Is standard broken
Standard forum
Posted on May 6, 2020, 1:29 a.m. by spacecoyote1313
I've been playing since Innistrad and maybe it's because I was spoiled with such a blessed set, but Ikoria standard (admittingly not on paper) has been terrible.
It seems like every deck is way to powerful. Don't get me wrong, I am all for powerful cards (Delver of Secrets Flip) but when every deck is filled with arguably broken cards, it just takes away from the game/format.
winota,joiner of forces, turn 4 its not uncommon to see an agent of trechory stealing your stuff... on turn 4 :'(
Gyruda, Doom of Depths, i'm sick of of seeing him on turn 5, along with a Spark Double followed by 2 more Gyruda, Doom of Depths, its trash.
Lurrus of the Dream-Den or cat oven, any deck with him in it is just painful to play against. It's a struggle to see the same Dead Weight 5 times in a single match.
Fox.cycle, what is this? you watch someone pick cards up and put them down WHEN THEY AREN'T EVEN PLAYING BLUE, at least have the common courtesy to Opt, then death by Zenith Flare for 16.
I acknowledge I listed off numerous decks and we know there are several I left out, and that means the format is diverse! But at what cost?
Please tell me how wrong I am and standard is actually amazing because I just want to enjoy my precious Godzilla cards.
I really like this article by SaffronOlive (I know) on why the format feels awful even though it's, by deck list, somewhat diverse. I don't think the problem is having powerful cards. The problem is how consistently and quickly we can cast them, every game, between Companions and mana-doublers.
I relate it to KTK standard vs BFZ standard. KTK standard was pretty powerful but most people also thought it was pretty fun - the only complaint was Abzan being a little too powered-up compared to your other options. (If only we know how good we had it!)
Then BFZ came along with the Battle Lands, and you could suddenly run 4 or 5-color decks because you could fetch for duals. So everyone did. Every deck was 4-color goodstuff with Rhino and blue to cast a bunch of card advantage, or red to cast big dragons like Atarka. You didn't have to sacrifice anything in deckbuilding - just run all of the broken Charms and have all of your mana enter perfectly. Now all the decks look the same and run the same core group of cards, because they're the best cards in standard.
That's like a small slice of what's going on now. There are a lot of "different" decks because Companions force a bit of deckbuilding restriction, but you're getting a lot of the same gameplay regardless because they're all grouped around the same broken cards: Fires, Reclamation, Agent of Treachery, Yorion & Keruga; Lurrus & Obosh. The decks are different, but not enough. And they're all hyper-consistent, which always punishes home-brewing - no reason to innovate when Plan A always works.
I agree w/ SaffronOlive on his fixes, except I don't think the London Mulligan is an issue. For all it might help aggro/combo decks, it's worth it to have more games that are actual games instead of mull-to-5 instant-lose.
It's super interesting to study, but it is such a drag to play!
May 6, 2020 9:31 a.m.
Companions are a change to the game similar in magnitude to when they added the planeswalkers card type. It's a massively sweeping fundamental change that effects things at every level of play.
Personally I think they are an interesting addition to the game and I like them. People still complain about Planeswalkers all the time, reminiscing about a time before they existed as though the game was more interesting when it was less complicated.
Or maybe its more like when they made the partner mechanic for commander the first time. Some partner combos truly became the most powerful commander options available for certain strategies. But it didn't ruin the format, it just made it more complex. Even though people with partners are getting a "free card every game" and powerful archetypes have crystallized around certain commanders, its fine. As we have seen over the years since the first partner release, its not the only way to win at commander.
One of the reasons this game has lasted so long (in my opinion) is because it's never stopped evolving and changing and becoming more complex.
Personally I don't get into the notion that powerful cards inherently make unbalanceable formats. Cubes can be balanced, even with busted vintage cards in them. Vintage itself changes constantly, but it has an equilibrium that gets reached once people figure out the new cards (and subsequent B&R changes) with every set release. Why should other formats be seen differently than this? They shouldn't really. I think some of us just need to be more accepting of change. Both additions and subtractions of cards to a format are able to leave behind net positive changes even if they also created some temporary imbalance too.
May 6, 2020 10:33 a.m. Edited.
I_Want_To_PlayAllTheDecks says... #5
I have to agree with you. STD sucks rn and its because of companions being way to good at what they do. They need to be banned or at least have soemthing happen to them. I have noticed Drannith Magistrate is worth playing maindeck because about 75% of the meta is companions. F companions
May 6, 2020 1:10 p.m.
Rzepkanut I understand your view, but what is supposed to be the difference between formats if they're all powerful? And how is "power" defined? I think most standard players agreed with you - that's why Rivals of Ixalan sold so poorly as to force WotC to respond by purposefully "power up" standard.
That's what I think SaffronOlive was getting at in the article but didn't really articulate: Fast mana can be a problem in all sets, but not equally so. I think it's fair to say that access to fast mana (and, historically anyway, access to multiple colors of mana) is the defining difference between formats.
Mox Opal is banned in Modern, but not in Legacy. Mana Vault is banned in Legacy, but not restricted in Vintage. Mox Pearl is restricted or banned in everything.
Traditionally, standard has the least amount of fast mana; it's a slow format. The homogeneity of standard right now is not the powerful payoffs, i.e. companions, which are actually pretty diverse; it's that every deck needs to either run mana doubling effects or be so aggressive as to win by T4. This is because the rest of standard isn't balanced around fast mana, around a T4/T5 win, because it is a slow format.
And I think if standard /was/ balanced around fast mana, it would be indistinguishable in playstyle from Modern. (Also, just look at how many current Standard cards are being played in Modern! There has to be some difference.)
May 6, 2020 3:42 p.m.
PitaGryphon says... #7
winota requires a mix of humans and non humans which results in a diluted deck. agent of treachery is a 7 mana 2/3.
gyruda decks seem to run almost no removal, and are one trick ponies. remove that trick (gyruda) with either a removal spell or a counter spell and the deck folds. it also likely dies to rotation in fall unless the core set and fall set can replace Spark Double.
if you're seeing the same dead weight "5 times", kill the lurrus.
the more mana your opponent spends on cycling, the less they spend on casting spells. use that time to catch up your board state. the creatures in cycling decks are small. shouldn't be hard to drop bigger creatures, or kill theirs.
May 7, 2020 2:32 a.m.
spacecoyote1313 says... #8
PitaGryphon I see what your'e saying but your solution to fix these problems is run a deck that counters gyruda, kills lurrus, plays big creatures and I shouldn't have to worry about my stuff getting stolen because agent is a 7 cmc card that definitely isn't being cheated out on turn 4. And you were saying the Winota decks were diluted...
May 7, 2020 11:32 a.m.
PitaGryphon says... #9
spacecoyote1313: i'm not saying run all those in the same deck. not sure where you got that idea. also, the deck wouldn't be diluted at all. counter spells were just "one" example i gave to beat gyruda, and you can certainly run big creatures and removal in the same deck. thats not diluted at all. thats just jund. my own jund deck (on my page for your viewing pleasure) has no problem with any of the above decks. also, your sarcasm of cheating out agent is not needed. yes i realize they cheat it into play, but that requires a lot of luck. they have to play a non-human turn 3 that they can safely attack with on turn 4. play a bigger creature so they can't safely attack, or just kill the winota.
May 8, 2020 12:35 a.m.
Minousmancer says... #10
I see "it"(current state of meta) as an incredible challenge.
I Started during Ice-Age block, was in it for a couple years then life happened. I got back into Magic during the end of New Phyrexia and the start of the Innistrad block. I was taken aback, at how OP both felt. I mean one of my favorite decks for Modern is call Ghostrider M (M is a reference to quantum mechanics). I mean flip cards, what?!!
It all seemed like I wouldn't/couldn't be able to adjust. I did though, I made some super powerful decks that just were out of the box concepts. Like a powerful Ghoultree deck with undead plants as a theme. I got out of magic again for several years again because, well again life.
This year I jumped back into it with Theros, thinking it was a good(relatively, not a fan of enchantment centered decks), balanced. I brood a couple of decks focused primarily on Mono-Black. Created an amazing Standard version of a Necropotence deck.
Then, rumors of Ikoria started floating around and I was worried it would turn into the trash-fire that the Eldrezi were. Then I heard about Godzilla cards and it gave me hope. Then cards started to leak. Mechanics were revealed and explained.Mutate is awesomely balanced. I thought it was going to turn all cards and decks into new forms of the Voltron(Tron) type. It doesn't really which is nice.But let me throw an octopus on top of a Glimmerbell so I have a card drawing Flying octopus, hell yeah!!
Companion, this is another story. I call it Commander-light. It's a challenge. This format makes it so you can either get around Companion at a disadvantage. Having one less starting card than your opposition or you find ways around that disadvantage. i.e. Zenith Flare-(Guilty I made one)-Cycling or something else. I think we just need a couple weeks playing against these concept decks to maybe start to worry.
Even with this "Ikoria" standard Jeskai-or-whichever Fires of Invention decks are still number one decks. I'm waiting for people to start building killer Death's Oasis, Titans' Nest, Weaponize the Monsters, Shark Typhoon, and Back for More-Godzilla decks. Maybe B/W Nightmare Shepherd + Luminous Broodmoth + Dirge Bat decks. Concept decks like Anti-Monster human decks.
My point is even though some of these new decks seem powerful, minus Gyruda, that deck is super weak. A counter spell or Pacifism shuts the whole deck down. There can and will be way better deck concepts.
I've thrown together several new standard deck concepts that could be made into amazing decks with the right imagination. Turbo-FOG with Sharks...
May 11, 2020 7:39 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #11
It's removal quality. Force of Will and Force of Negation weren't good enough against Oko and they're not good enough against T3f.
Path to Exile is the only thing that easily deals with Uro and is maindeck playable. Swords to Plowshares is probably better, but either way, Uro only goes away after getting the opponent huge amounts of life and mana advantage. And cards. Although, other than Breach and Uro, Escape is one of the most balanced mechanics in Standard.
Field, Copter, Copycat, all of them were too good simply because they were hard to interact with.
Dredge and Storm get banhammers a lot because they're hard to interact with.
Magic's balance is based on Mana, and more importantly Removal. If nobody can interact with you, then your deck is broken. Note that even Bogles isn't broken by that definition because wrath effects exist in droves.
2019 and now 2020 sets have been filled with cards that make mana trivial and difficult to interact with powerhouses. Top that with some of the most effective Prison cards of all time from WAR and you have a game that is slowly making every deck a mixture of two or more of these basic tenants:
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Have endless mana.
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Have "hexproof indestructible" win condition.
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Have a planeswalker that says "target player can't use their deck if they use specific evergreen mechanic" and draws you cards.
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Use a combo or hyper-aggressive deck to win on turn 3-4.
Or you can just run Esper Sideboard and say "Oh, you're playing non-casual Magic with cards that are halfway decent? Not anymore!"
I think for Standard and more MtG in general to get back to a playable state they either need to
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Ban T3f from many formats
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Companion-ban some companions(they can no longer be your companion)
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stop printing teferi cards
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Give us some slightly better hate cards. Leyline of the Void is no longer good enough.
Or
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print a couple companions every set
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Give us vastly better hate cards
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power down teferi or just stab him in the spleen.
Fortunately EDH is always great, and Pioneer might not be that bad if I just buy a couple companions. Most of my decks can run companions anyways!
May 14, 2020 12:37 p.m.
spacecoyote1313 says... #12
I feel like they could make companions more balanced by simply making a rule saying "if you have a companion, you must London mull your first hand." That way they no longer have the 8th card in hand and they get to choose what they keep, and maybe if they are using a companion, you can't run them in your deck. For example, if you are using Gyruda, you can't run him main which severely hampers the deck.
I have to agree, I thought mutate would be broken when it was first revealed. But playing with them over time its a fun mechanic to build around and I wish there were more decks centered around the mechanic, but in the current meta, it's too slow.
May 14, 2020 4:32 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #13
spacecoyote1313 I think the "start with one fewer cards in hand" would not only be extremely easy to do(I think the flavor text is so vague anyways that they can just errata it) but be the perfect solution to Companions being ubiquitous.
Lurrus of the Dream-Den for reference.
Also, Mutate would be fine if it wasn't so darn complicated. It's a fun mechanic, and so bad and parasitic anyways that it'll never really take off, but it's a headache for judges. I think the problem is specifically when newer players bring it to FNM. I mean, casual players play with Unset cards all the time and there's maybe one or two tier two or three playable Mutate cards(outside Standard, but parasitic mechanics are always decent in Standard).
Enral says... #2
Well to be honest it is not just standard but basically every competitive format drowning in absolute dumpster fire right now.
May 6, 2020 2:21 a.m.