I actually loved thrag+resto. In contrast, I really hate mono red, so I guess that I liked that when RTR came out, mono red didn't dictate the whole format, like it did this season. I like varied metas and rtr gave us that. yes it was a lot of life gain, but then I saw some crazy decks that actually did fine Omnidoor Thragfire anyone?
Thragtusk was never at $40, maybe for pre-orders I guess. In the time I got the play this standard I played U/R Delver, then with Young Pyromancer and Goblin Electromancer. Playing 3 mana Essence Backlashs in games filled with Thragtusk was fun.
Yeah... to preorder he was like $2 and considered garbage until scars rotated out. Only then did he jump to around $15-20. He was not expensive at all. Jund was expensive, or bant or whatever other top tier deck, but not the thragtusk. they printed him in a lot of things....
Was a lot better than this season. Granted near the end it was a lot of Jund and Control, but still. People would play WBr/Junk Rites/Esper/RWU/Jund/Bant and other fun decks. A lot more decisions had to be made.
Without looking up any decks, this is what I recall:
-Mana bases totally unlimited with the perfect storm of Innistrad/M13 buddy-lands and RTR/GTC shocklands, and Cavern of Souls.
-Counterspells and removal were very weak compared to the creatures.
Honestly, I hated it, jund was basically like fifty percent of the metagame, and uwr was like another twenty percent, and thragtusk was too good, and i know i sound like a whiny ***** right now but i just did not like. Plus, i couldnt afford like any of the shocks, so i was stuck with mono red.
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"Black should at least be able to kill stuff, right?"
"Actually, if you look at the official color pie, that falls into blue's part"
-Year 2047
it was a great time, you could drop hundred dollar bills on a deck, and then rape and pillage several LGS's and win it all back in the form of store credit in about 3 weeks.
haven't played standard since rotation, moderns just more avaible where i'm at.
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Decks: "Name one! I probably got it built In one of these boxes."
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[I]Some call it dig through time, when really your digging through CRAP!
Merfolk! showing magic players what a shower is since Lorwyn!
While Thragtusk was annoying, Restoration Angel is what actually made the card a problem. Either card by itself was simply just a value creature, but when combined drew games out way too long.
On the other hand, I honestly truly miss Junk Aristocrats. It was almost always a game of inches, strongly rewarded tight play, and was consistent without being boring. The end of the format was one of the more diverse and interesting standard formats I've ever played, and I greatly enjoyed it (except for the miracle mechanic, that was so horribly thought out and personified everything I dislike about the direction Magic has gone over the past 15 years).
I think this video is strongly indicative of what that format was like. It's also the match that made Reid Duke my favorite pro player. I did enjoy that format despite it really being dominated by Thragtusk it was never short of other powerful cards that pushed Thragtusk to the top or brought him back down from it.
The problem with thragtusk was that it was very good against aggro and control decks, and not exactly weak in midrange matchups either. Bonfire of the Damned was the meanest least fun card as even if you could stabilize your board and life total, top decking that card often just ended the game. But this format did allow a B/W human deck with excellent synergies thanks to Xathrid Necromancer. And keep in mind Delver of Secrets and Mutavault were barely played at all.
Oh and farseek made jund decks far too consistent.
Moorland haunt+Haunted Platemail and Ghost Quarter in my U/W control deck was a lot of fun and a justification to stay in 2 colors. Control decks then had quite a lot of creatures between Aetherling, Augur of Bolas, Snapcaster Mage, and Restoration Angel. That was when utility lands were playable but not broken. We had mutavault but I don't think anyone played it.
Cavern of Souls
Gavony Township
Kessig Wolfrun
Nephalia Drownyard
Moorland haunt
Ghost Quarter
even Desolate Lighthouse
gavony, kessig, nephalia, moorland, and lighthouse couldn't be splashed into 90% of all decks either.
Looking back, I actually prefer it to the current standard. I played R mainly, which turned into RG eventually. I did well enough for myself, but the MU's for me appeared to have little interaction once thrag comes down, then resto, or angel of serenity... Or worst of all, slime into resto (i literally got knocked out of placing in multiple events by ending the game with 0-2 lands). Second to that only comes the naya blitz trend, which had just as much interaction when they land triple BTE.
I wish I had been able to play in Inn-RTR Standard, but I started playing Magic competitively when Dragons' maze came out and I thought that it would be too late to invest in Standard (Burning Earth would have ruined everything anyways). I would have loved being able to play combo in Standard, but I missed my chance and now there aren't any Standard combo decks.
Combo wasn't much of a thing last standard. Omni-Door was about it, and it was barely a combo.
It was largely midrange or control good stuff.
I beg to differ. I took first a couple times in a fairly competitive area with BloodMage Combo. Mind you, it was an Orzhov control deck that occasionally just went infinite, but it used Exquisite Blood to its fullest potential with Vampire Nighthawk, Blood Baron, and Obzedat. I'm surprised I never saw BloodMage more often.
OT: I really enjoyed this format. Honestly, the only format I didn't really like since I started was SCARS-INNISTRAD. Because Turn 2 Infect kills are irritating.
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Level 1 Judge
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
INN-RTR Standard had mana that was nearly as good as Modern, but spells had nowhere near the brutal efficiency they have in that format. As a result, mono-value midrangey decks that played a lot of the same cards dominated, and it was a very amorphous format where you had 4-5 decks around at any given time all of which had 60% of their spells in common with one another.
I have a theory that this kind of format appeals to people who like fine-tuning decks. Since decks exist more on a loose continuum than as separate entities, you can sort of adjust your naya midrange deck to be more like the bant midrange deck, or maybe you want it to be more like the BUG midrange deck.
I imagine it probably annoys everyone else because it makes it easier to play correctly and still fail (Because you have less information about what your opponent is doing, since decks play a bunch of the same lands and a bunch of the same cards). It also creates the feeling that you're constantly playing midrange mirrors where Thragtusks and Angels of Serenity are flying all over the place and games never end.
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
I wish I had been able to play in Inn-RTR Standard, but I started playing Magic competitively when Dragons' maze came out and I thought that it would be too late to invest in Standard (Burning Earth would have ruined everything anyways). I would have loved being able to play combo in Standard, but I missed my chance and now there aren't any Standard combo decks.
Combo wasn't much of a thing last standard. Omni-Door was about it, and it was barely a combo.
It was largely midrange or control good stuff.
I beg to differ. I took first a couple times in a fairly competitive area with BloodMage Combo. Mind you, it was an Orzhov control deck that occasionally just went infinite, but it used Exquisite Blood to its fullest potential with Vampire Nighthawk, Blood Baron, and Obzedat. I'm surprised I never saw BloodMage more often.
OT: I really enjoyed this format. Honestly, the only format I didn't really like since I started was SCARS-INNISTRAD. Because Turn 2 Infect kills are irritating.
Yes, there were a handful of other combos. But there are a handful of infinite combos in standard right now, and most of the ones are no more or less difficult to pull off than that combo. Granted that deck has other ways to win, and could just go full midrange if need be. Still, the format was largely devoid of combo aside from the Omnidoor being the "major" combo deck. Others existed, but were fringe at absolute best in terms of how strong consistent they are. BloodMage just played good creatures and occassionally comboed, as well as having the benefit of being a good meta deck in certain areas. In areas with a diversified field, where many decks being run aren't naturally poor against it it faltered due to not being able to handle certain threats and the like. More or less, anyway. It wasn't a bad deck, but it never really went anywhere big.
And really, the point was that there weren't very many combo decks at all around, and certainly not a great deal viable ones. I would put BloodMage as sort of viable, depending, but not prolific in the least (And certainly not as prolific as OmniDoor).
Really, last standard could be defined fairly accurately as a Midrange environment, with the "combo" decks often just having a single combo piece to say "Oops, I win" every once in a while.
If your deck had any green whatsoever, you had 2-4x Thragtusk.
If your deck didn't have any green whatsoever, you had mainboard answers to Thragtusk.
I miss flashback, Omniscience, and Snapcaster Mage, but boy do I not miss Thragtusk.
There were no good answers to Thragtusk, really. Undying kind of answered it on parity, but not really. And if you were in green, you best believe that there were 4x Farseeks mained in your deck.
Frankly, the environment was largely defined by Restoration Angel moreso than Thragtusk. Every damn play you made in the game if playing against white involved figuring out if they had a damn Angel in hand or not (Probably the most popular color overall just ahead of or on par with green). And god forbid someone is playing G/W with a turn 4 Thragtusk. Then you know your life is going to be miserable as they go straight to value town.
The meta shifted in my area maybe once a month. Granted Snapcaster(eff him) and Thrag(double eff him) were still plenty but you wouldn't always be seeing the same stuff. Though you always knew if U or G was there you would see them eventually and "think twice end of your turn" got old.
But I was able to transition my UB zombies into a pretty kickass GB zombie so I was happy. That was my favorite deck to play and it always made me be inventive.
INN-RTR was fun, would switch up but sometimes would get stale. Nothing unlike today and the guy at my shop who always runs control and feels annoying to face.
I'm feeling a little nostalgic about how much more the sets in that standard shook things up. It seemed every month different decks were turning up and making it big. Granted, Dragon's Maze didn't change much, but even then there was a brief surge in Selesnya and Junk tokens decks with Voice of Resurgence. And yes, there were a lot of different decks using the same good cards, but it also meant turn 1 and 2 did not automatically reveal which archetype you were playing against.
There are many cards I enjoy from Theros, but I feel that Born of the Gods and Journey Into Nyx haven't really shifted the metagame all that much. You could take a deck that was good back in October to a FNM now and not really have to worry about any surprising shifts that might have invalidated your game plan.
It was one of the most fun Standard era's of all time. There was a lot of balance in my area not one deck always won on FNM. So many playable deck types and variations. The whole Guilds thing was a success. Brimstone Volley won me a bunch of games and a FNM. Awesome mechanics like Exalted, Undying, Morbid and the Guild mechanics. Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay became Legacy and Modern staples right away. The repint of Shock Lands and Check Lands made multi color decks more fun and consistent. Lots of useful Commons and Uncommons, probably the most of any time frame. I havent seen so much excitement and so many new MTG players in a long time.
As someone who played a lot from M12 - Innistrad and quit shortly after RTR, I can say that the true glory days of standard (at least in the past few years) was when RDW had cards like Goblin Guide, Lightning Bolt, Staggershock, and Shrine of Burning Rage. Snapcaster U/R burn was a close second. But I'm biased because I'm poor and love red. /2cents
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"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire." - Jaya Ballard
It was pretty boring, but infinitely better than the current Standard. I played Delver, which wasn't too fun, but did extremely well vs. everything. The matches that would be the most competitive were Bx Zombies and Naya Pod.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
WWUGeist of Saint TraftUWW
UUBBLazav, Dimir MastermindBBUU
BRMalfegorRB
RGThromok the InsatiableGR
GGWWTrostani, Selesnya's VoiceWWGG
WBTeysa, Orzhov ScionBW
BGGGlissa, the TraitorGGB
GGUUPrime Speaker ZeganaUUGG
URJhoira of the GhituRU
RRWWAurelia, the WarleaderWWRR
UBRJeleva, Nephalias ScourgeRBU
Yeah... to preorder he was like $2 and considered garbage until scars rotated out. Only then did he jump to around $15-20. He was not expensive at all. Jund was expensive, or bant or whatever other top tier deck, but not the thragtusk. they printed him in a lot of things....
WWUGeist of Saint TraftUWW
UUBBLazav, Dimir MastermindBBUU
BRMalfegorRB
RGThromok the InsatiableGR
GGWWTrostani, Selesnya's VoiceWWGG
WBTeysa, Orzhov ScionBW
BGGGlissa, the TraitorGGB
GGUUPrime Speaker ZeganaUUGG
URJhoira of the GhituRU
RRWWAurelia, the WarleaderWWRR
UBRJeleva, Nephalias ScourgeRBU
-Mana bases totally unlimited with the perfect storm of Innistrad/M13 buddy-lands and RTR/GTC shocklands, and Cavern of Souls.
-Counterspells and removal were very weak compared to the creatures.
-Jund-
Farseek, Huntmaster of the Fells, Thragtusk, Olivia Voldaren, Bonfire of the Damned, and Putrefy.
-Junk Reanimator-
Grisly Salvage, Mulch, Unburial Rites, Thragtusk, Angel of Serenity, and Centaur Healer. Occasionally Craterhoof Behemoth made an appearance.
-Mono red-
Rakdos Cackler, Ash Zealot and other cheap creatures leading into a turn-4 kill with Hellrider or turn 5 with Thundermaw Hellkite.
-BR Zombies-
Gravecrawler, Diregraf Ghoul, Knight of Infamy, Falkenrath Aristocrat, and Blood Artist.
-The Aristocrats-
Cartel Aristocrat, Falkenrath Aristocrat, Lingering Souls, Doomed Traveler, Tragic Slip, Gather the Townsfolk, and Champion of the Parish.
-Naya Blitz-
Champion of the Parish, Mayor of Avabruck, Burning-Tree Emissary paired with Lightning Mauler, Frontline Medic and Boros Charm to keep attacking.
-UW Flash-
Thought Scour, Snapcaster Mage, Restoration Angel, Augur of Bolas, Misthollow Griffin and Moorland Haunt to reuse them. Runechanter's Pike and instants eventually connected to win.
"Actually, if you look at the official color pie, that falls into blue's part"
-Year 2047
haven't played standard since rotation, moderns just more avaible where i'm at.
Twitter- RogueSource.
Decks: "Name one! I probably got it built In one of these boxes."
---------------------------------------------------
Vintage will rise again! Buy a Mox today!
---------------------------------------------------
[I]Some call it dig through time, when really your digging through CRAP!
Merfolk! showing magic players what a shower is since Lorwyn!
On the other hand, I honestly truly miss Junk Aristocrats. It was almost always a game of inches, strongly rewarded tight play, and was consistent without being boring. The end of the format was one of the more diverse and interesting standard formats I've ever played, and I greatly enjoyed it (except for the miracle mechanic, that was so horribly thought out and personified everything I dislike about the direction Magic has gone over the past 15 years).
I think this video is strongly indicative of what that format was like. It's also the match that made Reid Duke my favorite pro player. I did enjoy that format despite it really being dominated by Thragtusk it was never short of other powerful cards that pushed Thragtusk to the top or brought him back down from it.
Oh and farseek made jund decks far too consistent.
Cavern of Souls
Gavony Township
Kessig Wolfrun
Nephalia Drownyard
Moorland haunt
Ghost Quarter
even Desolate Lighthouse
gavony, kessig, nephalia, moorland, and lighthouse couldn't be splashed into 90% of all decks either.
I beg to differ. I took first a couple times in a fairly competitive area with BloodMage Combo. Mind you, it was an Orzhov control deck that occasionally just went infinite, but it used Exquisite Blood to its fullest potential with Vampire Nighthawk, Blood Baron, and Obzedat. I'm surprised I never saw BloodMage more often.
OT: I really enjoyed this format. Honestly, the only format I didn't really like since I started was SCARS-INNISTRAD. Because Turn 2 Infect kills are irritating.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
I have a theory that this kind of format appeals to people who like fine-tuning decks. Since decks exist more on a loose continuum than as separate entities, you can sort of adjust your naya midrange deck to be more like the bant midrange deck, or maybe you want it to be more like the BUG midrange deck.
I imagine it probably annoys everyone else because it makes it easier to play correctly and still fail (Because you have less information about what your opponent is doing, since decks play a bunch of the same lands and a bunch of the same cards). It also creates the feeling that you're constantly playing midrange mirrors where Thragtusks and Angels of Serenity are flying all over the place and games never end.
If your deck didn't have any green whatsoever, you had mainboard answers to Thragtusk.
I miss flashback, Omniscience, and Snapcaster Mage, but boy do I not miss Thragtusk.
Yes, there were a handful of other combos. But there are a handful of infinite combos in standard right now, and most of the ones are no more or less difficult to pull off than that combo. Granted that deck has other ways to win, and could just go full midrange if need be. Still, the format was largely devoid of combo aside from the Omnidoor being the "major" combo deck. Others existed, but were fringe at absolute best in terms of how strong consistent they are. BloodMage just played good creatures and occassionally comboed, as well as having the benefit of being a good meta deck in certain areas. In areas with a diversified field, where many decks being run aren't naturally poor against it it faltered due to not being able to handle certain threats and the like. More or less, anyway. It wasn't a bad deck, but it never really went anywhere big.
And really, the point was that there weren't very many combo decks at all around, and certainly not a great deal viable ones. I would put BloodMage as sort of viable, depending, but not prolific in the least (And certainly not as prolific as OmniDoor).
Really, last standard could be defined fairly accurately as a Midrange environment, with the "combo" decks often just having a single combo piece to say "Oops, I win" every once in a while.
There were no good answers to Thragtusk, really. Undying kind of answered it on parity, but not really. And if you were in green, you best believe that there were 4x Farseeks mained in your deck.
Frankly, the environment was largely defined by Restoration Angel moreso than Thragtusk. Every damn play you made in the game if playing against white involved figuring out if they had a damn Angel in hand or not (Probably the most popular color overall just ahead of or on par with green). And god forbid someone is playing G/W with a turn 4 Thragtusk. Then you know your life is going to be miserable as they go straight to value town.
But I was able to transition my UB zombies into a pretty kickass GB zombie so I was happy. That was my favorite deck to play and it always made me be inventive.
INN-RTR was fun, would switch up but sometimes would get stale. Nothing unlike today and the guy at my shop who always runs control and feels annoying to face.
Standard
WBGWBGABZAN AGGROWBGWBG
I'm feeling a little nostalgic about how much more the sets in that standard shook things up. It seemed every month different decks were turning up and making it big. Granted, Dragon's Maze didn't change much, but even then there was a brief surge in Selesnya and Junk tokens decks with Voice of Resurgence. And yes, there were a lot of different decks using the same good cards, but it also meant turn 1 and 2 did not automatically reveal which archetype you were playing against.
There are many cards I enjoy from Theros, but I feel that Born of the Gods and Journey Into Nyx haven't really shifted the metagame all that much. You could take a deck that was good back in October to a FNM now and not really have to worry about any surprising shifts that might have invalidated your game plan.
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
Mizzix Of The Izmagnus : wheels on fire... rolling down the road...
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
Innistrad's value cards made every game feel flashy and over the top, and the lack of thoughtseize and Lifebane Zombie let sweet interactions and huge plays actually come together. I was a big fan - Thragtusk, Invisible Stalker, Bonfire of the Damned and all.
"Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire." - Jaya Ballard
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)