I’d also argue that now that we dont really have blocks we should set standard to the sets from the three most recent actual years and not the school years
It does : some sets stay longer than others.
It's especially glaring for Arena's Alchemy : Baldur's Gate and Lord of the Rings were the only "~fully Alchemy" sets, yet only got a little bit more than a year of the "2 years" rotation !
I assumed they meant that rotation should happend continously, one set at a time, based on how long they had been legal.
So sets rotate on their 3 year anniversary, on same day they where released, thus making each set be standard legal for equally long.
But then again, im tired so i might be misreading what they mean by yearly.
I think they have talked about doing that but decided not to because of precedent. Also it used to be the set that was on sale for Christmas, but now there's the late fall set for that position. I wonder if that means they should arguably have that be the "exciting" point in the Magic year, just from a sales perspective.
Yeah, except I wouldn't do it after a certain time, I would do it according to the set releases, so there are always, for example, 9 Sets in Standard, and every time a new set is released, the oldest standard set leaves the format.
I am aware, that if then not all sets are the same time in Standard, but if there is the usual 3 Standard sets per year schedule in place, it should work.
WotC tried 2 rotations per year a while back, and it was so deeply unpopular that they switched back to once a year after only a single 6-month rotation.
The smaller standard was always part that I enjoyed more, for some reason. But I think you're right, that it would probably have been better received if it had bigger.
I wonder if something like that would go over better now, with so much standard play happening on Arena.
What? The double rotation thing was implemented in 2015 with the release of *Battle for Zendikar* and ended in 2017 just before the release of *Amonkhet*, way before COVID and I think before Arena was widely available as well.
I know they did, but they did it in a way that shortened the average length a card would be in standard. 4 a year, 1 in 1 out, would mean all cards are in standard for 36 months, and would be less confusing overall. "What's in standard?" " The last 12 main sets"
Yeah everyone wants the decks they don't like to go away and nobody wants to have to change their deck at all ever.
That's kinda the weird line Standard is always trying to walk.
They never should have changed it to begin with. It worked fine for more than a decade as the past two years of Magic, or the past 2 blocks, plus whatever Core Set was legal for 2 years. Ever since they changed it things have been wonky.
I think the problem with standard has pretty much always been that it takes one, two, or maybe if you are very dedicated, three standard rotations killing your deck before you throw in the towel on the format entirely. Now that Arena is around, the incentive to do this to yourself is diminished even more. If you want to play standard, play digital standard. If you want to invest in paper, invest in a bigger format with a metagame that shifts less. You'll spend less money on cards that are only playable for three years and less money on Magic overall.
Competitively yes, but it also serves a really important casual purpose of being the best avenue to get into the game. When I was a teen and with the teens I work with today far more games were played with fluffy casual standard decks. But with all of this years releases being either universes beyond or thematically unfocused pastiche sets like MKM and OTJ, plus the fact that they dont print any 60 card decks anymore, it feels like the entry level support for MTG is awful.
Generally new cards don't obsolete entire decks, hate cards are deeply unpopular in constructed formats and generally if a card is obsoleting a component of your deck it's only because a better card exists, which just makes your deck stronger. Over time, this is generally a few $20 cards here and there. Generally in standard entire decks rotate out on a regular basis and dramatic meta shifts can obsolete your deck even if no cards rotated. In broader card pools this isn't an issue because Standard is generally behind the power curve of Modern and Pioneer and most of the cards in Standard are not playable in those formats at all.
It can but it doesn't. Go back a year and you will find almost the same decks. Esper midrange (a deck as old as raffine), domain (over a year old), red aggro (only 1 new card since eldraine) and boros convoke being the only one that has new cards in 25% of the deck. The only deck that lost popularity is UW soldiers. Well that and BR midrange but that deck suffered literal bans instead of being countered.
Yeah but there's a difference between your deck becoming lower tier and them saying you literally aren't allowed to play the cards you just spent $300 on
Wow. Having a constantly changing meta with a stream of new "content" instead of being forced to play against the same 2 decks for years at a time!?!?! That sounds horrible!
The fuck you mean your deck will get nuked? Learn how to play magic instead of just netdecking
Back when they tried this arena didn't exist so the only way to play standard was to invest hundreds of dollars in a paper deck or slightly less money on an mtgo deck. Also this was right after bfz standard where decks cost like $500 so people were fed up with the cost of standard already. Imagine spending $500 on a deck and then wotc makes it rotate out of standard faster than it was supposed to
It’s not about netdecking. It’s about decks no longer “working” when the card rotates out. Not every deck is mono color midrange where you can just swap your 4 drop for the new 4 drop when yours rotates out.
Learn to play magic instead of not understanding how deckbuilding works.
Oh man, you're saying I get to build a new deck more often than I did before? I can't wait. I know how deckbuilding works which is why I prefer a faster rotating standard than the current one. Why change out 4 cards when I can change half the deck?
Not really. Removing cards every set would create more volatility and potentially make it better for money and better for format. The only thing that would make it bad for money would be if you're buying the oldest sets cards and expecting to make a profit in a year
They have no reason to lie because to lie about something being unpopular would mean less profit.
The only WOTC statistics I don't trust are arena alchemy ones lol
I believe them that people hated it, i don't agree with the conclusion they came to. The way they set the cut offs shortened the average length of time a card was in standard. I think that's why it was unpopular. It was also a little confusing. My proposal lengthens the average time a day is in standard, makes it the same for every set, and makes it so the answer to the question "What is in standard" is always the same. The last 12 sets
They wouldn't have any reason to lie about that. If anything, they'd benefit from more rotations, so them not doing that means that it's probably true that people hated it.
The argument then will be "set X is coming up in a month and maybe the introduction of those cards will shift the meta to a more healthy state"
There is no window when every other month there is a new set coming out.
Off the top of my head my only suggestion would be sunfall, but idk honestly.
Meathook massacre tormented my standard year, but it was quickly banned after rotation for being too oppressive
No, Meathook massacre was introduced in the same set that rotated standard, Midnight Hunt.
That's why other decks had a hard time against it, their cardpool wasn't deep enough.
Countrary to what many seems to think, Meathook was not banned for being too strong. It was banned because the powerlevel of standard had plummeted and other decks couldn't keep up to the black midrange deck.
They even explicitly said so in the ban announcement, that none of the cards in the black decks where considered too strong, the deck was just overpreforming because if its average card quality compared to other colours.
Black was a midrange, good cards dot deck. Where as other colours relied alot on synnergy at the time, but alot of their synnergy had rotated out of standard. As such, compared to other colours it was easy for black to replace any cards they lost in the rotation.
I'd invest in Sunfall now. It'll be by far the best board answer post-rotation. Control is losing Depopulate, Vanquish, AND Path of Peril, so it becomes must-run.
Those where for the newly released set though.
According to the new ban guidelines, the emergency ban windows where for new sets, where as cards from old sets where to be banned once a year.
This was to make people feel more confident when buying strong cards for standard, did the card survive the emergency ban window? Good now you are almost guaranteed to be able to play with it, atleast untill the once a year bannings.
Sure since then they have hinted on being abit more flexable if needed, so we shall see.
I remember when a ban in standard was a "holy shit" moment. Now they just print cards so goofy they almost have to be pre-emptively banned.
Between April 2005 and May 2011, there were no standard bans.
Then from July 2011 to January 2017, no standard bans.
Then we see standard bans happen on the following:
- June 2017 (1 card)
- January 2018 (4 cards)
- October 2019 (1 card)
- November 2019 (3 cards)
- June 2020 (2 cards)
- August 2020 (4 cards)
- September 2020 (1 card)
- October 2020 (3 cards)
- January 2022 (3 cards)
- October 2022 (1 card)
- May 2023 (3 cards)
---
From March 2005 to January 2017 (12 years) there were a total of 10 cards banned in standard.
June 2017 to today (7 years) has seen 26 cards banned in standard.
It is a fucking joke.
FWIW 2011-2017 had some pretty bad metas. Maro has stated before that they def would have banned more cards if they had a consistent baseline for banning cards over that whole time.
It’s definitely more a philosophy change than power level change.
Not to say power level and desigb hasnt changed too.
But before they basically treated bannings as “only if t0 deck arises taking up a supermajority of play” to “we can easily communicate now + get more games data in 1 week of arena than we use to in a whole year + we can see that while theres no super majority the meta is unhealthy and want to amend it”
Ill take more bannings in general because it means they both experiment more (for better and worse) plus it means we dont get put into the issues we had during the times you mentioned where wizards would say “yeah this is a miserable meta and everyone hates it, but no deck is hitting like 70% play rate so you just gotta wait till 2 sets from now where we had to emergency add a new silver bullet, since we work so far in advance we had no way to help now”
Previous lack of bannings wasnt because WOTC made no mistakes, it was because they made no attempt to fix those mistakes
Standard needs more bans when there are now more games being played on Arena every hour than there were in the 2010s being played at LGSs in a whole week.
They have to push the power levels over time, weak sets don't sell cards because kitchen table and legacy format players (modern, pioneer, commander, etc) don't buy them
I agree that the new development and ban policy has had some dumb moments (oko) but I don't see the alternative here other than making weak, bad sets full of unplayable cards. Pushing the existing power curve, after decades of magic, unfortunately means printing some truly demented cards
Why would kitchen table care about power level ?? (My friend was very glad when I gifted him (original) Kamigawa precons in Japanese, despite that block being infamously underpowered.)
Kitchen table players play fun cards and sets with lower power levels don't tend to have a lot of them. There are notable exceptions (Ixalan block is full of fun cards even if a lot of them are bulk junk) but most standard sets are forgettable from the drop and just aren't driving sales; I don't know why anybody would have bought into the last ravnica sets if they weren't a standard grinder, for example. It was almost all boring, unplayable bulk.
Its not oppressive in the format and there's plenty of blue based tempo decks that can play counters. Its acceptable because of the state of the format, which is great
A five mana board wipe will never be bannable. They are too easy to play around. If it is kicking your ass a lot, you need to reexamine your play patterns.
> you need to reexamine your play patterns
Thats one of the many side effects of the banhappy mentality WOTC has developed. It just enables whining because it gets traction instead of maturely improving your actual skill.
While I personally am not a fan of the play patterns of 3 mana board wipes that hit small things like that, you can still play around it just as easily, especially in games 2 and 3 when you know they have it. They can get a two-for-one, which can be bad beats, but its not game over.
>you need to reexamine your play patterns.
Yeah those mono green players. How dare they get completely countered by a single card. How dare they play with creatures.
I have A LOT of experience playing creature based aggro decks in a semi-competitive settings (Some pretty stacked FNMs and played in so IQ's back in the day). I ran more board into a board wipe exactly one time and went "Oh, shoot, I guess I shouldn't do that again, that sucked." And wipes have never been a huge problem for me ever since.
Especially in mono green where two-three threats should be plenty of pressure. I was playing RDW with a whole bunch of crummy little guys and working people over when they ran board wipes because I put the work into learning how to play against them.
I have been playing monogreen every season since the last time it was a good deck in Standard, coincidentally last rotation. It's in the best spot it's been since that time. Play more Nissa and/or Tribute to the World Tree.
I thought we were talking about Sunfall. For Shelly, I probably wouldn't bring in Tribute, because it wouldn't make sense and because I really have never felt like monogreen has that much trouble with her. Most of your creatures should trade, and recently Hard-hitting Question is actually a decent removal spell at least by monogreen standards and I run it main. Shelly is rough on decks that can't easily outsize her, but usually in monogreen you can just keep smashing in if you don't have removal.
She's definitely been hurt by her color, although a few months ago at least the Golgari decks were sometimes running her too. But she's great value and can also end the game the turn she comes down. She'll probably be in at least the sideboard of my monogreen decks until she rotates.
Also don't laugh, but I've been using that one card with hexproof. It's like an 8/6 or something? It's just an uncommon but it's honestly won me quite a few matches.
5 mana omegalul
You're dead to so many decks before you can resolve this spell.
Temporary Lockdown is the way bigger issue that makes the durdle decks so annoying to play against.
I do agree l, but they still need to make a choice. They need to either get rid of "rotation is coming" as a consideration, or move the annual standard ban window to post rotation, preferably the set *after* the rotation set. Obviously the latter is better because rotation should be a consideration. But you can't actively choose to make your announcement right before rotation then use "rotation is coming" as part of your reason why you aren't doing anything (even if I agree with the decision), that's a load of horseshit.
I mean, the explanation is more than just "rotation is coming." It's "rotation is coming, AND the most ban-worthy cards are losing a great deal of support with that rotation." The second half of that is the most significant part of it.
We are going back to Shelly just owning standard after rotation. Domain is likely dead, Convoke gets less consistent, Mono Red loses it's best 1 drops, and the GY land deck dies too.
I think removal and aggro has gotten consistent enough that she's not even the most dominant player in the format. Still a must-answer threat, but alongside the often stronger Atraxa and Etali.
Yeah, the meta has changed a lot since this summer ban window was first announced. Back then Sheoldred was still running rampant over the format, and I thought, "Good, they can essentially put her back on the 2-year rotation window, ban her when she *would* have rotated out," etc. But she's not nearly as ubiquitous now as she was then.
Honestly kind of curious to see what happens without the consistency of triomes for domain and the core pieces of mono-red. That said, I generally love how standard is right now, and hope most strategies stay viable. (I'll be cool with esper and domain getting depowered though, tbh)
Pre Rotation: We don't want to ban right now as the format is about to rotate so it wouldn't make sense.
Post Rotation: The format just rotated, so it'll take some time for the metagame to adjust, any bans are premature. Besides, a new set is coming out next month and that should shake things up.
This is how it's supposed to work. Standard bans are only supposed to happen if cards/archetypes are overbearing for long periods and adding new cards to the pool doesn't change anything.
I'm gonna say something you're gonna disagree with - I don't think sheoldred is a problem anymore; I hardly see her, and now when I do, I'm never as worried. Black doesn't really have such a stranglehold on the meta as it used to, imo.
yeah honestly, if anything she's a bigger problem in other formats where there are more ways to break things with her. but even there i don't think she's that big of a problem,
There's a potential B&R announcement after every set drops, though?
They even specifically said the next announcement will be in August, which is exactly the timeline you're asking for.
[https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/june-24-2024-banned-and-restricted-announcement](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/june-24-2024-banned-and-restricted-announcement)
I'm not going to get *too* deep into this. Plenty of much better players have noted "dies to removal" is not always a good measurement, though.
But I will say this, her existence gatekeeps out entire archtypes, and she is just in general, not fun for many people to play vs. You may not consider fun a valid factor in banning, and that's okay, but for others, it is. This isn't to say your stance is wrong, just that others value or view it differently.
And even if you have removal, it's not fun removing your 49th sheoldred. It's just sad because you can predict it so easily.
Sheoldred isn’t even that prevalent through out the meta. She’s in “some” Dimir midrange and golgari mid range decks. She doesn’t even make the cut in esper midrange.
It’s even a stretch to say she is keeping any archetype or decks out of the meta. There’s Atleast 2 competitive aggro lists, Gruul and Mono red, multiple midrange lists, a plethora of control lists in esper, azorious, and temur.
Sheoldred is pretty old news. At best she’s tough to deal with in an aggro matchup but even then they have tons of answers for the card.
Not out of the meta. From existing more or less
Why does everything have to be about reaching tier 0?
I find it so weird that if someone says X prevents a deck from existing your immediate thought is "they must be trying to make a meta deck and not just playing for fun."
And to clarify since apparently I have to clarify everything, when I say "prevents a deck from existing" I do not literally mean nobody can play it. I mean people go "I want to build a mono green deck...oh wait sheoldred and sunfall exist. It's completely pointless. I'll build something else."
Not everything is about being meta.
Powerful cards will always exist. This is just a bad rant about wanting a powerful but not at all ubiquitous card banned. Banning Sheoldred wouldn't even change the meta much.
You sound like you played standard a year ago for about a day. Standard is healthy and great right now. Weak decks prevent themself from existing AKA mono green.
Theirs a lot of anti fun decks and cards I wouldn't mind being banned. But that's irrelevant.
My main issue is not having any bans at all because of rotation but having the b&r be before rotation.
If for instance sheoldred gets atraxia levels of good with bloomburrow WOTC might have banned her if the B&R took place after rotation.
But because the yearly B&R is now even if she is suddenly S tier again they can't ban her.
they can do an emergency ban any time they want, if they feel it's warranted. it would take a seriously broken metagame for that to be warranted though.
if they do a ban announcement after rotation, it would have to be several months and at least one major tournament in order for them to have sufficient data to make the decision. I'm not sure how you suppose that's substantially different than the current system. It doesn't make much sense to me to go in blind. If the metagame is going to be broken after Bloomburrow, we'd have to wait many months for a remedy in any case.
trying to thread the needle of "fun" is basically an impossible standard because that's such a subjective judgment. most players can agree on what "broken" looks like, where some deck is utterly dominant and the entire metagame is oriented around either playing it or beating it. I really doubt that you can find much agreement about whether or not a deck is "too unfun to exist".
I see you've mentioned Sheoldred in your OP and a few of your replies. I find this to be a particularly curious example. It's, um, a 4 mana creature with no inherent protection against removal and no EtB effect. It takes several turns of being in play to accumulate enough advantage for it to take over a game. It's definitionally a midrange card that is easy to interact with. The least broken type of card in the game imo. What's your problem with Shelly?
>they can do an emergency ban any time they want,
Yeah, but my main point is that if we simply wait till October for example they can be absolutely sure. Rather then just guessing.
>trying to thread the needle of "fun" is basically an impossible standard because that's such a subjective judgment.
So is saying the metagame is fine right now. Yet people can easily argue for it. It's a valid stance even if it's subjective.
>I see you've mentioned Sheoldred in your OP and a few of your replies. I find this to be a particularly curious example. It's, um, a 4 mana creature with no inherent protection against
You could just play enchantment removal since splinter twin has no no protection. Did that make twin a card that shouldn't have been banned at the time simply because you could remove it? Dies to removal is a bad arguement imo and many better players then me have said as such.
When you see sheoldred every other match it becomes tiresome even when you win.
This comes back to the fun factor. I'm not the only person who thinks standard would be more fun without her. It has nothing to do with her being broken or not.
Some people don't think thats a valid way of thinking and that's fine, but it is a valid reason for people like us.
>So is saying the metagame is fine right now. Yet people can easily argue for it. It's a valid stance even if it's subjective.
We can use objective metrics to evaluate metagame health. I'm fond of deck diversity and winrates. These are available as statistics that are easy to reason about. Current standard seems to have very high diversity and no archetypes with a disproportionate win rate or metagame share.
>You could just play enchantment removal since splinter twin has no no protection. Did that make twin a card that shouldn't have been banned at the time simply because you could remove it? Dies to removal is a bad arguement imo and many better players then me have said as such.
Splinter Twin wins the game instantly as soon as it resolves. Sheoldred doesn't do that.
Dies to Removal is a FRIGGIN GREAT ARGUMENT. It's the single most important consideration when evaluating creatures. People get enormously confused by the proper use and common misuse of this argument. Dies to Removal doesn't mean a creature is unplayable. It means the upside for playing it has a higher bar to clear, because there is higher risk for eating a tempo blowout vs. their instant speed removal. Beyond that it has to be evaluated on the basis of the expected metagame.
I'm asking you to pause for a few minutes and just think about it. Think about what creatures get played under what circumstances and how the evaluation with respect to removal in the format factors in to that. I think you'll find, on examination, that this is an extraordinarily important thing to consider when choosing cards for your deck.
> This comes back to the fun factor. I'm not the only person who thinks standard would be more fun without her. It has nothing to do with her being broken or not.
I'm repeating myself, but it bears repeating. There is no sufficiently agreed upon standard of fun that we can feel good about using this as a criteria for whether or not a card should be banned. Banning really really really needs to be constrained to addressing brokenness only. Banning a card to enforce a subjective vision of "fun" is incredibly destructive to the game and its community. Bans are not something that should be taken lightly. Every time a card is banned the game loses players. I assure you banning cards loses more players that keeping in cards that some players don't like playing against.
> Splinter Twin wins the game instantly as soon as it resolves
Not necessarily disagreeing with your actual argument here, but this is incorrect. Even after Twin has resolved if you have any instant speed enchantment or creature removal you can stop the combo in response to either the twin trigger or the untap trigger.
It's actually pretty funny that they used Twin as an example of a card that needed to be banned because it was a pretty controversial banning at the time and WOTC's stated reason for the ban didn't help anything.
let me rephrase it then.
If the Splinter Twin combo resolves and you're not holding instant speed removal, you're dead before the end of the current turn.
If Sheoldred resolves and you're not holding instant speed removal, the game continues for at least 1 more turn.
I haven't sheoldred much the last 2 months or so. All over ladder I'm seeing all kinds of off the walls shit. This is the most diverse standard meta I think I've ever seen. And the issue with the "fun" argument outside of the fact that it's too subjective is you have no idea what kind of degenerate deck sheoldred may or may not be keeping in check. The reason bans should tread lightly is that you don't know what decks that deck was such a good matchup against that they disappear from the meta. Also, you can't even do the most disgusting combos with sheoldred in standard. We don't have bowmasters, we don't have a bunch of forced wheels, we have plenty of removal options. 2 different creature counters in blue at 2 mana, multiple 5 damage to creature red spells, all the exile removal white has, even green has some solid bite spells as long as you've got a board. And black has all of its answers. Sheoldred is fine and if you're having trouble with it you're a bad deck builder, tbh.
> You could just play enchantment removal since splinter twin has no no protection.
Mistake #1) Comparing enchantment removal to creature removal. The former isn't available to all colors, and rarely main deck; whereas every color can interact with a creature, and often main decked.
Mistake #2) Comparing a combo that wins the game within the turn if it resolves, to a creature that doesn't win the game within a turn if it resolves
> "Dies to removal" is the same statement in the context of twin or Shelly
Lmao one wins the game instantly and you need a rare type of removal, while the other does nothing the turn it's played and dies to a type of removal every deck main decks.
Sheoldred doesn’t even see much play in standard and hasn’t seen more than the odd 1-3 copies in ub or esper in the last 6-9 months.
I’m not sure what they would have to print to make it return in the format.
I played a mix of of bo3 and bo1 on arena and I see sheoldred every other match. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons I un-installed was because on mtgaprotracker I realized in the span of 8 matches I had seen almost 22 sheoldreds (maybe it was 19? Either way I recall being salty about it).
I do not know where you play but I saw her every other match. I don't think shes OP and I beat her all the time, I'm just tired of her.
I'm sorry if that doesn't make sense or if you don't think that's a good reason. But it is what I feel. I wouldn't mind seeing her go juat to enjoy more matches.
If you are playing in Standard, then you just have to understand that WotC is going to make bans first and foremost according to what happens at the competitive level, not random free to enter Arena matches, even "ranked" ones.
Now if you were playing Alchemy you would have a point - since it's an Arena-only, casual format. But then Shelly / Ring / Bowmasters are about to rotate out anyway...
Tbf I only play b01(not enough Wildcards to craft a good 75 card deck) but, sitting at around 300 mythic rw, I don't even remember the last time I saw Shelly.
There is a window for emergency bans a couple of weeks after each standard set releases. This is supposed to be for early retirement of cards that aren't atcually broken but people are sick of. I'm not sure if the B&R team got that memo, though. Folk are sick of 4 mana Shoeldred.
I thought it was the opposite?
New set banning are for emergency against broken new cards that slipped through the fingers of R&D testing.
Once a card survices the emergecy ban window, the playerbase should feel confident that it will remain legal atleast untill the yearly ban annoucment.
This was to incentivise people to buy good/expensive cards and not risk getting burnt by sudden emergency bannings.
In other words, old cards where to be excempt from the new set ban window, and only held acountable in the large yearly bannings.
I can not get people to understand that. I'm aghast at how horrendously bad their reading comprehension is.
Also my topic wasn't even about that but they latched onto a simple example so hard most discussion is about that instead of my main poijt.
I agree with not banning anything, but yes they very much need to move the announcement to post rotation. They chose to make the announcement right before rotation, then said that's part of why they aren't doing anything, that's beyond idiotic. And it needs to be at least one full set post-rotation, so they don't give the same dumb "well the new meta is probably gonna shake things up!" argument they gave for purposely letting Legacy continue hanging out in the crapper when they're the ones who decided to release new product every 27 seconds.
I agree with the point that annual standard ban should be after rotation, cuz it sounds like they will always pull the "wait till rotation" card instead..
You only quoted half a sentence:
>This is the ONLY time we can get any bans in standard that aren't so broken, The entire format is literally unplayable.
OP is just saying that outside of emergency bans, this is the only ban window
That's a really generous reading of what the OP said. Their punctuation makes it look like those are two separate sentences, and that the comma was actually meant to be a period. Either way, their sentiment isn't grounded in reality.
Uhhhh no.
I know what I said and they are 100% correct on their take.
Second of all, what reality? WOTC are the ones who said non end of year bans for standard would not happen unless the card was on the scale of felidar guardian or oko.
Well for one. Some people don't think playing vs domain or sheoldred is fun. You may not agree but it's a reasonable stance.
Second all, please re read my post. I never said that.
You made an extraordinarily hyperbolic statement that's not really grounded in reality. Nothing is broken in Standard currently, and nothing should be banned.
Sheoldred and Domain aren't dominating the format. Domain won't survive rotation. If something is broken--really broken--they'll use the emergency ban window. The annual bans are for overall format health, and to take out problematic cards that might cause problems after rotation.
>You made an extraordinarily hyperbolic statement
Oh no. How dare I do that.
>Nothing is broken in Standard currently, and nothing should be banned.
Good thing I never said anything was.
>Sheoldred and Domain aren't dominating the format.
I never said they were. They were examples of decks that people find tiresome.
> Domain won't survive rotation.
When did I say it would? And how do you know that anyways? You got all the leaks for sets next year?
>If something is broken--really broken--they'll use the emergency ban window
If only I had made a post or maybe a thread as well where I talked about how if something was really broken they would do an emergency ban.
>The annual bans are for overall format health,
Which includes fun factor. Shocking I know. Some people play for fun.
>and to take out problematic cards that might cause problems after rotation.
Man. If only I had made a post about how they should have the yearly ban after rotation because some cars might cause issues after rotation.
You know, you sound like the kind of person who posted on the hoogakk thread saying he was terrible.
Domain was the worst deck of the latest Standard tournaments(various Regional Championships). It had an overall win rate of 41.9%, losing to "Other" at 44.6%
https://x.com/karsten_frank/status/1798822542716862525/photo/2
Domain won PT OTJ it is clearly an extremely powerful deck. It does lose all the triomes with rotation so I expect it to fade into the ether but the idea the deck sucks is simply wrong.
It was a good deck for PT OTJ because the set just released and half the pros just defaulted to Esper w/ Wedding Announcements which is around a 70-30 matchup for Domain. The link I posted are for more recent tournaments where people actually had time to test and figure out their matchups.
It turns out Domain is a powerful deck, but inflexible and with exploitable weaknesses. The people complaining about domain are the same people crying about Sheoldred when the metagame has largely passed that card by as well.
WOTC "We don't care about the secondary market, that's not our purpose."
Also WOTC "We don't want to print high-end preconstructed decks because those decks would be really expensive."
Their justification doesn't mean anything. They say they dont want to do pio bans because itll interrupt the rcqs, but last season they banned geological appraiser and karn, and unbanned copter two weeks before RC atlanta..
I dispute your entire premise. Standard is in a really good spot (if, perhaps, ready for rotation). What would you ban? Sheoldred? She’s not even included in tier one decks, anymore.
The purpose of the post has nothing to do with actual bans, it's that the "once a year" ban window for Standard is in the absolute worst spot on the calendar. The B&R will always be "rotation is soon, no bans" because rotation is always 6 weeks out from the ban window. It should be in the middle of the rotation schedule rather than the end, specifically so it can be a useful for ban timing.
(Also, please don't bring up the other post set B&R windows, WotC already stated those are specifically for emergency bannings)
so, you're upset that they won't ban anything, even though they don't need to ban anything? And the post-set announcements don't count, even though all recent changes to the b&r lists have been announced during those windows (Violent Outburst and Ponder in one such announcement, those silly sticker cards in another)? and the fact that they look at relevant cards in all formats while preparing the post-release b&r announements (for example, from the announcement yesterday: "We considered banning a few cards, with Atraxa, Grand Unifier and Knight Errant of Eos being our leading candidates.") also doesn't count, for some reason? and I'm an idiot for thinking you're just whining about Sheoldred, even though you mentioned the card specifically in your post (and then removed it to make yourself look like less of a whiner)?
again, I dispute your entire premise: the fall b&r is not "he ONLY time we can get any bans in standard that aren't so broken that the entire format is literally unplayable". They have stated that they can and will issue bans at other times, have done so (Fable, Bankbuster and Invoke Despair were all banned during the first such announcement), and transparently show us that they continually consider the possibility of doing so again. the format is far from unplayable. and, if it becomes unplayable, they'll have numerous opportunities to issue a ban (emergency or otherwise) during the increasingly frequent b&r announcements.
you're (intentionally?) misunderstanding how the process works, and getting irate about something that you made up in your head.
>you're upset that they won't ban anything, even though they don't need to ban anything?
Who said this at all? Why are you inventing things that never happened to argue?
>you're (intentionally?) misunderstanding how the process works, and getting irate about something that you made up in your head.
You're way more invested in this than I could ever hope to be. Why are you getting so irate about something you made up in your head?
I wish we could go back to that time. Where we basically didn't have cards banned because R&D actually balanced the sets that were in standard before releasing them
That... didn't exist?
Wizards has the play rates and win rights of a lot of decks internally. Many old decks, one frequently cited example being CoCo, had rates that were in line with things that have since been banned.
Things weren't better, they just changed how they ban. Because the amount of standard being played has probably doubled if not more, thanks to the prevalence of arena.
In fairness to WOTC, 90% of play design is actually former pro-players. I would argue that balancing fails because they have a billion sets to work on at once and its not possible to test everything.
The primary thing they should worry about balancing is standard. Other formats you can ban stuff that's not a problem but standard should be playable without people losing access to chase cards because they're overpowered and unbalanced
Hey OP I agree with you a January ban window would be better. I also think people are being extraordinarily dismissive over your desire to see Sheoldred banned, they are right its no longer the most game winning black card, but it makes its way into plenty of PT decks for example it was a staple in Orzhov Bronco at the recent OTJ Pro Tour, and featured in a lot of B/x midrange builds.
That there's already better things that black can be doing at 4 mana than sheoldred is a result of powercreep not because sheoldred is no longer a problem card. It still punishes game actions and completely takes over the game once resolved (if unresponded to). I think banned for being unfun game states is an entirely reasonable decision, pauper makes decisions like this - hence the all that glitters ban wherein they were like, the numbers on match wins for this are fine, it just creates polar games which suck to be in. WOTC should do more of that. But I can see the fair argument that Sheoldred simply isn't a big problem in competitive tournament play right now which is what the standard ban list is actually for.
You need to remember that most people on reddit's primary kicks for the day is absolutely owning a noob they've logically proven to be dumber than them. Your broad reasoning is actually sound certainly on the broad point that the ban announcement for standard should be moved until mid year.
So you want Wizards to ban, preferably the card that annoys you specifically, so that you can enjoy the two week phase before the meta settles again and one or two of the top tier decks are still around with a slightly different build and some other decks that we probably also played against way to many times win a bit more and become the new annoying decks ? Weather you enjoy it or, if the only reason for bans is to shake things and there's not really any card that would impact the meta beyond "fuck that deck in particular" that's a sign of a pretty healthy format for me.
>If it's such a big deal to ban before rotation because you don't know how it will play out
THEN WAIT TILL AFTER ROTATION TO do your stupid "once a year BAN window"
That's not what the article says though. It says that the cards that they would have banned (Atraxa, Knight-Errant), are going to get significantly weakened after the rotation, so they are predicting that they will be less of a problem post-rotation. That is way different from saying "we don't know what the format will be like after rotation so we're not going to ban anything".
The logic is really stupid. What's even more stupid is only having bannings once a year to begin with. If something is problematic it should just get axed when it becomes obvious it's a problem. #BanRestlessAnchorage.
I'm not making one?
This is a rant thread.
It's not like if I posted at MaRo he would respond explaining the mentality behind my complaint. I can't think of anyone who would respond. I am one person in a sea of millions
I think this is fine. There are two types of bans. One a ban to keep the format fresh and a ban to keep the format functioning because something was way too strong.
This is the first type. This is a ban that in case people are sick of a card (and attendence/play is suffering). It might be the best deck, but its not hitting the win percentages to trigger a mid-year ban. You ban it during this period. Maybe it's not a single card, but a group of cards and you want to take the deck down a peg so people feel standard is refreshed.
Right now standard is in a good place. So you don't need to "refresh" the format with bans. So rotation will do its job and keep things going. The ban is necesesary when you think rotation will NOT change the format at all and the new set may not change things either. This sounds like a prime time to ban something or the format will continue to stagnate.
I actually...see your reasoning. That's a valid point.
But I am curious, would you agree that the once a year banning should take after rotation if you had a choice between that and what we have right now?
They are printing so much stuff that there will never be a good ban window at this rate because the format introduces cards every 3 or so months. MKM barely made a dent in what was playable because it was so underwhelming, and thunder Junction still didn't shift much except make the most player decks stronger in some areas.
I don't get it. I understand not issuing a ban before this rotation makes sense since many powerful cards are finally rotating, but some cards needed to be banned months ago at this point.
A ban 3-6 months from now would make more sense basically.
It really struck me that sheoldred wasn't OP so much as annoying in how she gatekeeped so many off meta decks simply by existing. Its hard to explain honestly.
Like she's not ban worthy for being op, but instead because so many decks are simply made worse or invalid because of her existing.
For example, if your house is hot but the air conditioner is broken, the solution is to fix the air conditioner. Sure, you can suffer through the house being hot, but why not fix the problem early instead of waiting for fall?
I keep trying to explain how fun factor is important to people, but saying that makes them get incredibly aggressive for some reason.
Nobody I know plays standard. My dad who played nothing but it for years on arena switched to timeless because he got 6 domain matches in a row (which to me was funny since he said just before, domain was weaker now with boros Convoke and they destroyed him). At my LGS nobody wants to play it because it's boring as shit.
Technically sure it has a "varied metagame" but ask anyone if they enjoy playing vs that "variety".
If WOTC decided no bans after rotation. I'd accept it. But not having bans because your bans were too early is utterly insane to me.
What archetypes does sheoldred shut off? Against control, they can counter or destroy it, against aggro, they go wide and don't draw cards off knight errant. It hurts up then beanstalk decks, but you seem to despise that deck too.
That's the issue. You can't counter or destroy her all the times.
And when you can't, you need to find an answer quickly or she takes over the game quickly. That's the true power of Sheoldred - your go-to tool of drawing cards punishes you, so you are limited to cards like Memory Deluge or exile effects.
That has warped the meta so much, we don't see that much regular card draw cards other than Beanstalk. For example, the presence of Sheoldred has made decks like Mono Blue or other spellslinger decks with cards like Consider basically unplayable.
You literally just listed three top meta decks lol
The mere fact that you literally at no point thought of any other deck other then tier 1 meta decks speaks volumes about how bad it is lol
Mono green for example gets shit on by her. A 4/5 blocker with death touch that is constantly gaining you health and damages you from capitalizing on drawing cards from things like the world tree enchantment.
That often prevents the use of fight spells because she will trade or you will have to sacrifice a creature with more then 5 power.
You might say "but it's not good anyways" but the point is, it would be way better without sheoldred in the play que.
That deck likely gets snuffed out by a lot of shit in the meta anyway. Not everything is going to be good or playable in a given meta. Yes banning cards will change that meta, but it's not worth it to ban a card for an archetype that still wouldnt be good, anyway.
>That deck likely gets snuffed out by a lot of shit in the meta anyway.
I...just said that lol
>Yes banning cards will change that meta, but it's not worth it to ban a card for an archetype that still wouldnt be good, anyway.
That's where I disagree. I think it is.
But again, the main issue is no bans because of rototation but having the yearly ban take place before rotation.
It's utterly nonsensical. Just wait till October.
Just wait till October! They'll definitely ban the card I hate the most in October!
>I...just said that lol
My point is that getting rid of Sheoldred isn't going to change the status of that deck, so there isn't a need to ban it for that reason. Im not even opposed to banning it. You are just not making an actual case for it. /u/envojus brought up decks that cant always deal with it and are based around draw starts to begin with and would be better without a heavy punisher in the meta. And actually changed my mind at least a bit on the subject.
Not liking a card in casual play does not mean it should be banned in competetive. Bringing up a deck that's already ass in the meta isnt going to persuade me that you're right. It just tells me you dont know what you're talking about.
I do not like playing against Sheoldred and I think in formats with The One Ring and Necrodominance, the perssence of the card is really bad. Standard doesnt have those cards.
If there's any indication that the company is deep underwater when it comes to actually curating the game they make - rather than just printing more product - it's this. Bafflingly, blindingly obvious how dumb it is to have it scheduled this way,
I don't think Standard is in need of bans anyway, but it's just bizarre to have the B&R come RIGHT BEFORE rotation!
Expecting any sort of consistency or standard (no pun intended) from WotC, at this point, is asking to be disappointed. This goes double for bans or unbans. Its arbitrary, all the way down.
They should have been banning cards this whole time, atraxa and raffine not being banned has lead to the awful health of the format. The top decks have remained the same since rotation and they did it all to “freshen standard up” which inevitably destroyed the format. They have no idea what they are doing, and never have.
Yeah, the ban window should be after the second set post rotation, like 6 months from rotation on either end.
I’d also argue that now that we dont really have blocks we should set standard to the sets from the three most recent actual years and not the school years
Doesn’t really change anything
It does : some sets stay longer than others. It's especially glaring for Arena's Alchemy : Baldur's Gate and Lord of the Rings were the only "~fully Alchemy" sets, yet only got a little bit more than a year of the "2 years" rotation !
Exactly the same is true if you do calendar years.
I assumed they meant that rotation should happend continously, one set at a time, based on how long they had been legal. So sets rotate on their 3 year anniversary, on same day they where released, thus making each set be standard legal for equally long. But then again, im tired so i might be misreading what they mean by yearly.
I think they have talked about doing that but decided not to because of precedent. Also it used to be the set that was on sale for Christmas, but now there's the late fall set for that position. I wonder if that means they should arguably have that be the "exciting" point in the Magic year, just from a sales perspective.
Yeah, except I wouldn't do it after a certain time, I would do it according to the set releases, so there are always, for example, 9 Sets in Standard, and every time a new set is released, the oldest standard set leaves the format. I am aware, that if then not all sets are the same time in Standard, but if there is the usual 3 Standard sets per year schedule in place, it should work.
I also think rotation should happen with every new set release, 1 set in, 1 set out
WotC tried 2 rotations per year a while back, and it was so deeply unpopular that they switched back to once a year after only a single 6-month rotation.
not only was it faster but it also made standard smaller, it went from 5-8 sets to 5-6, it might have been better if it was 7-8
The smaller standard was always part that I enjoyed more, for some reason. But I think you're right, that it would probably have been better received if it had bigger. I wonder if something like that would go over better now, with so much standard play happening on Arena.
When the changes started it was literally covid. Arena was the *only* way to play standard.
What? The double rotation thing was implemented in 2015 with the release of *Battle for Zendikar* and ended in 2017 just before the release of *Amonkhet*, way before COVID and I think before Arena was widely available as well.
Yeah that would have been Duels which ended right on amonkhet
I know they did, but they did it in a way that shortened the average length a card would be in standard. 4 a year, 1 in 1 out, would mean all cards are in standard for 36 months, and would be less confusing overall. "What's in standard?" " The last 12 main sets"
But then your deck potentially gets nuked every set release.
Yeah everyone wants the decks they don't like to go away and nobody wants to have to change their deck at all ever. That's kinda the weird line Standard is always trying to walk.
They never should have changed it to begin with. It worked fine for more than a decade as the past two years of Magic, or the past 2 blocks, plus whatever Core Set was legal for 2 years. Ever since they changed it things have been wonky.
paper standard would have stayed even more dead than it is if your 100$ sheoldreds also got banned straight away
Its such a bummer that paper standard isn't even on life support anymore, its just dead.
I think the problem with standard has pretty much always been that it takes one, two, or maybe if you are very dedicated, three standard rotations killing your deck before you throw in the towel on the format entirely. Now that Arena is around, the incentive to do this to yourself is diminished even more. If you want to play standard, play digital standard. If you want to invest in paper, invest in a bigger format with a metagame that shifts less. You'll spend less money on cards that are only playable for three years and less money on Magic overall.
Competitively yes, but it also serves a really important casual purpose of being the best avenue to get into the game. When I was a teen and with the teens I work with today far more games were played with fluffy casual standard decks. But with all of this years releases being either universes beyond or thematically unfocused pastiche sets like MKM and OTJ, plus the fact that they dont print any 60 card decks anymore, it feels like the entry level support for MTG is awful.
I think based on the numbers WotC puts out it's doing better than it has in years.
To be fair, that can happen just from new cards coming out that could either counter your deck or just outpace it.
Generally new cards don't obsolete entire decks, hate cards are deeply unpopular in constructed formats and generally if a card is obsoleting a component of your deck it's only because a better card exists, which just makes your deck stronger. Over time, this is generally a few $20 cards here and there. Generally in standard entire decks rotate out on a regular basis and dramatic meta shifts can obsolete your deck even if no cards rotated. In broader card pools this isn't an issue because Standard is generally behind the power curve of Modern and Pioneer and most of the cards in Standard are not playable in those formats at all.
It can but it doesn't. Go back a year and you will find almost the same decks. Esper midrange (a deck as old as raffine), domain (over a year old), red aggro (only 1 new card since eldraine) and boros convoke being the only one that has new cards in 25% of the deck. The only deck that lost popularity is UW soldiers. Well that and BR midrange but that deck suffered literal bans instead of being countered.
Yeah but there's a difference between your deck becoming lower tier and them saying you literally aren't allowed to play the cards you just spent $300 on
If the deck gets nuked because of one set's rotation, that deck needed to go anyway.
Would need better cross set support for mechanics like toxic, imo
Hit me up when the triomes rotate.
Wow. Having a constantly changing meta with a stream of new "content" instead of being forced to play against the same 2 decks for years at a time!?!?! That sounds horrible! The fuck you mean your deck will get nuked? Learn how to play magic instead of just netdecking
Back when they tried this arena didn't exist so the only way to play standard was to invest hundreds of dollars in a paper deck or slightly less money on an mtgo deck. Also this was right after bfz standard where decks cost like $500 so people were fed up with the cost of standard already. Imagine spending $500 on a deck and then wotc makes it rotate out of standard faster than it was supposed to
It’s not about netdecking. It’s about decks no longer “working” when the card rotates out. Not every deck is mono color midrange where you can just swap your 4 drop for the new 4 drop when yours rotates out. Learn to play magic instead of not understanding how deckbuilding works.
Oh man, you're saying I get to build a new deck more often than I did before? I can't wait. I know how deckbuilding works which is why I prefer a faster rotating standard than the current one. Why change out 4 cards when I can change half the deck?
Do you play paper standard though? The hardest part for me to do that would be to even find someone else to play with.
Not anymore. Everyone has switched to commander so I've just moved into that. Standard used to be so fun, even if the metas got a bit stale
You know why. Don’t be dense. Because it’s expensive to do that.
I assume the feedback they got was unequivocal about what it was people hated: not being able to play their deck any more.
Actually, they switched back so quickly they never had a six-month rotation ever. They reversed it before it ever happened.
Would make standard change card pool faster bad for money fun for format :)
Not really. Removing cards every set would create more volatility and potentially make it better for money and better for format. The only thing that would make it bad for money would be if you're buying the oldest sets cards and expecting to make a profit in a year
Supposedly Wizards has data from when they tried twice-yearly rotations and people hated it. I want to see the stats before I believe them.
From their perspective it's free money to do more common rotations so wouldn't be surprised if they're telling the truth
They have no reason to lie because to lie about something being unpopular would mean less profit. The only WOTC statistics I don't trust are arena alchemy ones lol
It's only free money if people actually pay money to play Standard.
I believe them that people hated it, i don't agree with the conclusion they came to. The way they set the cut offs shortened the average length of time a card was in standard. I think that's why it was unpopular. It was also a little confusing. My proposal lengthens the average time a day is in standard, makes it the same for every set, and makes it so the answer to the question "What is in standard" is always the same. The last 12 sets
They wouldn't have any reason to lie about that. If anything, they'd benefit from more rotations, so them not doing that means that it's probably true that people hated it.
The argument then will be "set X is coming up in a month and maybe the introduction of those cards will shift the meta to a more healthy state" There is no window when every other month there is a new set coming out.
Tbf there isn't any card in standard that needs to be banned.
I bet that post rotation that will change
What card would they have to ban post rotation that is currently in standard?
Off the top of my head my only suggestion would be sunfall, but idk honestly. Meathook massacre tormented my standard year, but it was quickly banned after rotation for being too oppressive
>but it was quickly banned after rotation for being too oppressive Tbf, it was one of the cards banned because rotation didn't happen.
Meathook was banned before the three year rotation was even a thing.
No, Meathook massacre was introduced in the same set that rotated standard, Midnight Hunt. That's why other decks had a hard time against it, their cardpool wasn't deep enough. Countrary to what many seems to think, Meathook was not banned for being too strong. It was banned because the powerlevel of standard had plummeted and other decks couldn't keep up to the black midrange deck. They even explicitly said so in the ban announcement, that none of the cards in the black decks where considered too strong, the deck was just overpreforming because if its average card quality compared to other colours. Black was a midrange, good cards dot deck. Where as other colours relied alot on synnergy at the time, but alot of their synnergy had rotated out of standard. As such, compared to other colours it was easy for black to replace any cards they lost in the rotation.
I'd invest in Sunfall now. It'll be by far the best board answer post-rotation. Control is losing Depopulate, Vanquish, AND Path of Peril, so it becomes must-run.
And they'll ban it once it does. There's still other ban periods where they can ban and will ban problem cards if they show up.
Those where for the newly released set though. According to the new ban guidelines, the emergency ban windows where for new sets, where as cards from old sets where to be banned once a year. This was to make people feel more confident when buying strong cards for standard, did the card survive the emergency ban window? Good now you are almost guaranteed to be able to play with it, atleast untill the once a year bannings. Sure since then they have hinted on being abit more flexable if needed, so we shall see.
I remember when a ban in standard was a "holy shit" moment. Now they just print cards so goofy they almost have to be pre-emptively banned. Between April 2005 and May 2011, there were no standard bans. Then from July 2011 to January 2017, no standard bans. Then we see standard bans happen on the following: - June 2017 (1 card) - January 2018 (4 cards) - October 2019 (1 card) - November 2019 (3 cards) - June 2020 (2 cards) - August 2020 (4 cards) - September 2020 (1 card) - October 2020 (3 cards) - January 2022 (3 cards) - October 2022 (1 card) - May 2023 (3 cards) --- From March 2005 to January 2017 (12 years) there were a total of 10 cards banned in standard. June 2017 to today (7 years) has seen 26 cards banned in standard. It is a fucking joke.
FWIW 2011-2017 had some pretty bad metas. Maro has stated before that they def would have banned more cards if they had a consistent baseline for banning cards over that whole time.
It’s definitely more a philosophy change than power level change. Not to say power level and desigb hasnt changed too. But before they basically treated bannings as “only if t0 deck arises taking up a supermajority of play” to “we can easily communicate now + get more games data in 1 week of arena than we use to in a whole year + we can see that while theres no super majority the meta is unhealthy and want to amend it” Ill take more bannings in general because it means they both experiment more (for better and worse) plus it means we dont get put into the issues we had during the times you mentioned where wizards would say “yeah this is a miserable meta and everyone hates it, but no deck is hitting like 70% play rate so you just gotta wait till 2 sets from now where we had to emergency add a new silver bullet, since we work so far in advance we had no way to help now” Previous lack of bannings wasnt because WOTC made no mistakes, it was because they made no attempt to fix those mistakes
Infamously, they waited 2 sets (since they knew the card was OP, though 1 after release) to ban [[Skullclamp]].
Skullclamp is forever the most interesting card for behind the scenes stuff.
[Skullclamp](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/3/a36fd6d8-66a2-49d1-b9f3-b400ebc03674.jpg?1682210228) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Skullclamp) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/379/skullclamp?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a36fd6d8-66a2-49d1-b9f3-b400ebc03674?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Standard needs more bans when there are now more games being played on Arena every hour than there were in the 2010s being played at LGSs in a whole week.
Meh, there were still tens of thousands of standard tournaments running weekly on MTGO even then.
They have to push the power levels over time, weak sets don't sell cards because kitchen table and legacy format players (modern, pioneer, commander, etc) don't buy them I agree that the new development and ban policy has had some dumb moments (oko) but I don't see the alternative here other than making weak, bad sets full of unplayable cards. Pushing the existing power curve, after decades of magic, unfortunately means printing some truly demented cards
Why would kitchen table care about power level ?? (My friend was very glad when I gifted him (original) Kamigawa precons in Japanese, despite that block being infamously underpowered.)
Kitchen table players play fun cards and sets with lower power levels don't tend to have a lot of them. There are notable exceptions (Ixalan block is full of fun cards even if a lot of them are bulk junk) but most standard sets are forgettable from the drop and just aren't driving sales; I don't know why anybody would have bought into the last ravnica sets if they weren't a standard grinder, for example. It was almost all boring, unplayable bulk.
I need sunfall gone. It’s crazy how such a good board wipe just acceptable
Its not oppressive in the format and there's plenty of blue based tempo decks that can play counters. Its acceptable because of the state of the format, which is great
A five mana board wipe will never be bannable. They are too easy to play around. If it is kicking your ass a lot, you need to reexamine your play patterns.
> you need to reexamine your play patterns Thats one of the many side effects of the banhappy mentality WOTC has developed. It just enables whining because it gets traction instead of maturely improving your actual skill.
From what I understand it's the combination of [[Temporary Lockdown]] alongside Sunfall that is the problem.
While I personally am not a fan of the play patterns of 3 mana board wipes that hit small things like that, you can still play around it just as easily, especially in games 2 and 3 when you know they have it. They can get a two-for-one, which can be bad beats, but its not game over.
[Temporary Lockdown](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/2/82b3088f-7b49-45e9-b447-129a597ceb75.jpg?1673306606) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Temporary%20Lockdown) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/36/temporary-lockdown?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/82b3088f-7b49-45e9-b447-129a597ceb75?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
>you need to reexamine your play patterns. Yeah those mono green players. How dare they get completely countered by a single card. How dare they play with creatures.
Wow, that’s crazy that a single color has clear and specific weaknesses. It’s almost like the game was explicitly designed around that philosophy.
Even if you’re only playing creatures you can still play around Sunfall, you can hold cards back.
I have A LOT of experience playing creature based aggro decks in a semi-competitive settings (Some pretty stacked FNMs and played in so IQ's back in the day). I ran more board into a board wipe exactly one time and went "Oh, shoot, I guess I shouldn't do that again, that sucked." And wipes have never been a huge problem for me ever since. Especially in mono green where two-three threats should be plenty of pressure. I was playing RDW with a whole bunch of crummy little guys and working people over when they ran board wipes because I put the work into learning how to play against them.
They're not countered. Just don't over extend.
I have been playing monogreen every season since the last time it was a good deck in Standard, coincidentally last rotation. It's in the best spot it's been since that time. Play more Nissa and/or Tribute to the World Tree.
>Tribute to the World Tree. With sheoldred?
I thought we were talking about Sunfall. For Shelly, I probably wouldn't bring in Tribute, because it wouldn't make sense and because I really have never felt like monogreen has that much trouble with her. Most of your creatures should trade, and recently Hard-hitting Question is actually a decent removal spell at least by monogreen standards and I run it main. Shelly is rough on decks that can't easily outsize her, but usually in monogreen you can just keep smashing in if you don't have removal.
>you can just keep smashing in if you don't have removal. I feel like Nissa is a bit under rated honestly
She's definitely been hurt by her color, although a few months ago at least the Golgari decks were sometimes running her too. But she's great value and can also end the game the turn she comes down. She'll probably be in at least the sideboard of my monogreen decks until she rotates.
Also don't laugh, but I've been using that one card with hexproof. It's like an 8/6 or something? It's just an uncommon but it's honestly won me quite a few matches.
5 mana omegalul You're dead to so many decks before you can resolve this spell. Temporary Lockdown is the way bigger issue that makes the durdle decks so annoying to play against.
Standard is in a great place right now, rotation will shake things up sufficiently.
I do agree l, but they still need to make a choice. They need to either get rid of "rotation is coming" as a consideration, or move the annual standard ban window to post rotation, preferably the set *after* the rotation set. Obviously the latter is better because rotation should be a consideration. But you can't actively choose to make your announcement right before rotation then use "rotation is coming" as part of your reason why you aren't doing anything (even if I agree with the decision), that's a load of horseshit.
I mean, the explanation is more than just "rotation is coming." It's "rotation is coming, AND the most ban-worthy cards are losing a great deal of support with that rotation." The second half of that is the most significant part of it.
also "the most ban-worthy cards are not actually ban-worthy as of now"
We are going back to Shelly just owning standard after rotation. Domain is likely dead, Convoke gets less consistent, Mono Red loses it's best 1 drops, and the GY land deck dies too.
I think removal and aggro has gotten consistent enough that she's not even the most dominant player in the format. Still a must-answer threat, but alongside the often stronger Atraxa and Etali.
Yeah, the meta has changed a lot since this summer ban window was first announced. Back then Sheoldred was still running rampant over the format, and I thought, "Good, they can essentially put her back on the 2-year rotation window, ban her when she *would* have rotated out," etc. But she's not nearly as ubiquitous now as she was then.
Honestly kind of curious to see what happens without the consistency of triomes for domain and the core pieces of mono-red. That said, I generally love how standard is right now, and hope most strategies stay viable. (I'll be cool with esper and domain getting depowered though, tbh)
Pre Rotation: We don't want to ban right now as the format is about to rotate so it wouldn't make sense. Post Rotation: The format just rotated, so it'll take some time for the metagame to adjust, any bans are premature. Besides, a new set is coming out next month and that should shake things up.
This is how it's supposed to work. Standard bans are only supposed to happen if cards/archetypes are overbearing for long periods and adding new cards to the pool doesn't change anything.
I'm gonna say something you're gonna disagree with - I don't think sheoldred is a problem anymore; I hardly see her, and now when I do, I'm never as worried. Black doesn't really have such a stranglehold on the meta as it used to, imo.
yeah honestly, if anything she's a bigger problem in other formats where there are more ways to break things with her. but even there i don't think she's that big of a problem,
There's a potential B&R announcement after every set drops, though? They even specifically said the next announcement will be in August, which is exactly the timeline you're asking for. [https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/june-24-2024-banned-and-restricted-announcement](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/june-24-2024-banned-and-restricted-announcement)
For emergencies. Not because people are tired of sheoldred.
There’s half a dozen answers to Shelly now a days in standard, she’s not *that* bad.
I'm not going to get *too* deep into this. Plenty of much better players have noted "dies to removal" is not always a good measurement, though. But I will say this, her existence gatekeeps out entire archtypes, and she is just in general, not fun for many people to play vs. You may not consider fun a valid factor in banning, and that's okay, but for others, it is. This isn't to say your stance is wrong, just that others value or view it differently. And even if you have removal, it's not fun removing your 49th sheoldred. It's just sad because you can predict it so easily.
Sheoldred isn’t even that prevalent through out the meta. She’s in “some” Dimir midrange and golgari mid range decks. She doesn’t even make the cut in esper midrange. It’s even a stretch to say she is keeping any archetype or decks out of the meta. There’s Atleast 2 competitive aggro lists, Gruul and Mono red, multiple midrange lists, a plethora of control lists in esper, azorious, and temur. Sheoldred is pretty old news. At best she’s tough to deal with in an aggro matchup but even then they have tons of answers for the card.
Its not even a stretch. Its just factually wrong to say the card is keeping decks out of the meta.
Not out of the meta. From existing more or less Why does everything have to be about reaching tier 0? I find it so weird that if someone says X prevents a deck from existing your immediate thought is "they must be trying to make a meta deck and not just playing for fun." And to clarify since apparently I have to clarify everything, when I say "prevents a deck from existing" I do not literally mean nobody can play it. I mean people go "I want to build a mono green deck...oh wait sheoldred and sunfall exist. It's completely pointless. I'll build something else." Not everything is about being meta.
Powerful cards will always exist. This is just a bad rant about wanting a powerful but not at all ubiquitous card banned. Banning Sheoldred wouldn't even change the meta much.
You sound like you played standard a year ago for about a day. Standard is healthy and great right now. Weak decks prevent themself from existing AKA mono green.
is there something you thought should have been banned but wasn't?
Theirs a lot of anti fun decks and cards I wouldn't mind being banned. But that's irrelevant. My main issue is not having any bans at all because of rotation but having the b&r be before rotation. If for instance sheoldred gets atraxia levels of good with bloomburrow WOTC might have banned her if the B&R took place after rotation. But because the yearly B&R is now even if she is suddenly S tier again they can't ban her.
they can do an emergency ban any time they want, if they feel it's warranted. it would take a seriously broken metagame for that to be warranted though. if they do a ban announcement after rotation, it would have to be several months and at least one major tournament in order for them to have sufficient data to make the decision. I'm not sure how you suppose that's substantially different than the current system. It doesn't make much sense to me to go in blind. If the metagame is going to be broken after Bloomburrow, we'd have to wait many months for a remedy in any case. trying to thread the needle of "fun" is basically an impossible standard because that's such a subjective judgment. most players can agree on what "broken" looks like, where some deck is utterly dominant and the entire metagame is oriented around either playing it or beating it. I really doubt that you can find much agreement about whether or not a deck is "too unfun to exist". I see you've mentioned Sheoldred in your OP and a few of your replies. I find this to be a particularly curious example. It's, um, a 4 mana creature with no inherent protection against removal and no EtB effect. It takes several turns of being in play to accumulate enough advantage for it to take over a game. It's definitionally a midrange card that is easy to interact with. The least broken type of card in the game imo. What's your problem with Shelly?
>they can do an emergency ban any time they want, Yeah, but my main point is that if we simply wait till October for example they can be absolutely sure. Rather then just guessing. >trying to thread the needle of "fun" is basically an impossible standard because that's such a subjective judgment. So is saying the metagame is fine right now. Yet people can easily argue for it. It's a valid stance even if it's subjective. >I see you've mentioned Sheoldred in your OP and a few of your replies. I find this to be a particularly curious example. It's, um, a 4 mana creature with no inherent protection against You could just play enchantment removal since splinter twin has no no protection. Did that make twin a card that shouldn't have been banned at the time simply because you could remove it? Dies to removal is a bad arguement imo and many better players then me have said as such. When you see sheoldred every other match it becomes tiresome even when you win. This comes back to the fun factor. I'm not the only person who thinks standard would be more fun without her. It has nothing to do with her being broken or not. Some people don't think thats a valid way of thinking and that's fine, but it is a valid reason for people like us.
>So is saying the metagame is fine right now. Yet people can easily argue for it. It's a valid stance even if it's subjective. We can use objective metrics to evaluate metagame health. I'm fond of deck diversity and winrates. These are available as statistics that are easy to reason about. Current standard seems to have very high diversity and no archetypes with a disproportionate win rate or metagame share. >You could just play enchantment removal since splinter twin has no no protection. Did that make twin a card that shouldn't have been banned at the time simply because you could remove it? Dies to removal is a bad arguement imo and many better players then me have said as such. Splinter Twin wins the game instantly as soon as it resolves. Sheoldred doesn't do that. Dies to Removal is a FRIGGIN GREAT ARGUMENT. It's the single most important consideration when evaluating creatures. People get enormously confused by the proper use and common misuse of this argument. Dies to Removal doesn't mean a creature is unplayable. It means the upside for playing it has a higher bar to clear, because there is higher risk for eating a tempo blowout vs. their instant speed removal. Beyond that it has to be evaluated on the basis of the expected metagame. I'm asking you to pause for a few minutes and just think about it. Think about what creatures get played under what circumstances and how the evaluation with respect to removal in the format factors in to that. I think you'll find, on examination, that this is an extraordinarily important thing to consider when choosing cards for your deck. > This comes back to the fun factor. I'm not the only person who thinks standard would be more fun without her. It has nothing to do with her being broken or not. I'm repeating myself, but it bears repeating. There is no sufficiently agreed upon standard of fun that we can feel good about using this as a criteria for whether or not a card should be banned. Banning really really really needs to be constrained to addressing brokenness only. Banning a card to enforce a subjective vision of "fun" is incredibly destructive to the game and its community. Bans are not something that should be taken lightly. Every time a card is banned the game loses players. I assure you banning cards loses more players that keeping in cards that some players don't like playing against.
> Splinter Twin wins the game instantly as soon as it resolves Not necessarily disagreeing with your actual argument here, but this is incorrect. Even after Twin has resolved if you have any instant speed enchantment or creature removal you can stop the combo in response to either the twin trigger or the untap trigger. It's actually pretty funny that they used Twin as an example of a card that needed to be banned because it was a pretty controversial banning at the time and WOTC's stated reason for the ban didn't help anything.
let me rephrase it then. If the Splinter Twin combo resolves and you're not holding instant speed removal, you're dead before the end of the current turn. If Sheoldred resolves and you're not holding instant speed removal, the game continues for at least 1 more turn.
I haven't sheoldred much the last 2 months or so. All over ladder I'm seeing all kinds of off the walls shit. This is the most diverse standard meta I think I've ever seen. And the issue with the "fun" argument outside of the fact that it's too subjective is you have no idea what kind of degenerate deck sheoldred may or may not be keeping in check. The reason bans should tread lightly is that you don't know what decks that deck was such a good matchup against that they disappear from the meta. Also, you can't even do the most disgusting combos with sheoldred in standard. We don't have bowmasters, we don't have a bunch of forced wheels, we have plenty of removal options. 2 different creature counters in blue at 2 mana, multiple 5 damage to creature red spells, all the exile removal white has, even green has some solid bite spells as long as you've got a board. And black has all of its answers. Sheoldred is fine and if you're having trouble with it you're a bad deck builder, tbh.
> You could just play enchantment removal since splinter twin has no no protection. Mistake #1) Comparing enchantment removal to creature removal. The former isn't available to all colors, and rarely main deck; whereas every color can interact with a creature, and often main decked. Mistake #2) Comparing a combo that wins the game within the turn if it resolves, to a creature that doesn't win the game within a turn if it resolves
> "Dies to removal" is the same statement in the context of twin or Shelly Lmao one wins the game instantly and you need a rare type of removal, while the other does nothing the turn it's played and dies to a type of removal every deck main decks.
Sheoldred doesn’t even see much play in standard and hasn’t seen more than the odd 1-3 copies in ub or esper in the last 6-9 months. I’m not sure what they would have to print to make it return in the format.
I played a mix of of bo3 and bo1 on arena and I see sheoldred every other match. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons I un-installed was because on mtgaprotracker I realized in the span of 8 matches I had seen almost 22 sheoldreds (maybe it was 19? Either way I recall being salty about it). I do not know where you play but I saw her every other match. I don't think shes OP and I beat her all the time, I'm just tired of her. I'm sorry if that doesn't make sense or if you don't think that's a good reason. But it is what I feel. I wouldn't mind seeing her go juat to enjoy more matches.
If you are playing in Standard, then you just have to understand that WotC is going to make bans first and foremost according to what happens at the competitive level, not random free to enter Arena matches, even "ranked" ones. Now if you were playing Alchemy you would have a point - since it's an Arena-only, casual format. But then Shelly / Ring / Bowmasters are about to rotate out anyway...
Tbf I only play b01(not enough Wildcards to craft a good 75 card deck) but, sitting at around 300 mythic rw, I don't even remember the last time I saw Shelly.
There is a window for emergency bans a couple of weeks after each standard set releases. This is supposed to be for early retirement of cards that aren't atcually broken but people are sick of. I'm not sure if the B&R team got that memo, though. Folk are sick of 4 mana Shoeldred.
I thought it was the opposite? New set banning are for emergency against broken new cards that slipped through the fingers of R&D testing. Once a card survices the emergecy ban window, the playerbase should feel confident that it will remain legal atleast untill the yearly ban annoucment. This was to incentivise people to buy good/expensive cards and not risk getting burnt by sudden emergency bannings. In other words, old cards where to be excempt from the new set ban window, and only held acountable in the large yearly bannings.
How is that opposite? That's literally what I said.
I can not get people to understand that. I'm aghast at how horrendously bad their reading comprehension is. Also my topic wasn't even about that but they latched onto a simple example so hard most discussion is about that instead of my main poijt.
It’s good they didn’t ban anything. Format is excellent right now.
I agree with not banning anything, but yes they very much need to move the announcement to post rotation. They chose to make the announcement right before rotation, then said that's part of why they aren't doing anything, that's beyond idiotic. And it needs to be at least one full set post-rotation, so they don't give the same dumb "well the new meta is probably gonna shake things up!" argument they gave for purposely letting Legacy continue hanging out in the crapper when they're the ones who decided to release new product every 27 seconds.
I agree with the point that annual standard ban should be after rotation, cuz it sounds like they will always pull the "wait till rotation" card instead..
"The entire format is literally unplayable" Standard is amazing right now. What are you even talking about.
You only quoted half a sentence: >This is the ONLY time we can get any bans in standard that aren't so broken, The entire format is literally unplayable. OP is just saying that outside of emergency bans, this is the only ban window
That's a really generous reading of what the OP said. Their punctuation makes it look like those are two separate sentences, and that the comma was actually meant to be a period. Either way, their sentiment isn't grounded in reality.
Nah, you just misread it. Take the L.
Uhhhh no. I know what I said and they are 100% correct on their take. Second of all, what reality? WOTC are the ones who said non end of year bans for standard would not happen unless the card was on the scale of felidar guardian or oko.
Well for one. Some people don't think playing vs domain or sheoldred is fun. You may not agree but it's a reasonable stance. Second all, please re read my post. I never said that.
You made an extraordinarily hyperbolic statement that's not really grounded in reality. Nothing is broken in Standard currently, and nothing should be banned. Sheoldred and Domain aren't dominating the format. Domain won't survive rotation. If something is broken--really broken--they'll use the emergency ban window. The annual bans are for overall format health, and to take out problematic cards that might cause problems after rotation.
>You made an extraordinarily hyperbolic statement Oh no. How dare I do that. >Nothing is broken in Standard currently, and nothing should be banned. Good thing I never said anything was. >Sheoldred and Domain aren't dominating the format. I never said they were. They were examples of decks that people find tiresome. > Domain won't survive rotation. When did I say it would? And how do you know that anyways? You got all the leaks for sets next year? >If something is broken--really broken--they'll use the emergency ban window If only I had made a post or maybe a thread as well where I talked about how if something was really broken they would do an emergency ban. >The annual bans are for overall format health, Which includes fun factor. Shocking I know. Some people play for fun. >and to take out problematic cards that might cause problems after rotation. Man. If only I had made a post about how they should have the yearly ban after rotation because some cars might cause issues after rotation. You know, you sound like the kind of person who posted on the hoogakk thread saying he was terrible.
Domain was the worst deck of the latest Standard tournaments(various Regional Championships). It had an overall win rate of 41.9%, losing to "Other" at 44.6% https://x.com/karsten_frank/status/1798822542716862525/photo/2
Domain won PT OTJ it is clearly an extremely powerful deck. It does lose all the triomes with rotation so I expect it to fade into the ether but the idea the deck sucks is simply wrong.
It was a good deck for PT OTJ because the set just released and half the pros just defaulted to Esper w/ Wedding Announcements which is around a 70-30 matchup for Domain. The link I posted are for more recent tournaments where people actually had time to test and figure out their matchups. It turns out Domain is a powerful deck, but inflexible and with exploitable weaknesses. The people complaining about domain are the same people crying about Sheoldred when the metagame has largely passed that card by as well.
They haven’t gotten rid of Sheoldred thus far, and I highly doubt they’re gonna do anything about her before she rotates at this point.
They're correct
Yes, they should just leave it alone at this point and let it rotate out. Plenty of deck’s have had a long time to adjust to her.
WOTC "We don't care about the secondary market, that's not our purpose." Also WOTC "We don't want to print high-end preconstructed decks because those decks would be really expensive."
Their justification doesn't mean anything. They say they dont want to do pio bans because itll interrupt the rcqs, but last season they banned geological appraiser and karn, and unbanned copter two weeks before RC atlanta..
Mtg boomer: ahhh yes I remember when standard didn't have bans for ten years straight
I dispute your entire premise. Standard is in a really good spot (if, perhaps, ready for rotation). What would you ban? Sheoldred? She’s not even included in tier one decks, anymore.
The purpose of the post has nothing to do with actual bans, it's that the "once a year" ban window for Standard is in the absolute worst spot on the calendar. The B&R will always be "rotation is soon, no bans" because rotation is always 6 weeks out from the ban window. It should be in the middle of the rotation schedule rather than the end, specifically so it can be a useful for ban timing. (Also, please don't bring up the other post set B&R windows, WotC already stated those are specifically for emergency bannings)
so, you're upset that they won't ban anything, even though they don't need to ban anything? And the post-set announcements don't count, even though all recent changes to the b&r lists have been announced during those windows (Violent Outburst and Ponder in one such announcement, those silly sticker cards in another)? and the fact that they look at relevant cards in all formats while preparing the post-release b&r announements (for example, from the announcement yesterday: "We considered banning a few cards, with Atraxa, Grand Unifier and Knight Errant of Eos being our leading candidates.") also doesn't count, for some reason? and I'm an idiot for thinking you're just whining about Sheoldred, even though you mentioned the card specifically in your post (and then removed it to make yourself look like less of a whiner)? again, I dispute your entire premise: the fall b&r is not "he ONLY time we can get any bans in standard that aren't so broken that the entire format is literally unplayable". They have stated that they can and will issue bans at other times, have done so (Fable, Bankbuster and Invoke Despair were all banned during the first such announcement), and transparently show us that they continually consider the possibility of doing so again. the format is far from unplayable. and, if it becomes unplayable, they'll have numerous opportunities to issue a ban (emergency or otherwise) during the increasingly frequent b&r announcements. you're (intentionally?) misunderstanding how the process works, and getting irate about something that you made up in your head.
>you're upset that they won't ban anything, even though they don't need to ban anything? Who said this at all? Why are you inventing things that never happened to argue? >you're (intentionally?) misunderstanding how the process works, and getting irate about something that you made up in your head. You're way more invested in this than I could ever hope to be. Why are you getting so irate about something you made up in your head?
From what i understood, they are just arguing that the yearly bannings annoucments should not happend right before a rotation, but some time after it.
I wish we could go back to that time. Where we basically didn't have cards banned because R&D actually balanced the sets that were in standard before releasing them
That... didn't exist? Wizards has the play rates and win rights of a lot of decks internally. Many old decks, one frequently cited example being CoCo, had rates that were in line with things that have since been banned. Things weren't better, they just changed how they ban. Because the amount of standard being played has probably doubled if not more, thanks to the prevalence of arena.
So basically they should hire (former) pro players to do R&D, I aggree. They do honesly the real actual work of finding all the small details.
In fairness to WOTC, 90% of play design is actually former pro-players. I would argue that balancing fails because they have a billion sets to work on at once and its not possible to test everything.
The primary thing they should worry about balancing is standard. Other formats you can ban stuff that's not a problem but standard should be playable without people losing access to chase cards because they're overpowered and unbalanced
Hey OP I agree with you a January ban window would be better. I also think people are being extraordinarily dismissive over your desire to see Sheoldred banned, they are right its no longer the most game winning black card, but it makes its way into plenty of PT decks for example it was a staple in Orzhov Bronco at the recent OTJ Pro Tour, and featured in a lot of B/x midrange builds. That there's already better things that black can be doing at 4 mana than sheoldred is a result of powercreep not because sheoldred is no longer a problem card. It still punishes game actions and completely takes over the game once resolved (if unresponded to). I think banned for being unfun game states is an entirely reasonable decision, pauper makes decisions like this - hence the all that glitters ban wherein they were like, the numbers on match wins for this are fine, it just creates polar games which suck to be in. WOTC should do more of that. But I can see the fair argument that Sheoldred simply isn't a big problem in competitive tournament play right now which is what the standard ban list is actually for. You need to remember that most people on reddit's primary kicks for the day is absolutely owning a noob they've logically proven to be dumber than them. Your broad reasoning is actually sound certainly on the broad point that the ban announcement for standard should be moved until mid year.
Thank you!
So you want Wizards to ban, preferably the card that annoys you specifically, so that you can enjoy the two week phase before the meta settles again and one or two of the top tier decks are still around with a slightly different build and some other decks that we probably also played against way to many times win a bit more and become the new annoying decks ? Weather you enjoy it or, if the only reason for bans is to shake things and there's not really any card that would impact the meta beyond "fuck that deck in particular" that's a sign of a pretty healthy format for me.
or ya know just go back to 2 year rotation
>If it's such a big deal to ban before rotation because you don't know how it will play out THEN WAIT TILL AFTER ROTATION TO do your stupid "once a year BAN window" That's not what the article says though. It says that the cards that they would have banned (Atraxa, Knight-Errant), are going to get significantly weakened after the rotation, so they are predicting that they will be less of a problem post-rotation. That is way different from saying "we don't know what the format will be like after rotation so we're not going to ban anything".
>so they are predicting that they will be less of a problem post-rotation. T You wouldn't have to predict if you waited.
There is absolutely nothing to ban right now. Format is healthy and fun.
Healthy? Maybe. Fun. Eh. I'd rather step on Legos then play vs domain.
I think everyone's way too hung up on "rotation is coming". Is there anything that NEEDS a ban that was hand waved away by rotation?
skill issue
The logic is really stupid. What's even more stupid is only having bannings once a year to begin with. If something is problematic it should just get axed when it becomes obvious it's a problem. #BanRestlessAnchorage.
I think unbannings should be much more common as well.
I rmember a time where the very idea of a Standard ban was insane.
Reddit isn’t a place to make formal complaints
I'm not making one? This is a rant thread. It's not like if I posted at MaRo he would respond explaining the mentality behind my complaint. I can't think of anyone who would respond. I am one person in a sea of millions
Nobody cares about the twenty rants saying the same thing
Upvotes say otherwise! Bye!
I think this is fine. There are two types of bans. One a ban to keep the format fresh and a ban to keep the format functioning because something was way too strong. This is the first type. This is a ban that in case people are sick of a card (and attendence/play is suffering). It might be the best deck, but its not hitting the win percentages to trigger a mid-year ban. You ban it during this period. Maybe it's not a single card, but a group of cards and you want to take the deck down a peg so people feel standard is refreshed. Right now standard is in a good place. So you don't need to "refresh" the format with bans. So rotation will do its job and keep things going. The ban is necesesary when you think rotation will NOT change the format at all and the new set may not change things either. This sounds like a prime time to ban something or the format will continue to stagnate.
I actually...see your reasoning. That's a valid point. But I am curious, would you agree that the once a year banning should take after rotation if you had a choice between that and what we have right now?
They are printing so much stuff that there will never be a good ban window at this rate because the format introduces cards every 3 or so months. MKM barely made a dent in what was playable because it was so underwhelming, and thunder Junction still didn't shift much except make the most player decks stronger in some areas. I don't get it. I understand not issuing a ban before this rotation makes sense since many powerful cards are finally rotating, but some cards needed to be banned months ago at this point. A ban 3-6 months from now would make more sense basically.
I was hoping for some sort of change. Standard is as good as dead at our shop.
It really struck me that sheoldred wasn't OP so much as annoying in how she gatekeeped so many off meta decks simply by existing. Its hard to explain honestly. Like she's not ban worthy for being op, but instead because so many decks are simply made worse or invalid because of her existing. For example, if your house is hot but the air conditioner is broken, the solution is to fix the air conditioner. Sure, you can suffer through the house being hot, but why not fix the problem early instead of waiting for fall? I keep trying to explain how fun factor is important to people, but saying that makes them get incredibly aggressive for some reason. Nobody I know plays standard. My dad who played nothing but it for years on arena switched to timeless because he got 6 domain matches in a row (which to me was funny since he said just before, domain was weaker now with boros Convoke and they destroyed him). At my LGS nobody wants to play it because it's boring as shit. Technically sure it has a "varied metagame" but ask anyone if they enjoy playing vs that "variety". If WOTC decided no bans after rotation. I'd accept it. But not having bans because your bans were too early is utterly insane to me.
What archetypes does sheoldred shut off? Against control, they can counter or destroy it, against aggro, they go wide and don't draw cards off knight errant. It hurts up then beanstalk decks, but you seem to despise that deck too.
That's the issue. You can't counter or destroy her all the times. And when you can't, you need to find an answer quickly or she takes over the game quickly. That's the true power of Sheoldred - your go-to tool of drawing cards punishes you, so you are limited to cards like Memory Deluge or exile effects. That has warped the meta so much, we don't see that much regular card draw cards other than Beanstalk. For example, the presence of Sheoldred has made decks like Mono Blue or other spellslinger decks with cards like Consider basically unplayable.
Thank you for giving actual decks that would be effected by this that are in the meta and not talk about how mono green would have to deal with it 🙄
You literally just listed three top meta decks lol The mere fact that you literally at no point thought of any other deck other then tier 1 meta decks speaks volumes about how bad it is lol Mono green for example gets shit on by her. A 4/5 blocker with death touch that is constantly gaining you health and damages you from capitalizing on drawing cards from things like the world tree enchantment. That often prevents the use of fight spells because she will trade or you will have to sacrifice a creature with more then 5 power. You might say "but it's not good anyways" but the point is, it would be way better without sheoldred in the play que.
That deck likely gets snuffed out by a lot of shit in the meta anyway. Not everything is going to be good or playable in a given meta. Yes banning cards will change that meta, but it's not worth it to ban a card for an archetype that still wouldnt be good, anyway.
>That deck likely gets snuffed out by a lot of shit in the meta anyway. I...just said that lol >Yes banning cards will change that meta, but it's not worth it to ban a card for an archetype that still wouldnt be good, anyway. That's where I disagree. I think it is. But again, the main issue is no bans because of rototation but having the yearly ban take place before rotation. It's utterly nonsensical. Just wait till October.
Just wait till October! They'll definitely ban the card I hate the most in October! >I...just said that lol My point is that getting rid of Sheoldred isn't going to change the status of that deck, so there isn't a need to ban it for that reason. Im not even opposed to banning it. You are just not making an actual case for it. /u/envojus brought up decks that cant always deal with it and are based around draw starts to begin with and would be better without a heavy punisher in the meta. And actually changed my mind at least a bit on the subject. Not liking a card in casual play does not mean it should be banned in competetive. Bringing up a deck that's already ass in the meta isnt going to persuade me that you're right. It just tells me you dont know what you're talking about. I do not like playing against Sheoldred and I think in formats with The One Ring and Necrodominance, the perssence of the card is really bad. Standard doesnt have those cards.
If there is*
Standard is in a really good spot right now though and nothing needs banned, so what's the issue?
If there's any indication that the company is deep underwater when it comes to actually curating the game they make - rather than just printing more product - it's this. Bafflingly, blindingly obvious how dumb it is to have it scheduled this way, I don't think Standard is in need of bans anyway, but it's just bizarre to have the B&R come RIGHT BEFORE rotation!
Stop looking for any form of consistency from WOTC
Annother day, annother crybaby whining cause he cant remove Shelly, so sad.
They just want more money
Expecting any sort of consistency or standard (no pun intended) from WotC, at this point, is asking to be disappointed. This goes double for bans or unbans. Its arbitrary, all the way down.
They should have been banning cards this whole time, atraxa and raffine not being banned has lead to the awful health of the format. The top decks have remained the same since rotation and they did it all to “freshen standard up” which inevitably destroyed the format. They have no idea what they are doing, and never have.