M13, to me, seemed as though the overall colors are relatively balanced from a far off standpoint. Now when I say far off standpoint, I mean taking several steps back, absorbing what each color has, how it plays, ect., and asking yourself "could this color play decently given the card pool against this other color?"
In addition to this, I could not help but notice the massive amounts of "mass hate" and flying hate. Several cards immediately come to mind: Chandra's Fury, Cower in Fear, Magmaquake, Mutilate, Planar Cleansing, Public Execution (sorta...), Rain of Blades, Silklash Spider, Sleep, and Thundermaw Hellkite. All of this, not even including some of the mass effects in Innistrad. It is almost like screaming "Beat the living crap out of those things of evil spawned by Lingering Souls... It's not just hate for spirit decks though, but also some hate was included against graveyard recursion, or graveyard shenanigans (I'm looking at you Snapcaster Mage) with the addition of Ground Seal as well as Tormod's Crypt. Starting with innistrad, and slightly carrying over into M13, I've also noticed more of an "alone" theme, and Rancor just makes this "alone" theme all the more possible. Sure, if the one creature dies, you don't have any current blockers unless you have a very unreasonable beast (cough cough Thragtusk), but Rancor goes back to your hand and you can just pump up the next one to trample over any remaining token decks once M13 takes a stronger hold, most likely after the next rotation.
With so much hate towards many of the themes in innistrad, I have almost no clue where standards going to go, which could be a good thing: having tons of different deck types. The main thing I'm still dreading over though is the possibility of green/blue invisible stalker pump with rancor, butchers cleaver, ect., and although you could target the equipment and enchantments, blue is known to have answers to that.
In addition to this, I could not help but notice the massive amounts of "mass hate" and flying hate. Several cards immediately come to mind: Chandra's Fury, Cower in Fear, Magmaquake, Mutilate, Planar Cleansing, Public Execution (sorta...), Rain of Blades, Silklash Spider, Sleep, and Thundermaw Hellkite. All of this, not even including some of the mass effects in Innistrad. It is almost like screaming "Beat the living crap out of those things of evil spawned by Lingering Souls... It's not just hate for spirit decks though, but also some hate was included against graveyard recursion, or graveyard shenanigans (I'm looking at you Snapcaster Mage) with the addition of Ground Seal as well as Tormod's Crypt. Starting with innistrad, and slightly carrying over into M13, I've also noticed more of an "alone" theme, and Rancor just makes this "alone" theme all the more possible. Sure, if the one creature dies, you don't have any current blockers unless you have a very unreasonable beast (cough cough Thragtusk), but Rancor goes back to your hand and you can just pump up the next one to trample over any remaining token decks once M13 takes a stronger hold, most likely after the next rotation.
With so much hate towards many of the themes in innistrad, I have almost no clue where standards going to go, which could be a good thing: having tons of different deck types. The main thing I'm still dreading over though is the possibility of green/blue invisible stalker pump with rancor, butchers cleaver, ect., and although you could target the equipment and enchantments, blue is known to have answers to that.
So, what are your thoughts?
There would have been a message here about Jace, but Jace feigned interest and counterspelled any other reference of him in my signature...
Special Thanks to Spiderboy4 at //forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=91142">High~Light Studios for making an awesome avatar in a timely manner!