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Pauper Whoa, High Tide is re-banned already? I wasn't watching the tournaments - my understanding it was fairly popular but not actually winning anything. Ah, found their writeup:
Okay, long dawdling turns result in an un-fun play pattern. Certainly some truth to that.
The nice thing is that Pauper is dirt-cheap and High Tides are still less than $1 lmao. It cannot be overstated how much they overprinted Fallen Empires.
Good that Vivi is finally banned but between UB, the rapid fire release schedule and WotC's repeated mismanagement of the format I still don't have enough interest to come back to Standard
Personally, I'm glad Nemesis and Vivi got banned but I don't think this is even close to enough to get Standard playable again.
Standard stopped being playable or interesting to me since after EoE. The UB sets killed my interest entirely.
I think it has been in a bad spot since Bloomburrow, personally. Never really recovered from the addition of the mice and monstrous rage and by the time the cards were banned, there were too many other dominant things ready to come in and replace it.
As a format, I agree. Standard's power balance got obliterated after Bloomburrow and Duskmourn. Still, I held hope they'd eventually get it back under control, but it's only gotten worse since then it seems.
The format's power level is still too high so I think you're right. The only way to fix Standard is to systemically and deliberately lower power levels similar to what was done after Urza's block and Mirrodin block. R&D has doubled-down on FIRE design, however, with the philosophy of "If a card gets out of hand, we can just ban it."
Really wish I could rub their faces in MaRo's post-Affinity ban article from 20 years ago where he talks about why bans are bad, even when they're necessary. There's a reason no one is playing Standard anymore. I suspect WotC is juking their stats to maintain the lie Standard events are firing in order to appease shareholders.
Anyone else kind of shocked to see Profts banned?
Sad to see Entomb banned. It's been a staple of the format for decades, but I'm not sure what else they could do. Was really hoping for a One Ring and Orcish Bowmasters ban so I don't have to shell out $200 per playset of cards not on the reserve list, so I guess I'm in the reprint waiting room. It would be easier to get ahold of Revised duals and play other decks. Like I could trade $400 for getting both cards or just get a Tropical Island.
The Nadu ban was obvious. Power levels aside, it has the same problem as Sensei's Divining Top of slowing games down and causing tournaments logistical issues. What a fuckup of a card.
What I'm really surprised on is no changes to Timeless. I've been enjoying playing decks with 4x Necropotence, 4x Memory Jar, or 4x Strip Mine, but to me it seems these cards should have been restricted from the get-go. I guess the data doesn't support that, however.
Strip Mine is likely filling in where Wasteland would be similar to how it functions in '93/'94 format where there's arguments for and against its restriction. But Jar and Necro? These are self-contained draw engines that will only grow stronger as more cards are added to Arena. All it takes is something like Hymn to Tourach or Snuff Out to really push Necropotence over the edge, for example, and there's already turn 1 wins available for both.
I don’t play with vivi cos I know how annoying it is to play against but love ffix and it’s so frustrating how hard they botched him cos I was excited to see him. At least now I can stop debating on whether to sell mine or not and just put him on display
Well this is going to make me tweak a couple Brawl decks. Mana Drain was fun but is still super imbalanced. was nice to have a way to screw mana ramp over though. Don't quite understand why Chrome Mox got banned though.
Chrome Mox is a permanent I've chosen to remove from my opponents' boards many times.
It's a ramp source you can play AND USE on T1, as well as every subsequent turn. Compare this to, say, Elvish Mystic, which can't be used the turn it is played, or most mana rocks, which cannot be played T1. Something like Utopia Sprawl is a little more flexible than those other cards, in that you can play it on T1 if you want, but won't get the ramp from it until later, or you can play it on a later turn and get the ramp immediately.
Chrome Mox is more powerful than any of those.
When can I sell my Mana Crypt? lol
eBay has been good to me