@Thememan: So you are saying that control is viable but not the top deck. Ok. Your original statement is that "control deserves to exist", which it does. Evidently you agree with me then and have in fact furnished proof thereof.
@Thememan: So you are saying that control is viable but not the top deck. Ok. Your original statement is that "control deserves to exist", which it does. Evidently you agree with me then and have in fact furnished proof thereof.
There is a very, very far cry from "existing" and being "viable.", or even consistently good enough to be a consideration in the format. My 4-color Turbo-Fog exists. I can play it. Hell, I can even win some tournaments with it. That doesn't mean it's viable in the least. Keep in mind that all Control decks combined are doing about as well as only one of the G/B variants. Your argument that "it's not the best deck" would be valid if there was any singular control deck actually doing well at all. The fact is they are not. If a deck does not consistently perform in the meta game, it is not a particularly viable decks at all, and none of them currently exist for any practical reasons. The only one which seems to be doing well is Temur Tower, but even that is at the astonishing 3% of top decks currently. It exists, but honestly at this point nobody would particularly notice if it disappeared from the format.
So really, your argument is to try and twist the definitions and words around to fit your need in order to make a fallatious argument that follows a strawman, shifting the goal posts, and false equivalencies. To be blunt, an entire series of decks in the "control" archetype combined barely edging a variant of the third-most played deck is pretty sad, and about as close to not-viable as you can get.
Mate, you are the one that used the word "exists" and seem to be the one caught up in semantics. If 10% of the successful deck lists are Control, that means control is winning and top8ing at various levels. That seems to be a few steps above even "existing". It seems to me that the nub of it is that, really, what you mean is that control (and evidently a very specific type of it, if you don't even count control oriented CopyCat) should be a tier 1 dominating archetype. But that isn't a reasonable expectation to have in every meta. Not everyone's favourite archetype or colour combinations are going to be tier one from season to season. And when those preferred archetypes are not tier 1, that doesn't necessarily mean there is anything wrong with the format.
I think it's important to not focus solely on control as the arch type which is suffering the most. It is for all intents and purposes playable, but it's not one of the format's defining strategy's. If we want to analyze control it's important to know what it's trying to beat. We know what it's trying to beat but it's not exactly good at doing that, infact the counter argument is that Mardu beats Mardu better than Control, and G/B tries to prey on Mardu but hasn't successfully done that. We could argue that U/R control is favored VS Saheeli Combo, but only the control variant and not 4c saheeli deck.
It's also important to see what kinds of decks are simply unplayable at the top tables:
Colossus Decks
Tezzeret Decks
Aetherflux Reservoir
The Entire Eldrazi Block
Marvel Decks are truly 2nd tier now
Flash Shell is there but neutered
U/B Control
G/R Energy (Super Fringe)
Insert Tribal decks here
Expertise decks? Show up in modern and not in standard, not big deal but lolz
Standard Cheerios
Ect ect ect
Sort of Playable:
U/R Zombies is a decent meta choice when it doesn't shoot itself in the foot
U/B Zombies is gaining a little traction? I see it on MTGO but that deck has consistency issues
Grixis Tower and assorted Variations
See what I'm getting at? The Cat Combo does actually keep certain decks from seeing play do to their necessity to have to have MD answers to it. You know what happens when Shock meets Winding Constrictor? Yeah I've been there, that tool isn't meant for that match up and you lose massive % points G1.
Look at that potential, look at that sweet potential meta game. So close, but we are SO very VERY FaR.
Mate, you are the one that used the word "exists" and seem to be the one caught up in semantics. If 10% of the successful deck lists are Control, that means control is winning and top8ing at various levels. That seems to be a few steps above even "existing". It seems to me that the nub of it is that, really, what you mean is that control (and evidently a very specific type of it, if you don't even count control oriented CopyCat) should be a tier 1 dominating archetype. But that isn't a reasonable expectation to have in every meta. Not everyone's favourite archetype or colour combinations are going to be tier one from season to season.
First, I did count control oriented CopyCat in that. That account for 3.3%. Temur accounts for another 3%. UR Control accounts for another 2%. That is all of the control decks in the format. Assuming I am counting only a singular type of control is completely fallacious. All control decks in all their forms, either Blue-based counter-control, Jeskai Saheeli, or Tap-out control accounts for 10%.
Second, this isn't about it not being Tier 1; arguably any Control list isn't even Tier 2 at all (Temur Tower, admittedly, has some good results so far). It's very, very close to a fringe deck right now. Being overly semantic about definitions is just silly and not at all constructive. To go to the extreme, during Cawblade Standard, Vampires put up an astonishing 5% winrate. Does that mean that Vampires was a particularly viable deck in the format, and people bemoaning Cawblade were just bemoaning the best deck?
Equally, I don't play Control in amost any form. The closest I have gotten in years is the aforementioned Turbo-Fog decks that I play occasionally. Most often I am on some form of Midrange or Aggro. To assume this is me bemoaning my favorite archetype missing is to be assuming far too much. Control is one of my least favorite archetypes to play and it's not one I typically sleeve up even when it's good.
And to flip your argument on its head, currently Mardu Vehicles has a 31% meta share. That is a few steps above "just being the best deck".
I don't play control, however I am willing to take a step back and look at the format's overall health regardless of what impact that may or may not have on me. When Copter, Mage, and Emrakul were banned from the format, pretty much every deck I played was killed off at the time; that said, it needed to happen for the health and viability of the format as a whole, which suffered immensely. The player population was dwindling, and these cards were complete jokes that never should have gone to print.
I don't know if it's fair to say they were complete jokes that never should have gone to print. I feel the problem was not the cards in and of themselves, but the environment. If we had seen cards like Scrabbling Claws/Relic of Progenitus or Rest In Peace be legal, Emrakul would have been a lot less scary. Reflector Mage was powerful, but still not a real issue at the time it was banned (if there was a time to ban it it would've been in the previous Standard when Collected Company was around). The potential problem with that card is that it might interface really well with the CopyCat combo. Smuggler's Copter... okay, that card probably would have been crazy no matter what, but some better answers might have made it less of a problem.
I actually find it an interesting question whether Smuggler's Copter or Heart of Kiran was a bigger issue. It's true Smuggler's Copter was just plain everywhere whereas Heart of Kiran is limited to one deck, but in a way that's the problem; Smuggler's Copter, despite its ubiquitousness, at least benefitted a lot of different decks, whereas Heart of Kiran just helps out one.
Though one thing that I think heavily contributed the attendance drop that's often overlooked is the new rotation. People wouldn't have liked the Standards, but without the extra rotation making it harder than usual to keep up, they might have been more willing to bear it out.
Now, we run into another problem as stated before: Bannings won't fix the underlying problems the format faces. Wizards went too far with their threat base and have been for some time, particularly in Green and White, and we are seeing the continuing problems with standard because of it. It's not a "best deck is the best deck" situation in the least; rather it's that the past few iterations of standards have had incredibly punishing decks that require you to not miss a beat the entire game, else you lose almost on the spot. That's indicative of poor development and design, and frankly things won't change for quite some time. The problem is these development philosophies have been so ingrained in the current R&D that there's really no getting out of it from bans alone. A shift in their viewpoints towards design and development needs to occur, and it needs to occur two years ago.
Sam Stoddard at least admitted that threats have been getting too good compared to removal, so I don't think the problem is necessarily the philosophy needing to change (though of course, who knows how much they'll shift the needle back to making the answers better). The bigger problem, I'd think, is that despite figuring this out, it takes a while to get any new cards into circulation. Sets are finalized months before they're released because of the need to spend time printing and distributing them. They may have gotten their epiphany (too late, as you note), but it'll be a while before they can actually act on it. In the meantime, they're in a pretty bad position where they have to choose between banning more cards (annoying people and making them quit) or letting the current still-disliked Standard continue on.
The big problem with this case compared to previous ones is that, as you note, it's not really a specific development goofup that's to blame that can be easily fixed via bannings. Jace and Stoneforge were overpowered, but they were really the only problems; take them out, and the format gets fixed. Same thing with Affinity (and Skullclamp before that). Those bannings managed to be successful because it was specific slip ups that were the problem rather than the problems being much more ingrained than that.
Actually, to somewhat illustrate this point: Once Jace and Stoneforge got banned, Twin Exarch (a combo that, much like CopyCat, they totally missed) was one of the big decks in Standard. But while a popular deck, it wasn't anywhere near as big of a problem as CopyCat despite the fact the deck had both Ponder AND Preordain to make sure it could find its pieces very quickly. A big part of that was the fact the removal was good enough (Vapor Snag, Dispatch, and Dismember were all legal, the latter of which anyone could play) that the deck, while good, was kept in check.
The thing is I totally see them doing this ban 3 cards scenario because they want to showcase the new set and eliminate possible contenders to new deck builds. WoTC is in full on money making mode, and they seem poised to do whatever it takes to make sure they get their quota filled.
If they axe Gideon, Liliana, and Felidar Sovereign, they'd keep with only one version of a walker in standard from a main set and potentially set more focus on Amonket. Not saying they are absolutely going to do this as no one here is Nostradamus, but they may very well do so.
While I would love to see a Gideon ban it's not really true that this would mean 1 Planeswalker card of one character is left in standard. There are 3 legal Chandras and 3 legal Nissas (and a 4th one coming probably) right now.
Even with Gideon and Liliana ban you would still have 2 of them standard legal. One from Amonkhet and one from the Planeswalker deck.
Wow, I just realized looking at your post I wrote Felidar Sovereign instead of Felidar Guardian. I'm blaming the Dayquil I'm taking for the office flu I got.
Private Mod Note
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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!
Saying copycat is 'fragile' assumes that countering the combo once is sufficient. Run tests against it and you'll see that the deck does something NO OTHER DECK CAN DO which is win on any turn 4 or after. Your life total doesn't matter. You have a shock in hand... goody you stopped it once. Maybe you stop it the second time with another shock or a different instant. You are now completely at it's mercy... unless they already dispelled your instant and won.
No other deck can instawin at any point in the game like this one.
I see people being very judgy 'you're just not smart if you don't plan for it'. This is the point. The entire format is warped because you HAVE to plan for it. You can never tap out. You can never run out of cards and if they have a counterspell you're just done. So you either beat it super fast or face endgame at every turn.
Look at all the pro articles and how they talk about combo. Every event has been saturated with testing AGAINST copycat combo because of its devastating influence on deckbuilding.
My vote, since standard is in such horrible shape, is ban cat and heart. They will not ban Gideon. If they were going to they'd have done so. We do need Hero's Downfall back for sure though. Frankly I find copycat so unfun to deal with I would actually be quitting standard and playing only limited if anything if they DON'T ban it. I usually exclusively play standard at FNM a couple times a month. I'm a customer who buys product. I buy singles. I like to brew and play my brews. In the current environment brews have zip chance. CoCo was the plague that left us with FNMs that barely fire (from 30 every week) and Modern on the same night up to 30 from 12.
Copycat is ONLY not dominant because all the pros know they have to base maindeck strategy for it.
You are now completely at it's mercy... unless they already dispelled your instant and won.
That's why walking ballista exists. That's why it's good. You can also run sinister concoction as an ability-based answer. (Bx zombies run it.)
Also, the cat is otherwise useless in the deck, so the deck compromise the rest of the deck for the combo.
Any top deck "warps the meta". It's the nature of being a tier-1 deck.
I disagree.
That's why walking ballista exists. That's why it's good. You can also run sinister concoction as an ability-based answer. (Bx zombies run it.)
A good player (see the Blohon matches in the MOCS) can hold cat in hand and beat you down with virtuoso and rogue refiner. Eventually you WILL have to pop the ballista or just risk dying to their non-combo beatdowns. And once you pop the ballista/concotion, you're open to the combo. Plus, copycat runs removal that can deal with ballista (the oath, for example) so sticking a ballista and sayin "I'm safe" is folly.
Also, the cat is otherwise useless in the deck, so the deck compromise the rest of the deck for the combo
Not at all. Blinkin a rogue refiner, blining a chandra (specially if oath of chandra is already the battlefield) and blinking an oath of chandra can all be very powerful plays.
I think the problem of copycat is this: generally, combo decks are kept in check if one of three things are true:
[1] The deck is bad without the combo
[2] There is a good (as in "viable vs the field") control deck that can go bigger
[3] There is a good (as in "viable vs the field") aggro deck that can reliably get under it.
What I just argued is that item 1 does not hold. THe deck, even when it does not draw the combo, is a hell of a beatdown value deck Item 2 does not hold, because it is easy to build control deck that have favorable game vs the cat, but those decks just fold to a quick start of the mardu ones, so there is no control deck that can beat the combo and be viable vs the field. Item 3 sort of holds, and not entirely. Only the nut draw of mardu can hope to get under the combo deck, but even the slightest of tumbles from mardu will let the cat lady combo catch up: refiner, oath of chandra, virtuoso, chandra itself act are very powerful ways to stabilize, and then the squeeze begins: you play around the combo, you lose to beatdown, you play around the beatdown, you loose to the combo (i.e. we are back to item 1).
I really think the way to un-warp the format is to fix the items above: w/out bannings item 1 can't be fixed, and it's hard to make mardu even more aggresive w/out breaking the format. THis is why I think making a powerful set of control cards i what R&D needs to now. Objectively speaking, if you don't want bannings, the only way you can fix the format is to make control as powerful as mardu and copycat.
Walking ballista is still pretty easy to remove though.
And cat is still a powerful card without the combo. You can bounce oath of nissa/Chandra to search for combo or kill ballista you can bounce rouge refiner and whirler virtuoso for added value. Cat is surely not a dead card without saheeli.
Ballista is a great card... but as others have said it's not optimal. Tapping out for a couple of counters just to either be countered or killed quickly doesn't give you the protection. it leaves you vulnerable. I've been grind testing decks against copycat and the resiliency of that deck (with copters and bouncing and combos oh my) is head and shoulders beyond anything tier 2 and holds down a steady great average against the 2 (cough 1) other tier 1 decks.
Pros are posting these brews 'for fun' and in every article they talk about how they're weak against combo. Vehicles nut draws and speed is the only thing keeping it barely on top of dirty kitty.
Draw_Gone hit all the details on the head.
Lets not forget that the combo is something development MISSED. If cat said "another target creature or artifact" we wouldn't be here. We also have the way over-pushed vehicle plan to blame for the crazy efficiency of vehicles decks because they made all sorcery speed removal crap. I'm not seeing any Dec Stone in pro decklists, are you? Sorcery removal is complete trash because of vehicles and dirty kitty.
Personally I don't want to suffer through another year of combo like the unbridled reign of CoCo.
They know Standard is damaged and they are adjusting hard because sales are suffering. I will be unpleasantly surprised if they don't ban at least cat and heart.
Personally I think Gideon deserves the axe. He is VERY hard to deal with and can completely turn the game around if left alone. He is also played in pretty much any deck that runs white. Based on what we can speculate from the last banning, he fits a lot of the criteria for a ban.
However I still hope there is no banning in Standard. The fact that there was a standard banning at all (for THREE cards mind you) is Wizards' admission that they screwed up. Banning more cards or even unbanning cards is admitting even further that they screwed up.
Regarding the individual cards people have mentioned.
Heart of Kiran: this card is nothing like Smuggler's Copter. It's crew 3 compared to 1 and is simply a beatstick without any additional benefits. Also look at the statistics: it's not being played in almost every single build like Copter was. I've even played multiple games against Mardu Vehicles where they actually couldn't crew Heart because the cost was too high.
Constrictor: like someone already mentioned, we're getting -1/-1 counters in the next set, so that should balance things out, or eliminate this guy entirely. Also banning the snake now would very clearly be trying to eliminate BG builds entirely, which I don't think is what Wizards is aiming to do.
Felidar Guardian: the copycat combo is fragile, so it makes no sense banning something that clearly isn't overpowered.
At the end of the day, Standard is more diverse now it was prior to the banning. Not to mention, we currently have 1 control (Jeskai Copycat), 1 aggro (Vehicles), and 1 midrange (BG) deck dominating the format. And there's not one card appearing in 60-70% of decks (again, referring to Copter here). Could the format be better? Absolutely. But the question now becomes would Wizards risk upsetting more players to try to make the meta better?
In my opinion, they shouldn't. No matter how you change Standard, it's ALWAYS going to be a format dominated by a few select builds; that is inherent in a format where you're limited to only the most recent sets. What would they be trying to achieve? To try and get every person to brew their own decks? That's not going to happen. Standard is in a very satisfactory spot right now, there's no need to risk upsetting it.
But then again, banning Reflector Mage and Emrakul, while not banning MANY previously broken Standard cards didn't make sense either. So in any case, there's really no way to predict what Wizards might do.
But the question now becomes would Wizards risk upsetting more players to try to make the meta better?
They just used the banstick to hit standard for 3 cards in an open admission that they screwed up. The current set was already in the pipe when they realized they're off kilter and are losing sales. This is hard correction to fix the game, I see no reason why they wouldn't do it again. They've also just admitted they 'missed' the copycat combo. Screwed... up... again.
Standard is in a very satisfactory spot right now, there's no need to risk upsetting it.
I again have to disagree. Standard is still in a very bad place with no diversity. I don't consider copycat a control deck. There is a variant that is control-ish but the core deck which was at the resent big event is combo and creature/planeswalker beats. UR control is ok, but how many do we see top 8? Either version?
The reason behind the bans is they are losing people from standard.
My store, over the last year of CoCo crap up to now, went from 30+ at FNM to barely firing. People divested because of bad environment and the 'faster rotation' which was total trash. They went to Modern or quit. They need to get those people back and new people in. But expense and overpowered top 3 decks that leave little room for creativity are strangling them.
I seriously doubt they'll ban a walker. They need to go back to printing at least sideboard worthy hate cards for each strategy which they want to push. Where the **** is the GY hate? Why isn't there more vehicle hate (that's playable)? Planeswalker hate needs to be instant as Ruinous Farce loses way too much tempo.
I couldn't disagree more for all the reasons stated already. A skilled player doesn't allow you to stop them.
That doesn't mean the combo isn't fragile. If a skilled player is needed to pull it off, then it's NOT broken. Similarly, you can make the argument that a skilled opponent will not let you pull that combo off at all.
They just used the banstick to hit standard for 3 cards in an open admission that they screwed up. The current set was already in the pipe when they realized they're off kilter and are losing sales. This is hard correction to fix the game, I see no reason why they wouldn't do it again. They've also just admitted they 'missed' the copycat combo. Screwed... up... again.
We already know they've screwed up before, but things can always be much worse. We also know they are willing to do what it takes to attempt to fix Standard, but we also don't want them inadvertently creating new problems, and that's the risk Wizards has if they were to create new bans or even un-ban.
I again have to disagree. Standard is still in a very bad place with no diversity. I don't consider copycat a control deck. There is a variant that is control-ish but the core deck which was at the resent big event is combo and creature/planeswalker beats. UR control is ok, but how many do we see top 8? Either version?
The reason behind the bans is they are losing people from standard.
My store, over the last year of CoCo crap up to now, went from 30+ at FNM to barely firing. People divested because of bad environment and the 'faster rotation' which was total trash. They went to Modern or quit. They need to get those people back and new people in. But expense and overpowered top 3 decks that leave little room for creativity are strangling them.
Okay it sucks that your store's Standard turnout has been so low, but that is not necessarily representative of the entire meta. I know this Standard has not been the most diverse, but I also do not believe is has no diversity whatsoever. Again, you have a control, midrange, and aggro deck all dominating the format, and everyone now and then, a few very good Tier 2 popping up. Rather than pin ALL the blame on Wizards for doing a *****ty job with R&D, maybe just accept that some of this relative lack of diversity is just inherent with any Standard. How much diversity can you reasonably expect when you're limited to only the most recent sets?
Also Jeskai Copycat is a control deck. The 4-Color version is not.
You are now completely at it's mercy... unless they already dispelled your instant and won.
That's why walking ballista exists. That's why it's good. You can also run sinister concoction as an ability-based answer. (Bx zombies run it.)
Also, the cat is otherwise useless in the deck, so the deck compromise the rest of the deck for the combo.
Any top deck "warps the meta". It's the nature of being a tier-1 deck.
Point of order, but 4-color Saheeli-Cat is by far the most prominent deck using the combo at about 20% of the meta share. Guardian is far from useless otherwise, as it blinks Oaths and Rogue Refiners and the like. Jeskai Saheeli is actually mostly dead these days, comprising about 3% of the metagame.
Felidar Guardian: the copycat combo is fragile, so it makes no sense banning something that clearly isn't overpowered.
The Combo is a lot less fragile than people thought. There is a reason why Saheeli decks comprise about 25% of the winning metashare. Even still, forcing people to continuously hold up mana and removal from turn 4 on else they lose the game on the spot is not a particularly great experience. It's less about the potency of the combo and more about the warping effect it has on the meta game, and whether or not it's healthy to have something in the format that requires people to effectively stop playing in the middle of the game to leave removal up constantly. The combo is both a fair bit more resilient than people thought, and quite strong.
At the end of the day, Standard is more diverse now it was prior to the banning. Not to mention, we currently have 1 control (Jeskai Copycat), 1 aggro (Vehicles), and 1 midrange (BG) deck dominating the format. And there's not one card appearing in 60-70% of decks (again, referring to Copter here). Could the format be better? Absolutely. But the question now becomes would Wizards risk upsetting more players to try to make the meta better?
But then again, banning Reflector Mage and Emrakul, while not banning MANY previously broken Standard cards didn't make sense either. So in any case, there's really no way to predict what Wizards might do.
The bannings were an admission of mistakes that they tried to ignore. They likely would have banned certain cards in hind sight, however they steadfastedly refused to publicly acknowledge problems existed (One needs only look at their laughable preview of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon and the "beautifully diverse" format at the time). CoCo likely would have been banned had it not rotated, for instance, and probably should have been banned much earlier as it was the driving engine behind most of the top-performing decks. They chose not to hoping that rotation would bring people back to the format, which it didn't. Which is why the bannings eventually happened.
The only other card I think is a real consideration is Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, but I think WOTC won't be willing to pull the trigger on that. I don't necessarily think he should be banned, I wouldn't be all that upset to see him go but I don't firmly believe he should see himself out like I think the Copycat combo should.
I'm still not sure why people focus on bannings rather than new cards. Amonkhet releases Apr 28th, and the cat lady combo (plus Gideon's uber-efficiency) has been on R&Ds radar since the protour. I dislike the state of standard, but I'd rather see R&D address this by introducing some answers in amonkhet rather than with banning. The greatest problem with this route is "they don't have enough time to do this", but I disagree. R&D has been keeping an eye on Mardu/catlady since the protour, and there are lots of old cards that could be reprinted, which are proven to not break formats. There is no reason to not include those cards even if last minute. Yes, creating new art in an issue, but I'm sure players would forgive R&D if some reprints have old art but help to improve the format.
Consider some reprints of old standard stables that could work. For example, hero's downfall and some powerful all-purpose sweeper (something like an uncountarable version of planar cleansing) could go a long way towards fighting vehicles (which has mutated into a "planeswalkers on cars" deck) AND the combo. A functional reprint of Virulent plague would also nerf 4c saheeli significantly, as well as gideon. These are cards RD can easily sneak into the set without too much fuss, since they wont break non-rotating formats. Another card that R&D should consider printing (and is clearly non broken) is a 1U "counter target creature or planeswalker" spell. The problem of combo an vehicles is that they split their threats more or less evenly between walkers and creatures, and there are very little good answers that are simultanously good vs creatures and walkers. Hero's downfall + this new counterspell would greatly help mitigate this issue.
I think it's important to not focus solely on control as the arch type which is suffering the most. It is for all intents and purposes playable, but it's not one of the format's defining strategy's. If we want to analyze control it's important to know what it's trying to beat. We know what it's trying to beat but it's not exactly good at doing that, infact the counter argument is that Mardu beats Mardu better than Control, and G/B tries to prey on Mardu but hasn't successfully done that. We could argue that U/R control is favored VS Saheeli Combo, but only the control variant and not 4c saheeli deck.
It's also important to see what kinds of decks are simply unplayable at the top tables:
Colossus Decks
Tezzeret Decks
Aetherflux Reservoir
The Entire Eldrazi Block
Marvel Decks are truly 2nd tier now
Flash Shell is there but neutered
U/B Control
G/R Energy (Super Fringe)
Insert Tribal decks here
Expertise decks? Show up in modern and not in standard, not big deal but lolz
Standard Cheerios
Ect ect ect
Sort of Playable:
U/R Zombies is a decent meta choice when it doesn't shoot itself in the foot
U/B Zombies is gaining a little traction? I see it on MTGO but that deck has consistency issues
Grixis Tower and assorted Variations
See what I'm getting at? The Cat Combo does actually keep certain decks from seeing play do to their necessity to have to have MD answers to it. You know what happens when Shock meets Winding Constrictor? Yeah I've been there, that tool isn't meant for that match up and you lose massive % points G1.
Look at that potential, look at that sweet potential meta game. So close, but we are SO very VERY FaR.
At the risk of going off-topic here...
I would have to disagree somewhat on your list of "unplayable" decks: I have built an Eldrazi-themed deck that has got me undefeated the last couple FNMs, and someone else at a local store won Game Day with a Metalwork Colossus deck. I wouldn't call these decks "viable" but certainly not unplayable either.
with that said, I also wonder how much this current lack of diversity is also attributed to fear of trying new things among players. A good number of decks you've listed I think have the potential to beat or at least be a strong contender against the current Tier 1 decks, yet we aren't seeing them at GPs or other major events. Are they really that bad or are players simply not willing to try them because it's just easy to netdeck what is already being played?
We're talking about win percentages when we say unplayable.
Sure, tier 2 and happy brews can bust their move and win 4 or 5 matches on a given night. The other guy floods, gets mana stuck, you get the drift, and win through. But if you grind 10-15 matches on a given deck vs copycat or vehicles you start to find that win % drops drastically. Deck consistency drops drastically. Pros don't play decks that have low percentage wins against the expected field and this is how they test. Rack up lots of games to find the holes and adjust or determine a deck doesn't cut it. From the fields at the GPs you can see that only pretty much 2 decks cut it.
I happened to have done game day with a UB control brew of mine and went 3-1-1. My tie was copycat, I made GB decks cry, and my loss was vehicles (At the time I knew UR cont and GB were prevalent at my store). Further testing during the week showed high percentage losses to copycat because I run out of answers. My loss to copycat was mull to 5, used my one answer in hand on turn 4 and loss on turn 5 to infinity.
Draw_Gone has a good point, print answers! My point previously about print better hate still stands.
Where's the GY hate?
Gideon is a problem, Hero's Downfall
Regardless of answers, copycat was a mistake and the least impact on players would be to ban the uncommon card dirty kitty. Again, they need more people to play standard. Have you seen the expression on a new players face at FNM when their opponent says, 'I make infinite haste cats and win'? It's not funny or inspiring, it's why standard is dying.
Kinda like CoCo on turn 3 or the joy of playing against Rally solitaire...
I'm still not sure why people focus on bannings rather than new cards. Amonkhet releases Apr 28th, and the cat lady combo (plus Gideon's uber-efficiency) has been on R&Ds radar since the protour. I dislike the state of standard, but I'd rather see R&D address this by introducing some answers in amonkhet rather than with banning. The greatest problem with this route is "they don't have enough time to do this", but I disagree. R&D has been keeping an eye on Mardu/catlady since the protour, and there are lots of old cards that could be reprinted, which are proven to not break formats. There is no reason to not include those cards even if last minute. Yes, creating new art in an issue, but I'm sure players would forgive R&D if some reprints have old art but help to improve the format.
Consider some reprints of old standard stables that could work. For example, hero's downfall and some powerful all-purpose sweeper (something like an uncountarable version of planar cleansing) could go a long way towards fighting vehicles (which has mutated into a "planeswalkers on cars" deck) AND the combo. A functional reprint of Virulent plague would also nerf 4c saheeli significantly, as well as gideon. These are cards RD can easily sneak into the set without too much fuss, since they wont break non-rotating formats. Another card that R&D should consider printing (and is clearly non broken) is a 1U "counter target creature or planeswalker" spell. The problem of combo an vehicles is that they split their threats more or less evenly between walkers and creatures, and there are very little good answers that are simultanously good vs creatures and walkers. Hero's downfall + this new counterspell would greatly help mitigate this issue.
Biggest issue here is most sets are shipped 2 years in advanced roughly and it's hard to change cards already planned to put cards in in that help break things up they didn't expect.
Most times its just easier to ban a card or two than anything. Honestly Gideon is a big problem but can be managed. Heart of Kiran is a lot more difficult to deal with from vehicles. Cat lady combo I agree with the consensus it may not always be at the top tables but you have respect enough to put cards in your main deck to disrupt it that hurt your match ups against other decks
Cards like shock for example which really is only good for two things. Finishing off an opponent or disrupting cat combo that's it.
Honestly I I think bans for standard should be heart of Kiran(literally close to the same issue as smugglers copter) and the cat (mostly cause the last thing you wanna do is ban a mediocre planeswalker instead of the 4 drop that can still leave a major impact on a format)
Either this or just call it a loss unban everything and start new after rotation.
I also want to point out that banning should not be a regular strategy for Wizards. Yes I realize overall Standard attendance is low, but if Wizards' go-to solution is to ban certain cards, then eventually many more players will drop Standard altogether because nobody wants to buy cards just to have them banned a few weeks later. For that sake, I again hope Wizards does not ban anything in Standard this time around, because that would establish a precedence that Wizards will just ban stuff when they feel like Standard attended is dropping.
I totally agree with you SC1987, I also don't want the bans to be every single time they have the announce scheduled.
However... R&D has put themselves in a hole and they need to fix it or attendance and sales will continue to slip. We know how stock holders hate to not make their quarterly expectations right?
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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)
There is a very, very far cry from "existing" and being "viable.", or even consistently good enough to be a consideration in the format. My 4-color Turbo-Fog exists. I can play it. Hell, I can even win some tournaments with it. That doesn't mean it's viable in the least. Keep in mind that all Control decks combined are doing about as well as only one of the G/B variants. Your argument that "it's not the best deck" would be valid if there was any singular control deck actually doing well at all. The fact is they are not. If a deck does not consistently perform in the meta game, it is not a particularly viable decks at all, and none of them currently exist for any practical reasons. The only one which seems to be doing well is Temur Tower, but even that is at the astonishing 3% of top decks currently. It exists, but honestly at this point nobody would particularly notice if it disappeared from the format.
So really, your argument is to try and twist the definitions and words around to fit your need in order to make a fallatious argument that follows a strawman, shifting the goal posts, and false equivalencies. To be blunt, an entire series of decks in the "control" archetype combined barely edging a variant of the third-most played deck is pretty sad, and about as close to not-viable as you can get.
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)
It's also important to see what kinds of decks are simply unplayable at the top tables:
Colossus Decks
Tezzeret Decks
Aetherflux Reservoir
The Entire Eldrazi Block
Marvel Decks are truly 2nd tier now
Flash Shell is there but neutered
U/B Control
G/R Energy (Super Fringe)
Insert Tribal decks here
Expertise decks? Show up in modern and not in standard, not big deal but lolz
Standard Cheerios
Ect ect ect
Sort of Playable:
U/R Zombies is a decent meta choice when it doesn't shoot itself in the foot
U/B Zombies is gaining a little traction? I see it on MTGO but that deck has consistency issues
Grixis Tower and assorted Variations
See what I'm getting at? The Cat Combo does actually keep certain decks from seeing play do to their necessity to have to have MD answers to it. You know what happens when Shock meets Winding Constrictor? Yeah I've been there, that tool isn't meant for that match up and you lose massive % points G1.
Look at that potential, look at that sweet potential meta game. So close, but we are SO very VERY FaR.
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
First, I did count control oriented CopyCat in that. That account for 3.3%. Temur accounts for another 3%. UR Control accounts for another 2%. That is all of the control decks in the format. Assuming I am counting only a singular type of control is completely fallacious. All control decks in all their forms, either Blue-based counter-control, Jeskai Saheeli, or Tap-out control accounts for 10%.
Second, this isn't about it not being Tier 1; arguably any Control list isn't even Tier 2 at all (Temur Tower, admittedly, has some good results so far). It's very, very close to a fringe deck right now. Being overly semantic about definitions is just silly and not at all constructive. To go to the extreme, during Cawblade Standard, Vampires put up an astonishing 5% winrate. Does that mean that Vampires was a particularly viable deck in the format, and people bemoaning Cawblade were just bemoaning the best deck?
Equally, I don't play Control in amost any form. The closest I have gotten in years is the aforementioned Turbo-Fog decks that I play occasionally. Most often I am on some form of Midrange or Aggro. To assume this is me bemoaning my favorite archetype missing is to be assuming far too much. Control is one of my least favorite archetypes to play and it's not one I typically sleeve up even when it's good.
And to flip your argument on its head, currently Mardu Vehicles has a 31% meta share. That is a few steps above "just being the best deck".
I don't know if it's fair to say they were complete jokes that never should have gone to print. I feel the problem was not the cards in and of themselves, but the environment. If we had seen cards like Scrabbling Claws/Relic of Progenitus or Rest In Peace be legal, Emrakul would have been a lot less scary. Reflector Mage was powerful, but still not a real issue at the time it was banned (if there was a time to ban it it would've been in the previous Standard when Collected Company was around). The potential problem with that card is that it might interface really well with the CopyCat combo. Smuggler's Copter... okay, that card probably would have been crazy no matter what, but some better answers might have made it less of a problem.
I actually find it an interesting question whether Smuggler's Copter or Heart of Kiran was a bigger issue. It's true Smuggler's Copter was just plain everywhere whereas Heart of Kiran is limited to one deck, but in a way that's the problem; Smuggler's Copter, despite its ubiquitousness, at least benefitted a lot of different decks, whereas Heart of Kiran just helps out one.
Though one thing that I think heavily contributed the attendance drop that's often overlooked is the new rotation. People wouldn't have liked the Standards, but without the extra rotation making it harder than usual to keep up, they might have been more willing to bear it out.
Sam Stoddard at least admitted that threats have been getting too good compared to removal, so I don't think the problem is necessarily the philosophy needing to change (though of course, who knows how much they'll shift the needle back to making the answers better). The bigger problem, I'd think, is that despite figuring this out, it takes a while to get any new cards into circulation. Sets are finalized months before they're released because of the need to spend time printing and distributing them. They may have gotten their epiphany (too late, as you note), but it'll be a while before they can actually act on it. In the meantime, they're in a pretty bad position where they have to choose between banning more cards (annoying people and making them quit) or letting the current still-disliked Standard continue on.
The big problem with this case compared to previous ones is that, as you note, it's not really a specific development goofup that's to blame that can be easily fixed via bannings. Jace and Stoneforge were overpowered, but they were really the only problems; take them out, and the format gets fixed. Same thing with Affinity (and Skullclamp before that). Those bannings managed to be successful because it was specific slip ups that were the problem rather than the problems being much more ingrained than that.
Actually, to somewhat illustrate this point: Once Jace and Stoneforge got banned, Twin Exarch (a combo that, much like CopyCat, they totally missed) was one of the big decks in Standard. But while a popular deck, it wasn't anywhere near as big of a problem as CopyCat despite the fact the deck had both Ponder AND Preordain to make sure it could find its pieces very quickly. A big part of that was the fact the removal was good enough (Vapor Snag, Dispatch, and Dismember were all legal, the latter of which anyone could play) that the deck, while good, was kept in check.
Wow, I just realized looking at your post I wrote Felidar Sovereign instead of Felidar Guardian. I'm blaming the Dayquil I'm taking for the office flu I got.
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!
Saying copycat is 'fragile' assumes that countering the combo once is sufficient. Run tests against it and you'll see that the deck does something NO OTHER DECK CAN DO which is win on any turn 4 or after. Your life total doesn't matter. You have a shock in hand... goody you stopped it once. Maybe you stop it the second time with another shock or a different instant. You are now completely at it's mercy... unless they already dispelled your instant and won.
No other deck can instawin at any point in the game like this one.
I see people being very judgy 'you're just not smart if you don't plan for it'. This is the point. The entire format is warped because you HAVE to plan for it. You can never tap out. You can never run out of cards and if they have a counterspell you're just done. So you either beat it super fast or face endgame at every turn.
Look at all the pro articles and how they talk about combo. Every event has been saturated with testing AGAINST copycat combo because of its devastating influence on deckbuilding.
My vote, since standard is in such horrible shape, is ban cat and heart. They will not ban Gideon. If they were going to they'd have done so. We do need Hero's Downfall back for sure though. Frankly I find copycat so unfun to deal with I would actually be quitting standard and playing only limited if anything if they DON'T ban it. I usually exclusively play standard at FNM a couple times a month. I'm a customer who buys product. I buy singles. I like to brew and play my brews. In the current environment brews have zip chance. CoCo was the plague that left us with FNMs that barely fire (from 30 every week) and Modern on the same night up to 30 from 12.
Copycat is ONLY not dominant because all the pros know they have to base maindeck strategy for it.
That's why walking ballista exists. That's why it's good. You can also run sinister concoction as an ability-based answer. (Bx zombies run it.)
Also, the cat is otherwise useless in the deck, so the deck compromise the rest of the deck for the combo.
Any top deck "warps the meta". It's the nature of being a tier-1 deck.
I disagree.
A good player (see the Blohon matches in the MOCS) can hold cat in hand and beat you down with virtuoso and rogue refiner. Eventually you WILL have to pop the ballista or just risk dying to their non-combo beatdowns. And once you pop the ballista/concotion, you're open to the combo. Plus, copycat runs removal that can deal with ballista (the oath, for example) so sticking a ballista and sayin "I'm safe" is folly.
Not at all. Blinkin a rogue refiner, blining a chandra (specially if oath of chandra is already the battlefield) and blinking an oath of chandra can all be very powerful plays.
I think the problem of copycat is this: generally, combo decks are kept in check if one of three things are true:
[1] The deck is bad without the combo
[2] There is a good (as in "viable vs the field") control deck that can go bigger
[3] There is a good (as in "viable vs the field") aggro deck that can reliably get under it.
What I just argued is that item 1 does not hold. THe deck, even when it does not draw the combo, is a hell of a beatdown value deck Item 2 does not hold, because it is easy to build control deck that have favorable game vs the cat, but those decks just fold to a quick start of the mardu ones, so there is no control deck that can beat the combo and be viable vs the field. Item 3 sort of holds, and not entirely. Only the nut draw of mardu can hope to get under the combo deck, but even the slightest of tumbles from mardu will let the cat lady combo catch up: refiner, oath of chandra, virtuoso, chandra itself act are very powerful ways to stabilize, and then the squeeze begins: you play around the combo, you lose to beatdown, you play around the beatdown, you loose to the combo (i.e. we are back to item 1).
I really think the way to un-warp the format is to fix the items above: w/out bannings item 1 can't be fixed, and it's hard to make mardu even more aggresive w/out breaking the format. THis is why I think making a powerful set of control cards i what R&D needs to now. Objectively speaking, if you don't want bannings, the only way you can fix the format is to make control as powerful as mardu and copycat.
And cat is still a powerful card without the combo. You can bounce oath of nissa/Chandra to search for combo or kill ballista you can bounce rouge refiner and whirler virtuoso for added value. Cat is surely not a dead card without saheeli.
Pros are posting these brews 'for fun' and in every article they talk about how they're weak against combo. Vehicles nut draws and speed is the only thing keeping it barely on top of dirty kitty.
Draw_Gone hit all the details on the head.
Lets not forget that the combo is something development MISSED. If cat said "another target creature or artifact" we wouldn't be here. We also have the way over-pushed vehicle plan to blame for the crazy efficiency of vehicles decks because they made all sorcery speed removal crap. I'm not seeing any Dec Stone in pro decklists, are you? Sorcery removal is complete trash because of vehicles and dirty kitty.
Personally I don't want to suffer through another year of combo like the unbridled reign of CoCo.
They know Standard is damaged and they are adjusting hard because sales are suffering. I will be unpleasantly surprised if they don't ban at least cat and heart.
However I still hope there is no banning in Standard. The fact that there was a standard banning at all (for THREE cards mind you) is Wizards' admission that they screwed up. Banning more cards or even unbanning cards is admitting even further that they screwed up.
Regarding the individual cards people have mentioned.
Heart of Kiran: this card is nothing like Smuggler's Copter. It's crew 3 compared to 1 and is simply a beatstick without any additional benefits. Also look at the statistics: it's not being played in almost every single build like Copter was. I've even played multiple games against Mardu Vehicles where they actually couldn't crew Heart because the cost was too high.
Constrictor: like someone already mentioned, we're getting -1/-1 counters in the next set, so that should balance things out, or eliminate this guy entirely. Also banning the snake now would very clearly be trying to eliminate BG builds entirely, which I don't think is what Wizards is aiming to do.
Felidar Guardian: the copycat combo is fragile, so it makes no sense banning something that clearly isn't overpowered.
At the end of the day, Standard is more diverse now it was prior to the banning. Not to mention, we currently have 1 control (Jeskai Copycat), 1 aggro (Vehicles), and 1 midrange (BG) deck dominating the format. And there's not one card appearing in 60-70% of decks (again, referring to Copter here). Could the format be better? Absolutely. But the question now becomes would Wizards risk upsetting more players to try to make the meta better?
In my opinion, they shouldn't. No matter how you change Standard, it's ALWAYS going to be a format dominated by a few select builds; that is inherent in a format where you're limited to only the most recent sets. What would they be trying to achieve? To try and get every person to brew their own decks? That's not going to happen. Standard is in a very satisfactory spot right now, there's no need to risk upsetting it.
But then again, banning Reflector Mage and Emrakul, while not banning MANY previously broken Standard cards didn't make sense either. So in any case, there's really no way to predict what Wizards might do.
I couldn't disagree more for all the reasons stated already. A skilled player doesn't allow you to stop them.
They just used the banstick to hit standard for 3 cards in an open admission that they screwed up. The current set was already in the pipe when they realized they're off kilter and are losing sales. This is hard correction to fix the game, I see no reason why they wouldn't do it again. They've also just admitted they 'missed' the copycat combo. Screwed... up... again.
I again have to disagree. Standard is still in a very bad place with no diversity. I don't consider copycat a control deck. There is a variant that is control-ish but the core deck which was at the resent big event is combo and creature/planeswalker beats. UR control is ok, but how many do we see top 8? Either version?
The reason behind the bans is they are losing people from standard.
My store, over the last year of CoCo crap up to now, went from 30+ at FNM to barely firing. People divested because of bad environment and the 'faster rotation' which was total trash. They went to Modern or quit. They need to get those people back and new people in. But expense and overpowered top 3 decks that leave little room for creativity are strangling them.
I seriously doubt they'll ban a walker. They need to go back to printing at least sideboard worthy hate cards for each strategy which they want to push. Where the **** is the GY hate? Why isn't there more vehicle hate (that's playable)? Planeswalker hate needs to be instant as Ruinous Farce loses way too much tempo.
That doesn't mean the combo isn't fragile. If a skilled player is needed to pull it off, then it's NOT broken. Similarly, you can make the argument that a skilled opponent will not let you pull that combo off at all.
We already know they've screwed up before, but things can always be much worse. We also know they are willing to do what it takes to attempt to fix Standard, but we also don't want them inadvertently creating new problems, and that's the risk Wizards has if they were to create new bans or even un-ban.
Okay it sucks that your store's Standard turnout has been so low, but that is not necessarily representative of the entire meta. I know this Standard has not been the most diverse, but I also do not believe is has no diversity whatsoever. Again, you have a control, midrange, and aggro deck all dominating the format, and everyone now and then, a few very good Tier 2 popping up. Rather than pin ALL the blame on Wizards for doing a *****ty job with R&D, maybe just accept that some of this relative lack of diversity is just inherent with any Standard. How much diversity can you reasonably expect when you're limited to only the most recent sets?
Also Jeskai Copycat is a control deck. The 4-Color version is not.
Anguished Unmaking is instant speed and takes care of planeswalkers. Also Unlicensed Disintegration and Walking Ballista.
For Vehicles, you've got Fragmentize, Natural Obsolescence, and [again] Anguished Unmaking, and a good amount more.
Point of order, but 4-color Saheeli-Cat is by far the most prominent deck using the combo at about 20% of the meta share. Guardian is far from useless otherwise, as it blinks Oaths and Rogue Refiners and the like. Jeskai Saheeli is actually mostly dead these days, comprising about 3% of the metagame.
The Combo is a lot less fragile than people thought. There is a reason why Saheeli decks comprise about 25% of the winning metashare. Even still, forcing people to continuously hold up mana and removal from turn 4 on else they lose the game on the spot is not a particularly great experience. It's less about the potency of the combo and more about the warping effect it has on the meta game, and whether or not it's healthy to have something in the format that requires people to effectively stop playing in the middle of the game to leave removal up constantly. The combo is both a fair bit more resilient than people thought, and quite strong.
Quick point: Jeskai Saheeli isn't doing particularly well. 4-color Saheeli is, however.
The bannings were an admission of mistakes that they tried to ignore. They likely would have banned certain cards in hind sight, however they steadfastedly refused to publicly acknowledge problems existed (One needs only look at their laughable preview of Pro Tour Eldritch Moon and the "beautifully diverse" format at the time). CoCo likely would have been banned had it not rotated, for instance, and probably should have been banned much earlier as it was the driving engine behind most of the top-performing decks. They chose not to hoping that rotation would bring people back to the format, which it didn't. Which is why the bannings eventually happened.
The only other card I think is a real consideration is Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, but I think WOTC won't be willing to pull the trigger on that. I don't necessarily think he should be banned, I wouldn't be all that upset to see him go but I don't firmly believe he should see himself out like I think the Copycat combo should.
GW ~ Angels ~ WG
Modern:
RBW ~ Shadowmancer ~ WBR
Legacy:
BUG ~ Shadow Delver ~ GUB
Consider some reprints of old standard stables that could work. For example, hero's downfall and some powerful all-purpose sweeper (something like an uncountarable version of planar cleansing) could go a long way towards fighting vehicles (which has mutated into a "planeswalkers on cars" deck) AND the combo. A functional reprint of Virulent plague would also nerf 4c saheeli significantly, as well as gideon. These are cards RD can easily sneak into the set without too much fuss, since they wont break non-rotating formats. Another card that R&D should consider printing (and is clearly non broken) is a 1U "counter target creature or planeswalker" spell. The problem of combo an vehicles is that they split their threats more or less evenly between walkers and creatures, and there are very little good answers that are simultanously good vs creatures and walkers. Hero's downfall + this new counterspell would greatly help mitigate this issue.
At the risk of going off-topic here...
I would have to disagree somewhat on your list of "unplayable" decks: I have built an Eldrazi-themed deck that has got me undefeated the last couple FNMs, and someone else at a local store won Game Day with a Metalwork Colossus deck. I wouldn't call these decks "viable" but certainly not unplayable either.
with that said, I also wonder how much this current lack of diversity is also attributed to fear of trying new things among players. A good number of decks you've listed I think have the potential to beat or at least be a strong contender against the current Tier 1 decks, yet we aren't seeing them at GPs or other major events. Are they really that bad or are players simply not willing to try them because it's just easy to netdeck what is already being played?
Eldrazi and Metalwork are fine decks for FNM, but in the context of high level events they're nearly unplayable.
Sure, tier 2 and happy brews can bust their move and win 4 or 5 matches on a given night. The other guy floods, gets mana stuck, you get the drift, and win through. But if you grind 10-15 matches on a given deck vs copycat or vehicles you start to find that win % drops drastically. Deck consistency drops drastically. Pros don't play decks that have low percentage wins against the expected field and this is how they test. Rack up lots of games to find the holes and adjust or determine a deck doesn't cut it. From the fields at the GPs you can see that only pretty much 2 decks cut it.
I happened to have done game day with a UB control brew of mine and went 3-1-1. My tie was copycat, I made GB decks cry, and my loss was vehicles (At the time I knew UR cont and GB were prevalent at my store). Further testing during the week showed high percentage losses to copycat because I run out of answers. My loss to copycat was mull to 5, used my one answer in hand on turn 4 and loss on turn 5 to infinity.
Draw_Gone has a good point, print answers! My point previously about print better hate still stands.
Where's the GY hate?
Gideon is a problem, Hero's Downfall
Regardless of answers, copycat was a mistake and the least impact on players would be to ban the uncommon card dirty kitty. Again, they need more people to play standard. Have you seen the expression on a new players face at FNM when their opponent says, 'I make infinite haste cats and win'? It's not funny or inspiring, it's why standard is dying.
Kinda like CoCo on turn 3 or the joy of playing against Rally solitaire...
Biggest issue here is most sets are shipped 2 years in advanced roughly and it's hard to change cards already planned to put cards in in that help break things up they didn't expect.
Most times its just easier to ban a card or two than anything. Honestly Gideon is a big problem but can be managed. Heart of Kiran is a lot more difficult to deal with from vehicles. Cat lady combo I agree with the consensus it may not always be at the top tables but you have respect enough to put cards in your main deck to disrupt it that hurt your match ups against other decks
Cards like shock for example which really is only good for two things. Finishing off an opponent or disrupting cat combo that's it.
Honestly I I think bans for standard should be heart of Kiran(literally close to the same issue as smugglers copter) and the cat (mostly cause the last thing you wanna do is ban a mediocre planeswalker instead of the 4 drop that can still leave a major impact on a format)
Either this or just call it a loss unban everything and start new after rotation.
However... R&D has put themselves in a hole and they need to fix it or attendance and sales will continue to slip. We know how stock holders hate to not make their quarterly expectations right?