance, it seems like afairly run-of-the-mill kindred planeswalker. Sorin’s first ability gives a creature deathtouch and lifelink for a turn, and if it’s a Vampire, you also put a +1/+1 counter on it. You can also tick Sorin up to sacrifice a Vampire to deal three damage to any target and you gain three life. Not great, but not the worst if you have some tokens out.
Legendary Planeswalker - Sorin
+1: Target creature you control gains deathtouch and lifelink until end of turn. If it’s a Vampire, put a +1/+1 counter on it.
+1: You may sacrifice a Vampire. When you do, Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord deals 3 damage to any target and you gain 3 life.
−3: You may put a Vampire creature card from your hand onto the battlefield.
The real power comes from Sorin’s final ability, which lets you pay three loyalty counters from Sorin in exchange for putting a creature from your hand onto the battlefield. This is the part of the card that became a problem.
Turns out, Sorin was completely fine in Pioneer and Explorer for several years in the format, not making any waves or really doing much of anything for quite some time. Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord was released back in 2019’s Core Set 2020 andwhile it’s a good planeswalker, and worked in a few Vampire strategies, didn’t really make much of an impact.
It wasn’t until the release of 2024’s Murder at Karlov Manor set that Sorin became a dominating force. See, a creature called Vein Ripper was released that turned the meta up on itself. This six-mana black creature is a 6/5 with flying, and powerful ward effect that requires an opponent to sacrifice a creature if they want to counter it, and has an added effect of whenever a creature dies, an opponent loses two life and you gain two life.
Flying
Ward—Sacrifice a creature.
Whenever a creature dies, target opponent loses 2 life and you gain 2 life.
A strong card, but also fairly expensive at triple black and three generic. The key part of the card is that it has the Vampire creature type. That means on turn three you can resolve Sorin, activate his minus ability to put Vein Ripper from your hand onto the battlefield, and wait for your opponent to try and fight through it.
Now, Vein Ripper isn’t unstoppable. While a very strong mythic rare, Vein Ripper is fairlywell balanced for six mana pushed creature. But when you have to face this Jack The Ripper rip-off on your third turn, the odds are pretty good that there’s not going to be much you’re able to do.
So Why Did Sorin Get Banned?
Sorin got banned for one simple reason, the planeswalker is the catalyst for creating an oppressive board state far too early in the match. Cheating out a Vein Ripper three turns before you like would have in a normal game sets your opponent back far too much in order to deal with it.
If you want to stop an opponent’s Sorin into Vein Ripper combo, you need to have a removal spell to deal with Vein Ripper, a creature to sacrifice to get around the ward effect, you have lost two life thanks to Vein Ripper’s ability while they put themselves ahead two life, and then you still have to deal with the Sorin on the board. Sure, it might be down to just one loyalty counter, but it’s still a threat on board.
You also need to still have that removal spell after facing a turn one or two Thoughtsieze and any removal your opponent might be playing to keep your own creatures, the ones you need to sacrifice to stop Vein Ripper, off the battlefield.
The deck quickly rose in popularity since its debut back in February with Seth Manfield’s Pro Tour victory, growing to take up more than 30% of the RCQ meta, which is a bit too oppressive to allow to run rampant.
Part of what makes the deck so consistent is the incredibly reliable deck is that both Pioneer and Explorer have a robust removal and disruption package. You have Fatal Push, the aforementioned Thoughsieze, and some number of Korxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger. There’s also Bloodtithe Harvester which doubles as a removal spell, Caustic Bronco to help keep your hand full, and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse to further punish your opponent. Complete the package with a Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, which can eventually make tokens of your Vein Ripper, and you have an incredibly hard deck to play against.
Sorin specifically was banned instead of Vein Ripper since there is the chance that some future Vampire could be released that would replace Vein Ripper if that creature was banned instead, and instead of getting rid of a potential problem, Magic banned the source.
