Nine Months After the Parallax Tide Ban: How the Premodern Meta Changed
Nine months after Parallax Tide was banned, the decks that played it have rebuilt around new cards and the big titles are spread over many decks. We looked at what changed in the Premodern metagame, deck by deck.
- 4.5% Terrageddon's share of paper decklists since the ban, up from 2.9%
- 17% of big-event Top 8 spots went to Stiflenought and Replenish since the ban (Tide decks before the ban: 24%)
- 16 different decks won the 33 paper events with 65 or more players
- 97% of Replenish lists now play Decree of Silence
On 18 January 2026 Martin Berlin, who created Premodern and keeps its banlist, banned Parallax Tide. For this report we went through every Premodern decklist on MTGTop8 from the three months before the ban and the nine months since.
Nine months after the ban at a glance
- Before the ban about one Premodern decklist in five ran Parallax Tide, spread over Stiflenought, Replenish, Landstill and Tide Control.
- Terrageddon gained the most paper share of any deck. Full English Breakfast, Mono Black, Sligh, Landstill and Replenish grew as well.
- The Solution, UG Madness and the Devourer combo deck lost ground, and Tide Control is gone.
- The old Tide decks found new cards: Decree of Silence in Replenish, Powder Keg and Prohibit in Landstill, Back to Basics in Stiflenought sideboards.
- Stiflenought still has the most decklists overall. In paper events Sligh has drawn level with it.
- At the big events the old Tide decks hold fewer Top 8 spots than before the ban, and no deck has won more than four of them.
Why Parallax Tide was banned
Parallax Tide enters with five fade counters, and you can remove one to exile target land. When Tide leaves the battlefield, every land exiled with it comes back. Players found two ways around that, and Berlin's ban announcement describes both. The first: activate the exile ability up to five times while holding priority, then bounce Tide with Chain of Vapor or destroy it with Seal of Cleansing. The return trigger resolves before any land has been exiled, so nothing comes back, and the exile abilities resolve after it. The second: use the counters to exile lands, and when Tide leaves the battlefield, counter the return trigger with Stifle. In both cases the opponent's lands stay in exile for the rest of the game.
Berlin wrote that Tide was "mainly exploited as a one-sided Armageddon effect". He also wrote that it pushed other decks either to go under it with fast creatures or combo, or to play counterspells, the only reliable way to interact with it, and that it pulled players away from other control decks. Parallax Wave and Phyrexian Dreadnought stayed legal. Our banlist page has the reasons for every banned card.
Which decks gained and which lost since the ban
Tide sat in the sideboard of Stiflenought, at the core of Replenish, and in most Landstill and all Tide Control lists. Here is each deck's share of paper decklists in the three months before the ban and in the nine months since. Online events are left out because their metagame is different; more on that below.
- Terrageddon2.9% → 4.5%
- Sligh6.0% → 7.3%
- Full English Breakfast1.1% → 2.3%
- Landstill4.5% → 5.6%
- Mono Black3.7% → 4.8%
- Replenish4.1% → 5.1%
- The Rock2.2% → 2.8%
- Oath of Druids3.9% → 4.4%
- Gro-a-Tog1.3% → 1.7%
- Enchantress5.3% → 5.6%
- Stiflenought7.0% → 6.9%
- Elves2.2% → 1.8%
- BW Control2.2% → 1.6%
- RG Zoo2.4% → 1.7%
- UG Madness2.1% → 1.4%
- The Solution1.5% → 0.8%
- Devourer combo (Tinker Fling)2.4% → 1.5%
- Goblins7.8% → 6.8%
- Tide Control3.1% → 0.0%
| Deck | Before | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sligh | 6.0% | 6.3% | 7.7% | 7.8% |
| Stiflenought | 7.0% | 6.7% | 6.4% | 7.5% |
| Goblins | 7.8% | 7.2% | 6.7% | 6.5% |
| Replenish | 4.1% | 3.8% | 5.6% | 6.2% |
| Landstill | 4.5% | 6.6% | 4.6% | 5.8% |
| Enchantress | 5.3% | 5.8% | 5.5% | 5.4% |
| Terrageddon | 2.9% | 3.5% | 4.9% | 5.3% |
| Oath of Druids | 3.9% | 4.0% | 4.3% | 5.1% |
| Mono Black | 3.7% | 4.2% | 5.8% | 4.5% |
| Full English Breakfast | 1.1% | 2.0% | 2.5% | 2.5% |
| The Rock | 2.2% | 3.0% | 3.0% | 2.4% |
| Gro-a-Tog | 1.3% | 1.3% | 1.7% | 2.1% |
| RG Zoo | 2.4% | 1.4% | 1.9% | 1.8% |
| BW Control | 2.2% | 2.0% | 1.3% | 1.4% |
| Elves | 2.2% | 2.3% | 1.7% | 1.4% |
| UG Madness | 2.1% | 1.8% | 1.2% | 1.2% |
| Devourer combo (Tinker Fling) | 2.4% | 2.2% | 1.3% | 1.0% |
| The Solution | 1.5% | 1.3% | 0.4% | 0.5% |
| Tide Control | 3.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Share of all paper decklists on MTGTop8. Before: 15 October 2025 to 17 January 2026 (2,151 decklists). Q1: 18 January to 17 April, Q2: 18 April to 17 July, Q3: 18 July to 17 October 2026 (7,277 decklists in all). Green and red mark the clearest changes since the ban (see method). Tide Control counts every deck with Tide in its name.
Terrageddon
Since the ban Terrageddon has won the national championships of Portugal, the United Kingdom, Brazil and the Czech Republic. The UK title went to Martin Berlin himself, at the first UK Nationals in May. Its list has changed along the way. The deck plays green-white creatures, Wasteland and Rishadan Port, then Armageddon to destroy every land while Terravore grows from all the land cards in the graveyards. Before the ban most lists used red only in the sideboard. In the last three months most of them splashed it in the mana base, through Karplusan Forest and Battlefield Forge, and a little under half also played red spells in the main deck, usually Earthquake, Pyroclasm or Fire // Ice. Werebear joined most lists, while Meddling Mage, Exalted Angel and Cataclysm, which many lists played before the ban, have mostly left. Our Terrageddon guide has the current list.
Full English Breakfast and Gro-a-Tog
Full English Breakfast, the Hermit Druid graveyard combo deck, more than doubled its paper share, and its lists changed too: Battlefield Scrounger and Animate Dead are now in nearly every list, Shallow Grave in about half of the lists since September, and Pyroclasm went into most sideboards, while Duress mostly left. Stefano Loffredo won Coppa Etrusca with it in May.
Gro-a-Tog, a five-color tempo deck built around Quirion Dryad and Psychatog, grew more slowly. MTGTop8 files it under several names (GAT, Grow, Gro-a-tog); counted together, its share was flat in the first three months after the ban and has grown since. In October Florian Schiff won Eurofest in Valencia with it, the biggest European event on MTGTop8 since the ban.
Mono Black and Sligh
Berlin wrote that the ban was not meant to boost black, though it might shift the balance between the colors. Mono Black did grow, most of all in the second quarter, and its lists changed: Nantuko Shade and Cursed Scroll are now in most of them, Knight of Stromgald in about four of ten, and Phyrexian Arena mostly left.
Sligh grew from the second quarter on and was narrowly the most common paper deck of the last three months, just ahead of Stiflenought. The classic lists, filed as Sligh (RDW) on MTGTop8, moved away from Ball Lightning and Lava Dart toward Mishra's Factory, Earthquake and Goblin Vandal. Next to them a second mono-red build that MTGTop8 files as Burn, with Black Vise and Mishra's Factory but almost no Ball Lightning or Jackal Pup, went from 3 paper lists before the ban to 15 in the last three months. We count both as Sligh, as our tier list does.
Decks that lost ground
The Solution lost about half of its paper share, UG Madness (counted with its Survival build) about a third. The Devourer combo deck that MTGTop8 files as Tinker Fling (Tinker, Phyrexian Devourer and Fling) fell below one percent in the last three months. Elves, which Berlin described as resilient to Tide and strong against Tide Control, slipped as well, and so did BW Control and RG Zoo, although Francesco Santinelli won 4Seasons Spring in Bologna with RG Zoo. Goblins, the most played paper deck before the ban, is still in the top three but smaller than it was.
Stiflenought, Sligh and the online gap
Magic Online added Premodern in December 2025, and online decklists (Magic Online leagues and challenges, webcam events) went from about a fifth of everything MTGTop8 records before the ban to about a third since. The online field looks different: since the ban Stiflenought makes up 15.1% of online decklists against 6.9% in paper, Enchantress 10.7% against 5.6%. That is why the comparison above counts paper only.
Counted over all decklists, online included, Stiflenought and Goblins were level before the ban, and since the ban Stiflenought is clearly ahead. In paper it shares the top with Sligh: counting every paper event on MTGTop8 with a single winner, Sligh has won 87 events since the ban and Stiflenought 83, ahead of Enchantress (82) and Replenish (77).
What the old Tide decks play now
Chain of Vapor and Stifle, two of the three support cards of the Tide tricks, are in far fewer lists across the format now. The third, Seal of Cleansing, is a main-deck card in Enchantress and Replenish and stayed. Swords to Plowshares (a staple of Terrageddon, Landstill, Replenish and Gro-a-Tog) and Wasteland (Terrageddon and Mono Black) are in more lists than before. Share of paper decklists that play the card in the main deck or sideboard:
| Card | Before | Q3 |
|---|---|---|
| Chain of Vapor | 19.9% | 11.8% |
| Stifle | 17.1% | 10.6% |
| Force Spike | 2.9% | 0.3% |
| Seal of Cleansing | 23.2% | 23.8% |
| Armageddon | 8.0% | 10.9% |
| Decree of Silence | 0.0% | 6.4% |
| Back to Basics | 0.6% | 4.5% |
| Werebear | 0.7% | 3.4% |
| Swords to Plowshares | 35.0% | 42.1% |
| Wasteland | 29.5% | 34.2% |
Paper decklists on MTGTop8, before the ban (15 October 2025 to 17 January 2026) and in Q3 (18 July to 17 October 2026). Green and red mark the clearest changes.
Stiflenought
Stiflenought kept its core of Phyrexian Dreadnought, Stifle and free spells like Daze, Foil and Gush, and changed much of the rest. Tide was in four of five Stiflenought sideboards before the ban. In the last three months Back to Basics, which stops nonbasic lands from untapping, has been in about three of five. Thwart, Misdirection and Peek are now in more than half of the main decks, Powder Keg moved over from the sideboard, and Mishra's Factory went from 84% of lists to 4%.
Replenish
Every Replenish list played Tide. Its place went to Decree of Silence, an enchantment that counters the opponent's next three spells and comes back with Replenish like the deck's other enchantments; it is now in almost every list. Abeyance, before the ban a sideboard card, is now in about seven of ten main decks, while City of Traitors and Stifle almost left. The sideboard now plays Meddling Mage and Exalted Angel in nearly every list. Replenish dipped in the first three months after the ban and has grown since; Brian Siu won the North American Championship with it (see below).
Landstill and Tide Control
Before the ban, most lists MTGTop8 filed as Landstill were really Tidestill: three in four played Tide and Chain of Vapor, two in three Stifle. Those cards are almost gone. Most Landstill lists now play Powder Keg, Phyrexian Furnace and Prohibit, and about half run Exalted Angel in the main deck. Landstill's share jumped right after the ban and has stayed above its old level since.
Decks called Tide Control disappeared with the card. Of the 51 players who had a Tide Control list on MTGTop8 in the three months before the ban, 39 have recorded decks since, as far as the names match. Most often their main deck since the ban is Stiflenought (8 players), then Psychatog (5) and Replenish (4).
Enchantress
Enchantress changed mostly in the sideboard. Carpet of Flowers, which makes mana from the opponent's Islands, was in four of five sideboards before the ban and is close to gone, while Tormod's Crypt went into nearly every list. In the main deck Exploration dropped from almost every list to seven in ten.
Who wins the big events now
For his announcement Berlin counted the Top 8s of all Swiss events with 65 or more players in 2025. Stiflenought, Tide Control and Replenish took 81 of the 271 Top 8 spots and 12 of the 34 titles. We ran the same count on MTGTop8 for the nine months since the ban, with every paper event of 65 or more players: 33 events with more than 4,300 players and 263 Top 8 decks. Stiflenought and Replenish, now without Tide, took 44 of those spots and 5 of the titles. For the three months before the ban the same count on MTGTop8 gives 23 of 94 spots for Stiflenought, Replenish and Tide Control, so the drop is smaller than the comparison with Berlin's 2025 figure suggests. MTGTop8 doesn't record which events ran Swiss rounds, so unlike Berlin we could not filter for that. Stiflenought has more big Top 8s than any other deck.
Sligh, Goblins and Terrageddon won four of these events each. The eleven biggest main events (side events left out):
| Event | Month | Players | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lobstercon 2026, North American Championship | May | 317 | Replenish, Brian Siu |
| Eurofest 2026 (Valencia) | Oct | 272 | Gro-a-Tog, Florian Schiff |
| Brazil Nationals 2026 (São Paulo) | Aug | 225 | Terrageddon, Rubens Campana |
| European Championship 2026 (Gdańsk) | Sep | 218 | Stiflenought, Simone Fierro |
| Italian Nationals 2026 | Feb | 189 | GR Survival, Frank Roelofs |
| Czech Nationals 2026 (Prague) | Sep | 185 | Terrageddon, Michal Smutný |
| 4Seasons Winter (Bologna) | Feb | 170 | Goblins, Patrick Pouwels |
| Portuguese Nationals 2026 (Coimbra) | Apr | 166 | Terrageddon, Joao Sena |
| 4Seasons Spring (Bologna) | Jun | 156 | RG Zoo, Francesco Santinelli |
| Bogardan War II (Bologna) | Sep | 139 | Stiflenought, Steven Minelli |
| Coppa Etrusca 2026 (Riparbella) | May | 138 | Full English Breakfast, Stefano Loffredo |
Results from MTGTop8. Player counts from MTGTop8, for Lobstercon and Czech Nationals the numbers from our earlier reports. Gro-a-Tog is filed as GAT on MTGTop8, RG Zoo as Rg Senigallia.
Berlin's announcement also shows the 2025 results of three of these titles. Jouni Souvela won the 2025 European Championship in Tampere with UW Tide Control, and Niklas Scholten the 2025 Czech Nationals with mono-blue Tide Control. At the 2025 North American Championship at Lobstercon, Justin Provencal's Stiflenought, one of the Tide lists Berlin showed, lost the final to Rich Shay on Enchantress. In 2026 these titles went to Simone Fierro (Stiflenought), Michal Smutný (Terrageddon) and Brian Siu (Replenish). Outside the eleven biggest, Ivan De Castro won the European Masters in Valencia with Elves (110 players), and an Oath build won Buckeye Brawl II in Columbus, Ohio (125 players).
Berlin's outlook, checked
The ban announcement of 18 January looked ahead and also described how Tide had shaped the format. Here is how those points hold up in the decklists.
| Berlin wrote | Nine months later |
|---|---|
| Stiflenought would stay the deck to beat. | Yes: the most decklists overall, the most big Top 8s and the European Championship title. |
| Stiflenought could go back to splashing white for Armageddon. | Rarely: 30 of 1,072 Stiflenought lists since the ban play Armageddon. Its sideboard picked up Back to Basics. |
| The ban's most direct effect would seem to push Enchantress. | Not in paper, where its share stayed about where it was. Online it is twice as common. |
| Open question: will Replenish stay with Swords to Plowshares and Parallax Wave, perhaps with Decree of Silence, or turn into a combo build like Pande-Burst? | The first, with Decree of Silence. Pandemonium stayed rare. |
| Tide had held back The Rock, BW Control and Lands, though none of them was top tier before Tide. | None of them has grown clearly since: The Rock rose for a while and is back where it was, BW Control is slightly down, Lands barely shows up. |
| UW Tide Control had largely replaced Landstill. | Landstill is bigger than before the ban, and Tide Control is gone. |
| Magic Online, where Stiflenought and Sligh were especially frequent, should not spill over into paper much. | Partly: Stiflenought is about twice as common online as in paper and its paper share barely moved, but Sligh grew in paper. |
| In his UK Nationals report in May: the ban would not change Terrageddon's place in the meta much. | Terrageddon gained more paper share than any other deck since the ban. |
| The ban might open the format to more brewing. | Mixed: the ten most played decks went from 48% of paper decklists before the ban to 57% in the last three months, while the big events had 16 different winners. |
Paraphrased from the ban announcement by Martin Berlin on premodernmagic.com, the Terrageddon row from his report on the first UK Nationals. Phil Nguyen collected the community's predictions at the time in a roundtable in his newsletter Banding.
How this report is made
The decklists are every Premodern deck on MTGTop8 from 15 October 2025 to 17 October 2026: 13,711 lists with main deck and sideboard, 2,657 from before the ban and 11,054 from after it. Metagame shares count paper events only (2,151 decklists before, 7,277 since). Deck names follow MTGTop8, grouped into the archetypes of our tier list: GAT, Grow and Gro-a-tog count as Gro-a-Tog, Burn and Sligh (RDW) as Sligh, Moneyball as Mono Black, UG Survival Madness as UG Madness, and every deck with Tide in its name as Tide Control. Names we could not place clearly, such as Mono Black Control or UW Control, stay separate. A card counts when it is in the main deck or sideboard; card shares within a deck count all lists, online included. MTGTop8 lists a few decks twice (same event, place and list under two player names); we count each list once. For the number of different winners, the two Survival decks (GR Survival and Welder Survival) count as one. Colored values and marks show changes too large to be chance at the usual 95 percent level (about two standard errors). The big events are paper events with 65 or more players, as in Berlin's count; his 2025 numbers come from TCDecks, ours from MTGTop8.
A shift since the ban doesn't prove the ban caused it: decks also change because of new builds, results and who travels to which events. MTGTop8 doesn't record every tournament, and smaller events often list only the Top 8, so all numbers are shares of recorded decklists. Our monthly metagame reports use MTGDecks, which counts differently.
Questions
Is Parallax Tide banned in Premodern?
Yes. Parallax Tide has been banned in Premodern since 18 January 2026, effective at once for paper events and from 20 January on Magic Online. It is the most recent change to the banlist.
Why was Parallax Tide banned?
Players made its land exile permanent. They bounced Tide with Chain of Vapor or destroyed it with Seal of Cleansing while its exile abilities were still on the stack, or countered its return trigger with Stifle. Martin Berlin's ban announcement says it worked like a one-sided Armageddon and pushed other decks to be fast or play counterspells.
Is Parallax Wave banned in Premodern?
No, Parallax Wave is legal. Berlin's announcement discussed it and kept it legal, partly because losing creatures is easier to come back from than losing lands. It is a staple of Replenish and Enchantress.
What is the most played Premodern deck since the Parallax Tide ban?
Across all decklists on MTGTop8, including Magic Online, Stiflenought. In paper events Sligh and Stiflenought are level, with Goblins third.
