I heard some people at my LGS talking about the possibility of a larger standard (3 blocks) and they claimed it would lead to more diversity. What are your thoughts on the matter?
It would certainly allow for more decks to be viable (Standard Dredge using Innistrad-Theros anyone?) and there would be lots more time for core sets to impact standard. All in all, not a bad idea.
Sounds like a lovely idea, but may be harder to generate 3 separate sets where broken or unfair decks don't exist. Wonder if control would be unbearable if Restoration Angel, Sphinx's Revelation, and Elspeth were all in the same deck. Or if mono-black got to splash for olivia voldaren. Or monsters could play huntmaster and thragtusk. Ironically mono blue still wouldn't change.
I hadn't thought about that. It's 2 am here and I'm currently brewing decks for post M15 Standard. The degeneracy of control would be outlandish. But it doesn't hurt that every deck would have access to degeneracy pieces. Guess we'll never know.
And That's true about mono blue. Maybe they splash for Geist? They wouldn't mind Tamiyo, but they don't run enough I/S for Delver and Snap
Sounds like a lovely idea, but may be harder to generate 3 separate sets where broken or unfair decks don't exist. Wonder if control would be unbearable if Restoration Angel, Sphinx's Revelation, and Elspeth were all in the same dec
You even forgot the biggest one in Snapcaster Mage.
Yes there would have been a lot of sweet pieces.
I would love that actually, would make speculation more fun, as you would have to dig deeper to find the pieces you need, however, with so much base knowledge, a new player comming into the standard season after the second set is release, just before the last, they have to back-track to get card from two years ago.
This is just not a good way to make new players to the game, last years cards are attainable. but cards from 2012 would probably deter them.
Personally I would love it. But I think it would detract from some of the design space, forcing them to further balance super powerful cards like liliana, snapcaster, revelation and boros reckoner. I want my boros human decks to have Champion of the Parish though.
Lol I could never afford snapcaster in my U/W control deck so it never occurred to me. And I also forgot how much stronger little liliana would have made mono-black. I just think that if you had more blocks playable that it actually narrows the field of playable cards, such as pack rat and nightveil spectre and desecration demon which saw zero play last season.
I think it could be a useful way to raise the powerlevel of standard just a bit. If nothing else it would add diversity to standard, which is never a bad thing.
I think it could be a useful way to raise the powerlevel of standard just a bit. If nothing else it would add diversity to standard, which is never a bad thing.
rather the opposite would happen. to avoid having crazy format beakers decks, the overall power level of the sets would be pushed even further down.
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Well I started last year so I've only seen 3 blocks, but I don't think it would work looking back to Innistrad. It could maybe work going forward. Those Innistrad cards were way more powerful and expensive. There's not many rotating cards that fit that mold right now, maybe Revelation/Jace, Mutavault, Domri, and Voice. Voice still barely sees play because of Lifebane Zombie. Oh yeah, another year of Lifebane Zombie would be awful as well as 2 more years of Thoughtseize and Elspeth.
Personally, I feel like the core sets could hold on for another year. So standard would after next rotation for example would be M14, Theros, M15, and Khans. Not a lot more cards than normal but I think it could keep thinga more interesting.
If every deck is OP then no deck is OP. Of course they would have develop with that in mind, but think of standard with INN M14 RTR M14 THS M15 all being legal at once. Not that bad of a mix as is.
There's a couple really good reasons for Wizards not to go with a larger standard. One is that they want to be able to have each standard be a different experience. If only 1/3 of the cards involved in standard change with each rotation, then they'd have to either keep escalating the power level, or just accept that, for example, Scars of Mirrodin-Innistrad-Return to Ravnica standard looks a lot like Innistrad-Return to Ravnica-Theros standard. Neither of those are options R&D wants very much. Mana bases would also spiral out of control, given that they want to support full sets of dual lands in block now, so every color combination would have three different sets of duals to pick from, at minimum. Secondly, and probably more importantly, they did market research during Ravnica-Time Spiral and Time Spiral-Lorwyn that there was a not insignificant portion of the playing community that felt that standard was too big. Considering your three block standard would likely be bigger than either of those (even taking into consideration that Coldsnap was in there, and Tenth Edition was a large core set than we get these day), it seems unlikely they'd want to risk repeating the same problem.
Each set tends to have a few very, very strong cards.
When Standard is small (one block, one core set and one October expansion), there's not enough of these cards to fill decks, so the tier of cards underneath them are viable and widely played. These tend to get pushed out as the format expands - for instance, in RTR/GTC/DGM/M14/Theros standard, I saw people playing all 5 Theros gods and all 5 of their equipment in reasonable competitive decks (3-1 finishes on MTGO, FNM winners, 4-2 drop in PTQs, etc) - now, it's really only Thassa seeing any play at all from the Gods, and you seldom see any of their equipment.
I prefer small Standard to large Standard for this reason. It's just more varied.
I think it would be better because we would see more cool interactions (as you can probably tell, I'm a Vorthos). Just as they seeded cards for RAV in M13 they could seed cards in M13 for Theros, making standard do little backflips when each set comes out. For example, imagine Rancor from M13 with Constellation. Geist of Saint Traft would would allow us to see Bant, and Naya hexproof now, which would be really cool. LotV could make mono-black devotion more interesting. We could play with slivers longer too. I just think the format would be a lot more interesting.
it's been my experience with standard that the bigger the format gets, the more it trends towards midrange. i think having more sets available would make those top three or four decks even more powerful and hard to beat, but would also result in a large number of viable tier 1.5 or tier 2 decks. sure snapcaster makes the current UW control build even better, but also Delver and snapcaster make UR tempo instantly viable. LotV makes black devotion better, but also radically changes what it is trying to do, and allows for more variants on black midrange builds. some of the tribal decks from innistrad could be a bit more viable with more support cards from another block. there would be many more splash options. Does Black splash green or red or blue? Is esper or America control better, or are they both viable?
I would hate to be design and development trying to keep those formats balanced, but it could be a ton of fun. That said it would also potentially hurt modern and they would have to make card bans more often as some degenerate decks wouldn't rotate nearly as fast, and Each new set and even each new rotation wouldn't shake up the format nearly as much as we are accustomed to seeing them do. I just don't think that is something Wizards would want. The hype of new sets and how they will impact standard is a huge money making tool.
Yeah, be careful what you wish for. A three block standard means that a new player needs two years plus to have enough cards OR a new player would have to make a really BIG investment in the two blocks before that person beings to play magic. I am not a fan. I really like it when cards rotate. I can't imagine how un-fun it would have been to have Magic the Thragtusk for another year. I was happy to see that format die off.
When asking for if something was stolen on Kamigawa:
Have some irony:
I hadn't thought about that. It's 2 am here and I'm currently brewing decks for post M15 Standard. The degeneracy of control would be outlandish. But it doesn't hurt that every deck would have access to degeneracy pieces. Guess we'll never know.
And That's true about mono blue. Maybe they splash for Geist? They wouldn't mind Tamiyo, but they don't run enough I/S for Delver and Snap
When asking for if something was stolen on Kamigawa:
Have some irony:
You even forgot the biggest one in Snapcaster Mage.
Yes there would have been a lot of sweet pieces.
This is just not a good way to make new players to the game, last years cards are attainable. but cards from 2012 would probably deter them.
Personally I would love it. But I think it would detract from some of the design space, forcing them to further balance super powerful cards like liliana, snapcaster, revelation and boros reckoner. I want my boros human decks to have Champion of the Parish though.
rather the opposite would happen. to avoid having crazy format beakers decks, the overall power level of the sets would be pushed even further down.
Pioneer: WURFaerie fires BRGDragons
ModernBGElves WRBurn UR Fires Turns URGift Storm UG Twiddle Storm
Each set tends to have a few very, very strong cards.
When Standard is small (one block, one core set and one October expansion), there's not enough of these cards to fill decks, so the tier of cards underneath them are viable and widely played. These tend to get pushed out as the format expands - for instance, in RTR/GTC/DGM/M14/Theros standard, I saw people playing all 5 Theros gods and all 5 of their equipment in reasonable competitive decks (3-1 finishes on MTGO, FNM winners, 4-2 drop in PTQs, etc) - now, it's really only Thassa seeing any play at all from the Gods, and you seldom see any of their equipment.
I prefer small Standard to large Standard for this reason. It's just more varied.
When asking for if something was stolen on Kamigawa:
Have some irony:
I would hate to be design and development trying to keep those formats balanced, but it could be a ton of fun. That said it would also potentially hurt modern and they would have to make card bans more often as some degenerate decks wouldn't rotate nearly as fast, and Each new set and even each new rotation wouldn't shake up the format nearly as much as we are accustomed to seeing them do. I just don't think that is something Wizards would want. The hype of new sets and how they will impact standard is a huge money making tool.
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