Collected Company

Literally manglehorn rhino

I was going to use this thread as an excuse to bitch about how wizards keeps pushing the power level of mythics while shitting on commons and uncommons, but desu there have been a ton of playable commons/uncommons in kaladesh block. Less so in amonkhet (although we did get zombie lord), but I think that is just because it is such a weak set in general. I really hope this trend continues, because playing with cheap, interactive value-oriented cards is so much more fun than just jamming one undercosted mythic threat/planeswalker after another and hoping your opponent doesn't draw as many of their pushed mythics.

Ulamog is the obvious problem.

BFZ is not supposed to be in the format and that's the real issue here.

What targets does marvel have once rotation hits? Nothing. Just get rid of Ulamog, maybe Chandra to put the nail in the coffin, and format fixed.

Check out Shaun Mclaren's BG list
mtggoldfish.com/deck/651879#paper

>Ishkanah

everything else belongs on that list but really?

the spider?
she never hurt anyone...

but it is game over when they swing with their 10/10 and make you exile the top 20 cards of your library

or you know

if they resolve a single sweeper

no Marvel is the problem
next set we will see the release of a Nicol Bolas planswalker and imagine if he is some 10 cost game winning play

the only deck that is gonna play him is Temur Aetherworks that uses aether hub for black to cast him

Aetherworks marvel needs to go before too long because if they ever print another strong timmy card in the next 2 years it will come back and abuse it again

cheating on mana isn't a mechanic that belongs in standard
not unless we have cards that can stop it from working on a very VERY consistent basis

>mfw no matter what wizards ban next, one deck will come out on top
>mfw they still won't print decent answers because maro doesn't ever want instant speed control to be viable again

Losing the top 20 cards of your deck is meaningless in new zombies with 1 whole grave based card. If you field it established you don't lose.
Obviously the weak point in new zombies get fucked by sweepers but we are talking about marvel here not control.

Plus marvel will be banned next set if they do release a Nicol Bolas. It's the same deal everytime user
>release new set
>new set can't compete with the top tier deck because nothing can
>wait like 3 weeks and see pack sales
>ban problem card so you can sell more packs

It's the same thing every time and is a strategy used by every business that has a card game front. I promise you before august it will be gone.

>channelfireball.com/articles/is-aetherworks-marvel-too-good-for-standard/

Control is fine right now. The problem is the pushed cards. Any control deck is viable if there isn't any Torrential Gearhulk. Mardu must use Kiran and Gideon...

At the end of the day, it is about which deck wears better the pushed cards of the month and see who resolve them in the best moment. And there is so many decks a handful of chase mythics can make by combining themselves.

They're trying NOT to ban too many cards, which is why they hesitated on the cat for so long.
Yeah, every other company drops the hammer constantly. Wizards doesn't, and the current crop of bannings is abnormal in the extreme for them.
In this, I actually trust them. They're attempting (note - attempting, not necessarily succeeding) in only banning when it's necessary to make the environment enjoyable, rather than just to promote the newest set. Because they want people to be able to trust them.
They're trying. They're not doing a good job at it, but they're at least trying, unlike other companies who just outright ban the important parts of the last round of tournament decks so you HAVE to buy the new things.

They may or may not ban the Marvel. They may end up putting it off like with the cat, it may have the same results doing such did, may turn out better. Hard to say. From what I'm seeing, they're probably not going to ban Marvel but it'll turn out they probably should have.

marvel is dumb but it's not a one deck format.

Pros who write articles can nonchalantly say _____ card should be banned because they don't fucking own it anyways. They're sponsored and get to borrow cards for free come GP and PT time.

Banning Marvel would piss off people who bought into the deck like the people who bought into 4C Saheeli. Not banning it people would still be pissed off. Standard attendance would still be trending downward with either option.

I like how Wizards' philosophy of keeping counterspells and removal shit in order to progress standard into a Timmy format backfired on them.

The last 1-2 years we've had cards that straight up with the game when resolved.

>Standard attendance would still be trending downward with either option.
That's exactly what the article says.

Well that and that if Marvel is banned we risk getting a Standard dominated by Gideon, Beefslab of Zendikar instead.

WotC is playing with fire

>make muh hype sets and chase mythics
>make those mythics really good to sell packs
>oops wait one of those mythics is fucking distorting the format
>well we will just ban that silly Emrakul. What a design mistake haha
>btw have you heard about our new set Kaladesh? There is a craaaaazy artifact that lets you cast anything for free! How neat

Just reprint counterspell already. Its gotta happen eventually

This

I'm filled with great joy that their completely retarded philosophy of hurr battlecruiser magic bruh, just windmill slam your curve of mythic creatures and walkers is backfiring

Infact I think it's hilarious that every hyper jew move WotC has made lately has blown up in their face ten fold.

>try to speed up standard because gimmie money
>people hate it and it leads to problems
>get rid of core sets because gimmie money
>people hate it and it leads to problems
>push unfun cancer gamedesign
>people hate it and it leads to problems
>push Jacestice League and pals because gimmie money
>people start to hate it and rebel against it

They have the best game but literally the worst board of executives. Every move they make reeks of lazy, cheap money making schemes set to market to the lowest denominator. I'm sure they'll turn around and make Blue great again, so great in fact that we'll hate it, but it certainly couldn't come soon enough.

I do find it funny how much they are favoring GREEN after years of it being relatively bad

Like every green rare creature now is a value shitstack that vomits stats and board presence. In a standard world where you gotta play midrange ungabunga you basically have a wotc putting gun to your head telling you to play green

Reactive answers NEVER work. Why not unban Skullclamp? I mean, cards exist that answer it right? Your opponent may not even have a Marvel in hand when you cast Pithing Needle, and can just scry them away with Glimmer. You risk being a card down just so you can 1 for 1. Marvel decks aren't some magical combo that require a single piece to be hosed to fall apart; they're midrange decks.

>BFZ is not supposed to be in the format and that's the real issue here.
I'm pretty sure BFZ was meant to be in the same Standard as Kaladesh and no cards from I'm on Ket are even being used in the deck, so I'm not sure you even have a point here.

BFZ is the most cancerous block in recent MTG history

BFZ was designed with the fast rotation in mind and should have rotated when Kaladesh was introduced

if you wanna do rouge then red deck wins beats marvel, blue-red easily, but loses to b/g, and is even vs mardu and zombies

I'm pretty sure the new rotation was 3 blocks at a time. Then as Amonkhet comes out, Zendikar rotates out.

Shadows block also did nothing good for the game.

>Emrakul
>Liliana of the Veil 2.0
>Grim Flayer

Every other card is garbage, making the packs worthless

BFZ Block is
>Gideon
>Ulamog

Every other card is garbage. Look at the pricelists.

This is a very reductive way to look at things.

>Drana at $15

Who the fuck is playing Drana?

+1/+1 counter decks

>Every other card is garbage

It's a casual favourite. Vampire, +1/+1 counters, cheap and fast. Ticks a lot of boxes for little timmies

Wizards definitely needs a good executive and partial R&D reshuffling.

It's like, all I can say right now is, "God damn, standard is shit." I haven't touched the format in years because it's devolved so much. At least we still have Legacy and to a lesser extent, modern.

>shutting down 4 cards for 1 card at 1 CMC
>a 1 for 1
>when those cards are the backbone of the deck
you didn't have to out yourself as a retard this soon

1: Shutting down four cards they haven't drawn is the same as not doing anything.
2: Marvel decks are still strong if they don't draw marvel.

That's the high price, she's $5

I think the point is all the power is going into expensive chase mythics instead of making Standard playable uncommons/commons.

The price of a good standard deck had been $200+ for a long time

I am in violent agreement with the argument that they push the power level of rares and mythics too much.

I think the best example right now (and it's super recentm too) is the difference between Smuggler's Copter and Sky Skiff.

Both are one mana vehicles with Crew 1. But the rare is a 3/3 that loots, and the common is a vanilla 2/3. There is a blatant power difference. They're in the same damn set, too, so you can't even argue that it's ok because of set-based power levels either.

Now, I am not against rares and mythics being strong or splashy. You want cool stuff in the back of your packs; I'm pretty sure nobody is thrilled to crack garbage like Moonlace. But you cna't just say that rarity equals raw power. It's dumb. And the problem is becoming sort of self evident; rares are much more expensive on-average for standard play than they've been before NWO, and they're starting to have to ban cards because they refuse to print constructed-playable things outside of the rare slot.

Like...Just make looter scooter the 2/3 and the skiff the 3/3. One is no longer strictly better than the other. The rare is still better in general, but there's a trade-off! Use it to teach new players how powerful card selection is. Don't just be all like "hurr, It's a rare, it's gotta be a constructed playable staple"

Not against flamecaller

Chasing the Hearthstone crowd was a huge mistake. Every change and bad idea can be attributed to making the game like Hearthstone.

>BFZ
>Crowd favourites such as Converge, Allies, and Support, which will see long-term playability as more and more formats are released, and are already making a huge splash in modern

>Shadows
>Shitty, ultraterrible mechanics like Madness and Delirium, making cards worthless unless you build a deck that utilizes them
>Investigate, a highly parasitic mechanic with no synergies or purpose beyond having a new mechanic
>Spell Queller, Thalia's Lieutenant, and Tireless Tracker are just timmy bombs that have no business in eternal formats

>Madness
It's very sad when you bring back a mechanic and the only good card with that mechanic is a reprint.

lol

Here's a (you)

>>Crowd favourites such as Converge, Allies, and Support, which will see long-term playability as more and more formats are released, and are already making a huge splash in modern

Those three are all garbage mechanics designed by people with shit for brains.

Standard has always been and always will be a one deck format. Whether it's mardu vehicles, or UW Control, there's always clearly a single deck that is tier 0.

Yeah but originally the BfZ block was involved in that fast rotation plan that Wizards tried for a few months until people started pointing out Modern was going to get vastly cheaper than Standard if cards kept cycling out that quickly.

It was a terrible idea so Wizards scrapped it and BfZ has stuck around way longer than it should.

I'm okay with there being a single Tier 0 deck. It's when that deck concept utterly dominates the format to the point where Copy Cat, Mardu Vehicles and now Aetherwork have shit all over Standard is it a problem.

Probably price memory. Everyone expected her to be a huge deal when she first came out at 30 dollars each, but nothing materialized.

I love how "timmy" is basically just a pejorative term for "younger player" at this point, because not even Rosewater could keep himself from parodying his own stupid definitions of people that don't exist.

The funniest, most satisfactory part on all of this, is they've been losing money since Oath.
Every single jew trick went backwards on their wallets and I love it.

>that fast rotation plan
Nigger, that literally was BFZ-SOI-KLD and BFZ was meant to rotate with AMK release. BFZ and KLD were always gonna be in the same Standard.
Now they went back on their shit and BFZ+SOI rotate with Ixalan.

Kamigawa-Ravnica, Ravnica-Time Spiral, Innistrad-Return to Ravnica and Return to Ravnica-Theros were all 3+ deck Standards.
>Shocklands are the savior of Standard.

Ravnica-Theros was miserable.

Can't they just give me back Emmy and get rid of this piece of shit, broken-ass fuck-card called Marvel?

Nothing good will ever come from that card as long as it exists in standard and it either limited what they could design for any sets it'll be able to interact with or will keep breaking any giant game-winners they release.

I've also always been more of a DC guy.

Unban Smuggler's Copter

Unban Reflector Mage as well while you're at it.

That's a deal.

True, but at least there were more than 3 decks in standard at the time. Can't say the same about what we got right now.

New Perspectives will eventually be the dominant deck, I tell you!

The meme will reign supreme!

as someone who is still new-ish to the game I can't understand why reflector mage is banned.
I guess it got banned from a combo that rotated out and they'll just leave it to die until rotation now?

It was deemed too frustrating to deal with. That's the best way to put it without leaning towards either side of the Control debate.

At the time, if memory serves, the top decks were cat combo, mardu and gb. Reflector mage would have made cat combo heavily favored against the other two in a post-emmy, post-copter world.

Also a card depicting a black man got banned for someone else's crimes. Deep marketing ploy to get the /pol/ market share.

I came back during that time and seeing what Mono-Black Devotion was capable of was unreal.

>"Have a Gray Merchant! Oh, you killed him? Have another Gray Merchant! Now I cast Rescue from the Underworld and use Gray Merchant to bring back Gray Merchant! Now I use Whip to bring back another Gray Merchant!"

this, it was almost as much of a 1 deck standard as ours is, both have some other tier 1 deck, but let's not pretend monoB wasn't tier 0

I came in then and I remember the big 3 decks of that time. You had Mono Black Devotion as well as a short run of Mono Blue Devotion with Master of Waves, RG monsters that got better with each new set, and finally there was UW control.

I'm still disappointed that GB Constellation never made any showing since everyone was already locked into the big 3 decks at the time even though it had a great match-up against each of them, but I digress. RtR-THR was better than this standard since it's become an even bigger 'who lands the mythic first'-fest. I chose a shitty time to get back into standard again so I'll wait it out to see if either hour of devastation brings some answers.

Not really Standard, but did Amonkhet drafts die off as quickly at you guys' LGS as it did at mine? It took THREE WEEKS for people to already get tired of the format and no longer want to draft it. This is an absolute record for my LGS. Sets usually last three weeks before the next one at the least.

But if other decks are stronger than marvel sans marvel.

If pithing needle turn 1 takes away their best card instead of you just passing (unless you are playing aggro, in which case you probably wouldn't even want needle) then I think it is absolutely worth it.

Honestly I don't understand why they didn't just say that because BFZ was developed with the faster rotation they will go ahead and rotate it with AKH.

The people complaining about the faster rotation would understand as they see the utter shitshow that Standard has become because of BFZ outstaying its welcome.

Decks of the month that have some potential but no one is trying them out:
Fling Colossus
Temur Midrange Spells
5C Bring to Light

I think it's more that Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is overstaying his welcome of being this annoying as hell to remove beatstick. Amonkhet could have fixed things by printing some better Planeswalker hate but all we got was another Ruinous Path. Oh, and Platinum Gideon came along, too. We needed that.

the problem will always be wizards having zero fucking idea how their game works for some reason.

...

>How are you surviving the standard wasteland?
by playing mono-red sligh. oh you need to hit turn 4? haha, nothin' personnel kid.

Cubes

You forgot mill

Converge was definitely a mechanic with potential, but was printed on a handful of cards that weren't very good.

The best one (Bring to Light) couldn't even synergize with other converge cards.

Allies are a decent and fun tribe. Support is a fantastic limited mechanic and I thoroughly enjoy the support cards in my cube.

But I try to see the good parts about it. My all-time favorite mechanic was Splice, and I wish that it was "splice on to instant/sorcery" rather than some forcing some retarded Arcane nonsense they'll never reprint.

Haven't seen that one.

The biggest problem with Support was that it originally put +1/+1 counters on creatures AND could also put loyalty counters on planeswalkers. Still only up to the support number permanents (so support 2 would be 2 creatures, 2 walkers, or a creature and a walker). But then the loyalty counters got cut late in design for balance purposes, they changed nothing else about the cards with it (like say, costs), and thus we ended up with a mechanic most people rolled their eyes at as being just another +1/+1 counter mechanic.

what the hell has happened to r&d? why can't they put together decent standard sets anymore?

channelfireball.com/videos/can-standard-be-fixed/

They said it best here: R&D wants to sell packs, so they push the fuck out of marquee cards like Emrakul and Gideon and then make them broken in development

Part of the reason I put Ishkanah on the list is because Wizards never intended that card to be a tournament staple

As a casual player I can explain.
Really frustrating.card.
>Ha you played something? Well think again bucko. You better not try that again next turn either.
It had an effect of "play value cards or lose" meaning top tier decks weren't effected as much but fun lower tier decks without as much valuewhoring got shit on even more than usual.

playing ur prowess, how would you improve my brew ?

2 Bedlam Reveler
4 Enigma Drake
4 Stormchaser Mage
2 Kari Zev, Skyship Raider
4 Soul-Scar Mage

4 Fiery Temper
2 Tormenting Voice
4 Incendiary Flow
2 Invigorated Rampage
4 Shock
2 Lightning Axe
4 Slip Through Space

4 Island
10 Mountain
4 Wandering Fumarole
1 Highland Lake
3 Spirebluff Canal

SB: 2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
SB: 2 Harsh Mentor
SB: 4 Fevered Visions
SB: 1 Sweltering Suns
SB: 2 Negate
SB: 2 Magma Spray
SB: 2 By Force

HOW TO FIX STANDARD

Banned:
>Emrakul, the Promised End
>Aetherworks Marvel
>Felidar Guardian
>Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
>Smuggle's Copter

and that's it
free reflector mage

Just Modern for me. Now that I have all the duals/fetches I can build a new deck almost every month.

By playing either casual free for all with buddies or pauper.

>this whole post

We still have fun drafting it here. We've concluded that the biggest problem with the format by far is that Archfiend of Ilfner and Glorybringer should be mythic for limited purposes. It's still fun imo but I don't know how much longer we'll hold out.

UW flash would probably be the best deck. It wouldn't matter if its dominance was highly marginal, the fact that a U deck would be best would make lil Tim flip the table.

we have draft and a booster league going at my LGS

right now there is a guy in Booster League that has 3 Glorybringers and a 100% win rate

meanwhile I am sitting here with 2 Dispossess and 2 Harvest Season sitting on something like a 20% win rate

bomb rares are too impactful for limited in the set I will agree

I actually seriously doubt that
without Smugglers copter or Gideon they lack a lot of the threats that made them dominant in the past

I think the format is actually quite open with these cards gone

cut kari zev
cut soul scar mage

less face burn more counterspells

also
why 3 spirebluff 1 highland lake?
just go 4 spirebluff

>Converge was definitely a mechanic with potential, but was printed on a handful of cards that weren't very good.
It certainly did have potential, back when it was called Sunburst.

I was kind of pissed when they printed literally Sunburst in a Commander set and called it Converge. Why do you hate creativity, Wizards? You make a mechanic that's Sunburst but with even broader potential, use it with only the most obvious of effects (while Sunburst despite its limited scope was used in various creative ways) and then pretend Sunburst doesn't even exist.

Beginner's first deck, any suggestions? Obviously on an extreme budget, just want to play some games for now. The idea is to utilize the -1/-1 counters and spam token creatures in every way imaginable.

3x Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
4x Festering Mummy
4x Blisterpod
4x Exemplar of Strength
4x Channeler Initiate
4x Crocodile of the Crossing
3x Hapatra's Mark
4x Nest of Scarabs
4x Splendid Agony
4x Bone Splinters
4x Foul Orchard
9x Forest
9x Swamp
= 60

It's awesome to see a beginner deck that isn't made of complete unplayable garbage. Kudos to thinking out your card choices. I'd recommend a bit more removal in the main, but your list looks pretty solid for what it's trying to do.