Ramunap ruins needs the ban hammer. It allows lands to interact with planeswalkers which is bs. If I spend $100 on a playset of walkers the only way to interact with them should be another $25 card.
Nice Trolling
In all seriousness though Ram Red is Fine. It will be hated out soon
Why would improving burn have a positive effect on the format? Red decks are doing quite well atm. Perhaps even too well. Can you give examples of what better burn would look like specifically and how it would help. Thanks!
Red can't be hated out. It's a tier 1 strat that has to be prepared for. You either can deal with it or get run over.
The positive is an aggro strat can win, not just a midrange strat.
True balance is aggro-midrange-control triangle that Maro destroyed with his 'lets make cards people want to buy' and 'nerf answers so my bomb can't be countered' because 'that's what people want' design philosophy nuked standard into the dark ages.
Aggro should exist but it'd be nice if it were more nuanced. I think we still are lacking balance but we are a LOT better than the last 2 years.
Ix isn't looking too good from the dirty spoilers... we shall see.
That probably makes sense, but I kind of suspect there won't be a good reaction no matter what's in Ixalan. A lot of people have already gotten themselves so worked up into shallow, knee-jerk reactions like "Open Fire should have been Lightning Bolt!!" that if Ixalan doesn't turn Standard into Modern, it won't be good enough.
And there are also plenty of "Timmy" cards people will latch on to as supposedly unbeatable and turn into memes (Carnage Tyrant is definitely the favorite for that).
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Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching.
That probably makes sense, but I kind of suspect there won't be a good reaction no matter what's in Ixalan. A lot of people have already gotten themselves so worked up into shallow, knee-jerk reactions like "Open Fire should have been Lightning Bolt!!" that if Ixalan doesn't turn Standard into Modern, it won't be good enough.
And there are also plenty of "Timmy" cards people will latch on to as supposedly unbeatable and turn into memes (Carnage Tyrant is definitely the favorite for that).
I think that Ixalan will play a lot better than it looks, honestly. The cards look solid in the rares and if they are going full hog on a tribal theme things will improve significantly in the Rivals set. The one detail though, is that for a lot of people this will be the first time they have experienced rotation. This has been one of the longest standards we've had in a long time and will probably be the one historically with the most sets legal at any one time. We're losing a huge pool of cards and entering a completely new world, and it will be an interesting next few months to see where that new world will take people.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
What is to be done about energy? Copter aside, energy has proven the biggest single issue in standard (imo) over the past year. It is a resource you can't interact with which provides value throughout the game. It enabled the Copy Cat combo by smoothing the mana base and allowing the deck to play well and win even when it didn't get the combo kill (with access to the best removal in harnessed lightning, the best draw in glimmer, it also had great support for its efficient creatures). Marvel obviously relied on energy. You could destroy the artifact but the energy remained which meant any future Marvel's could flip and win the game on the spot. And now we have a lot of midrange energy decks, again enabled by the smoother mana base provided by aether hub/attune with aether, that play the same efficient creatures and are backed up by the same efficient spells, most of which provide energy. Seeing as energy won't rotate out for a little while yet, how do you stop it dominating the format? Solemnity is a thing but it is a three mana white enchantment. What to do?
From an actual game designer perspective, adding additional resources to pay for things tends to lead to advantageous positions. Regardless of the game. You see this in a lot of board games that have factions and subsequent expansions either introduce new factions with new resources that are unique that that faction, or expansions that diversify unique resources spread out among existing factions.
The primary reason we have seen Vehicles and Energy strategies dominate can be looked at through the lens of strictly powerful cards like Smuggler's Copter and Aetherworks Marvel, but the reality is that these cards allow the leverage of additional resources that various other decks do not have access to. Crew is a mechanic that allows you to convert creatures into a mobilizing mechanic which bypasses traditional activation costs requiring mana. Energy allows players to do various activation actions, also sidestepping traditional means of activating abilities. One can argue that the cost of having these resources is by having to build your deck around them. Problem here is that when you allow the game to have a reliable critical mass of synergistic cards on a higher power level than ones that do not utilize these resources - you put the rest of the cards in the card pool at a distinct disadvantage.
What is interesting is that WOTC knows that allowing cards to circumvent traditional means of activating and casting cards, can be extremely dangerous. We see this in cards like Collected Company where a player can throw out multiple creatures that cost more to cast than the instant spell itself. We see this in more classical cards like Force of Will, Snuff Out and Phyrexian mana cards like Gitaxian Probe and Dismember.
The reality is that WOTC has done a pretty good job lately, of giving players additional resources to play with and the result is a format where players have more interesting things to do... but at the cost of fun for everyone who is not specifically trying to utilize these resources. The game has suffered as a result. Formats where resources are evenly spread across all archetypes, are more balances, fair, and fun. Many games understand this and it is interesting that WOTC has decided to push this known understanding of game mechanics in the way that they have.
The whole idea that bad removal was the problem, is accurate. However it was not the only issue. Once they address the quality of removal spells, they will inevitably have to address their allocation for new resources among multiple archetypes.
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STANDARD|UW Control MODERN| UBG Midrange PAUPER| UG Fog COMMANDER| UBG The Mimeoplasm
I imagine it's disappointing to see the same "Energy" decks dominate after rotation. Temur, then Sultai, what's the difference? But I don't really see these as energy decks.
To me, these are just green midrange "Good Stuff" decks playing all the best cards. Chandra is not an energy card, but it's good, so it gets thrown in. Glorybringer is good from Amonkhet, but not an energy card? No problem, add it in. Scarab God is good from Hour? We'll take it, thank you. Hostage Taker is good from Ixalan? Excellent! We'll take 4.
Yes, there are some common Energy cards, but to me the strength of the deck is not the energy that ties the room together, but the combination of the most busted cards from every set. It is too early to tell, but if the tribes of Ixalan with only one of their two sets can beat the combined best cards of the other four sets, I will be afraid of what will happen when the tribes all get more support in "Rivals of Ixalan."
When I look at the top 8 of Dallas, I see the Sultai Energy decks as the most novel decks there and Aggro, Combo, Control and Midrange all represented. This standard seems like it could be fun.
What is to be done about energy? Copter aside, energy has proven the biggest single issue in standard (imo) over the past year. It is a resource you can't interact with which provides value throughout the game. It enabled the Copy Cat combo by smoothing the mana base and allowing the deck to play well and win even when it didn't get the combo kill (with access to the best removal in harnessed lightning, the best draw in glimmer, it also had great support for its efficient creatures). Marvel obviously relied on energy. You could destroy the artifact but the energy remained which meant any future Marvel's could flip and win the game on the spot. And now we have a lot of midrange energy decks, again enabled by the smoother mana base provided by aether hub/attune with aether, that play the same efficient creatures and are backed up by the same efficient spells, most of which provide energy. Seeing as energy won't rotate out for a little while yet, how do you stop it dominating the format? Solemnity is a thing but it is a three mana white enchantment. What to do?
I agree that energy is ruining this format. These decks are just absurdly efficient, extremely versatile, and have a ton of cards in their main decks that can single-handedly win the game. You're not supposed to have goodstuff.dec whilst also being insanely synergistic.
I'm also very disappointed in seeing The Scarab God in basically every main deck now. It's the single most busted card in the format by a landslide.
For something to ruin the format, I’d say it would need to be both dominate and unfun to play against. I’m personally not seeing much more than the usual Jund-esque good stuff midrange decks that only coincidentally use energy. They are fun to play and interesting to play against. So don’t particularly seem like a huge problem.
For something to ruin the format, I’d say it would need to be both dominate and unfun to play against. I’m personally not seeing much more than the usual Jund-esque good stuff midrange decks that only coincidentally use energy. They are fun to play and interesting to play against. So don’t particularly seem like a huge problem.
It is, in fact, slowly but surely dominating the format (8 of the top 16 decks @ Dallas when it was <10% of the meta about a month or so ago), and is exceptionally unfun to play against.
8 of the 11 matches of standard that I've played since rotation have been against energy (all of which have managed to squeeze good ol Scarab God in, btw).
8 of the 11 matches of standard that I've played since rotation have been against energy (all of which have managed to squeeze good ol Scarab God in, btw).
8 of the 11 matches of standard that I've played since rotation have been against energy (all of which have managed to squeeze good ol Scarab God in, btw).
Now THAT is a small sample size.
Is half of the top 16 out of 586 players a better sample for you? Of which we all know will drive more people to realize it's superiority and play it themselves?
Energy is a cool mechanic, it was just poorly designed.
It shouldn't be so easily obtained, nor it should be almost impossible to interact with (like a creature with an ETB that devours energy, yours or the opponent's; or a removal spell that deals damage and/or drains your opponent's energy, etc.). It also does some pretty amazing stuff for how easy it is to get and to maintain.
It would be a LOT more fun if we could interact more with it. I don't have a problem with the current standard and the predominance of Energy decks, but I admit, I'll be a lot happier once they're gone.
Solemnity only helps if you are playing white, and we shouldn't all need to be forced to play a color just for the only possible (and strictly-sideboard) answer.
While I think Magic has taken a turn for the better, right now it feels like people have to make a choice between playing a competitive deck and playing a fun deck. They released a lot of cool tribes, but other than dinosaurs those tribes are dependent on all-in strategies to even be remotely competitive, so people are left wanting if they really like Ixalan and want to compete at the same level that the energy and control decks are pulling off. Even Ramunap Red is getting beaten out simply by the sheer amount of hate aimed at it's centerpieces and only won at the tournament weekend by attrition. Heck, the price on the scarab god and cards like Metallic Mimic are pretty good signs of just how bottle-necked the entirety of standard is post rotation.
I built a red green dinosaur deck for FNM, but after seeing the results last weekend I have basically no desire to even step into FNM since it's likely I'll just get completely destroyed.
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!
Solemnity only helps if you are playing white, and we shouldn't all need to be forced to play a color just for the only possible (and strictly-sideboard) answer.
That's not healthy meta material.
These points seem inconsistent to me. A look at mtgtop8 over the past year of energy decks being "strictly better" and being forced to play white for solemnity shows me that energy decks have been beaten with regularity by people not playing Solemnity or W at all. So I guess these statements are similar in that they are divorced from the reality I see.
While I think Magic has taken a turn for the better, right now it feels like people have to make a choice between playing a competitive deck and playing a fun deck. They released a lot of cool tribes, but other than dinosaurs those tribes are dependent on all-in strategies to even be remotely competitive, so people are left wanting if they really like Ixalan and want to compete at the same level that the energy and control decks are pulling off. Even Ramunap Red is getting beaten out simply by the sheer amount of hate aimed at it's centerpieces and only won at the tournament weekend by attrition. Heck, the price on the scarab god and cards like Metallic Mimic are pretty good signs of just how bottle-necked the entirety of standard is post rotation.
I built a red green dinosaur deck for FNM, but after seeing the results last weekend I have basically no desire to even step into FNM since it's likely I'll just get completely destroyed.
On Monday, my Constrictor deck with Ripjaw Raptors was crushed by a semi-traditional Temur Energy deck. But that deck and the Ramunap Red that has dominated the last two months were both wrecked by Dimir Pirates. So I hope that the meta will continue to evolve. In truth, I see the Hostage Taker decks as innovative and otherwise Constrictor decks had nearly disappeared from the meta.
In any case, I think that one first-week SCG Open is not enough to judge the whole season. I look hopefully forward to seeing a variety of standard decks at worlds and the pro tour. That said, I know nothing. Classic Temur or Constrictor-Hostaqge Taker could dominate the season end-to-end, which would get tiresome even to me.
I think demir decks in general have a lot of good reactive and proactive answers to the format and will do well long term. The main weakness the color pair has is against aggressive decks. The best answer to god's demir has is bounce or hostage taker, and the later is a bit slow against hazoret.
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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!
I think demir decks in general have a lot of good reactive and proactive answers to the format and will do well long term. The main weakness the color pair has is against aggressive decks. The best answer to god's demir has is bounce or hostage taker, and the later is a bit slow against hazoret.
The Dimir Pirates vs Ramunap Red match is here at the 1:26 mark. Dylan reported to me that the virtual card advantage provided by Fathom Fleet Captain was key. Kind of lame when the store owner gets drafted to play, gets handed a deck that was thrown together just before the event and takes it down. But it also says a lot for the potential of the deck if we ignore the obvious small sample size issues.
I just wanna poke my head in here because it is the only topic that is remotely close to a general standard thread I can find to say that I love that I am occasionally seeing Gonti Lord of Luxury showing up in the Dimir Control decks.
Nice Trolling
In all seriousness though Ram Red is Fine. It will be hated out soon
The positive is an aggro strat can win, not just a midrange strat.
True balance is aggro-midrange-control triangle that Maro destroyed with his 'lets make cards people want to buy' and 'nerf answers so my bomb can't be countered' because 'that's what people want' design philosophy nuked standard into the dark ages.
Aggro should exist but it'd be nice if it were more nuanced. I think we still are lacking balance but we are a LOT better than the last 2 years.
Ix isn't looking too good from the dirty spoilers... we shall see.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/play-design/standard-retrospective-hou-edition-2017-09-01
Since we have not had many of the uncommons spoiled yet, this is where I believe we will see the bulk of these cards.
And there are also plenty of "Timmy" cards people will latch on to as supposedly unbeatable and turn into memes (Carnage Tyrant is definitely the favorite for that).
I mean a lot of the knee jerk reaction was saying Open Fire should be Lightning Strike
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!
From an actual game designer perspective, adding additional resources to pay for things tends to lead to advantageous positions. Regardless of the game. You see this in a lot of board games that have factions and subsequent expansions either introduce new factions with new resources that are unique that that faction, or expansions that diversify unique resources spread out among existing factions.
The primary reason we have seen Vehicles and Energy strategies dominate can be looked at through the lens of strictly powerful cards like Smuggler's Copter and Aetherworks Marvel, but the reality is that these cards allow the leverage of additional resources that various other decks do not have access to. Crew is a mechanic that allows you to convert creatures into a mobilizing mechanic which bypasses traditional activation costs requiring mana. Energy allows players to do various activation actions, also sidestepping traditional means of activating abilities. One can argue that the cost of having these resources is by having to build your deck around them. Problem here is that when you allow the game to have a reliable critical mass of synergistic cards on a higher power level than ones that do not utilize these resources - you put the rest of the cards in the card pool at a distinct disadvantage.
What is interesting is that WOTC knows that allowing cards to circumvent traditional means of activating and casting cards, can be extremely dangerous. We see this in cards like Collected Company where a player can throw out multiple creatures that cost more to cast than the instant spell itself. We see this in more classical cards like Force of Will, Snuff Out and Phyrexian mana cards like Gitaxian Probe and Dismember.
The reality is that WOTC has done a pretty good job lately, of giving players additional resources to play with and the result is a format where players have more interesting things to do... but at the cost of fun for everyone who is not specifically trying to utilize these resources. The game has suffered as a result. Formats where resources are evenly spread across all archetypes, are more balances, fair, and fun. Many games understand this and it is interesting that WOTC has decided to push this known understanding of game mechanics in the way that they have.
The whole idea that bad removal was the problem, is accurate. However it was not the only issue. Once they address the quality of removal spells, they will inevitably have to address their allocation for new resources among multiple archetypes.
STANDARD|UW Control MODERN| UBG Midrange PAUPER| UG Fog COMMANDER| UBG The Mimeoplasm
To me, these are just green midrange "Good Stuff" decks playing all the best cards. Chandra is not an energy card, but it's good, so it gets thrown in. Glorybringer is good from Amonkhet, but not an energy card? No problem, add it in. Scarab God is good from Hour? We'll take it, thank you. Hostage Taker is good from Ixalan? Excellent! We'll take 4.
Yes, there are some common Energy cards, but to me the strength of the deck is not the energy that ties the room together, but the combination of the most busted cards from every set. It is too early to tell, but if the tribes of Ixalan with only one of their two sets can beat the combined best cards of the other four sets, I will be afraid of what will happen when the tribes all get more support in "Rivals of Ixalan."
When I look at the top 8 of Dallas, I see the Sultai Energy decks as the most novel decks there and Aggro, Combo, Control and Midrange all represented. This standard seems like it could be fun.
RNA Standard: Grixis Midrange, Jund Deathwhirler, Sultai Vannifar
GRN Standard: Red Midrange, Mono-Blue Tempo, Wr Aggro, Gruul Experimental Dinosaurs, Sultai Midrange, Jeskai Midrange
Modern: Bant Spirits
Forcing a single archetype in all formats: too many colors, bad mana.
I agree that energy is ruining this format. These decks are just absurdly efficient, extremely versatile, and have a ton of cards in their main decks that can single-handedly win the game. You're not supposed to have goodstuff.dec whilst also being insanely synergistic.
I'm also very disappointed in seeing The Scarab God in basically every main deck now. It's the single most busted card in the format by a landslide.
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 is, in fact, slowly but surely dominating the format (8 of the top 16 decks @ Dallas when it was <10% of the meta about a month or so ago), and is exceptionally unfun to play against.
8 of the 11 matches of standard that I've played since rotation have been against energy (all of which have managed to squeeze good ol Scarab God in, btw).
Now THAT is a small sample size.
Is half of the top 16 out of 586 players a better sample for you? Of which we all know will drive more people to realize it's superiority and play it themselves?
It shouldn't be so easily obtained, nor it should be almost impossible to interact with (like a creature with an ETB that devours energy, yours or the opponent's; or a removal spell that deals damage and/or drains your opponent's energy, etc.). It also does some pretty amazing stuff for how easy it is to get and to maintain.
It would be a LOT more fun if we could interact more with it. I don't have a problem with the current standard and the predominance of Energy decks, but I admit, I'll be a lot happier once they're gone.
I'm, like, in awe that it's a primary mechanic of a block and there were zero cards printed to have any negative effects towards it.
RNA Standard: Grixis Midrange, Jund Deathwhirler, Sultai Vannifar
GRN Standard: Red Midrange, Mono-Blue Tempo, Wr Aggro, Gruul Experimental Dinosaurs, Sultai Midrange, Jeskai Midrange
Modern: Bant Spirits
Forcing a single archetype in all formats: too many colors, bad mana.
I am as well, Energy seemed sort of the perfect time to make some edge case card to interact with Energy/Experience/Emblems even Poison.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
That's not healthy meta material.
I built a red green dinosaur deck for FNM, but after seeing the results last weekend I have basically no desire to even step into FNM since it's likely I'll just get completely destroyed.
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!
These points seem inconsistent to me. A look at mtgtop8 over the past year of energy decks being "strictly better" and being forced to play white for solemnity shows me that energy decks have been beaten with regularity by people not playing Solemnity or W at all. So I guess these statements are similar in that they are divorced from the reality I see.
On Monday, my Constrictor deck with Ripjaw Raptors was crushed by a semi-traditional Temur Energy deck. But that deck and the Ramunap Red that has dominated the last two months were both wrecked by Dimir Pirates. So I hope that the meta will continue to evolve. In truth, I see the Hostage Taker decks as innovative and otherwise Constrictor decks had nearly disappeared from the meta.
In any case, I think that one first-week SCG Open is not enough to judge the whole season. I look hopefully forward to seeing a variety of standard decks at worlds and the pro tour. That said, I know nothing. Classic Temur or Constrictor-Hostaqge Taker could dominate the season end-to-end, which would get tiresome even to me.
RNA Standard: Grixis Midrange, Jund Deathwhirler, Sultai Vannifar
GRN Standard: Red Midrange, Mono-Blue Tempo, Wr Aggro, Gruul Experimental Dinosaurs, Sultai Midrange, Jeskai Midrange
Modern: Bant Spirits
Forcing a single archetype in all formats: too many colors, bad mana.
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!
RNA Standard: Grixis Midrange, Jund Deathwhirler, Sultai Vannifar
GRN Standard: Red Midrange, Mono-Blue Tempo, Wr Aggro, Gruul Experimental Dinosaurs, Sultai Midrange, Jeskai Midrange
Modern: Bant Spirits
Forcing a single archetype in all formats: too many colors, bad mana.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
I'm counting the days till that cancer rotates out.