[Community Discussion]: Standard Chat
Standard forum
Posted on Oct. 3, 2015, 11:37 p.m. by Epochalyptik
Just like Modern, Standard now has its own "chat" thread. We're hoping that this thread draws avid Standard players to share their knowledge.
This thread is dedicated entirely to Standard. Feel free to post your thoughts on the meta, ideas for your next decklist, and just chat generally about the format!
Of course, you can always start a new thread if you're interested in discussing one particular aspect of the format; this thread should be used for the quick thoughts and informal questions about the format.
This discussion will be ongoing; you are free to post here as long as you're on topic.
This is NOT a deck help thread. Please do not spam deck help requests.
With GB Delirium starting to take over a large portion of the meta, what do you think of using Day's Undoing in UR aggro decks? It destroys their delirium plan and could be solid deck tech.
August 12, 2016 4:55 p.m.
Same downside as with any deck, they get to play out their hand first, and assuming it's much later in the game, they probably have enough mana to just flood the board and re-fill their graveyard. Aggro deck doesn't really need that amount of card draw since it's not going so late that it needs a full hand of cards. Drawing your GB opponent into removal and board sweepers will just mean you lose, regardless of their graveyard being empty. Days Undoing is going to lose you the game more often than not. By comparison, passing your turn with mana for burn, card draw or counter spells just seems amazing and you can't get blown out by it.
I think the only time that card is playable is with Brain in a Jar when you can use it to draw seven on your opponents end step, but Brain is slow card that has to be built around. And if you're playing against a deck that passes with mana up, it's still just 'one mana, lose the game', even with Brain. The potential upside just isn't high enough for the small situational opportunity where you get to cast it this way, and you draw into game winning cards, and your opponent has no mana.. etc.
August 13, 2016 8:01 p.m. Edited.
Well you could cast Day's Undoing with Quicken... if you're the kind of person to play Quicken.
The only part of quicken that allows for shenanigans is this part from gatherer:
"After Quicken resolves, you can Suspend a sorcery in your hand any time you can cast an instant. As soon as you actually cast a sorcery, you lose this capability."
By contrast the Rift Bolt gatherer page says:
"You can exile a card in your hand using suspend any time you could cast that card."
In a nutshell this means you could suspend any type of card with Quicken during an opponent's turn and you could keep on doing it until you actually cast a sorcery. Not sure what you would want to suspend on an opponent's turn though to be honest.
August 13, 2016 8:27 p.m.
DrFunk27,
Meh. Day's Undoing for the UR mirror, maybe? If I'm UR and want to mess with a Delirium deck though, I'm thinking Learn from the Past.
August 13, 2016 8:53 p.m. Edited.
Quicken doesn't help Standard play at the moment, unfortunately.
I forgot about Learn from the Past. Definitely one for the Sideboard against Delerium.
August 14, 2016 12:15 a.m.
Linkdude74 says... #7
My superfriends deck has Hedonist's Trove in side for the Delirium decks
August 14, 2016 1:47 a.m.
Well people have been trying a lot of hate but I'd rather play a deck that doesn't lose against Emrakul. I've been playing mono-enchantments, and when Emrakul gets cast, the opponent usually can't do anything on my turn other than tap a pain land and then I remove the Emrakul. Good time to build rogue decks. To be honest if you're looking for percentages, the WB control deck is strong, and I feel like spirits or bant tuned against delirium is likely to show up soon.
August 14, 2016 7:51 a.m. Edited.
I've been playing with a Naya tokens brew that seems pretty strong. It keeps on killing off spirits which is cool because that is one of the go to decks in eldritch moon meta.
I feel like tokens as a strategy is quite strong right now with a lot of cheap removal like Outnumber and aggressive token generators like Hanweir Garrison and Captain's Claws
August 15, 2016 1:59 p.m.
How is everybody finding this season?
So far burn decks are dominating my local meta, but I feel that's about to change as we are all Siding against them.
I haven't played against any Emrakuk or Black White Control decks yet, but that might just be because my LGS always plays wacky decks.
I play a deck that features Liliana, but so far I am the only one. I think that is mostly due to her availability. A lot of people tell me they'd love to play her but can't find any copies.
I played against 2 Green White decks at my last tournament. One was the old Green White Tokens. I think the other one was just cobbled together from good cards in those colours.
In response to a Comment above about Emrakul, if you're playing White shove in as many Stasis Snares as you can.
They can shut Emrakuk right down.
August 19, 2016 12:09 p.m. Edited.
I've noticed a huge increase in Eldrazi, Control, and oddball brews like Harmless Pact decks Argeaux. I haven'y seen too many burn decks but there's definitely more than there used to be.
August 19, 2016 1:48 p.m.
There are usually some aggro decks at the start of each new season, in my meta.
They do well for a couple of weeks, then everyone Sides against them and they stop working.
August 19, 2016 2:14 p.m.
One deck that I've found to be doing extremely well is zombies, it doesn't have very many bad matchups with the exception of Exile heavy decks... It's going to be my next sleeved deck for sure lol (Link here if you care to look: U/B Zombies)
August 19, 2016 3:30 p.m.
I've got a deck that isn't solely focused on Zombies, but uses some of them for their recursion.
It's Recycled Dragons, if anyone's interested.
It's also got Akoum Firebird and Kolaghan's Command, so the recursion is real.
It causes problems for your Opponent to choose what to Exile when just about everything can come back!
August 19, 2016 5:06 p.m.
My local meta is a complete mess atm, but I LOVE it.
The LGSs where I play are usually very stable ... about two thirds of the players are extremely good, very competitive, and running a Tier 1 netdeck of some sort. And the rest of us are running jank homebrews knowing it's a long shot to win but TOTALLY satisfying when we do.
But now it seems everyone is playing jank. E.g., I think there was maybe one Bant Company in the entire store Wednesday ... and that was only because the guy who's been playing it for months was on Naya Tokens so lent his Bant deck to one of the normally-jank players.
My recent pairings include UR Eldrazi (a beloved SOI standard list, out for one last spin), 2x BG Delirium, UB Zombies, Sultai Midrange, 2x RB Vamps, UR Mill, UR Fevered Visions, Mono-Red Thermo-Alchemist, Esper Midrange, Jund Emerge, and RG Ramp.
I'm finding it totally diverse, totally unpredictable, and extremely fun.
August 20, 2016 5:58 a.m.
Yeah standard seems like it's in a good place right now for deckbuilders, there's many angles to attack the good stuff decks from, even if they're still very reliable decks and represent a large amount of what people are playing. I don't deliberately avoid playing people based on what I know they're going to be playing so I still am playing a fair amount of delirium and bant games, which are not super interesting but not as bad as Rally, Abzan or Green devotion, to name some other recently dominant decks.
I know people are pre-empting cards disappearing with Kaladesh and they're forcing themselves to try alternative cards. I sold off all my expensive playables from DTK and Origins over the past few weeks. Sad to see the likes of Goggles go (especially ahead of what I assume is going to be partly a Chandra set) but hey, excited to see what comes with Kaladesh.
August 20, 2016 7:32 a.m. Edited.
Oh and if you're fond of the Zombies deck, consider a sideboard switcheroo for the mirror which is siding out Cryptbreakers and putting in Virulent Plague. People just give you this look of 'Oh no...you didn't'. It feels horrible but works out to be a good edge, if you can live with sticking the knife in.
August 20, 2016 7:58 a.m. Edited.
That reminds me, I saw a great sideboard card for the Fevered Visions mirror in action the other day: Psychic Rebuttal. Talking with the pilot afterwards, sounds like it's superb against Dromoka's Command (mode 2) as well.
Plus, you get to say Jace's snarky flavor text :-)
August 20, 2016 8:09 a.m. Edited.
My partner's Heavenly High deck has been a big surprise in our local meta.
It tanked on its first run but now we have tweaked it and and it takes out most of the popular decks.
It got wrecked by Burn but we've made some changes to the Sideboard so that shouldn't be a problem now.
It is fierce against Emrakul because of the wording on Stasis Snare. The other night someone cast all three of their Emrakuls and still couldn't take it down.
Your meta sounds fun, clayperce.
I actually play in two different metas. One is janky like yours, the other is almost exclusively comprised of netdecks.
I go better in the janky one, and it's much more fun.
August 20, 2016 6:34 p.m.
I tweaked the Chandra Planeswalker deck and got 4th place at FNM tonight.
I basically took out all the cards referencing Chandra, and Chandra herself, along with Cathartic Reunion card and Fateful Showdown, and put in four Chandra, Torch of Defiance, a couple of extra Speedway Fanatics, and a couple of extra Fleetwheel Cruisers.
Chandra won me the game on three separate occasions. Yes, she is that good.
If you're playing and can get your hands on some, shove them in.
September 30, 2016 10:49 a.m.
So here are my thoughts on the upcoming meta...
Eldrazi Marvel seems like a big contender, big eldrazi as early as turn 4 is insane and I imagine will be all over the place
Delirium is probably gone from most people's mind with the loss of Languish, personally my own deck survives mostly intact but the net deck version loses a lot of pieces
Artifacts seem really big atm, whether it be Vehicles or just artifact aggro, I expect to see them everywhere.
Energy seemed promising at first, but I don't think the G/R Aggro shell has enough depth to stand on. We may see some kind of Simic or Temur controlly build pop up later though.
White Weenies is mostly dead, they lost way too many pieces.
Bant Company is not as dead as I thought it would be, a lot of people are just playing it as a midrange shell without CoCo and it still needs to be dealt with but its no longer the big dog on top
Zombies still seems strong, but without being able to crush Bant Company I don't think it'll be as popular.
B/W Control is still mostly alive, the loss of Languish definitely hurts it but I've seen a lot of them morph into Mardu Control and work just fine.
Obviously, Chandra, Torch of Defiance is insane. I definitely expect to see her everywhere.
Esper Control may be unfortunately coming back, that deck is so close to being the premier control deck and we're probably just waiting for the right shell to gain popularity
These are just a few of the things I've noticed through my testing and talking to other people. Does this mostly reflect your metas too? Or is this just specific to my circles? I ask because the sooner we figure out the meta the better we can sideboard.
September 30, 2016 1:19 p.m.
I can speak from what got played in my meta tonight.
GB Delerium was everywhere, particularly ramping into Emrakul.
RB Vampires were still being played.
Didn't see any Zombie decks tonight, but I know a couple of people were brewing one earlier in the week.
No Vehicles, apart from me. In fact, a lot of Opponents didn't understand them/know how to deal with them.
I happen to think that GW ECs can be extremely viable, with the support of some excellent White cards like Authority of the Consuls.
You can check out my partner's deck if you want to see a shell that works.
September 30, 2016 1:50 p.m.
DevilNight72 says... #24
i have been wanting to see more re-animators in standard like the one i run because there is plenty to work with so that you could make one with control aspects
October 6, 2016 9:20 a.m.
Ertaimasterwizard says... #25
I have a question that came up during fnm. The guy had a 1/1 thopter and went to tap it at end of his beginning of combat phase to crew his smugglers copter which I let resolve. I went to play a nebelghast Herald to tap the copter and he said I couldn't because we are now in attackers are declared step. Is that legal?
Also he must have it crew before attackers are declared or else it wouldn't be able to attack, correct? Meaning the last chance to so so is when exactly?
October 10, 2016 8:16 p.m.
Combat can be broken down into 5 steps.
Begin Combat - This is where you activate manlands and crew vehicles.
Declare Attackers - Once this begins, tapping down attackers is useless
Declare Blockers - If it reaches this stage, creatures flashed in no longer do anything nor do animated man-lands
Damage - Damage is assigned and no one can interact here except for triggered abilities
End Combat - Useful for tricks with cards like Immolating Glare but otherwise skipped over usually.
The game DOES NOT advance a stage until both players receive priority and agree to end the stage. So what he did was most certainly illegal play. Same goes for the rest of the stages of the game, passing priority in this manner is extremely annoying and generally skipped to save time. However, when I get an opponent like that I go through every priority check just to make sure they understand lmao.
October 10, 2016 9:52 p.m.
I always say, "Moving to combat," and leave a pause, so the Opponent has a chance to play any cards against my Creatures before I declare combat.
It's good practice because they can't wait and see which Creatures I am going to attack with, if they want to do something prior to combat.
If your Opponent doesn't pause like that, and moves to the declare attackers phase, pull them up on it.
Just say, "You didn't declare that we are moving to combat, so you didn't give me time to make my play. Let's rewind and start the combat phase again."
October 11, 2016 1:08 a.m.
JackelLantern says... #28
Golgari EvolutionNeeds other set of eyes to look through my attempt of B/G Standard.
October 20, 2016 3:08 a.m.
Great news everyone, cards like Jace and Siege Rhino are going to be in every standard deck for 8 months longer.
October 20, 2016 6:23 a.m.
kengiczar,
Depends on your perspective I guess. I for one, was overjoyed to see Collected Company rotate out. But I'd LOVE to have had Hangarback Walker, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Flip, and a host of other cards for another rotation.
I suspect that 18 months from now, people are going to be having similar thoughts (on both sides) while contemplating Smuggler's Copter ...
October 20, 2016 4:48 p.m. Edited.
My perspective is that of a deck builder. I enjoy Magic most when the matches are different and dynamic. One of Magic's consistent problems is the way that overpowered staples show up in every single vaguely competitive deck for their time in standard. Yeah, cards like Jace are sweet, even Rhino is by-the-numbers a sweet design, it's just oppressive from a creative standpoint, being on the other end of it. And Magic is at its best when players are being creative with their decks.
The novelty of cards like Copter wear off very quickly when you see them every game, and they warp the deck building meta. That's a fun creative challenge for a certain time period, but there's a point where it's actually just frustrating and limiting. 6-8 more months of playing against format warping cards is not an enticing prospect. Not to mention - this decision was supposedly aimed at casual players. I count myself amongst this group. I'm not a competitive player, so I cannot justify spending $400 on Baby Jaces or $200 on Lilis or Gideons. So from my casual perspective this decision only hurts me because it's 8 months more of being abused by those cards without having any chance of playing with them myself. I don't buy the line for a second that anyone playing with those cards is casual, or can be considered as being targeted by this policy. If you're spending that money on a single card, you're truly hardcore. That's the sort of money you spend on a very serious activity that's part of your lifestyle - I spend less than that on art supplies and it's my job!
On top of this, due to the fact that such powerful cards will be hanging around for longer, I imagine Wizards will be printing far more hoser cards or archetypes to counter these decks. Both of these things are not good for creativity, because the middle-ground, where a card's power is relative to the cards in your deck (rather than hosers in the format) is where interesting decks are built. If it's either boom or bust for these cards, that's removing a lot of deck building space.
October 21, 2016 7:39 a.m. Edited.
I don't know which new players Wizards has been conferring with, but they obviously don't understand much about the state of Standard.
Leaving cards in for a longer rotation is going to make Standard far LESS accessible for new players, as staples become scarcer and more expensive.
Imagine if you were entering Standard now and wanted to build a deck. How cheaply do you think you could get a set of Languish and Collected Company for? How about a set of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy Flip?
I wish they had let us go through a couple of the latest style of rotation before changing things back.
October 22, 2016 4:15 a.m.
i think they noticed the older sets weren't selling the last six months they were in standard or they noticed a sharp decline in fnm attendance post rotation. I like that staples will hold value longer with the change though as a player I preferred the faster rotation for the reasons somsoc shared two posts above.
October 22, 2016 9:48 a.m.
I joined Standard at the start of the new rotation format and I've actually been considering moving to modern for a while not because I wanted to but because I would have to simply because I cant afford dumping $200-$500 into a deck every couple months to stay competitive. The switch back I think will be good, because now when I pay for overpriced staples they'll stay relevant longer and it'll reduce costs and stress because I won't be scrambling to finish a deck by Gameday.
October 22, 2016 1:07 p.m.
GeminiSpartanX says... #38
I think the best middle ground would be to have sets legal for 2 years but have a rotation every block (twice a year) which should shake up standard enough that new cards and strategies can have their chance to shine. I think the amount of different competitive decks would increase as well since there would be more cards available from more sets at any given time. Not to mention the secondary market wouldn't take such a hit every time fall rolls around and 4 sets of standard cards lose their value instantly. I'd rather break that up to twice a year. It also means that the spring and summer sets won't be as popular since they'll only be in standard for 18 and 15 months respectively, so you still have the same problem with cards not keeping their value as long as you do now with those sets.
October 22, 2016 5:28 p.m.
@Zaueski
What you wrote is just an argument for playing modern, though, rather than standard. With the caveat that when you buy into a deck in Modern you get burned really badly if it ever stops being playable, and you can't really anticipate when it will happen.
Standard is a format that rotates. To play standard is to get used to the idea that towards the end of each sets run you need to anticipate what cards you own are going to lose value, and which cards you don't might be more expensive. That is how you keep costs down playing standard. And that fluctuating deck meta is the draw of it. I rarely have to spend more than $30 around the time of a new sets release. And a lot of that is made from selling off cards that estimate will lose value, or buying into other cards that look to have powerful synergies, or that are currently worth little.
For the kind of money you speak of, you really need be aware of these things... it changes nothing that standard gains 6-8 months. In fact, I worry that buying into expensive staples is more risky with the prospect that they will be more actively hosed in the next block. That means being prepared to sell them all off 3/4 of the way through the block's run. This was already a decent piece of advice but it's even more valid now. So for all this extra time, if you're being savvy and paying attention to card prices, it doesn't equate to much extra play time.
Unless you can afford to spend $100 on a top deck every new set, in which case, this change supposedly wasn't aimed at you.
I don't know why Wizard are trying to shift standard towards being more like modern. Modern is the format for people who want to own a single deck and play it for n years. That's not standard.
October 23, 2016 6:55 a.m. Edited.
@GeminiSpartanX
The main trouble with these timeframes you talk of is that the gaming landscape is not what it was ten or even five years ago. Games change fast, as in, individual games are constantly revamping themselves.
It used to be that this was a fairly unique thing for Magic, to be able to shake itself up every year or two, but now games are doing this every few months. This is how games (in general, but especially the competive games genre that Magic is one of) have opened themselves up to more and more players. As they themselves said, at the time of 'Metamorphosis', having more rotations and more sets actually helps new/casual players find 'jumping in' points, because at worst they are less time away from the oldest set having started, and the newest set/block probably only entered relatively recently. The idea of a card entering standard and potentially being at the same power level 2 years later is just kind of old-hat and unthinkable to me, compared to recent Magic, and compared to other games.
It was a positive change they made shortening the rotations and lifetimes of cards. They didn't let it run for long enough, and now they're reverting it, and all of a sudden Magic just feels out of step with the rest of gaming design again. If they think that there's some massive untapped resource of players that will return or pick up Magic because of this.. I think they are sorely mistaken.
October 23, 2016 7:10 a.m. Edited.
GeminiSpartanX says... #41
somsoc- I don't know what other games to which you are referring when you claim that they shake themselves up more often, but the whole purpose of Wizards changing the standard rotation before was because people were complaining about the absurdly dominant strategies that devotion caused in Theros standard, which subsequently led to 'format stagnation' for the 2 years Theros was legal. The difference between then and now, is that blocks now only have 2 sets instead of 3, so the combination of possible strategies can change every 6 months instead of limiting us to a few mechanics for a whole year like they did before where 1 block essentially took a year to rotate out. Since Wizards is keeping the 2 block format, I was only pointing out the sense that it would make to have rotations reflect the new block structure of standard, and allow every set the same amount of time to impact the format.
I have never seriously gotten into standard simply because I knew that most competitive cards would loose all value once they rotate. (I still have occasionally put together standard decks at times anyway, but I'm not a hard-core standard player). Keeping all the blocks legal for close to 2 years WOULD be a step in the right direction for me to play more standard in the future, since I wouldn't feel as bad investing in the good cards. It rarely gets boring for me to play certain decks/archtypes when I have the cards for them (especially when I'm successful with them), so a faster standard rotation is a turn-off for me and most people I've talked to.
October 23, 2016 7:15 p.m.
somsoc you summed up exactly how I feel about the whole deal.
October 24, 2016 11:24 p.m.
So with Emrakul, the Promised End, Smuggler's Copter, and to a much lesser extent, Reflector Mage, the Standard meta game is wide open... What is everyone brewing? What do we think the metagame will shift to? What decks survive the ban and what decks are dead?
My predictions are a decline in U/W Flash, it isnt dead but losing Copter hurts it a lot. Marvel is dead at a high tier competitive level. Delirium is probably killed at every level except for FNMs... Grixis Control doesn't really care about the ban, Jeskai Control barely cares, U/R Spells doesn't care, R/B Artifacts is dying if not dead and R/W Vehicles is probably just dead...
After this, I definitely predict a rise in Saheeli Twin. G/R Energy may be on the rise, U/B/x Artifact Control looks like a real deck now especially with the meta losing Smuggler's Copter. Jund Aggro may actually be a real deck, I need more testing before I'll declare that though.
Those are my thoughts, what about you guys?
January 9, 2017 9:11 p.m.
Linkdude74 says... #44
I think I can agree with you on your thoughts. Especially when it comes to U/B/X control. I think black just has so many options it isn't funny. And then you can choose between Grixis or Esper for Unlicensed Disintegration or Anguished Unmaking. I think Esper may do a tiny better because Authority of the Consuls being a good answer to Saheeli twin, but I think only in the first few weeks as the meta is decided.
January 10, 2017 8:10 a.m.
GeminiSpartanX says... #45
I've been having some decent success with my Abzan midrange deck. It's pretty much nothing but efficient threats and removal, with a SB full of discard against control decks (I'm kind of a dog to control game 1). I'm wondering if Fatal Push will completely replace Grasp of Darkness or not in standard, since the revolt clause is a little harder to pull off consistently. I'm also not aware of any 4 mana threats that grasp doesn't kill (but I'm no standard expert either), that would make push that much better. I'm thinking Transgress the Mind will come back into dominance like it was pre-kaladesh to combat the combo decks. Black seems to be the place to be for me, and white for Anguished Unmaking still seems like a great way to stop whatever your opponent is doing.
Edit: I guess Mindwrack Demon is the only 4 cmc threat that sees play that grasp can't handle now that I think about it.
January 10, 2017 8:22 a.m. Edited.
Linkdude74 says... #46
Oh hey. We can Fatal Push Gideon, Ally of Zendikar... keeping my Evolving Wilds up for that for sure.
January 10, 2017 8:25 a.m.
One thing I've noticed in testing is how effective Horribly Awry is for control, yet no one seems to be running it. The meta shift to the creature heavy aggro decks means this is amazing. I especially love it in Saheeli Twin to stop a player who tried to play a Walking Ballista for 4 or 6 mana... It hits pretty much every creature except for the gearhulks. Just seems surprising that its not run in more places...
January 30, 2017 12:41 a.m.
Zaueski I think what happens is that people start to overlook cards that haven't worked that well in the past, and then don't see their potential for the current meta.
You may have hit on a strong point for the current season.
January 30, 2017 7:31 a.m.
UpperDeckerTaco says... #50
This standard meta stucks almost as bad as pre-bannings. It feels like after week 2, there is literally 2 viable archetypes...yet again. Now I understand that something has to be the best, but when 2 archetypes quite literally can beat the living crap out of any other garbage (because that's basically what the rest of the meta is, garbage), it doesn't make it for a very fun meta. Yes there are fun decks to play in the meta currently but if you're not comboing with a shell similar to that of Modern's former U/R Twin, or playing an aggressive, grindy black deck (and let's face it, green is the best combo with black currently and Delirium isn't really Delirium it's just a midrange version of the aggro one), then it feels like you just lose to those 2 types unless you get lucky. Yes luck is involved with this game, but when their deck just has more/faster/stronger synergy and just overall better cards than your shitty zombie deck, then yeah they're going to overpower you pretty easily.
I'm just rambling now but seriously...
TL;DR - Still a shitty standard meta, only 2 current viable decks, WoTC sucks at developing a complete set (not in the prior paragraph, but fuck it, I said it).
GeminiSpartanX says... #1
It's too bad that Dragonlord Kolaghan only triggers when your opponent casts creatures or PWs that share a name as one in the GY. If it were other spell types too it'd completely stifle the Delirium mechanic.
August 10, 2016 11:01 a.m.