I recently caught up with some old Command Zone podcasts, specifically their stats episodes, and one thing that stuck out to me was the overwhelming advantage that decks with the most lands in play have in winning.
Generally, people see any land based ramp spell as fairly non-threatening, but getting ahead in mana and therefore spending more mana over the course of the game is the single biggest predictor of winning according to the episode.
All that said, what are some ways to combat these strategies? MLD generally would do it, but it’s frowned upon even by non-ramp players.
My playgroup has been fine with me using Wake of Destruction. This might be because I have known all of the people at this LGS for years and they have all in one way or another played most of my EDH decks. They know me as a person and as a player and know I'm not being an ass in the way I use it. When they see me use MLD its always been the same card every time and in very similar situations too. Not a single person at my LGS has ever had a problem with the deck I run it in either, my Grusilda, Monster Masher EDH deck. Yes at my LGS we are so casual that we have a few players with silver border commanders and we also play Star EDH as well as Pauper EDH. (Btw my favorite Monster Mash is Archfiend of Despair + Emissary of Grudges... it's so terrifying)
Timing is also important when I use the spell. I don't like leaving a player helpless with nothing. I use it pretty much only on basic forests when the opponent has other mana rocks and other land types to fall back on. This means that for the multicolor decks I have done something relevant to their gameplay that doesn't stop them from playing their deck entirely but, as I am intending to do - it interferes with them at a critical point. Forests are the most ubiquitous choice for ramp spells.. What ends up happening is that all of the blue, red or black players appreciate it because they're all jealous of the ramp too - or on the verge of losing to the green player in the moment anyways. At my LGS most EDH games are using multicolor decks.. half the table or more is always running blue alternate colors to fall back on. Politics matters too, sometimes I let my opponents chime in if the game is kind of dead even.
My first dream card was also Guardian Beast... I longed for well over a decade.. once I got mine I had a masterful artist alter it for me. In my eyes I don't see a mistake when I look at this card. I see accomplishment.
I hope you enjoy looking at this as much as I do! He's guarding a Mox Jet. Nobody can take control of his artifacts!
what about an evolving draft format, where what subsets of cards are in print changes between print runs? So the set has (for example) 280 different cards, but any booster only holds a selection from a subset of 260. Probably wouldn’t be a good idea to change rares/mythics due to collectibilty issues, but for example shifting a top common in each colour (ambuscade in first print run swapped with Prey upon in the second, or the common red burn spell going from 3 to 2 damage could have a significant impact). Could also play around with the multicolour «build-around» uncommons, or the manafixing could change drastically with something like the memorials being swapped out for vivids.
Would keep the format fresh,
and «truths» about best/worst decks/colours/commons would need to be constantly evaluated.
for the love of all that is good, we do NOT need a new format just for drafting. In my opinion WoTC needs to figure out a way - and fast - to get new cards and reprints directly into eternal formats by skipping Standard entirely. Standard and draft are bound at the hip to eachother.
Making more products to cater to Standard and draft is the OPPOSITE of what this game needs right now. This game needs a lifeline for its eternal formats and if WoTC has been watching closely lately, they would see that the community is wanting some of these "Innovative Products" to start being innovative in how they address the subject of supply/demand and not some new cardtype, keyword or re-tooling of rarities
So I have a very optimized Niv deck and while I love him, he wins a lot.
I want to build something that is fun for the table.
Suggestions for a commander or deck that will be fun for the table to play against even if it is not Uber powerful.
Basically I want a commander deck to which to after game one. I don’t want to wear my group out with Niv.
I wonder.. Have you ever seen anyone run an almost creatureless deck?
I have an O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami build that is almost creatureless, with a focus on 5-color enchantment "tribal". You can check it out in my signature and play it yourself.
O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami presents a huge crack-back risk to anyone who dares attack you, obviously.
So the plan is to make combat as difficult to navigate as possible for your opponents. If that means taxing combat (Propaganda) that's ok, or if every attacker takes some damage (Powerstone Minefield, Lightmine Field) or if each creature has a tax on just being alive to enter combat, through things like Pendrell Mists or Vile Consumption
So what I do is attack into my opponents super aggressively with a 1-man army named O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami and when they dare attack back or kill my things I'll will hose them on the crackback with commander damage or with nastyness like the following:
You could obviously do whatever you want, but the idea was based around wanting 5-color enchantments. All I needed for the longest time was a WUBRG legend to justify having next to no creatures, so it could really go all-in on the enchantments. So O-kagachi is the creature I chose for my 5-color enchantments and I went with a sub-theme that plays into the lore of O-Kagachi a little.. Being that he has destroyed armies single-handedly..
I have a great memory of a game I played 1v1 against a fella playing a very tuned Marchesa, the Black Rose deck and him balking at being dominated by this near-creatureless O-Kagachi deck. My scrapheap casual build is a lot of fun it turns out and can hilariously stall whole armies from attacking me.
I've heard many people complain about why they're getting attacked by a huge army when there's someone else at the table who could have been attacked, who has only 1 creature (me), and I can play a game of poker face and scare away the danger with merely the threat of crackback. It's a glorious social experiment
I hope that Wizards never abolishes the reserve list.
I played through the chronicles disaster. The problem with the reserve list is that people can only see the most immediate thing blocking the path of picking up their desirable cards. What they fail to see is that the reserve list is a big reason why the cards are desirable in the first place.
Chronicles came out in 1995. 23 years ago.
You can still see the legacy of the damage Chronicles caused today.
This is a listing of Arcades Sabboth, Chronicles version. 4 for $2.20. A playset for $2.20!
23 years ago, prior to the reprint, in 1995, Arcaddes Sabboth went for about $40. How many of you remember that?
Only now has the price of Arcaddes Sabboth English Legends recovered its price.
My old magic collection is littered with junk chronicles. Prior to Chronicles, every kid coveted the elder dragon-the most powerful creatures in magic at the time. After the reprint, no one wanted it. Or perhaps more accurately, we wanted it. We got it. Elder dragons were about $5 after the reprint and then said meh. And went on to do other things in life. We quit magic, finished school, read comics, passed on magic for the dozens of other fun things mtg has always competed with.
The reserve list creates the scarcity responsible for the desirability of mtg in the first place.
Even today, the cards of chronicles are mostly junk with a few exceptions that have gained notable value--blood moon, concordant crossroads, etc.
Chronicles didn't do it alone however. That same year, 4th edition also reprinted a ton of old cards from antiquities and legends. The real issue though was that the damage was done.
After seeing some of the most coveted cards reprinted, MTG lost its desirability as a collectible.
Once mtg loses it's desirability, people wake up. They realize they don't want to spend 3 bucks a pack. They realizes it's just another game.
And if it's just another game with no collectible value, then its a ridiculously expensive form of entertainment that wont compete favorably with the thousands of other forms of entertainment.
The reserved list was created because a handful of collectors threw a hissy fit and WotC panicked. Most of the advocates for the reserved list have never played the game or have not played the game for years. Non-players should have zero say in whether or not a card can and should be reprinted. And lets not mince words here, Vintage and Legacy are slowly dying as formats because of the Reserved list, and that is a tragedy.
Responding to the bold highlighted sentence:
I have been 100% behind this sentiment in the past - but I have hope now that the RL won't matter as much since seeing Battlebond - and I say the following with hope. I've made pleas to WoTC in the past and have seen the needed change I wanted, but not yet applied as expansively as I would desire.. There is legitimate pretext now for a better future in Vintage and Legacy.. A year ago I urged WoTC to expand the concept of format-bypassing cards like what we see with the 56 new cards per year in the Commander products.
Since seeing WoTC take and expand on this concept seen in Commander and using it in another product, Battlebond, I believe there is reasonable hope to see the format-bypassing concept expanded upon - which is just about the best alternative to removing the RL that I can think of for injecting new content and focus on all of the eternal formats. We just have to cross our fingers that WoTC is serious about using this concept in more than just casual format-designed products.
I have hope that the next equivalent to the Masters series may use this concept for including format-bypassing cards - which would also better justify the $10 per pack price tag much more than what we currently get for such a steep price.
OP, your experience is unfortunately a side affect of having such an old, beloved and wide-spread card game that is extremely competitive. You'll eventually interact with a grown adult who makes you ask "do they deserve the title?". Sadly enough nowadays you will also probably have asked that same question regarding the other motorists on your drive to any given place. It's the world nowadays. Life is going 120mph for most and anything beyond surface-level interactions with people could very well be beyond most individual's tolerance of effort. Yes, you whooped a 30yr old's ass in a card game and he was salty. You can work your face off for a decade to put aside the cash for a very nice car and it could get keyed the first time you park it at the mall. That 120mph rush that most folks' lives are stuck in means more than just your Magic nerd opponent will blow up at the slightest perceived grievance or even plain 'ole jealousy. Every person's life story is unique and you don't have to justify your financial desires to anybody but who pays your bills. If you are the master of your bills, then by all means spend your money however you like!
I think wotc is busy reassessing the format support going forward. They originally got behind modern because it added value to standard. The fallout of masters sets actually hurt their brand and I doubt they will goback to masters sets. Or support the format in the same way.
Let's not be complacent, if you have information that leads you to believe that WoTC is currently making considerations for format support moving forward - then right now is the time to be loud with our suggestions. Maybe I should duplicate and tailor a thread I have going about format bypassing cards and drop it here in the General forum... I'm trying to do my part!
Folks, please message some of your favorite Magic youtubers and get them to put a spotlight on format bypassing cards.. Please
To be frank the reserved list is a trap. The main reason cards on the list have value are the same reasons modern cards and non reserved list cards do: they see play in tournaments and in commander. If wizards makes a product that allows modern to get cards without going through standard, it basically solves the RL problem by making modern fill the role of legacy. They could take all the crazy stuff from legacy that isn't RL and just transplant those cards into modern.
Wouldn't that be virtually guaranteed to kill modern as it currently exists? It would be modern in name only, as cards like Force of Will etc showed up.
As Colt eluded to, a product that directly puts supply of reprints AND new cards - we must also insist that WoTC includes new cards outright - into Modern (why stop at only Modern, I think, let's shoot for Eternal formats as a whole) would mean that all of the conceptual limitations of Standard and imposed constraints of the Limited/Draft environment would no longer be a factor for these Eternal formats. This is a huuuuge point to be made - that Standard is limiting the number of quality reprints and outright new cards on the necessary power level for Eternal formats and thus needs to be bypassed outright with new products containing format bypassing cards.
Doing this would make all Eternal formats flourish, like we've never seen before.
To be frank the reserved list is a trap. The main reason cards on the list have value are the same reasons modern cards and non reserved list cards do: they see play in tournaments and in commander. If wizards makes a product that allows modern to get cards without going through standard, it basically solves the RL problem by making modern fill the role of legacy. They could take all the crazy stuff from legacy that isn't RL and just transplant those cards into modern.
Amen brother, get the word out
we need format bypassing cards
Edit: I might add the detail of "They could take all the crazy stuff from legacy that isn't RL and just transplant those cards into modern/Eternal-legal only products"
I think that there is a bit of a false narrative being pushed and that's
the Evil Collectors vs the Honorable Players.
So let me ask you a question. Right here, right now if I were to put $7000 into magic cards, do the honorable players want that?
Cause it sounds like the answer is no. It sounds like the answer is, "why don't you take your money and go somewhere else. You're not going to be a true player. That $7000 is just going to suck up more supply, making it pricier for the rest of us."
I called this a false narrative because I hope all of you, Player, collector, or what have you can see problems with that.
The problem is that you're actively driving away money that would go into the mtg market.
The MTG market is and has always been a vital part of MTG. Wizards needs it so they can sell cardboard for 90 dollars a box. Stores need it so they can sell their product. Players need it to recover their expenses when they trade in and out of cards.
And when I say it's always been a vital part of MTG, i mean honestly players alone can't keep magic afloat. Nobody has the time to sit around grinding year after year except for a select few. Players move in and out of the game. They get married, have kids, fix their homes, transition their careers, etc. And those inactive players are de facto "collectors" because they're not making active use of their cards. The card stock laying dormant in their decks is no different from the dormancy of the evil collector.
Player vs Collector is a false narrative. And actively driving away market participants is just something that's bad for everyone.
I hope MTG flourishes as an online game, because it would revitalize Legacy and Vintage in a way thats never been done before. Everyone keeps harping on the reserve list as this great evil that killed Legacy. But the truth is deeper. The growth of MTG has stalled in recent years. There's a larger force at work where paper magic itself may no longer be the relevant venue to game.
There's this excellent saying for every youtube content creator - from all walks of life, from any corner of the planet: "Do not read the youtube comments"
I think that concept (in regards to how serious to take commentary) applies to the Magic community. Lots of whinging and lots of frustration can make for an irritable lot!
You're free to use your money as you wish and I hope you don't feel like you are being made to ask our opinion before you do what you want with your own resources - although I have not witnessed anyone do as you have done and ask first. That is respectable and I want to thank you for seeking input from the community - despite the often annoyed overtone of the conversations going on here. Your doing a commendable thing in your investigation here, but you are ultimately an adult who gave your time on this earth for what resources you have acquired and if you have the means to have a more fulfilling life, go ahead. That's my 2c
You all need to realize that the reserved list nothing to do with players and collectors, not even stores or “investors”. The reserved list policy is not a contract, these groups have no cause of promisary estoppel.
The reserved list is there to protect early artist, contributors, and people that invested in WOTC. These people were often given product as part of their compensation, with the promise that if it accrued value, the company would do all it could to maintain that value. Some of these people may still even be with WOTC.
If WOTC were to renege on the reserved list these people would have a case.
What boggles my mind is that no one seems to get this. Everyone is so focused on the rift between collectors/investors and players, on people being able to bring a class action law suit against WOTC. Collectors, investors, and players are not even considerations. Why does WOTC remain so tight lipped about it, because it’s a self serving policy. As long as the public is yammering on with a false narrative WOTC is free to not have to bother with it.
Spot on.
Everyone needs to stop wasting eachother's time with discussion about a subject that will not change. The reserve list is here to stay people!
Now let's get on with having a conversation that will actually mean a damn and talk about what we need to do for the future!!!!!!! We need to get behind a realistic agenda to make Magic's future better. Talking about abolishing the RL and this promissory estoppel bull***** is a waste of our time!
Format bypassing cards is an agenda that will get us what we desire for Eternal formats, get on this train people!
So I've made threads in the past trying to ascertain why Standard, my favorite format, has been dying these past few years. I've come up with a few (what I think anyway) valid reasons as to why this is happening and what the future may hold for the game in its paper form (and why it may go away):
How much longer will WoTC support paper Magic?
I think for the duration of Magic's existence
In response to the above quoted bold text:
My feeling for why Standard is having issues is because it is directly - and negatively - impacting Eternal formats due to WoTC's insistence that Standard be the primary source for printing cards with crossover demand in other formats. WoTC must stop doing this. WoTC must make a new future for itself where Eternal formats have an independent source of reprints - AND NEW CARDS THAT BYPASS STANDARD - that way the Eternal formats don't have to suffer the conceptual limitations and the imposed limited/draft design concepts of Standard.
Standard is currently the enemy of Eternal formats because WoTC is too lazy to separate the pittance of quality reprints we get each year into other products tailored for players who enjoy anything but Standard. WoTC needs to evolve beyond their incessant need to make Standard the focus of their profit model. They are killing their product with shortsightedness. Standard should be bypassed outright with new card printings that are in products only legal in Eternal formats. WoTC must expand the concept of format bypassing cards. Battlebond is a step in the right direction.
One fun, at least for me, strategy I used against an annoying player is the discard deck. If your opponent doesn't have a hand, he can neither summon large creatures nor cast fog. Add a few cards for indirect damage like Megrim, and well, he might learn his lesson.
You, sir, are full of excellent ideas today and I will contribute to some anti-creature discard concepts
My playgroup has been fine with me using Wake of Destruction. This might be because I have known all of the people at this LGS for years and they have all in one way or another played most of my EDH decks. They know me as a person and as a player and know I'm not being an ass in the way I use it. When they see me use MLD its always been the same card every time and in very similar situations too. Not a single person at my LGS has ever had a problem with the deck I run it in either, my Grusilda, Monster Masher EDH deck. Yes at my LGS we are so casual that we have a few players with silver border commanders and we also play Star EDH as well as Pauper EDH. (Btw my favorite Monster Mash is Archfiend of Despair + Emissary of Grudges... it's so terrifying)
Timing is also important when I use the spell. I don't like leaving a player helpless with nothing. I use it pretty much only on basic forests when the opponent has other mana rocks and other land types to fall back on. This means that for the multicolor decks I have done something relevant to their gameplay that doesn't stop them from playing their deck entirely but, as I am intending to do - it interferes with them at a critical point. Forests are the most ubiquitous choice for ramp spells.. What ends up happening is that all of the blue, red or black players appreciate it because they're all jealous of the ramp too - or on the verge of losing to the green player in the moment anyways. At my LGS most EDH games are using multicolor decks.. half the table or more is always running blue alternate colors to fall back on. Politics matters too, sometimes I let my opponents chime in if the game is kind of dead even.
My first dream card was also Guardian Beast... I longed for well over a decade.. once I got mine I had a masterful artist alter it for me. In my eyes I don't see a mistake when I look at this card. I see accomplishment.
I hope you enjoy looking at this as much as I do! He's guarding a Mox Jet. Nobody can take control of his artifacts!
My altered Guardian Beast!
EDIT: Fixed
for the love of all that is good, we do NOT need a new format just for drafting. In my opinion WoTC needs to figure out a way - and fast - to get new cards and reprints directly into eternal formats by skipping Standard entirely. Standard and draft are bound at the hip to eachother.
Making more products to cater to Standard and draft is the OPPOSITE of what this game needs right now. This game needs a lifeline for its eternal formats and if WoTC has been watching closely lately, they would see that the community is wanting some of these "Innovative Products" to start being innovative in how they address the subject of supply/demand and not some new cardtype, keyword or re-tooling of rarities
I wonder.. Have you ever seen anyone run an almost creatureless deck?
I have an O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami build that is almost creatureless, with a focus on 5-color enchantment "tribal". You can check it out in my signature and play it yourself.
O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami presents a huge crack-back risk to anyone who dares attack you, obviously.
So the plan is to make combat as difficult to navigate as possible for your opponents. If that means taxing combat (Propaganda) that's ok, or if every attacker takes some damage (Powerstone Minefield, Lightmine Field) or if each creature has a tax on just being alive to enter combat, through things like Pendrell Mists or Vile Consumption
So what I do is attack into my opponents super aggressively with a 1-man army named O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami and when they dare attack back or kill my things I'll will hose them on the crackback with commander damage or with nastyness like the following:
Repercussion + any of the following
Chandra's Ignition + Star of Extinction + Aether Flash Wave of Reckoning
Berserk + Rush of Blood + Onward // Victory + Fatal Frenzy + Insult // Injury
You could obviously do whatever you want, but the idea was based around wanting 5-color enchantments. All I needed for the longest time was a WUBRG legend to justify having next to no creatures, so it could really go all-in on the enchantments. So O-kagachi is the creature I chose for my 5-color enchantments and I went with a sub-theme that plays into the lore of O-Kagachi a little.. Being that he has destroyed armies single-handedly..
I have a great memory of a game I played 1v1 against a fella playing a very tuned Marchesa, the Black Rose deck and him balking at being dominated by this near-creatureless O-Kagachi deck. My scrapheap casual build is a lot of fun it turns out and can hilariously stall whole armies from attacking me.
I've heard many people complain about why they're getting attacked by a huge army when there's someone else at the table who could have been attacked, who has only 1 creature (me), and I can play a game of poker face and scare away the danger with merely the threat of crackback. It's a glorious social experiment
Could you imagine a new Viashino Legend... ?
Voltron - Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
Demon Tribal - Demonlord Belzenlok
Cleric Tribal - Ravos, Soultender + Tymna the Weaver
Reanimator - Grusilda, Monster Masher Gotta love Mashing Archfiend of Despair+Emissary of Grudges
Tokens - Slimefoot, the Stowaway
Suicide Life Swap - Selenia, Dark Angel
Discard - Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
Artifacts - Silas Renn, Seeker Adept + Akiri, Line-Slinger
5-color Enchantments - O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami
Dragon Tribal - The Ur-Dragon
Aggro - Saskia the Unyielding
Combo - The Mimeoplasm
+1/+1 counters - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice
Sacrifice Combo - Teysa, Orzhov Scion
Wheels - Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder
Note: Fun Monster Mashes I have achieved using my opponent's creatures to beat face in-game at the good ole LGS:
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite + Sheoldred, Whispering One
Rakdos, Lord of Riots + Steel Hellkite
Territorial Hellkite + Sheoldred, Whispering One
Responding to the bold highlighted sentence:
I have been 100% behind this sentiment in the past - but I have hope now that the RL won't matter as much since seeing Battlebond - and I say the following with hope. I've made pleas to WoTC in the past and have seen the needed change I wanted, but not yet applied as expansively as I would desire.. There is legitimate pretext now for a better future in Vintage and Legacy.. A year ago I urged WoTC to expand the concept of format-bypassing cards like what we see with the 56 new cards per year in the Commander products.
I expressed that expanding the concept of format-bypassing cards can directly breathe life into every eternal format and is the necessary future for these formats. I made this proposition here: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/781415-the-rule-of-56-originals-in-commander-is-a
Since seeing WoTC take and expand on this concept seen in Commander and using it in another product, Battlebond, I believe there is reasonable hope to see the format-bypassing concept expanded upon - which is just about the best alternative to removing the RL that I can think of for injecting new content and focus on all of the eternal formats. We just have to cross our fingers that WoTC is serious about using this concept in more than just casual format-designed products.
I have hope that the next equivalent to the Masters series may use this concept for including format-bypassing cards - which would also better justify the $10 per pack price tag much more than what we currently get for such a steep price.
Let's not be complacent, if you have information that leads you to believe that WoTC is currently making considerations for format support moving forward - then right now is the time to be loud with our suggestions. Maybe I should duplicate and tailor a thread I have going about format bypassing cards and drop it here in the General forum... I'm trying to do my part!
Folks, please message some of your favorite Magic youtubers and get them to put a spotlight on format bypassing cards.. Please
As Colt eluded to, a product that directly puts supply of reprints AND new cards - we must also insist that WoTC includes new cards outright - into Modern (why stop at only Modern, I think, let's shoot for Eternal formats as a whole) would mean that all of the conceptual limitations of Standard and imposed constraints of the Limited/Draft environment would no longer be a factor for these Eternal formats. This is a huuuuge point to be made - that Standard is limiting the number of quality reprints and outright new cards on the necessary power level for Eternal formats and thus needs to be bypassed outright with new products containing format bypassing cards.
Doing this would make all Eternal formats flourish, like we've never seen before.
Amen brother, get the word out
we need format bypassing cards
Edit: I might add the detail of "They could take all the crazy stuff from legacy that isn't RL and just transplant those cards into modern/Eternal-legal only products"
There's this excellent saying for every youtube content creator - from all walks of life, from any corner of the planet: "Do not read the youtube comments"
I think that concept (in regards to how serious to take commentary) applies to the Magic community. Lots of whinging and lots of frustration can make for an irritable lot!
You're free to use your money as you wish and I hope you don't feel like you are being made to ask our opinion before you do what you want with your own resources - although I have not witnessed anyone do as you have done and ask first. That is respectable and I want to thank you for seeking input from the community - despite the often annoyed overtone of the conversations going on here. Your doing a commendable thing in your investigation here, but you are ultimately an adult who gave your time on this earth for what resources you have acquired and if you have the means to have a more fulfilling life, go ahead. That's my 2c
Spot on.
Everyone needs to stop wasting eachother's time with discussion about a subject that will not change. The reserve list is here to stay people!
Now let's get on with having a conversation that will actually mean a damn and talk about what we need to do for the future!!!!!!! We need to get behind a realistic agenda to make Magic's future better. Talking about abolishing the RL and this promissory estoppel bull***** is a waste of our time!
Format bypassing cards is an agenda that will get us what we desire for Eternal formats, get on this train people!
How much longer will WoTC support paper Magic?
I think for the duration of Magic's existence
In response to the above quoted bold text:
My feeling for why Standard is having issues is because it is directly - and negatively - impacting Eternal formats due to WoTC's insistence that Standard be the primary source for printing cards with crossover demand in other formats. WoTC must stop doing this. WoTC must make a new future for itself where Eternal formats have an independent source of reprints - AND NEW CARDS THAT BYPASS STANDARD - that way the Eternal formats don't have to suffer the conceptual limitations and the imposed limited/draft design concepts of Standard.
Standard is currently the enemy of Eternal formats because WoTC is too lazy to separate the pittance of quality reprints we get each year into other products tailored for players who enjoy anything but Standard. WoTC needs to evolve beyond their incessant need to make Standard the focus of their profit model. They are killing their product with shortsightedness. Standard should be bypassed outright with new card printings that are in products only legal in Eternal formats. WoTC must expand the concept of format bypassing cards. Battlebond is a step in the right direction.
You, sir, are full of excellent ideas today and I will contribute to some anti-creature discard concepts
Noetic Scales
Ensnaring Bridge
Portcullis
Breathstealer's Crypt
Recoil
Mana Web
Pendrell Mists
Fatespinner
Mmmmm....tasty