This thread is incredibly funny considering that there is the Rhino Conspiracy thread in which some people argue that the meta is the exact opposite and that Siege Rhino is somehow "oppressive" and that Abzan is as bad as Caw-Blade
This thread is incredibly funny considering that there is the Rhino Conspiracy thread in which some people argue that the meta is the exact opposite and that Siege Rhino is somehow "oppressive" and that Abzan is as bad as Caw-Blade
I'm leaving my discussion to the Rhino thread, so I won't get into that here. Anybody interested can go there, and I don't feel the need to bring it here. I was not particularly interested in even replying to this thread, as I don't feel the need to force the discussion about my issues with the format into everything, all the time, in every thread. Yet, I feel your characterization of my arguments, coupled with your exceedingly snide, childish, and rude tone directed towards me warranted a reply.
To be completely blunt, that is a very shallow reading of what I said. Exceedingly shallow. Beyond shallow. If you bothered to read what I actually have said, and expounded on in the thread, that is. Which you quite obviously didn't. I did not say it was as bad as Caw-Blade.
As for the health of the format, I think the perception is not matching reality on that front. Looking at the actual numbers, it appears that there are numerous "viable" strategies in the broadest sense(Just as there are always numerous fringe viable decks), but with only a very small handful of decks which are consistently viable, and so consistently viable at that they dwarf everything else going on. If you consider one archetype comprising 40% of the top meta game, the next best comprising 15-20%, and everything else performing far worse as "healthy" and actually diverse, I really have nothing to say that can change your mind. There is a diversity of archetypes, for certain, but a diversity of archetypes that simply don't perform. When a single archetype performs more consistently than the next six combined there is cause for some issue. The "wide open" format has significantly narrowed- to a point which is simply exceedingly rare in standard.
I also take issue with you making a snide, off-hand comment in a seperate thread that falsely paints the arguments I am making. I drew a comparison to that format to highlight certain issues, and did not make the claim that it is "as bad" as Caw-Blade standard (and in fact have stated several times that it is not nearly as severe). The fact that this is what you inferred is your doing, not mine.
I'm going to leave the broader discussion on the exact nature of all this out of this thread; I have gone into extensive detail elsewhere and anybody can go and read it, and get into the more specific topics there. I will say this format has narrowed significantly, and the "diversity" is far more a perception than a reality. Just because you can play a different deck than typically found in the format, and occasionally do well, does not mean that has any meaningful impact on the overall diversity of the format. This was the case with every standard, even ones which were more severe, with the possible exception of Combo Winter (Where it was simply a complete impossibility).
Right now it feels like literally any colour combination can work. Every day I see killer new brews.
There basically is no tier 1
I agree , I see something new almost every week . I'm working on 5 or 6 decks at the moment. I guess it comes down to what kind of player you are, Spike , Johnny or Timmy. I'm having fun, and, its been awhile since I have enjoyed playing standard.
Yes the Rhino is a dumb creature but he's in no way opressive to the format.I'm also really enjoying this standard with so many diferent types of.Come on we got 2 diferent type of combo decks in high level play.Has been sometime and thats really cool
I agree. I am still waiting for that Blue/Green Manifest deck and that Re/Blue Tempo deck. I also really want to see White/Black Warriors in the ProTour.
I'm not necessarily saying it's a good or bad thing, but as someone who hates playing green decks, this format is an uphill battle for me. Other decks can win, but it seems to take so much more work.
I'm not necessarily saying it's a good or bad thing, but as someone who hates playing green decks, this format is an uphill battle for me. Other decks can win, but it seems to take so much more work.
Mardu, RW, UR, UW, and Jeskai decks have been the majority of the FNM meta where I am. As far as green, usually there are more GB and GBx decks than Abzan decks. Among other things Villainous Wealth (similar to Sultai Control) has top 4'd a few FNMs, as have Temur Ascendancy Combo and Temur Plainswalkers. The only Abzan deck that seems to survive at all is Abzan aggro. The more midrange builds get just get ripped apart and slaughtered by a lot of the decks here. I know the Villainous Wealth players think it's particularly funny to play against Abzan Midrange, too, since they can frequently wealth for 10+ before being pressured much.
To be fair, I do think Siege Rhino is of a higher quality than probably every other creature in the format (have you ever been on the receiving end of back to back Rhinos? It sucks haha) and I think people build around this fact whether with or against it. While this format is still "diverse" in the number of viable, it's really hard to ignore the fact that Abzan decks make up (based on MTGtop8) 38% of the metagame. That number is REALLY high if you think compare it to Delver with Cruise in Modern only put upwards of 17-18% in Modern (OK, that format has a larger cardpool, but I want to say people moved to it really quickly because it was the "best" deck).
I played against five different decks at FNM last night, and none of them were the "Tier 1" decks except maybe Jeskai Tokens. There was more then one person last night piloting the UR Artifacts deck! It's a pretty diverse metagame and I can't say for sure that Abzan is actually the best deck the way, say, Mono-Black Devotion was. It is kind of a pain to build a deck though, given that the metagame is so wild (I discovered last night that while Jeskai Tokens, RW Beatdown, and UW Heroic are all good matchups, GR Aggro eats Jeskai Ascendancy Combo alive.
I played against five different decks at FNM last night, and none of them were the "Tier 1" decks except maybe Jeskai Tokens. There was more then one person last night piloting the UR Artifacts deck! It's a pretty diverse metagame and I can't say for sure that Abzan is actually the best deck the way, say, Mono-Black Devotion was. It is kind of a pain to build a deck though, given that the metagame is so wild (I discovered last night that while Jeskai Tokens, RW Beatdown, and UW Heroic are all good matchups, GR Aggro eats Jeskai Ascendancy Combo alive.
The reality is that FNM is somewhat insulated generally from this; it tends to not be nearly as competitive, and people bring wacky decks or brews more commonly. Local experience, particularly at FNM, is generally a poor indicator of the overall meta game. People in general just like to try different things, and FNM is pretty much the perfect place to do this. Frankly, this has always been the case. That said, as formats mature, this changes to some degree. The issue with last standard, really, was that the format matured extremely quickly; this is due to nothing particularly relevant coming out of either Born or Journey (Which, in the context of last standard, sucked completely and provided no tools to current decks, nor tools that allowed other decks to actually have a fighting chance). There was a diversity of decks-and several Tier 1/Tier 2 decks in the format. The issue was those decks didn't really change from the onset until M15.
The major difference with the current standard is that as the format matures, it is becoming more apparent that there is one archetype that vastly out performs the others, and several which are seemingly viable (With mostly ephemeral results). This is not idicative of a healthy format. Having one archetype swallowing up 40% (or nearly so) of the overall top meta game, consistently, is indicative of a problem. If we remove the two other archetypes which have proven to be reasonably consistent from the equation-Boros Aggro and Mardu Midrange, the top archetype has put up results equal to every other archetype combined in the past two months. To get to results that match this archetype, we need to combine the next six archetypes to do so.
The issue with this is not that there is a "top deck". It's that the top deck is performing at a rate, and seemingly consistently, that is incomparable to previous standards. The issue with this is that if you want to compete you absolutely need to have a strong match-up against said deck. Not just a manageable one, but an extremely strong one. This contorts significantly what is viable-particularly when it has become apparent that the "plethora" of decks available simply can't do so to any consistent degree.
Yes, there *is* always a top deck. The thing is, in other formats you can have a generally weak match up against the "top deck" and still compete, so long as you are strong against the rest of the field. This really isn't the case right now. If you have a strong match up against the rest of the field, and a poor match up against Abzan, you simply cannot compete. Even a so-so match up against Abzan means you cannot compete. This creates a meta game that we see now: the only decks doing well are Abzan and ostensibly two decks that actually have a good Abzan match up for pretty much the exact same reason in R/W and Mardu (They have the most number of generally good answers that can at least keep parity, while still being applicable to other threats presented). Everything else has proven, at best, inconsistent to actually compete against the Abzan lists. There are a ton of decks trying to prove themselves viable-as Khans has a good deal of rather potent cards. The issue is that they have proven to be inconsistently viable. Not only has Abzan proven consistently viable, it has done so at a consistently unusual and rare rate, that is difficult to really find a point of comparison to. MBD didn't even really put up similar numbers as far as I can find-at least not nearly as consistently. The previous standard was quite diverse; Scars-Innistrad saw a large number of Delver lists, but still significantly less than is currently the case.
FNM experiences are unusual compared to the overall meta game, and only vaguely ever compare to it (It is, after all, a far less . If I were to take my local meta game as the "true" standard, I would see that Temur and Devotion are the meta game-which simply doesn't play out when you look at competitive events.
And, as always, I'll leave the exact nature of where I think the problem exists to the other thread. I'm instead focusing on only the meta game here.
Abzan is so much stronger than almost any other deck you can think of it's not funny. At least one that is competitive. I actually stopped playing it at my FNM because it sucked out the joy of playing, as I'm already one of the better players at my FNM and playing abzan just made it unfair. The problem is there isn't a single deck that has a creature at every level of the curve that's as deadly as what abzan can bring, all while being to answer every threat that enters the battlefield.
I find it borderline Comical that people think the format is diverse right now. There are 2 decks you can play right now if you want to win, Abzan or R/W. Every other deck will woefully under perform for you when faced against the siege rhinos. I should know I've tried tons of decks and none really compare.
I actually really enjoy Standard and am having a lot of fun seeing how things change from week to week. However, I can see where people are coming from with the argument that things are "deceptively" open.
While there's a wide variety of decks that you could play, the overall tone/feel of the format is heavily slanted towards midrange and the same stock core of powerful creatures that go into these decks. Hell, even a lot of the most viable aggressive strategies (Abzan aggro, R/W, Mardu) are just slightly faster midrange decks. That isn't to say there aren't viable aggro or control decks. However, these strategies are significantly more fragile and easy to answer than just about any of the midrange decks (the only one I can think of that would be easy to answer if it became big is mono green, and that's simply because of how linear and weak to sweepers that deck is).
Just look at Jeskai tokens. It's still a deck capable of incredibly powerful things, and yet it's so easily hosed by Bile Blight/Drown in Sorrow. On the other hand, there's really nothing punishing people who sleeve up Abzan every week.
It's actually a really weird one, this Standard season. On the one hand, it's more open than ever, and I see a far greater number of weird new brews spiking wins at tournaments or FNM. There's a feeling that you can turn up with anything and you stand a chance, which hasn't happened in years. So that's great.
On the other hand, in terms of real data and metagame statistics, we're in the least diverse Standard for ages. The general Abzan deck (because, let's be fair, they're all basically the same deck and archetype), makes up 30% of the metagame.
I said this before and I maintain what I said - I think there are some powerful but relatively fragile decks just waiting to be built. So at any one time the metagame is Abzan and Deck X, where Deck X is the latest fragile but fun and powerful deck. It usually spikes, matches Abzan, makes the metagame look healthy... but then gets figured out and dies off. Then, a new Deck X appears, which keeps things feeling fresh, but the one thing that stands out is that whilst Deck Xs come and go, Abzan never does. No one has "figured it out" because you simply can't - there's nothing to figure out, it just has incredible raw power level.
So it's odd. At any given time the metagame feels diverse, which is fantastic, but looking at it over a period of weeks there's only one deck that's been consistently at the top.
I agree with this, but even so a Abzan player can be crushed if you bring the right materials. U/R robots has a decent matchup to it if you know what your doing. The deck im running pumps out more value creatures then spot removal in a Abzan deck so i win more often then not. Bit worried though currently since the local players MB Ugin now as a result of that and the mirror match.
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Standard: No Time
Modern: Jund Midrange BRG
Legacy: Shardless Bug BUG
Abzan is so much stronger than almost any other deck you can think of it's not funny. At least one that is competitive. I actually stopped playing it at my FNM because it sucked out the joy of playing, as I'm already one of the better players at my FNM and playing abzan just made it unfair. The problem is there isn't a single deck that has a creature at every level of the curve that's as deadly as what abzan can bring, all while being to answer every threat that enters the battlefield.
I find it borderline Comical that people think the format is diverse right now. There are 2 decks you can play right now if you want to win, Abzan or R/W. Every other deck will woefully under perform for you when faced against the siege rhinos. I should know I've tried tons of decks and none really compare.
Dude you're a tool, I don't care if I get banned for this, someone had to say it. You're so dominant the game isn't fun anymore? Must be rough being the best at everything.
Flaming is not allowed according to MTGS rules. -Lugger
Just look at Jeskai tokens. It's still a deck capable of incredibly powerful things, and yet it's so easily hosed by Bile Blight/Drown in Sorrow. On the other hand, there's really nothing punishing people who sleeve up Abzan every week.
Abzan is so much stronger than almost any other deck you can think of it's not funny. At least one that is competitive. I actually stopped playing it at my FNM because it sucked out the joy of playing, as I'm already one of the better players at my FNM and playing abzan just made it unfair. The problem is there isn't a single deck that has a creature at every level of the curve that's as deadly as what abzan can bring, all while being to answer every threat that enters the battlefield.
I find it borderline Comical that people think the format is diverse right now. There are 2 decks you can play right now if you want to win, Abzan or R/W. Every other deck will woefully under perform for you when faced against the siege rhinos. I should know I've tried tons of decks and none really compare.
good thing my butchers and crackling dooms eat abzan alive. i have around 80% win vs abzan... also my sarkhans and stormbreath dragons seem pretty good vs abzan.
sure i lost games, but the majority of the games, abzan cant do ***** vs mardu.
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There basically is no tier 1
I'm leaving my discussion to the Rhino thread, so I won't get into that here. Anybody interested can go there, and I don't feel the need to bring it here. I was not particularly interested in even replying to this thread, as I don't feel the need to force the discussion about my issues with the format into everything, all the time, in every thread. Yet, I feel your characterization of my arguments, coupled with your exceedingly snide, childish, and rude tone directed towards me warranted a reply.
To be completely blunt, that is a very shallow reading of what I said. Exceedingly shallow. Beyond shallow. If you bothered to read what I actually have said, and expounded on in the thread, that is. Which you quite obviously didn't. I did not say it was as bad as Caw-Blade.
As for the health of the format, I think the perception is not matching reality on that front. Looking at the actual numbers, it appears that there are numerous "viable" strategies in the broadest sense(Just as there are always numerous fringe viable decks), but with only a very small handful of decks which are consistently viable, and so consistently viable at that they dwarf everything else going on. If you consider one archetype comprising 40% of the top meta game, the next best comprising 15-20%, and everything else performing far worse as "healthy" and actually diverse, I really have nothing to say that can change your mind. There is a diversity of archetypes, for certain, but a diversity of archetypes that simply don't perform. When a single archetype performs more consistently than the next six combined there is cause for some issue. The "wide open" format has significantly narrowed- to a point which is simply exceedingly rare in standard.
I also take issue with you making a snide, off-hand comment in a seperate thread that falsely paints the arguments I am making. I drew a comparison to that format to highlight certain issues, and did not make the claim that it is "as bad" as Caw-Blade standard (and in fact have stated several times that it is not nearly as severe). The fact that this is what you inferred is your doing, not mine.
I'm going to leave the broader discussion on the exact nature of all this out of this thread; I have gone into extensive detail elsewhere and anybody can go and read it, and get into the more specific topics there. I will say this format has narrowed significantly, and the "diversity" is far more a perception than a reality. Just because you can play a different deck than typically found in the format, and occasionally do well, does not mean that has any meaningful impact on the overall diversity of the format. This was the case with every standard, even ones which were more severe, with the possible exception of Combo Winter (Where it was simply a complete impossibility).
-Commander-
UBGMill, Sidisi, and Other ShenanigansGBU
WUBRGShingeki no TazriGRBUW
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Isn't that just how Magic works though? Every deck has to be good against top tier decks.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Mardu, RW, UR, UW, and Jeskai decks have been the majority of the FNM meta where I am. As far as green, usually there are more GB and GBx decks than Abzan decks. Among other things Villainous Wealth (similar to Sultai Control) has top 4'd a few FNMs, as have Temur Ascendancy Combo and Temur Plainswalkers. The only Abzan deck that seems to survive at all is Abzan aggro. The more midrange builds get just get ripped apart and slaughtered by a lot of the decks here. I know the Villainous Wealth players think it's particularly funny to play against Abzan Midrange, too, since they can frequently wealth for 10+ before being pressured much.
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
| Omnath | Zada | Alesha | Scion |
| Mazirek | Animar |
Modern
UR Storm RU
UBRG Dredge GRBU
Standard
UR Thermo-Thing RU
The reality is that FNM is somewhat insulated generally from this; it tends to not be nearly as competitive, and people bring wacky decks or brews more commonly. Local experience, particularly at FNM, is generally a poor indicator of the overall meta game. People in general just like to try different things, and FNM is pretty much the perfect place to do this. Frankly, this has always been the case. That said, as formats mature, this changes to some degree. The issue with last standard, really, was that the format matured extremely quickly; this is due to nothing particularly relevant coming out of either Born or Journey (Which, in the context of last standard, sucked completely and provided no tools to current decks, nor tools that allowed other decks to actually have a fighting chance). There was a diversity of decks-and several Tier 1/Tier 2 decks in the format. The issue was those decks didn't really change from the onset until M15.
The major difference with the current standard is that as the format matures, it is becoming more apparent that there is one archetype that vastly out performs the others, and several which are seemingly viable (With mostly ephemeral results). This is not idicative of a healthy format. Having one archetype swallowing up 40% (or nearly so) of the overall top meta game, consistently, is indicative of a problem. If we remove the two other archetypes which have proven to be reasonably consistent from the equation-Boros Aggro and Mardu Midrange, the top archetype has put up results equal to every other archetype combined in the past two months. To get to results that match this archetype, we need to combine the next six archetypes to do so.
The issue with this is not that there is a "top deck". It's that the top deck is performing at a rate, and seemingly consistently, that is incomparable to previous standards. The issue with this is that if you want to compete you absolutely need to have a strong match-up against said deck. Not just a manageable one, but an extremely strong one. This contorts significantly what is viable-particularly when it has become apparent that the "plethora" of decks available simply can't do so to any consistent degree.
Yes, there *is* always a top deck. The thing is, in other formats you can have a generally weak match up against the "top deck" and still compete, so long as you are strong against the rest of the field. This really isn't the case right now. If you have a strong match up against the rest of the field, and a poor match up against Abzan, you simply cannot compete. Even a so-so match up against Abzan means you cannot compete. This creates a meta game that we see now: the only decks doing well are Abzan and ostensibly two decks that actually have a good Abzan match up for pretty much the exact same reason in R/W and Mardu (They have the most number of generally good answers that can at least keep parity, while still being applicable to other threats presented). Everything else has proven, at best, inconsistent to actually compete against the Abzan lists. There are a ton of decks trying to prove themselves viable-as Khans has a good deal of rather potent cards. The issue is that they have proven to be inconsistently viable. Not only has Abzan proven consistently viable, it has done so at a consistently unusual and rare rate, that is difficult to really find a point of comparison to. MBD didn't even really put up similar numbers as far as I can find-at least not nearly as consistently. The previous standard was quite diverse; Scars-Innistrad saw a large number of Delver lists, but still significantly less than is currently the case.
FNM experiences are unusual compared to the overall meta game, and only vaguely ever compare to it (It is, after all, a far less . If I were to take my local meta game as the "true" standard, I would see that Temur and Devotion are the meta game-which simply doesn't play out when you look at competitive events.
And, as always, I'll leave the exact nature of where I think the problem exists to the other thread. I'm instead focusing on only the meta game here.
I find it borderline Comical that people think the format is diverse right now. There are 2 decks you can play right now if you want to win, Abzan or R/W. Every other deck will woefully under perform for you when faced against the siege rhinos. I should know I've tried tons of decks and none really compare.
uhhh, yeah. that's a personal issue, no need to bring it up.
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While there's a wide variety of decks that you could play, the overall tone/feel of the format is heavily slanted towards midrange and the same stock core of powerful creatures that go into these decks. Hell, even a lot of the most viable aggressive strategies (Abzan aggro, R/W, Mardu) are just slightly faster midrange decks. That isn't to say there aren't viable aggro or control decks. However, these strategies are significantly more fragile and easy to answer than just about any of the midrange decks (the only one I can think of that would be easy to answer if it became big is mono green, and that's simply because of how linear and weak to sweepers that deck is).
Just look at Jeskai tokens. It's still a deck capable of incredibly powerful things, and yet it's so easily hosed by Bile Blight/Drown in Sorrow. On the other hand, there's really nothing punishing people who sleeve up Abzan every week.
U/R Delver
I agree with this, but even so a Abzan player can be crushed if you bring the right materials. U/R robots has a decent matchup to it if you know what your doing. The deck im running pumps out more value creatures then spot removal in a Abzan deck so i win more often then not. Bit worried though currently since the local players MB Ugin now as a result of that and the mirror match.
Modern: Jund Midrange BRG
Legacy: Shardless Bug BUG
Dude you're a tool, I don't care if I get banned for this, someone had to say it. You're so dominant the game isn't fun anymore? Must be rough being the best at everything.
Flaming is not allowed according to MTGS rules. -Lugger
Valorous Stance + Reality Shift can cripple any Abzan deck and allow for viable UW control decks.
There's also Hushwing Gryff that stops any ETB shenanigans. (Satyr Wayfinder, Sidisi, Hornet Queen, Siege Rhino etc.).
good thing my butchers and crackling dooms eat abzan alive. i have around 80% win vs abzan... also my sarkhans and stormbreath dragons seem pretty good vs abzan.
sure i lost games, but the majority of the games, abzan cant do ***** vs mardu.