Most relevant part:
Standard Ban Philosophy and Cadence
With the community abuzz over Izzet Cauldron’s rapid dominance, it’s worth reiterating the current Standard ban philosophy, its cadence, and its history.
In 2023, motivated by the observation that unpredictable bans “hurt players’ ability to have confidence in building and playing their decks,” the goal was announced to make Standard changes only “once a year.” In addition to the yearly announcement, there would also be a banned and restricted update three weeks after every set release for the very rare need to address “cards on the level of Felidar Guardian.”
That cadence of having additional announcements three weeks after every set release was slightly reduced in 2024, as ban announcements in the middle of competitive seasons made it difficult for players to have confidence in their deck selection for events they had planned for: “Moving forward, we will be aligning our B&R announcements to the RC and RCQ seasons … This also means fewer B&R announcements overall.”
The latest yearly window for Standard was June 30, 2025; seven cards were banned in Standard at that time. In that announcement, Cori-Steel Cutter Cori-Steel Cutter was banned in Standard after Izzet Prowess comprised 36% of the metagame at the United States Regional Championship and 42% at Pro Tour Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY. It also set expectations: “The banning of Cori-Steel Cutter Cori-Steel Cutter is the kind of action we would take in any of our banning windows. The level of dominance of Izzet Prowess in the recent Standard metagame clearly meets our threshold for bans outside this once-per-year Standard window.”
The next scheduled banning window is set for November 24, 2025, shortly after the conclusion of the current Standard RCQ round.
WOTC on Nov 24 (probably):
And who knows. Maybe it will be when 6 or so sets come out between now and then.
I mean hell, EoE hadn’t come out yet and they started early previews on Spiderman. Apparently more Avatar cards are spoiled now too?
(And don’t get me started on UB in standard.)
We, as retailers, asked wizards of UB would ever be in standard, they replied absolutely not. It will never happen.
We asked wizards if we could change standard to 3 sets a year. They replied best we can do is 6 stand sets this year, oh and half of those are UB shoehorned in.