And it's quite obvious that the format is exceedingly poor right now. The format currently is summed up by three decks, and *only* three decks with a large amount of overlap between them and are centerred around two colors, and *Ony* those two colors. Every other color simply cannot compete, and playing anything but those three decks is like beating your head against a wall. It's not a good idea, it's going to hurt, but you will eventually break a hole in it every once in a while.
This is not a sign of a healthy format.
Could not compete. Again - pretty sure EMN will shake things up. However you are right for SOI. I think Spell Queller will do work, if nothing else.
I still think they might have gotten a little bit of cold feet with spirits in the latest block because of the prior history with fairies. They made a lot of very clunky spirits and spirit generators, along with a well over-costed and probably never constructed playable top end with Drogskol Cavalry. We really need something like Brago, King Eternal to act as a good top end or something along the lines of that level of utility.
And then there's Mausoleum Wanderer. Yes there are a lot of bad spirits that mostly exist for limited - doesn't mean there aren't enough good ones to make a deck. Also I wouldn't limit a deck for competitive to just spirits, but spirits will be much of the base. I would throw Stratus Dancer and a few other choice cards in there that aren't spirits.
I think GW is totally beatable this season - it's just people aren't willing to explore options and are too narrow-minded, or are too chained to net decking to make their own competitive decks.
Could not compete. Again - pretty sure EMN will shake things up. However you are right for SOI. I think Spell Queller will do work, if nothing else.
If you think Spell Queller is not going to to automatically slot into Bant Company, and is not going to be one of the miserable cards to play against from that deck, then have I got something to tell you.
Frankly, I don't see *how* the format will shake up from EMN; Red and Black got some nominally decent cards, and all Blue received of actual interest is some spirits for a tribal deck that may or may not exist, and may very be far worse than just splashing for Spell Queller and calling it a day. The level of raw power afforded to Green and White is simply unmatched in the other colors at all, which at best received cards that are just decent.
This is the fundamental issue people that people need to understand about why this format is so incredibly skewed; Green and White's power is so significant currently that it completely outstrips the power typically afforded highly synergistic archetypes decks. Why would you go into Spirits if Bant Company does the SPirits game plan but better? Why go into any other form of aggro if White does it better? Why go into any form of control when the threats are so incredibly high-powered that the answer simply don't line up at all in even the remotest way possible?
Simply put, Green/White based decks have such a significant level power, and received such a higher degree of power in EMN than the other colors, that it is damn near impossible for any other color combination to even remotely compete. Their creatures are better, their removal is better, their Planeswalkers are better, and they are relatively immune to any form of control. Even *if* you get the high-synergy upside of something like SPirits going, your power level still isn't up to par with what G/W has to offer. Which begs the question of why bother?
And then there's Mausoleum Wanderer. Yes there are a lot of bad spirits that mostly exist for limited - doesn't mean there aren't enough good ones to make a deck. Also I wouldn't limit a deck for competitive to just spirits, but spirits will be much of the base. I would throw Stratus Dancer and a few other choice cards in there that aren't spirits.
As I just pointed out, the best case scenario for if you get a SPirit deck's synergy going is that you are on a similar levle of power as G/W is at on average. The main give and take with heavy synergy based decks is that you are sacrificing some level of consistency for a high level of power at time; when your highest level of power is comparable to the average of the G/W decks, you simply cannot expect it to work.
[qoute]
I think GW is totally beatable this season - it's just people aren't willing to explore options and are too narrow-minded, or are too chained to net decking to make their own competitive decks.[/quote]
That is a remarkably naive viewpoint of how this all works. The reason why Green and White is so dominant is rather obvious and simply: They printed a hell of a lot of power, resiliency, and breadth into those two colors, and heavily stripped the power out of Red, Black, and Blue. Hell, Stoddard himself stated they intentionally stripped power from blue, and Red's problem are extremely well known due to their own admittance of stripping some of red's power from it.
Keep in mind that G/W decks are currently debating whether or not one of the strongest four-drop creatures ever printed, and one that will take over the game very quickly, is good enough to run.
People have explored plenty of options over the course of SoI standard, and all of them are not up to snuff. U/R Goggles was a non-starter, as was U/R flyers. B/W control is pretty miserable, as is Grixis. I tried my hand at a G/R tokens build but found it lack any power over G/W tokens, and was just a worse version of it. U/R ELdrazi is about as close to playable as U/R gets, and I'll tell you it's never actually favored in any match up that involves White.
Occasionally you will find a deck that will run hot; but no deck has had any reasonable level of consistency in the format if it isn't G/W. This has nothing at all to do with people not willing to try new things, and I find it rather insulting when people state this line as though I, and others, are simply not "thinking" hard enough (And remarkably naive). I have tried dozens of different decks and brews, and none of them even remotely feel satisfying to play against any form of G/W in the format. Simply put, the raw power level of those two colors in the current format is unmatched even for the heavy synergy based decks that you can come up.
There is a very good reason that G/W/x based decks are 50% of the meta game right now (And Green or White decks being practically the entirety of the meta game, and it has nothing to do with people not being "clever" enough to beat them. It has a hell of a lot more to do with them overloading those two colors with so much power, and weakening the other three significantly, that of course nothing else would compete.
Keep in mind that this frustration with the format is not just theoretical; My LGS and many other stores have seen a massive drop in attendance at Standard events. Simply put, increasing numbers of people don't want to play standard. We have had nearly fifty people quit standard play since this time last year at our store alone. Last friday our store failed to fire its standard FNM for the first time in over a decade. And this is by no means unique to our store. I've spoken with numerous stores and numerous people who have experience just the same. While a good many stores are relatively fine and haven't seen this, there is quite obviously a good many who are not doing so well anymore. Overall, it is apparent that this Standard season has been a net-loss for the playerbase of the format. Which is not a good thing at all.
So please don't tell me that this format is just fine- because the only format I actually give a crap about playing is dying off locally in no small part due to how incredibly crappy the format is currently.
This standard is just straight-up BAD, and it's not due to a single format-warping card. It's due to two colors just getting so efficient, combined with the recent design philosophy that removal must be inefficient, that leads to this perfect storm of ***** happening. The Stoddard-ian design philosophy of "removal that is cheaper than the creature it removes is an unfair constraint on design space" has had its chance, and we've very clearly seen what it leads to - a format where every threat is so overly efficient that even a deck that has practically infinte answers can't keep up with the threat density.
I am hopeful that cards like Murder and Incendiary Flow show that WotC is moving away from that design philosophy, and we can have answers to threats instead of just playing all the creatures ever. The game was never designed to be that way, and we shouldn't treat it like that.
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Top 16 - 2012 Indiana State Championships Currently Playing: GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
If people think players haven't tried to attack G/W based decks from every possible angle than you haven't tried enough either. I played at least 8 so called tier 1 decks and a dozen brews. Very few had decent match ups against the top decks. The only deck that had game was U/R control and at the last PPTQ I still lost to G/W Tokens. My exp with the top tier decks is such that I know how stupidly powerful the G/W Color combination is, you could cut the other 3 colors and still pay this standard format.
I'm appalled by Wotc curren design. It'll drive players away, and I hope people realize how poor standard has been. As in it barely fires at the local level for me.
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Standard Arena: Eh? Gruul or Die
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now: G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record) C Eldrazi Tron (9-5) UG Infect RW Burn
If people think players haven't tried to attack G/W based decks from every possible angle than you haven't tried enough either. I played at least 8 so called tier 1 decks and a dozen brews. Very few had decent match ups against the top decks. The only deck that had game was U/R control and at the last PPTQ I still lost to G/W Tokens. My exp with the top tier decks is such that I know how stupidly powerful the G/W Color combination is, you could cut the other 3 colors and still pay this standard format.
I'm appalled by Wotc curren design. It'll drive players away, and I hope people realize how poor standard has been. As in it barely fires at the local level for me.
We still have a decent amount of players show up, but I play at a very popular shop and a lot less people have shown up this standard than in the past.
I have nothing against Timmy players, but when almost everything in standard has to go smashy smashy or its automatically inefficient, I can't help but feel that Wotc has really dumbed down standard.
Welp, after playtesting several different decks in a few dozen games, and after watching the SCG open, I have decided I'm just going to not play standard for a while.
Being forced to not only play with Bant Company in mind and forced to try and actively beat Bant CoCo (And at best getting a 50-50 shake of it) on top of having to warp every bloody deck building decision I make around Spell Queller and trying to figure out how not to get blown out by it completely (And failing), I'm just tired of standard play. Everything about the format is obnoxious right now, and I simply don't see things shaking up from here.
Simply put, there is nothing that actually has a good match-up against Bant CoCo as far as I can tell. Some have close to fair, but the tempo, card advantage, raw power, ridiculously efficient permission spells, and ability to completely blow-out any form of sweeper is just too much to reasonably ask to feel like you compete. If I warp a deck so heavily to beat Company, it is miserable against the rest of the field. Given that even when you do build a deck that is good agains that miserable pile of trash, you *still* only have a somewhat favorable MU against them and not a majorly favorable one, I just don't see much of a point of bothering anymore.
So with me out of the equation, there is a very good chance that standard won't fire any more locally for the time being. Maybe I'll look at things again when Kaladesh comes out, maybe I'll have sort of epiphany, but I'm honestly not going to hold my breath. The non-company decks from the SCG Open today simply don't look interesting, nor do I think they will at all have a place in the format a week, two weeks, a month, or two months from now. This sort of things happens at SCG events where good players bring rogue-ish decks that people aren't prepared for. Given a small amount of time, Bant will come to be omni-present again (It already showed up in good number). I could go on as to what the problems with the format are, but frankly that's neither here nor there. The format is just plain trash right now, and I have no desire to play or build for.
The complaints I see about standard are complaints that have been slowly boiling up for ages, though. WoTC is afraid of the original power curve they had for cards at common and uncommon rarities and have been steadily relegating many constructed playables to rare status. That leaves little precious room for efficient cards as they are designing intentionally clunky ones to fill all the chaff slots they now have. This has been true for red and blue for years, and it's why in modern we got so much focus on SnapCaster mage being a 50 usd card when in the olden days it would be one among many good options.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Snapcaster Mage and actual Counterspell could not help blue based control right now. Blue has been in a terrible place outside of Sphinx's Revelation since Snapcaster Mage rotated. If Sphinx's Revelation wasn't printed, nobody is playing blue control. It would be nice if blue had the counters or superior card draw, rather than inferior of both to the creatures of G/W. Why can't blue have a instant speed draw 3 for UU1 with all these crappy counters it has. Maybe a U counter a creature or U1 counter creature or planeswalker. I haven't been excited about a blue card since Dig Through Time and even that wasn't good in my meta, too slow.
Snapcaster Mage and actual Counterspell could not help blue based control right now. Blue has been in a terrible place outside of Sphinx's Revelation since Snapcaster Mage rotated. If Sphinx's Revelation wasn't printed, nobody is playing blue control. It would be nice if blue had the counters or superior card draw, rather than inferior of both to the creatures of G/W. Why can't blue have a instant speed draw 3 for UU1 with all these crappy counters it has. Maybe a U counter a creature or U1 counter creature or planeswalker. I haven't been excited about a blue card since Dig Through Time and even that wasn't good in my meta, too slow.
Spirit decks and Collected Company decks are going to kill participation in Standard. Anyone not playing those decks are going to quit.
And everyone playing Spirits and Co Co can sit around and play each other.
i have to admit i am going to just sit on my hands and watch standard for the time being. haven't played against spell queller with collected company yet, but it sounds miserable. the last time i played at my LGS i played against company twice and i really can't help but roll my eyes when they hit anything + reflector mage at this point. now one can quell your spell AND bounce your creature? that is grotesque.
Snapcaster Mage and actual Counterspell could not help blue based control right now. Blue has been in a terrible place outside of Sphinx's Revelation since Snapcaster Mage rotated. If Sphinx's Revelation wasn't printed, nobody is playing blue control. It would be nice if blue had the counters or superior card draw, rather than inferior of both to the creatures of G/W. Why can't blue have a instant speed draw 3 for UU1 with all these crappy counters it has. Maybe a U counter a creature or U1 counter creature or planeswalker. I haven't been excited about a blue card since Dig Through Time and even that wasn't good in my meta, too slow.
I've been testing pretty extensively with Ali Aintrazi's BUG list and it looks like it has game against CoCo decks, so there's hope for a hole in the format. A pure control deck full of removal and boardwipes seems decent against Spirits. It might seem bad right now, but unlike before EMN there are ways to beat the tier 1 decks.
Dark Jeskai and Esper Dragons were hardly dominating around where I play. People played them, got blown out by mono red sligh and Heroic aggro. The other decks were only good because of the non-blue cards.
Dark jeskai and heroic aggro in the same format? how? Heroic rolled out when Dark Jeskai became a thing since it was bfz standard, and red sligh wasnt even a deck played, unless you mean Atarka Red.
Ugin is going to get really bad once all the fatties are colourless. I sold all mine. Sell sell sell!
He's going to be absolutely rotten. Hangarback walker has already nerfed him quite significantly. I reckon he'll be $3 junk within 2 months of rotation
As a former Esper Dragons Pilot, the atarka match up was terrible, but if you knew how to manage your cards and play optimally it was winnable. Silumgar, the Drifting Death went a long way stabilize the deck. That said, it was a deck that thrived off of Dig through time. I reckon these kind draw effects will never be scaled to that power level again. Too bad, they gave green all the card advantage now, blue is morphing into something else. Hard control is an arch type that will no longer be supported by WOTC, instead we all get to play with more creatures.
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Standard Arena: Eh? Gruul or Die
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now: G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record) C Eldrazi Tron (9-5) UG Infect RW Burn
All of those but one will rotate. Red is going to need a lot of help in the next set.
And the one that isn't rotating amounts to being a bad plummet.
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
I'm just glad to play a format that isn't brokenly expensive at the moment. The cost of getting the core for standard spirits is less than a play set of cavern of souls, let alone Aether Vial. Also, red gained Galvanic Bombardment, so it's got some burn still floating around.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Could not compete. Again - pretty sure EMN will shake things up. However you are right for SOI. I think Spell Queller will do work, if nothing else.
And then there's Mausoleum Wanderer. Yes there are a lot of bad spirits that mostly exist for limited - doesn't mean there aren't enough good ones to make a deck. Also I wouldn't limit a deck for competitive to just spirits, but spirits will be much of the base. I would throw Stratus Dancer and a few other choice cards in there that aren't spirits.
I think GW is totally beatable this season - it's just people aren't willing to explore options and are too narrow-minded, or are too chained to net decking to make their own competitive decks.
If you think Spell Queller is not going to to automatically slot into Bant Company, and is not going to be one of the miserable cards to play against from that deck, then have I got something to tell you.
Frankly, I don't see *how* the format will shake up from EMN; Red and Black got some nominally decent cards, and all Blue received of actual interest is some spirits for a tribal deck that may or may not exist, and may very be far worse than just splashing for Spell Queller and calling it a day. The level of raw power afforded to Green and White is simply unmatched in the other colors at all, which at best received cards that are just decent.
This is the fundamental issue people that people need to understand about why this format is so incredibly skewed; Green and White's power is so significant currently that it completely outstrips the power typically afforded highly synergistic archetypes decks. Why would you go into Spirits if Bant Company does the SPirits game plan but better? Why go into any other form of aggro if White does it better? Why go into any form of control when the threats are so incredibly high-powered that the answer simply don't line up at all in even the remotest way possible?
Simply put, Green/White based decks have such a significant level power, and received such a higher degree of power in EMN than the other colors, that it is damn near impossible for any other color combination to even remotely compete. Their creatures are better, their removal is better, their Planeswalkers are better, and they are relatively immune to any form of control. Even *if* you get the high-synergy upside of something like SPirits going, your power level still isn't up to par with what G/W has to offer. Which begs the question of why bother?
As I just pointed out, the best case scenario for if you get a SPirit deck's synergy going is that you are on a similar levle of power as G/W is at on average. The main give and take with heavy synergy based decks is that you are sacrificing some level of consistency for a high level of power at time; when your highest level of power is comparable to the average of the G/W decks, you simply cannot expect it to work.
[qoute]
I think GW is totally beatable this season - it's just people aren't willing to explore options and are too narrow-minded, or are too chained to net decking to make their own competitive decks.[/quote]
That is a remarkably naive viewpoint of how this all works. The reason why Green and White is so dominant is rather obvious and simply: They printed a hell of a lot of power, resiliency, and breadth into those two colors, and heavily stripped the power out of Red, Black, and Blue. Hell, Stoddard himself stated they intentionally stripped power from blue, and Red's problem are extremely well known due to their own admittance of stripping some of red's power from it.
Keep in mind that G/W decks are currently debating whether or not one of the strongest four-drop creatures ever printed, and one that will take over the game very quickly, is good enough to run.
People have explored plenty of options over the course of SoI standard, and all of them are not up to snuff. U/R Goggles was a non-starter, as was U/R flyers. B/W control is pretty miserable, as is Grixis. I tried my hand at a G/R tokens build but found it lack any power over G/W tokens, and was just a worse version of it. U/R ELdrazi is about as close to playable as U/R gets, and I'll tell you it's never actually favored in any match up that involves White.
Occasionally you will find a deck that will run hot; but no deck has had any reasonable level of consistency in the format if it isn't G/W. This has nothing at all to do with people not willing to try new things, and I find it rather insulting when people state this line as though I, and others, are simply not "thinking" hard enough (And remarkably naive). I have tried dozens of different decks and brews, and none of them even remotely feel satisfying to play against any form of G/W in the format. Simply put, the raw power level of those two colors in the current format is unmatched even for the heavy synergy based decks that you can come up.
There is a very good reason that G/W/x based decks are 50% of the meta game right now (And Green or White decks being practically the entirety of the meta game, and it has nothing to do with people not being "clever" enough to beat them. It has a hell of a lot more to do with them overloading those two colors with so much power, and weakening the other three significantly, that of course nothing else would compete.
Keep in mind that this frustration with the format is not just theoretical; My LGS and many other stores have seen a massive drop in attendance at Standard events. Simply put, increasing numbers of people don't want to play standard. We have had nearly fifty people quit standard play since this time last year at our store alone. Last friday our store failed to fire its standard FNM for the first time in over a decade. And this is by no means unique to our store. I've spoken with numerous stores and numerous people who have experience just the same. While a good many stores are relatively fine and haven't seen this, there is quite obviously a good many who are not doing so well anymore. Overall, it is apparent that this Standard season has been a net-loss for the playerbase of the format. Which is not a good thing at all.
So please don't tell me that this format is just fine- because the only format I actually give a crap about playing is dying off locally in no small part due to how incredibly crappy the format is currently.
I am hopeful that cards like Murder and Incendiary Flow show that WotC is moving away from that design philosophy, and we can have answers to threats instead of just playing all the creatures ever. The game was never designed to be that way, and we shouldn't treat it like that.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
I'm appalled by Wotc curren design. It'll drive players away, and I hope people realize how poor standard has been. As in it barely fires at the local level for me.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
We still have a decent amount of players show up, but I play at a very popular shop and a lot less people have shown up this standard than in the past.
I have nothing against Timmy players, but when almost everything in standard has to go smashy smashy or its automatically inefficient, I can't help but feel that Wotc has really dumbed down standard.
Being forced to not only play with Bant Company in mind and forced to try and actively beat Bant CoCo (And at best getting a 50-50 shake of it) on top of having to warp every bloody deck building decision I make around Spell Queller and trying to figure out how not to get blown out by it completely (And failing), I'm just tired of standard play. Everything about the format is obnoxious right now, and I simply don't see things shaking up from here.
Simply put, there is nothing that actually has a good match-up against Bant CoCo as far as I can tell. Some have close to fair, but the tempo, card advantage, raw power, ridiculously efficient permission spells, and ability to completely blow-out any form of sweeper is just too much to reasonably ask to feel like you compete. If I warp a deck so heavily to beat Company, it is miserable against the rest of the field. Given that even when you do build a deck that is good agains that miserable pile of trash, you *still* only have a somewhat favorable MU against them and not a majorly favorable one, I just don't see much of a point of bothering anymore.
So with me out of the equation, there is a very good chance that standard won't fire any more locally for the time being. Maybe I'll look at things again when Kaladesh comes out, maybe I'll have sort of epiphany, but I'm honestly not going to hold my breath. The non-company decks from the SCG Open today simply don't look interesting, nor do I think they will at all have a place in the format a week, two weeks, a month, or two months from now. This sort of things happens at SCG events where good players bring rogue-ish decks that people aren't prepared for. Given a small amount of time, Bant will come to be omni-present again (It already showed up in good number). I could go on as to what the problems with the format are, but frankly that's neither here nor there. The format is just plain trash right now, and I have no desire to play or build for.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I mean, Reflector Mage is in blue :^)
All jokes aside, Dig, JVP, Silumgar's Scorn dominated Standard at various times.
And everyone playing Spirits and Co Co can sit around and play each other.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
In between Dark Jeskai and Esper Dragons, Blue was pretty strong for over a year. Some rally decks even ran JVP
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
C Long Live Eldrazi C
And the one that isn't rotating amounts to being a bad plummet.
- Manite
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Given that Chandra is likely going to be the main protagonist - I would be surprised if red didn't get at least a little lovin'.
C Long Live Eldrazi C