There may be other deck types but for those that do Pptqs and still grind g/w color combination is much stronger than the other colors atm. With spoilers starting on Monday , I'm hoping things balance out.
If you do fnm then yes there's tons of decks to chose from.
GW tokens won both my local PPTQs
although it didn't make as much of a presence as I thought it woukd
I will go on record saying the total opposite. This standard is more interesting then ever.
We have many different decks that are competitive. Many different archetypes even.
Think about it, when was the last standard that had like 8 different competitive decks consistently seeing play at big tournaments? multiple variations of humans, CoCo decks, G/W tokens, different variations of control (W/B, Grixis, Esper), Seasons past, B/R w/ goblin darkdwellers, U/R builds... there is more now than ever.
Did you play back when standard was called type 2, or block even? The Mercedean Masques block was the worst. You either played blue, or you played blue. Entire tournaments were rising waters versus rising waters versus cowardice. After that, you either played Fires of Yavimaya, or you played 5 color collective restraint. There was NO variety. That is what I would call incredibly boring.
The Standard before SoI was 90% Jeskai Black. That was pretty damned stagnant.
That said, you're 100% correct that today's Standard has way better variety than most folks can remember.
Although personally, I'd like if they stopped giving so much control to White. It has the best removal suite it's had in maybe any Standard (with instants and enchantments alone), and it has the best creatures right now. We need to see Hexproof and/or Shroud to counter the crazy volume of spot removal out there.
I will go on record saying the total opposite. This standard is more interesting then ever.
We have many different decks that are competitive. Many different archetypes even.
Think about it, when was the last standard that had like 8 different competitive decks consistently seeing play at big tournaments? multiple variations of humans, CoCo decks, G/W tokens, different variations of control (W/B, Grixis, Esper), Seasons past, B/R w/ goblin darkdwellers, U/R builds... there is more now than ever.
Did you play back when standard was called type 2, or block even? The Mercedean Masques block was the worst. You either played blue, or you played blue. Entire tournaments were rising waters versus rising waters versus cowardice. After that, you either played Fires of Yavimaya, or you played 5 color collective restraint. There was NO variety. That is what I would call incredibly boring.
Haha no. This standard has nothing on the standard that was INN-RTR.
That standard had everything from Br zombies and naya blitz to bant Control to Omnitusk thragfire.
This standard is GW.deck...
Oh and U is pretty much a trash color now
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This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
I think Coco with reflector mage are the biggest problems with standard right now. Those two cards make it so playing ANY strategy involving creature that is not super efficient is unplayable. It doesn't help that Coco is clearly a card that is too powerful for standard.
The meta breaks down as followed: Coco variants (humans being the best), w/r humans (the best combination, as shown by Tom Ross, yet again) and everything else. B/W control sucks. People need to stop talking about that deck. Sure, Seth Manfield is some kind of B/W God, but no one else can get that deck to any decent finish. It's not a good deck.
Standard has moved into this place where basically creatures are just too good at what they do and playing anything but that is a mistake.
It's not the worst standard (T1 Thoughtseize, T2 Packrat was the worst since Caw-Blade), but it's pretty dull to run into the exact same deck over and over and over.
GW Tokens doesn't play CoCo or Reflector Mage, and it's the best deck by far. I do think CoCo is the best card in standard, but it's the general strength of green and white (contra blue and to a lesser extent red) that is making this format so lame.
Agreed. Reflector Mage is not bad at all right now because it's not fighting mid range decks where it shines. When you're facing tokens or 4 one and two drops, bouncing one does very little.
Standard sux now because wizards let two colors get too good WHILE allowing blue and red to completely lose their identity(blue counter and draw and red burn). Black, while not great, is in better shape and I think the mono black zombie decks just needs one or two great cards to be tier one on the backs of relentless dead and diergraf colossus.
So it's a perfect storm of OP and UP colors. So what does wizards do...they print Brisela. Well, the good news is 70% of GW dominance is rotating in 3 months and I would expect artifacts and burn to make a comeback in Kaledesh.
The Standard before SoI was 90% Jeskai Black. That was pretty damned stagnant.
this is completely false
while Jeskai Black was pretty popular, it wasn't even the best/most popular deck for a while. Rally was. Jeskai Black might have been number 2 maybe?
there were a few different Abzan variants that were really popular, in just plain Abzan, Abzan blue and Abzan red/Mardu green.
Now decks are more than just 4 colour goodstuff decks and actually have more of a them. Its just White and GWx decks are pretty popular, in addition to a few different seasons past variants. Plus whatever control deck is the flavor of the week. Seasons Past decks fit into that role though I guess
Even bad Magic is still Magic. I'm not bored with Standard so much as I am disappointed. There's a ton of cool cards/interactions in the format, and none of them really stand a chance against the raw efficiency of CoCo/Gideon/Advocate/Avacyn/D. Command.
I'm having a lot of fun using a UW fliers deck. I can beat any of the tier 1 deck and win leagues or FNM, but it don't have the consistency to take down larger events, but i've never been a really competitive player, GPT's are the highest i've attended and once every five or so.
It's pretty easy to complaint about a stale Standard if you look the streamings of the big tournaments, but at LGS level, where the vast mayority of the player play, this standard is so good. Last week we have a 16-man FNM and it was won by a RB Vampires deck. We had 5-6 tier 1 deck and the rest were brews competitive enough to perform well at an FNM, and piloted by good players that use tier 1 deck on big tournaments but rogue decks at FNM's.
Sure, Finkel's, LSV's or Thompson's standard is pretty repetitive and unfun, but for people at LGS small tournaments this standard is not bad at all.
Deckbuilders are having a great time, netdeckers are complaining.
I'm having a lot of fun using a UW fliers deck. I can beat any of the tier 1 deck and win leagues or FNM, but it don't have the consistency to take down larger events, but i've never been a really competitive player, GPT's are the highest i've attended and once every five or so.
It's pretty easy to complaint about a stale Standard if you look the streamings of the big tournaments, but at LGS level, where the vast mayority of the player play, this standard is so good. Last week we have a 16-man FNM and it was won by a RB Vampires deck. We had 5-6 tier 1 deck and the rest were brews competitive enough to perform well at an FNM, and piloted by good players that use tier 1 deck on big tournaments but rogue decks at FNM's.
Sure, Finkel's, LSV's or Thompson's standard is pretty repetitive and unfun, but for people at LGS small tournaments this standard is not bad at all.
Deckbuilders are having a great time, netdeckers are complaining.
Yeah... that's your experience.
My experience has been that I've been seeing a very rapid decline in attendance in Standard events and FNM since BFZ came out. People thought it would be better with Shadows, we had a brief surge in players, and then G/W/x took the format by storm. Last week we damn near didn't fire FNM Standard for the first time in at least a decade.
Keep in mind that back during THS-KTK standard we were typically firing 50-60 person Standards, and we topped out one night at 110 people. For standard. During the "bad" standard of THS-KTK (Which was a hell of a lot more interesting a format than currently). Part of the drop is due to being able to have Modern FNM these days, but that only accounts for about 20 people. During THS-KTK were still pushing 30-40 people a week. Then BFZ hit, and Standard attendance tanked. And continued to tank.
And then Shadows hit, and we are actually near the point of Standard death at our game store. I have played the same 8-12 people every week for nearly two months, and we have barely been meeting the necessary 8 to fire. Sad, considering that for some time our store held the record for highest FNM attendance.
And through this all I will play G/W tokens, Bant Company, or Bant Humans 3 out of 4 of my matches. Because those decks just crush anything even remotely brew-worthy due to being such straight up value.
So while *you* may be one of the lucky few that has not been inundated with the G/W idiocy, it is by no means a rule. And in fact this format (And KTK-BFZ) has had a massively negative impact on the local player base.
To be frank, this meta game is one of, if not *the*, most miserable piles of trash I've gone through, with the crown being post Oath KTK-BFZ standard. And it's readily apparent that I'm not alone given the tanking attendance at many stores (And even GP attendance appears to not be particularly great).
But hey, it involves green and white creatures so it *can't* be oppressive, amirite? Only Blue counterspells or Lightning Bolt are ever oppressive.
Same in our local store, this standard is the worst i have played. We barely fit the 8 people needed to run FNM (and truth to be told, the owner create 2 bots in the sysstem to allow run the event).
One problem is Khans was a great block , I know a lot of people are glad to see rhino go but it was a fine block overall. Khans gave us the mana to be creative . It's not a power creep issue with khans it just work together better than the last two blocks. Having fetches generated a lot of buzz for khans. A lot of players I have talk to don't like the speed of rotation in standard because it keeps you buying cards that won't be playable long enough to warrant the investment into the format.
I still think playing against Rally the Ancestors was far more oppressive than the heavy hitters of today's format. Every time I think about how dull this standard is I remember that just a few months ago it was actively bad.
Khans-Theros block was a great stadnadard and we had plenty of T2 tourneys. Sure it had Rhino but it was afr from opressive and it had lots of diverse decks, hell my budget mono black aggro managed to score multiple wins. But with standard keeping been expensive and boring these days isn't worth keep playing anymore and now people only play Commander where is cheaper and mutch more worthwhile investment.
One problem is Khans was a great block , I know a lot of people are glad to see rhino go but it was a fine block overall. Khans gave us the mana to be creative . It's not a power creep issue with khans it just work together better than the last two blocks. Having fetches generated a lot of buzz for khans. A lot of players I have talk to don't like the speed of rotation in standard because it keeps you buying cards that won't be playable long enough to warrant the investment into the format.
Absolutely--the fast rotation killed it for me. Standard is now a format for pros and wanna-bes who either aren't buying their own cards, can consider them part of the cost of going 'pro', or just have lots of disposable income. Buying inflated standard decks for FNM just to have them rotate so quickly just feels bad to most players. I'm not sure we'll ever have another standard FNM fire in my area again. WOTC really screwed that one up, but sadly it doesn't seem like the sort of decision they'd backtrack on.
And through this all I will play G/W tokens, Bant Company, or Bant Humans 3 out of 4 of my matches. Because those decks just crush anything even remotely brew-worthy due to being such straight up value.
So while *you* may be one of the lucky few that has not been inundated with the G/W idiocy, it is by no means a rule. And in fact this format (And KTK-BFZ) has had a massively negative impact on the local player base.
Wow, this is amazing to me. Over here we had a lot of BW control, and then after the normal Company and GW tokens decks we had every other deck around as well. It's been wonderfully diverse:
RB vampires (won gameday over all the tier 1 decks piloted by competitive players), RG ramp, UR goggles, UR prowess, UW fliers, Gitrog midrange, Esper control, colorless eldrazi (little or ramp varieties), RW aggro, U prison, I could go on.
One problem is Khans was a great block , I know a lot of people are glad to see rhino go but it was a fine block overall. Khans gave us the mana to be creative .
I enjoyed the first year of Khans, but the second year not so much. Fetches made standard ridiculously expensive because people could play 4 color decks, making for expensive mana bases with all those fetch lands. Decks became somewhat generic goodstuff decks, apart from Rally which was interesting but also a pain.
I play in Tokyo. The store I go to used to get 16-30 people for Standard during INN/RAV. Then it started to get 8-12 people for RAV/THS. Things improved to about 12-16 people in THS/KTK until KTK/BFZ. Since SOI released we had one week of 16 players followed by steady 2-4 players only. We just play casuals because FNM never fires anymore.
One problem is Khans was a great block , I know a lot of people are glad to see rhino go but it was a fine block overall. Khans gave us the mana to be creative . It's not a power creep issue with khans it just work together better than the last two blocks. Having fetches generated a lot of buzz for khans. A lot of players I have talk to don't like the speed of rotation in standard because it keeps you buying cards that won't be playable long enough to warrant the investment into the format.
standard did seem to be a lot more popular around here when Khans block was in but I personally found Khans-BFZ standard to be boring with the 4 colour good stuff decks running around. I do miss being able to easily play 3 colour decks though.
It's nice that there's a Modern PPTQ season coming up for all our locals to forget about standard with.
I know so many people who are looking forward to modern PPTQs this summer. I'm actually pretty excited to see if a lot of people grinding out in a format with no twin or eldrazi will lead to any new decks. I doubt it but it should be interesting
Khans BFZ was pretty bad since it was crazy expensive(good job wizards having fetch-able duals in standard) and nothing but 3-4 color good stuff but Theros-Khans was pretty sweet with everything from r/b//mardu dragons, abzan, heroic, devotion, rally variants, elves, jeskai, RDW, blue artifacts etc. Can't really speak on before that since I only started August 2015.
Good thing is Kaladesh will be a huge shake up but yeah, having multiple rotations a year makes standard way too expensive. With modern being taken off the pro tour, i dont think we'll see the yearly bannings as much (unless a deck is tier 0 like eldrazi or specifically inhibits card design(like birthing pod).
Khans BFZ was pretty bad since it was crazy expensive(good job wizards having fetch-able duals in standard) and nothing but 3-4 color good stuff but Theros-Khans was pretty sweet with everything from r/b//mardu dragons, abzan, heroic, devotion, rally variants, elves, jeskai, RDW, blue artifacts etc. Can't really speak on before that since I only started August 2015.
RTR-THS gets a much worse rap than it deserves. While the decks didn't change nearly much at all from week 1 to week 52, there was a decent amount of diversity towards how many decks were relevant. Even moreso, the decks were wildly divergent from one another, and the format was quite fun to play overall and required you to formulate very different game plans based on what your opponent was doing. Those who say MBC was worse, and that the format was all about Turn 1 Thoughtseize into turn 2 Pack Rat honestly are incredibly wrong. While monoblack was the most consistently strong deck, it was also incredibly beatable by practically every strategy in the format.
Good thing is Kaladesh will be a huge shake up but yeah, having multiple rotations a year makes standard way too expensive. With modern being taken off the pro tour, i dont think we'll see the yearly bannings as much (unless a deck is tier 0 like eldrazi or specifically inhibits card design(like birthing pod).
G/W loses Dromoka' COmmand, Secure the Wastes, and CoCo. It keeps Advocate, Gideon, Gisela, all the relevant humans, Declaration in Stone, Nissa, and plenty of other objectively hyper-efficient cards. Even if G/W gets stone nothing in Kaladesh, it will still be one of the strongest color combinations simply due to how absurdly efficient they are.
Khans BFZ was pretty bad since it was crazy expensive(good job wizards having fetch-able duals in standard) and nothing but 3-4 color good stuff but Theros-Khans was pretty sweet with everything from r/b//mardu dragons, abzan, heroic, devotion, rally variants, elves, jeskai, RDW, blue artifacts etc. Can't really speak on before that since I only started August 2015.
RTR-THS gets a much worse rap than it deserves. While the decks didn't change nearly much at all from week 1 to week 52, there was a decent amount of diversity towards how many decks were relevant. Even moreso, the decks were wildly divergent from one another, and the format was quite fun to play overall and required you to formulate very different game plans based on what your opponent was doing. Those who say MBC was worse, and that the format was all about Turn 1 Thoughtseize into turn 2 Pack Rat honestly are incredibly wrong. While monoblack was the most consistently strong deck, it was also incredibly beatable by practically every strategy in the format.
Wait, what? Yeah, the decks had diversity in terms of what cards they played, splashes, etc. But the fact remains that for most of the format (up until near rotation), there were only four viable archetypes: U/x Devotion, B/x Devotion, RG/x Monsters, and UW/x control. Everything else was tier 3 at best. Some people might have enjoyed it but it definitely wasn't diverse.
You're right though that MBD wasn't even close to as bad as GW/x is now, people just hated it because it was uninteractive as hell.
Good thing is Kaladesh will be a huge shake up but yeah, having multiple rotations a year makes standard way too expensive. With modern being taken off the pro tour, i dont think we'll see the yearly bannings as much (unless a deck is tier 0 like eldrazi or specifically inhibits card design(like birthing pod).
G/W loses Dromoka' COmmand, Secure the Wastes, and CoCo. It keeps Advocate, Gideon, Gisela, all the relevant humans, Declaration in Stone, Nissa, and plenty of other objectively hyper-efficient cards. Even if G/W gets stone nothing in Kaladesh, it will still be one of the strongest color combinations simply due to how absurdly efficient they are.
It'll still be strong, but not necessarily oppressive like it is now. Most other decks aren't losing much either, and hopefully Wizards will print something for blue or red.
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GW tokens won both my local PPTQs
although it didn't make as much of a presence as I thought it woukd
The Standard before SoI was 90% Jeskai Black. That was pretty damned stagnant.
That said, you're 100% correct that today's Standard has way better variety than most folks can remember.
Although personally, I'd like if they stopped giving so much control to White. It has the best removal suite it's had in maybe any Standard (with instants and enchantments alone), and it has the best creatures right now. We need to see Hexproof and/or Shroud to counter the crazy volume of spot removal out there.
Haha no. This standard has nothing on the standard that was INN-RTR.
That standard had everything from Br zombies and naya blitz to bant Control to Omnitusk thragfire.
This standard is GW.deck...
Oh and U is pretty much a trash color now
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
GW Tokens doesn't play CoCo or Reflector Mage, and it's the best deck by far. I do think CoCo is the best card in standard, but it's the general strength of green and white (contra blue and to a lesser extent red) that is making this format so lame.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
Standard sux now because wizards let two colors get too good WHILE allowing blue and red to completely lose their identity(blue counter and draw and red burn). Black, while not great, is in better shape and I think the mono black zombie decks just needs one or two great cards to be tier one on the backs of relentless dead and diergraf colossus.
So it's a perfect storm of OP and UP colors. So what does wizards do...they print Brisela. Well, the good news is 70% of GW dominance is rotating in 3 months and I would expect artifacts and burn to make a comeback in Kaledesh.
this is completely false
Youtube Channel
while Jeskai Black was pretty popular, it wasn't even the best/most popular deck for a while. Rally was. Jeskai Black might have been number 2 maybe?
there were a few different Abzan variants that were really popular, in just plain Abzan, Abzan blue and Abzan red/Mardu green.
Now decks are more than just 4 colour goodstuff decks and actually have more of a them. Its just White and GWx decks are pretty popular, in addition to a few different seasons past variants. Plus whatever control deck is the flavor of the week. Seasons Past decks fit into that role though I guess
Standard
UB UB Midrange UB
Modern
GRWUBTribal Flames ZooGRWUB
RUGTemur DelverRUG
Legacy
UW Stoneblade UW
It's pretty easy to complaint about a stale Standard if you look the streamings of the big tournaments, but at LGS level, where the vast mayority of the player play, this standard is so good. Last week we have a 16-man FNM and it was won by a RB Vampires deck. We had 5-6 tier 1 deck and the rest were brews competitive enough to perform well at an FNM, and piloted by good players that use tier 1 deck on big tournaments but rogue decks at FNM's.
Sure, Finkel's, LSV's or Thompson's standard is pretty repetitive and unfun, but for people at LGS small tournaments this standard is not bad at all.
Deckbuilders are having a great time, netdeckers are complaining.
Yeah... that's your experience.
My experience has been that I've been seeing a very rapid decline in attendance in Standard events and FNM since BFZ came out. People thought it would be better with Shadows, we had a brief surge in players, and then G/W/x took the format by storm. Last week we damn near didn't fire FNM Standard for the first time in at least a decade.
Keep in mind that back during THS-KTK standard we were typically firing 50-60 person Standards, and we topped out one night at 110 people. For standard. During the "bad" standard of THS-KTK (Which was a hell of a lot more interesting a format than currently). Part of the drop is due to being able to have Modern FNM these days, but that only accounts for about 20 people. During THS-KTK were still pushing 30-40 people a week. Then BFZ hit, and Standard attendance tanked. And continued to tank.
And then Shadows hit, and we are actually near the point of Standard death at our game store. I have played the same 8-12 people every week for nearly two months, and we have barely been meeting the necessary 8 to fire. Sad, considering that for some time our store held the record for highest FNM attendance.
And through this all I will play G/W tokens, Bant Company, or Bant Humans 3 out of 4 of my matches. Because those decks just crush anything even remotely brew-worthy due to being such straight up value.
So while *you* may be one of the lucky few that has not been inundated with the G/W idiocy, it is by no means a rule. And in fact this format (And KTK-BFZ) has had a massively negative impact on the local player base.
To be frank, this meta game is one of, if not *the*, most miserable piles of trash I've gone through, with the crown being post Oath KTK-BFZ standard. And it's readily apparent that I'm not alone given the tanking attendance at many stores (And even GP attendance appears to not be particularly great).
But hey, it involves green and white creatures so it *can't* be oppressive, amirite? Only Blue counterspells or Lightning Bolt are ever oppressive.
Absolutely--the fast rotation killed it for me. Standard is now a format for pros and wanna-bes who either aren't buying their own cards, can consider them part of the cost of going 'pro', or just have lots of disposable income. Buying inflated standard decks for FNM just to have them rotate so quickly just feels bad to most players. I'm not sure we'll ever have another standard FNM fire in my area again. WOTC really screwed that one up, but sadly it doesn't seem like the sort of decision they'd backtrack on.
Wow, this is amazing to me. Over here we had a lot of BW control, and then after the normal Company and GW tokens decks we had every other deck around as well. It's been wonderfully diverse:
RB vampires (won gameday over all the tier 1 decks piloted by competitive players), RG ramp, UR goggles, UR prowess, UW fliers, Gitrog midrange, Esper control, colorless eldrazi (little or ramp varieties), RW aggro, U prison, I could go on.
Attendance is good.
I enjoyed the first year of Khans, but the second year not so much. Fetches made standard ridiculously expensive because people could play 4 color decks, making for expensive mana bases with all those fetch lands. Decks became somewhat generic goodstuff decks, apart from Rally which was interesting but also a pain.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
standard did seem to be a lot more popular around here when Khans block was in but I personally found Khans-BFZ standard to be boring with the 4 colour good stuff decks running around. I do miss being able to easily play 3 colour decks though.
I know so many people who are looking forward to modern PPTQs this summer. I'm actually pretty excited to see if a lot of people grinding out in a format with no twin or eldrazi will lead to any new decks. I doubt it but it should be interesting
Good thing is Kaladesh will be a huge shake up but yeah, having multiple rotations a year makes standard way too expensive. With modern being taken off the pro tour, i dont think we'll see the yearly bannings as much (unless a deck is tier 0 like eldrazi or specifically inhibits card design(like birthing pod).
RTR-THS gets a much worse rap than it deserves. While the decks didn't change nearly much at all from week 1 to week 52, there was a decent amount of diversity towards how many decks were relevant. Even moreso, the decks were wildly divergent from one another, and the format was quite fun to play overall and required you to formulate very different game plans based on what your opponent was doing. Those who say MBC was worse, and that the format was all about Turn 1 Thoughtseize into turn 2 Pack Rat honestly are incredibly wrong. While monoblack was the most consistently strong deck, it was also incredibly beatable by practically every strategy in the format.
G/W loses Dromoka' COmmand, Secure the Wastes, and CoCo. It keeps Advocate, Gideon, Gisela, all the relevant humans, Declaration in Stone, Nissa, and plenty of other objectively hyper-efficient cards. Even if G/W gets stone nothing in Kaladesh, it will still be one of the strongest color combinations simply due to how absurdly efficient they are.
Wait, what? Yeah, the decks had diversity in terms of what cards they played, splashes, etc. But the fact remains that for most of the format (up until near rotation), there were only four viable archetypes: U/x Devotion, B/x Devotion, RG/x Monsters, and UW/x control. Everything else was tier 3 at best. Some people might have enjoyed it but it definitely wasn't diverse.
You're right though that MBD wasn't even close to as bad as GW/x is now, people just hated it because it was uninteractive as hell.
It'll still be strong, but not necessarily oppressive like it is now. Most other decks aren't losing much either, and hopefully Wizards will print something for blue or red.