MTG Salvation

I'm sure many of you have pet cards that you wish would come back into standard. I have a small list of some cards that I really enjoyed playing with in both limited and constructed during their time in standard. I tried to pick cards that didnt feel tied to any specific Plane of Existence to be more realistic I'm sure there's a lot more I could add to the list.

• Trading Post
  
• Ever After
  
• Elixir of Immortality
  
• Rolling Thunder
  
• Explosive Vegetation
  
• Dissolve
  
• Drown in Sorrow
  
• Banishing Light
  
• Murder
  
• Reclamation Sage
  
• Skyship Stalker
  
• Reassembling Skeleton
  
• Distress
  

What cards would you love to see in Standard most often, if not all the time?

Lightning Strike / Magma Spray / Shock / Arc Lightning (Needed for their tough match up against tokens)
Duress / Murder / Lost Legacy or something similar / Ultimate Price (Was thinking Doom Blade but that just makes black much better at all times)
Naturalize / Fog / 1 CMC mana dork / Plummet
Negate / Essence Scatter / Dissolve / Unsummon
Pithing Needle / Trading Post / Pilgrim's Eye / Prophetic Prism

White... really doesn't have very defined cards it needs. Boardwipes and exiling enchantments can rotate around with different effects but if we really want to keep things simple and low cost, it's Banishing Light and Day of Judgment. Others include Disenchant and Glorious Anthem.

White - Glorious Anthem, Raise the Alarm
Blue - Dispel, Unsummon
Black - Duress, Cast Down
Red - Lightning Strike, Demolish
Green - Naturlise, Llanowar Elves

Counterspell
Wrath of god (day of judgment is also acceptable)

That's all.

White: Wrath of God, Banishing Light, Glorious Anthem
Blue: Dissolve, Hieroglyphic Illumination, Opt
Black: Duress, Hero's Downfall, Read the Bones
Red: Lightning Strike, Exquisite Firecraft, Dragon Fodder
Green: Llanowar Elves, Rampant Growth, Adventurous Impulse

Gonna go with 1 spell & 1 creature

Green: Birds & Cultivate
Blue: Man O War & Counterspell
Black: Hypnotic Specter & Sinkhole
Red: Bolt & Kird Ape
White: Wrath & Paladin en-Vec
Artifact : Solemn Simulacrum & Jester's Cap
Multi: Pernicious Deed & Psychatog

Oo this is fun.

Red: Lightning Bolt and Blood Moon. Pet card: Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Black: Thoughtseize and Phyrexian Arena. Pet card: Death cloud
Blue: Disallow and Compulsive research. Pet card: Dream Fracture
White: Knight of Meadowgrain and Day of Judgement Pet card:Cataclysm
Green: Harmonize and Edge of Autumn. Pet card: Imperious Perfect

Black I'd want something like Recurring Nightmare, but at a high enough CMC (make it 3BB and Legendary Enchantment) to not be banned. There would be a really fun deck with cards like Verdant Force and Lena, Selfless Champion at the top end with Whisper, Blood Liturgist as back up with midrange ETB creatures like Exclusion Mage and Reclamation Sage. Right now it would be a lot of fun until Whisper got shocked, so a Recurring Nightmare would be awesome.

Red could use Draconic Roar for a Sarkhan dragon tribal deck.

White I always like Squadron Hawk and think it should be reprinted. It's the sort of "take these in bulk" card they try in limited (Rat Colony // Powerstone Shard), but actually good in draft and standard.

Green I'd like something that makes sense with the Scapeshift thing going on. Something like a Green Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle that doesn't do direct damage, but maybe makes Llanowar Elves tokens for forests ETB in a Valakut like way. I think Chainwhirler could keep it in check.

Blue Mystical Teachings

Some of you are nuts in wanting OP cards to stay in Standard at all times, especially in a format that's constantly changing it could absolutely break the meta or make a lot of cards irrelevant and unplayable.

If something should stay in Standard forever it needs to be balanced.

Fog should be standard legal at all times.

The problem I'm seeing with what cards people want legal all the time, is that people aren't seeing the forest for the trees right now. The problem with standard is that they created a lot of removal and then granted specific creatures the ability to recur or blank that removal. As a result, the most playable creatures in the format became Rekindling Phoenix, embalm and eternalize creatures, and things with hexproof like Bristling Hydra and Carnage Tyrant. Muldrotha and all the big game toppers die too easily to point removal such as Vraska's Contempt, Ravenous Chupacabra, and Unlicensed Disintegration. Not to mention Abrade, Wizard's Lightning, and Lightning strike alone already empower red enough that it's difficult to play any kind of creature with less than 3 toughness. Giving the format an unconditional one mana removal that can kill anything with up to 3 toughness would be about as bad as Fatal Push right now.

If people want more non-creature spell strategies, what Wizards has to do is make ETB enchantments that have effects as well. History of Benalia and Legion's Landing are two of the most playable enchantments in ages because they don't just sit there granting a passive effect. If Ajani's Welcome had flash and could prevent the next 3 damage target creature would deal this turn, it would actually see play.

The pandora's box that got opened by Wizards was the invention of ETB creatures ages ago, and once they did that it forced games to run faster because now cards could give an immediate effect while also doing something else, such as build the board up. Since creatures were the primary target of ETB type triggers, this increased the power of removal such as Lightning Bolt due to more creature heavy decks being common, which is why they started making weaker Lightning Bolt type cards.

Ultimately, I believe Richard Garfield moved to other games because developing for MTG just got boring. It went from a game where you could do all sorts of things to a game of creatures vs removal spells. Enchantments and combat tricks basically became too weak to really do anything in constructed. Giant Growth used to be good, but now it takes something on the level of Blossoming Defense to see constructed play due to the creature vs removal formula.

The cards standard needs are things like Sylvan Library, Static Orb, Rancor, Counter spell, Benevolent Bodyguard, Humble, etc. If they do that, then they probably can do Lightning Bolt again, since spells got better and there can be non-creature strategies again. That's my own opinion, though, given the way the game has played out in standard the last few years. It's why people still cling to legacy.

Well, that's my rant for the day.

i think Standard is way too kind to midrange strategies than anything else. The reason standard seems fast is because there happen to be a couple of half decent "faster" decks that just prey on decks taking too long to set up. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Decks should be kept honest.

As for cards I think should always be in Standard, I think Wizards already does that. They print a baseline of where they think the power level of standard should hang around by printing cards like Cancel, Negate, 3/2s for 2 cmc, etc. I'm fine with that kind of stuff, but I don't particularly care when they blow that formula out of the water. Example (and just an example):They go years without printing a ramp spell as good as Rampant Growth, establishing that Rampant Growth is too good for Standard. Then the reprint Llanowar Elves, a categorically better ramp spell. Now, I don't think L.Es are breaking standard, but I do think it's a serious break of what I've expected.

Other than that, Standard ebbs and flows. I took a long hiatus, but when I came back (in SOI), aggro decks (and red decks in particular) were mostly non-existent. And I recall reading, on this very forum, how WOTC was killing the game by not printing good red cards. Now it's Red's turn in the spotlight. Red's day will end and it'll be another color/strategy shining and people will of course complain again. Ebb and flow man. Ebb and flow.

Counterspell and Shattering Spree always being around would have done wonders for the last few years of Standard. And a discard spell of the TS/IoK caliber, maybe print a few more on that level to keep on themes.

RiP would be nice, if you always have Modern level answers in Standard, you will probably never have to ban anything.

Giant Spider
Shivan Dragon
Serra Angel
Mahamotti Djinn
Nightmare/Hypnotic Specter

Enlistment Officer, Sylvan Messenger, and Goblin Ringleader. I just like the 4 drop card advantage engines.

Either reprints or functional reprints of:
W Elite Vanguard and Oblivion Ring
U Merfolk Looter and Boomerang
B Fleshbag Marauder and Ultimate Price
R Flametongue Kavu and Searing Blood
G Llanowar Elves and Cultivate
C Tectonic Edge and Wanderer's Twig

B - Night's Whisper/Read the Bones.
U - Mana Leak/Supreme Will.
G - Sakura-Tribe Elder/Explore/Fertile Ground.
W - Thraben Inspector/Wall of Omens and Banishing Light.
R - Abrade/Flame Slash/Sweltering Suns.
C - Mind Stone/Hedron Archive.

Inquisition of Kozilek or Thoughtseize, although I realize the latter is probably too powerful. But Iok should be part of every core set, so that BG midrange can be a part of nearly every standard.

Quote from khaosknight69 »

Inquisition of Kozilek or Thoughtseize, although I realize the latter is probably too powerful. But Iok should be part of every core set, so that BG midrange can be a part of nearly every standard.

Thoughtseize has seen Standard play twice in Lorwyn and Theros and never broke anything*. Having a third print run in a Standard set would be wonderful to make it accessible to Modern players too.

*Although it was played by Faeries, it wasn't really the oppressive part of the deck (IIRC the deck played Ancestral Visions as its one-drop over Thoughtseize while it was legal).

There are lots of ones that could be evergreen, but I think the biggest recent ones are Approach of the Second Sun and Aetherflux Resevoir.

AotSS is an extremely fair control finisher, requiring the control dexk to tap out on their turn twice to win but also wrapping up control lock games (which can go crazy long otherwise.)

AFR is the fixed version of storm, which is a popular archetype that otherwise isn't making it into standard.

These are my pics, 3 per single color, and one 2CMC card per 2-color combination
(and yes, I realize that some of these cards were never standard-legal to begin with)

Green: birds of paradise, krosan grip, eternal witness
Red: arc trail, blood moon, anger of the gods
Black: go for the throat, liliana of the veil, rise from the grave
Blue: dissipate, snapcaster mage, ponder
White: path to exile, oblivion ring, honor of the pure
Artifact: chromatic lantern, elixir of immortality, relic of progenitus
multicolor: abrupt decay, goblin electromancer, azorius guildmage, rakdos charm, qasali pridemage, baleful strix, lightning helix, tidehollow sculler, vexing shusher, coiling oracle

Now tell me that wouldn't be an awesome standard with a straight face!

Standard is about balance and letting cards have a chance to shine in a lower power level. You're just introducing too high of power cards that will make nearly all cards that twists the meta too hard making most cards unplayable.

Fatal Push, damn I miss that card in my Esper Control deck

Shocklands.