does everyone actually think the that you can't metagame against the Mardu deck?
They must. Remember last week? It was "OMG Copy Cat Combo. Its the end of Standard. Ban Felidar!" Now its "OMG Mardu Vehicles. Its the end of Standard. Ban Gideon/Heart of Kiran!"
If BG Aggro had a strong PT top 8 it would be "Ban Verderous Gearhulk!"
If UB control had a strong PT top 8 it would "Ban Torrential Gearhulk!" and so on...
Calling for bans instead of learning how to deal with it.
Sadly this is how some people live their entire lives "OMG its XYZ. Ban/abolish/eliminate XYZ!"
does everyone actually think the that you can't metagame against the Mardu deck?
They must. Remember last week? It was "OMG Copy Cat Combo. Its the end of Standard. Ban Felidar!" Now its "OMG Mardu Vehicles. Its the end of Standard. Ban Gideon/Heart of Kiran!"
If BG Aggro had a strong PT top 8 it would be "Ban Verderous Gearhulk!"
If UB control had a strong PT top 8 it would "Ban Torrential Gearhulk!" and so on...
Calling for bans instead of learning how to deal with it.
Sadly this is how some people live their entire lives "OMG its XYZ. Ban/abolish/eliminate XYZ!"
Well cars was more or less impossible to play a reactive game against last season. It seems that despite copter getting banned it is still too strong to play reactively against.
When it comes to playing a midrange game against cars it just seems that there are no big creatures that are resistant enough to be worth playing.
Additionally to show there is even a deeper problem, most of the decks doing well at the PT are basically Kaladesh block constructed decks.
The reality is the that wizards designed a new card type, wanted it to be good, so added tons of support for it, then drastically underestimated how good it would be.
If nothing gets banned then we are probably in for another year or so of cars dominating more traditional decks.
The difference is that 95 players showed up with Mardu. The deck is good, but the sheer volume of players ensured that it would show up in the top-8.
How are you getting 75% for Copy Cat? One variant had a 75% conversion rate, but that was only 8 people. The popular Jeskai version performed abysmally and four color was barely better than average. 105 people showed up with Saheeli Cats (more than Mardu Vehicles) and none made top 8. Sheer volume doesn't overcome metagame... or just the deck not being very good.
How are you getting 75% for Copy Cat? One variant had a 75% conversion rate, but that was only 8 people. The popular Jeskai version performed abysmally and four color was barely better than average. 105 people showed up with Saheeli Cats (more than Mardu Vehicles) and none made top 8. Sheer volume doesn't overcome metagame... or just the deck not being very good.
Keep in mind that t8 is also reflective of draft records. GerryT's crew was happy with their Aetherworks CopyCat builds and indicated that it was a fine call for the weekend. Copy and pasting previous CopyCat builds would've resulted in a lack of preparation for the amount of Heart of Kiran running around.
I've indicated in previous threads that the best way to attack walkers is through cheap, evasive threats. A lot of people recognized this and played Heart of Kiran to attack Saheeli this weekend.
Success rates, I think, had a lot to do with the environment. Sure, Heart is individually powerful, but if it's trying to attack through larger flyers and efficient answers then maybe it isn't as successful as it was this weekend.
Basically, it was a "perfect storm" for Heart of Kiran to be the best threat in the format -- though admittedly the card helps itself alot by being extremely powerful.
How are you getting 75% for Copy Cat? One variant had a 75% conversion rate, but that was only 8 people. The popular Jeskai version performed abysmally and four color was barely better than average. 105 people showed up with Saheeli Cats (more than Mardu Vehicles) and none made top 8. Sheer volume doesn't overcome metagame... or just the deck not being very good.
Keep in mind that t8 is also reflective of draft records. GerryT's crew was happy with their Aetherworks CopyCat builds and indicated that it was a fine call for the weekend. Copy and pasting previous CopyCat builds would've resulted in a lack of preparation for the amount of Heart of Kiran running around.
I've indicated in previous threads that the best way to attack walkers is through cheap, evasive threats. A lot of people recognized this and played Heart of Kiran to attack Saheeli this weekend.
Success rates, I think, had a lot to do with the environment. Sure, Heart is individually powerful, but if it's trying to attack through larger flyers and efficient answers then maybe it isn't as successful as it was this weekend.
Basically, it was a "perfect storm" for Heart of Kiran to be the best threat in the format -- though admittedly the card helps itself alot by being extremely powerful.
I agree. I think everyone was either playing around the cat combo or just playing the cat combo and that set the stage for the Mardu deck perfectly. The question is are there any decks that can beat Mardu vehicles and not lose horribly to cat combo (or vice versa)?
How are you getting 75% for Copy Cat? One variant had a 75% conversion rate, but that was only 8 people. The popular Jeskai version performed abysmally and four color was barely better than average. 105 people showed up with Saheeli Cats (more than Mardu Vehicles) and none made top 8. Sheer volume doesn't overcome metagame... or just the deck not being very good.
Keep in mind that t8 is also reflective of draft records. GerryT's crew was happy with their Aetherworks CopyCat builds and indicated that it was a fine call for the weekend. Copy and pasting previous CopyCat builds would've resulted in a lack of preparation for the amount of Heart of Kiran running around.
I've indicated in previous threads that the best way to attack walkers is through cheap, evasive threats. A lot of people recognized this and played Heart of Kiran to attack Saheeli this weekend.
Success rates, I think, had a lot to do with the environment. Sure, Heart is individually powerful, but if it's trying to attack through larger flyers and efficient answers then maybe it isn't as successful as it was this weekend.
Basically, it was a "perfect storm" for Heart of Kiran to be the best threat in the format -- though admittedly the card helps itself alot by being extremely powerful.
I agree. I think everyone was either playing around the cat combo or just playing the cat combo and that set the stage for the Mardu deck perfectly. The question is are there any decks that can beat Mardu vehicles and not lose horribly to cat combo (or vice versa)?
I find it interesting that people think the cat combo not doing well some how translates into it was "too good" so everyone built their decks to beat it.
If you look at the top 8 decks there isn't really much interesting about them, they are all just 60 of the best smash you in the face cards.
Even with the addition of fatal push, the reactive cards are generally still not enough to address the guy that just shows up with the best pile of aggressive cards.
How are you getting 75% for Copy Cat? One variant had a 75% conversion rate, but that was only 8 people. The popular Jeskai version performed abysmally and four color was barely better than average. 105 people showed up with Saheeli Cats (more than Mardu Vehicles) and none made top 8. Sheer volume doesn't overcome metagame... or just the deck not being very good.
Keep in mind that t8 is also reflective of draft records.
Sure, let's look at just the constructed portion. How many decks were running the combo?
9-1 or better: 0 out of 5
8-2 or better: 1 out of 24
7-3 or better: 4 out of 61
That still doesn't look very good for CopyCat. Maybe it was just the specific tournament, but when you're about 1/4 of the field at the start it looks pretty bad when you drop down that hard.
Lesson here is that Jeskai CopyCat folds to hate. Though, the energy verson with Deep Fiend and/or Marvel seems to be pretty good. If they play Fiends, they can play Koz Return in the side to combat Mardu.
I sort of wonder if GB decks transition back to an Ishkanah style Delerium build, whether or not that would be good enough to beat Mardu. They could still play the Constrictor + Ballista package with some number of Gearhulk. Ballista still kills a ton of Mardu's pilots and Mindwrack is already relatively good at blocking Heart. Traverse gives the deck some toolbox capability, so it would only really need the addition of 1 Spider main. Just swap out the removal suite to Fatal Push & Ruinous Path, and maybe we see GB emerge from this meta on top again.
That still doesn't look very good for CopyCat. Maybe it was just the specific tournament, but when you're about 1/4 of the field at the start it looks pretty bad when you drop down that hard.
Sure. That's the data that is relevant -- not claiming that there was no CopyCat in t8.
CopyCat did poorly given the standard field but the t8 does not represent the constructed portion appropriately.
So then it looks like two likely potential situations: 1) The Standard meta has not been figured out yet, and the PT was simply too many players preparing against the CopyCat combo or 2) This is really going to be one of the most un-diverse Standards ever.
Dude, the Vehicles stay on the board and players can just hold a dude in hand. They'll cast a dude after you sweep the board and or bring back the Scrounger at the end step. Sweepers are not the answer to this deck, it wasn't least season either.
You run artifact removal for the vehicles. My point is that the deck can be hated out. However there isn't much left, variety wise, to use.
Let's just be honest and say that vehicles were a mistake. Just like Delve, Phyrexian mana, Dredge, Affinity, and so on.
Welcome to the New World Order that is full of garbage commons and uncommons to supposedly make draft better. Which is a joke. People are just too dumb to realized that WotC is using that to push all chase cards into Mythic so they sell packs.
The game is losing players at an alarming rate and the future sets dont look to be better as they were made by the same clowns that put the last set together.
I mean it may not be their fault as the plan was to go on a 18 month set cycle. I'm sure this messed up the development of sets. However we currently only have 6 sets so that's not really true.
Lol, relax. The sky is not falling. Vehicles is not as busted as phyrexian mana and delve was. There is hate and the format will stabilize.
So then it looks like two likely potential situations: 1) The Standard meta has not been figured out yet, and the PT was simply too many players preparing against the CopyCat combo or 2) This is really going to be one of the most un-diverse Standards ever.
I think its options 1 and 2. Too many people felt the hype for copy cat in this pro tour. I'm sure standard will stabilize within a couple weeks.
They should just unban Emmy and copter, close their eyes, cover their ears and, until the rotation, think about how they screwed up same standard 2 times.
Screw that. Emmy made standard a disaster. The best thing Wizards did for this rotation of standard is ban that God forsaken card.
I feel that this PT goes to show that Standard is in a healthy place and that the Mardu Vehicles decklist that everyone came to the conclusion that would be the best deck for the tournament. Now that all the data is available to the public, the meta will shift once again with all the other decks taking Vehicle.deks more serious when it comes to tuning their decklists. I don't think there should be any emergency bans after this PT, but I also do feel that Vehicles are right up there with Phyrexian Mana, Dredge, and Delve when it comes to powerful abilities.
The data shows us 'health'? I'm sorry, but data is cold hard facts and health of the format is one of the most subjective things in the world to measure. What you call health I call absolutely abysmal. We went from a 3-4 deck standard to a 2-3 deck standard in a matter of weeks since the banning. Last week's horrendous showing in Richmond of 1-4 and 6th of the top 8 being Copy Cat and the rest being BG variants spooked the pros into thinking it was going to be one or the other. That thinking positioned Vehicles to dominate, because 3 Shock main plus Heart of Kiran basically nullified the combo portion of Copy Cat and BG can't go threat for threat with Mardu because they stopped running Ishkana. The format is really, really soft to flyers atm and between Gideon and Heart, there was no way to stop the flow of aggression. You basically had to have a Nevinyrral's Disk to keep their side of the field under control with the tools available to BG and Copy Cat. The mass removal and 1-for-1's just weren't cutting it.
After this weekend, I don't even know what to say. It seemed obvious after last week's tourney that (most likely) the Cat and Winding Constrictor get a ban and we all muddle through figuring the format out until the next set...now I have no idea. Banning Heart of Kiran within 3 weeks of the last ban that also affected the deck is a very sorry statement. Banning the cat just makes Jeskai Control have to play fair, but then BG and Mardu still stomp them. BG losing Constrictor makes them probably move back to Ishkana, which is where they're probably headed anyway. Banning nothing at all basically says they didn't make the problem any better with bannings in the first place, and just let us have this 3-deck format for the next few months and hope attendance doesn't crash like the Hindenburg. It seems like lose-lose for WotC and players at this point. They've made a mess of things and we have to lie in it.
I mean, if you measure health on a scale of Caw-Blade to Innistrad/RTR, I'd say this is still languishing at a 3 at best like the last survey said. It's not diverse, answers and threats are way out of balance, attendance has dropped, confidence is lost, and we're sitting here talking about ADDING to a standard banlist. By the by, what respect do you think is going to be given to Vehicles when tuning decks? Jeskai was already running Radiant Flames and Fumigate, BG had a fat removal package. What other deck do you see rising up from nowhere to deal with all 3 of these, and what hate are they bringing against Mardu that wasn't already in BG and Copycat that didn't work for them?
While I don't disagree that Emrakul was oppressive last standard, I really hate how those bannings have changed community's expectations around bannings in standard. We went from an understanding that bans are rare and at last resort to people wanting the top deck from week to week to get their flagship card banned.
While I don't disagree that Emrakul was oppressive last standard, I really hate how those bannings have changed community's expectations around bannings in standard. We went from an understanding that bans are rare and at last resort to people wanting the top deck from week to week to get their flagship card banned.
I personally think that people are just heavily overreacting about the bans. Seriously guys, at least give it a couple weeks. We just got done with the pro tour.
With Mardu beeing the new first enemy, whats the best deck to beat them?
UW flash since Mardu is soft against flying creatures not to mention flash runs Gideon and heart of Kiran package too. Flash also has a lot of effects and creatures that tap down creatures. Here's a wild card Turbofog.
While I don't disagree that Emrakul was oppressive last standard, I really hate how those bannings have changed community's expectations around bannings in standard. We went from an understanding that bans are rare and at last resort to people wanting the top deck from week to week to get their flagship card banned.
Not only that, but I think any predictions we might have about future bans now won't have any value, since WoTC has already demonstrated it is willing to make bans that don't make much sense.
Banning Copter was a good call since that thing was way too cheap for what it does and can fit in any deck. That's not the case with Emmy: she was only cheap in Aetherworks Marvel and hard casting her was still hard and only doable in Delirium decks.
Personally, I never cared for gideon, ally of zendikar. With 4 loyalty for 4 mana and 3 abilities, all relevant available from the get-go, he was always dominating. Now with heart of kiran bascially tacking a fourth ability, he's an unusually flexible PW. (Not ban worthy, obviously, but very annoying.) There are small things that have made him better, like fewer red burn spell having the ability to go to the face and making ruinous path a sorcery, making it a less attractive option to deck designers. (It can't easily hit vehicules.)
Well it's like this for people worried about bannings on heart. To have it banned would involve people not wanting to give up the deck that it beats, or if the deck it beats has basically no way to adjust to deal with the mardu vehicle deck. I popped back to playing the game right around when Cawblade was banned and that was basically the story of that deck vs Valakut. I've got no doubt in my mind that wizards has the finger on the trigger for hitting something in five weeks from now and they are not taking chances with anything right now thanks to the condition of standard. When it comes down to it I'd prefer the saheeli combo gets axed for the good of humanity, but I don't know if they will do it now.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
Personally, I never cared for gideon, ally of zendikar. With 4 loyalty for 4 mana and 3 abilities, all relevant available from the get-go, he was always dominating. Now with heart of kiran bascially tacking a fourth ability, he's an unusually flexible PW. (Not ban worthy, obviously, but very annoying.) There are small things that have made him better, like fewer red burn spell having the ability to go to the face and making ruinous path a sorcery, making it a less attractive option to deck designers. (It can't easily hit vehicules.)
I still can't believe that they left that card in standard yet banned Copter and Reflector Mage.
Personally, I never cared for gideon, ally of zendikar. With 4 loyalty for 4 mana and 3 abilities, all relevant available from the get-go, he was always dominating. Now with heart of kiran bascially tacking a fourth ability, he's an unusually flexible PW. (Not ban worthy, obviously, but very annoying.) There are small things that have made him better, like fewer red burn spell having the ability to go to the face and making ruinous path a sorcery, making it a less attractive option to deck designers. (It can't easily hit vehicules.)
I still can't believe that they left that card in standard yet banned Copter and Reflector Mage.
I think the last thing they want to do is ban a planeswalker. Those are basically the face of an entire set and if those can get axed it opens up a big can of worms.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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'm semi-retiring from Magic after watching this Pro Tour. The whole Dimirtirus vs Lucas game 1 and the entire Segovia vs Nguyen debacle makes me not want to play this game. That plus the prices and the possible drop of a ban hammer if something does too good. It just makes me want to avoid buying anything.
Personally, I never cared for gideon, ally of zendikar. With 4 loyalty for 4 mana and 3 abilities, all relevant available from the get-go, he was always dominating. Now with heart of kiran bascially tacking a fourth ability, he's an unusually flexible PW. (Not ban worthy, obviously, but very annoying.) There are small things that have made him better, like fewer red burn spell having the ability to go to the face and making ruinous path a sorcery, making it a less attractive option to deck designers. (It can't easily hit vehicules.)
I still can't believe that they left that card in standard yet banned Copter and Reflector Mage.
I think the last thing they want to do is ban a planeswalker. Those are basically the face of an entire set and if those can get axed it opens up a big can of worms.
That can of worms had already been opened.
And actually I think Gideon is one of the most sensible cards to ban. It is really more of a support card than an essential piece. None of the current decks running white are unplayable without Gideon, but of course having him provides a huge advantage, so he gets played in those decks whenever possible. Overall, Gideon is a card that is played enough to possibly warrant a ban but also not have too much negative backlash from doing so.
But then again, Wizards has already shown to be willing to make bans that don't make much sense, so who knows that will happen next.
I play Standard seriously for five years. But at the end of last year, I decide to drop this format temporally due to some personal issues.
After the most recent ban announcement and watching the PT Aether Revolt, I think my drop is a good decision and I will quit Standard completely.
The format is fine, to be honest. But the bad news is WOTC cannot make Standard attractive to most of the players, at least from my point of view.
Yeah. They should've printed cards like Deglamer, Manic Vandal, Disenchant, Annul, Magma Spray or just plain old, uh, Murder, I guess.
Your gripe appears to be with NWO and not actual standard -- a gripe which is notably not relevant to PT Aether Revolt.
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
If BG Aggro had a strong PT top 8 it would be "Ban Verderous Gearhulk!"
If UB control had a strong PT top 8 it would "Ban Torrential Gearhulk!" and so on...
Calling for bans instead of learning how to deal with it.
Sadly this is how some people live their entire lives "OMG its XYZ. Ban/abolish/eliminate XYZ!"
C Long Live Eldrazi C
Well cars was more or less impossible to play a reactive game against last season. It seems that despite copter getting banned it is still too strong to play reactively against.
When it comes to playing a midrange game against cars it just seems that there are no big creatures that are resistant enough to be worth playing.
Additionally to show there is even a deeper problem, most of the decks doing well at the PT are basically Kaladesh block constructed decks.
The reality is the that wizards designed a new card type, wanted it to be good, so added tons of support for it, then drastically underestimated how good it would be.
If nothing gets banned then we are probably in for another year or so of cars dominating more traditional decks.
How are you getting 75% for Copy Cat? One variant had a 75% conversion rate, but that was only 8 people. The popular Jeskai version performed abysmally and four color was barely better than average. 105 people showed up with Saheeli Cats (more than Mardu Vehicles) and none made top 8. Sheer volume doesn't overcome metagame... or just the deck not being very good.
Keep in mind that t8 is also reflective of draft records. GerryT's crew was happy with their Aetherworks CopyCat builds and indicated that it was a fine call for the weekend. Copy and pasting previous CopyCat builds would've resulted in a lack of preparation for the amount of Heart of Kiran running around.
I've indicated in previous threads that the best way to attack walkers is through cheap, evasive threats. A lot of people recognized this and played Heart of Kiran to attack Saheeli this weekend.
Success rates, I think, had a lot to do with the environment. Sure, Heart is individually powerful, but if it's trying to attack through larger flyers and efficient answers then maybe it isn't as successful as it was this weekend.
Basically, it was a "perfect storm" for Heart of Kiran to be the best threat in the format -- though admittedly the card helps itself alot by being extremely powerful.
I agree. I think everyone was either playing around the cat combo or just playing the cat combo and that set the stage for the Mardu deck perfectly. The question is are there any decks that can beat Mardu vehicles and not lose horribly to cat combo (or vice versa)?
I find it interesting that people think the cat combo not doing well some how translates into it was "too good" so everyone built their decks to beat it.
If you look at the top 8 decks there isn't really much interesting about them, they are all just 60 of the best smash you in the face cards.
Even with the addition of fatal push, the reactive cards are generally still not enough to address the guy that just shows up with the best pile of aggressive cards.
Sure, let's look at just the constructed portion. How many decks were running the combo?
9-1 or better: 0 out of 5
8-2 or better: 1 out of 24
7-3 or better: 4 out of 61
That still doesn't look very good for CopyCat. Maybe it was just the specific tournament, but when you're about 1/4 of the field at the start it looks pretty bad when you drop down that hard.
I sort of wonder if GB decks transition back to an Ishkanah style Delerium build, whether or not that would be good enough to beat Mardu. They could still play the Constrictor + Ballista package with some number of Gearhulk. Ballista still kills a ton of Mardu's pilots and Mindwrack is already relatively good at blocking Heart. Traverse gives the deck some toolbox capability, so it would only really need the addition of 1 Spider main. Just swap out the removal suite to Fatal Push & Ruinous Path, and maybe we see GB emerge from this meta on top again.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Sure. That's the data that is relevant -- not claiming that there was no CopyCat in t8.
CopyCat did poorly given the standard field but the t8 does not represent the constructed portion appropriately.
Lol, relax. The sky is not falling. Vehicles is not as busted as phyrexian mana and delve was. There is hate and the format will stabilize.
I think its options 1 and 2. Too many people felt the hype for copy cat in this pro tour. I'm sure standard will stabilize within a couple weeks.
Screw that. Emmy made standard a disaster. The best thing Wizards did for this rotation of standard is ban that God forsaken card.
The data shows us 'health'? I'm sorry, but data is cold hard facts and health of the format is one of the most subjective things in the world to measure. What you call health I call absolutely abysmal. We went from a 3-4 deck standard to a 2-3 deck standard in a matter of weeks since the banning. Last week's horrendous showing in Richmond of 1-4 and 6th of the top 8 being Copy Cat and the rest being BG variants spooked the pros into thinking it was going to be one or the other. That thinking positioned Vehicles to dominate, because 3 Shock main plus Heart of Kiran basically nullified the combo portion of Copy Cat and BG can't go threat for threat with Mardu because they stopped running Ishkana. The format is really, really soft to flyers atm and between Gideon and Heart, there was no way to stop the flow of aggression. You basically had to have a Nevinyrral's Disk to keep their side of the field under control with the tools available to BG and Copy Cat. The mass removal and 1-for-1's just weren't cutting it.
After this weekend, I don't even know what to say. It seemed obvious after last week's tourney that (most likely) the Cat and Winding Constrictor get a ban and we all muddle through figuring the format out until the next set...now I have no idea. Banning Heart of Kiran within 3 weeks of the last ban that also affected the deck is a very sorry statement. Banning the cat just makes Jeskai Control have to play fair, but then BG and Mardu still stomp them. BG losing Constrictor makes them probably move back to Ishkana, which is where they're probably headed anyway. Banning nothing at all basically says they didn't make the problem any better with bannings in the first place, and just let us have this 3-deck format for the next few months and hope attendance doesn't crash like the Hindenburg. It seems like lose-lose for WotC and players at this point. They've made a mess of things and we have to lie in it.
I mean, if you measure health on a scale of Caw-Blade to Innistrad/RTR, I'd say this is still languishing at a 3 at best like the last survey said. It's not diverse, answers and threats are way out of balance, attendance has dropped, confidence is lost, and we're sitting here talking about ADDING to a standard banlist. By the by, what respect do you think is going to be given to Vehicles when tuning decks? Jeskai was already running Radiant Flames and Fumigate, BG had a fat removal package. What other deck do you see rising up from nowhere to deal with all 3 of these, and what hate are they bringing against Mardu that wasn't already in BG and Copycat that didn't work for them?
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
I personally think that people are just heavily overreacting about the bans. Seriously guys, at least give it a couple weeks. We just got done with the pro tour.
Not only that, but I think any predictions we might have about future bans now won't have any value, since WoTC has already demonstrated it is willing to make bans that don't make much sense.
Banning Copter was a good call since that thing was way too cheap for what it does and can fit in any deck. That's not the case with Emmy: she was only cheap in Aetherworks Marvel and hard casting her was still hard and only doable in Delirium decks.
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 still can't believe that they left that card in standard yet banned Copter and Reflector Mage.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
I think the last thing they want to do is ban a planeswalker. Those are basically the face of an entire set and if those can get axed it opens up a big can of worms.
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!
That can of worms had already been opened.
And actually I think Gideon is one of the most sensible cards to ban. It is really more of a support card than an essential piece. None of the current decks running white are unplayable without Gideon, but of course having him provides a huge advantage, so he gets played in those decks whenever possible. Overall, Gideon is a card that is played enough to possibly warrant a ban but also not have too much negative backlash from doing so.
But then again, Wizards has already shown to be willing to make bans that don't make much sense, so who knows that will happen next.
After the most recent ban announcement and watching the PT Aether Revolt, I think my drop is a good decision and I will quit Standard completely.
The format is fine, to be honest. But the bad news is WOTC cannot make Standard attractive to most of the players, at least from my point of view.
Anything, but nothing at the moment...
Modern:
WUBRGAmulet Titan, WUBRGHuman
WUBRAd Nauseam, WBRGDeath Shadow, UBRGScapeshift, UBRGDredge
WURJeskai Nahiri, WURCheeri0s, WBGCounter Company, WRGBurn, UBRMadcap Moon, BRGJund Midrange
UBTurn,BRGriselbrand Reanimator, WGKnight Company, RGRG Tron, RGRG Ponza, XAffinity, XEldrazi Tron