What has standard been like?

[Morganator 2.0]

I know there are standard players on Deckstats and I want to hear from you. It seems to me, as an outsider looking in, that there have been a lot of bans for this standard rotation. Much more than in previous years. Here's the list:

Agent of Treachery
Cauldron Familiar
Field of the Dead
Fires of Invention
Growth Spiral
Oko, Thief of Crowns
Once Upon a Time
Teferi, Time Raveler
Veil of Summer
Wilderness Reclamation

Has this been a problem for you? Does the necessity for such bans make the Standard format less fun for you? And do you think that this past rotation was better/worse than previous years?

[PickleLover]

I haven't played standard either (I prefer Modern and Legacy), but whatever the case is, I'm glad Veil of Summer, Agent of Treachery, and Oko are banned.

[WizardSpartan]

I stopped playing Standard when Dominaria rotated out, but ever since, I check the metagame on MTGGoldfish every few weeks. It's literally been ramp or a goodstuff Food deck on top ever since. At least half the time, it's some sort of Bant or Sultai deck with whatever most broken Simic+ cards are the rage. The most interesting deck I've seen was Jund Sacrifice, and I never saw it in the #1 slot on MTGGoldfish. Based on that, the absurd number of bans in Standard, and what I've seen on Reddit, Standard has been baaad for a while.

[Slyvester12]

Yeah, I played arena for a bit and abused the hell out of Bant Yorion Control and Sultai Yorion Midrange. Boy, were they busted. Most of the cards on that list were either in the decks or archetypes the decks were built to beat (looking at you, fires). I quit several months back, but the standard environment is just poorly designed nowadays.

There's been broken stuff before, but it's like they feel compelled to release new broken stuff to fight it instead of just banning the original problems. Except, they just ban everything in the end. With cards like Uro going for $50+ and getting banned, I think standard's gone from an expensive hobby to a complete waste of money. At least on arena, you get some kind of reimbursement for these poor design decisions.

[PickleLover]

Yeah, I played arena for a bit and abused the hell out of Bant Yorion Control and Sultai Yorion Midrange. Boy, were they busted. Most of the cards on that list were either in the decks or archetypes the decks were built to beat (looking at you, fires). I quit several months back, but the standard environment is just poorly designed nowadays.

There's been broken stuff before, but it's like they feel compelled to release new broken stuff to fight it instead of just banning the original problems. Except, they just ban everything in the end. With cards like Uro going for $50+ and getting banned, I think standard's gone from an expensive hobby to a complete waste of money. At least on arena, you get some kind of reimbursement for these poor design decisions.

Yeah, that's why I play Legacy and Modern and limit myself only to make 20 dollar or less budget decks. What really keeps me away from standard is just that I can't deal with the rotations. All those cards that you can't play with...

[crimsonking]

I’ve never played standard, anyway I like to read articles and listen to podcasts to make myself an opinion.
As an outsider, to me half of the recent bannings don’t seem that much of a problem.
Yeah, Oko, Teferi and Veil of Summer are definitely busted, but take Agent of Treachery for example: in the end it’s just an overcosted Control Magic.
Again, no clue about standard, but in Legacy, Modern and even EDH you may as well win the game with 7 mana.
Time ago, Tolarian Community College published a video criticising the then-new Frontier format (or so I remember) because there were no good removals, no hate cards, even 4-colors mana bases were too easy to build, so nothing really stopped people from abusing the next bomb available. And I think this could inherently be the same problem for standard.
Also, last day I was listening to mtggoldfish’s podcast about this topic and they pointed out Wizards just pushes cards to sell new sets, then bans older cards (after they already sold themselves, of course) in order to “fix the problem”.
They say for instance that new Omnath is still too powerful even with Uro out, since there are many other valid enablers, and that Wizards shouldn’t have printed such a bomb in the first place (but did it willingly nonetheless) instead of banning what’s basically a soon-to-rotate-out ramp spells.
Again, no clue about standard metagame, but they sounded “quite convincing” to me.

[WizardSpartan]

I believe the problem with Agent of Treachery was that it was easy to ramp out/cheat out because it's a creature. Also, I think people would abuse the fact that the Control Magic was attached to an ETB.

[Varatius]

With uro out people are scrambling to find the best decks and the best tech cards rn its kind of a shit show but it'll settle soon I'll update you more when it does.

However omnath and lotus cobra are still problematic from my experience and teferis tutelage is now a legit problem with uro gone its harder to tech a thassas oracle to attempt to counter mill strategies which in my opinion is a bad thing but who knows maybe well see other escape cards come up for the tech.

[Slyvester12]

I believe the problem with Agent of Treachery was that it was easy to ramp out/cheat out because it's a creature. Also, I think people would abuse the fact that the Control Magic was attached to an ETB.

This.

I played Bant Yorion Control for a while. Seven mana is easy to come by when abusing Omen of the Hunt and Omen of the Sea with flicker effects, plus Uro and Growth Spiral turbo ramp. Then, using Yorion and the other flicker effects (namely Teferi) provided a soft lock in standard that was almost impossible to escape. The deck was backbreaking.

Agent of Treachery is a much, much better Control Magic because the effect is permanent and you can steal planeswalkers, not to mention the draw power it provides midgame.

[WizardSpartan]

Oh yeah, I missed that, too. Agent can steal any permanent, not just a creature. That means in addition to the aforementioned planeswalkers, it could steal lands, which I think would be even more backbreaking. Not only are you ramping yourself further, you are taking mana away from your opponent (you basically "gain" 2 mana each time you steal a land).

[crimsonking]

Agent of Treachery is definitely better than Control Magic, nobody's saying otherwise.
What I'm saying is that for 7 mana you may as well cast Protean Hulk and win the game on the spot.
I bet you could swap Agent of Treachery for any decent top-end fatty (Avenger of Zendikar, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Griselbrand, Primeval Titan or even Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Bogardan Hellkite... you name it) and you'll get the same result.
So why Agent of Treachery needs to be banned?
I used to play Extended for a while (back in the days when it still was a thing) and people used to play stuff like Tooth and Nail, Enduring Ideal or Tron into Mindslaver.
You had that same feeling you just need to get to 7 mana and that was pretty much it.
That's why every sideboard had Molten Rain in it, I even remember a deck that played 4 Chrome Mox, 4 Simian Spirit Guide and 4 Gemstone Caverns (!) for a turn 2 Moon effect (Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon were both legal, if I'm not mistaken) and then Seething Song into Demigod of Revenge.
Man! THAT was the ultimate bulshit...
The problem now (for what I understand) is that it's so easy to ramp/cheat into play big bombs and there's nothing stopping you from doing it.

[Elan Morin Tedronai]

I haven't played standard either (I prefer Modern and Legacy), but whatever the case is, I'm glad Veil of Summer, Agent of Treachery, and Oko are banned.

Totally the same. For me Standard is a root to my Modern Tribal combinations I make. Empyrean Eagle, Watcher of the Spheres and Jubilant Skybonder was what I loved about the particular editions but I never looked in Standard as playable format. Back then in Theros when they made Pheres-Band Warchief, I knew I wanted with Ravnica tokens as Call of the Conclave and Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage no matter how Standard are they. So, yeah no Standard than playing Tribality with mind that Standard is such a timely passing vague format that I never looked it seriously instead of inclusions or entirely new combinations to make as my Dinosaurion deck. I welcome such sets as Modern Horizons 2. From the pattern of next year, I think that Standard is the way to Modern and less to Pioneer but still entertaining format. That's all I can say about it, but the ban thing is tricky as I have no observations of the power of the card.
Regards,
Chavo

[WWolfe]

I phased out of Standard around the time Khans of Tarkir hit. It was fun and pretty much the most popular format at the shop I went to on Friday Night's at the time. I have thought about getting somewhat back into it at times but it seems like every time I start to consider it all I hear are bad things about it. At this point I'm pretty much Commander only. I occasionally player Pauper and I have a few Modern decks but I hardly ever break them out.

[PickleLover]

My favorite set has either been Scars of Mirrodin or New Phyrexia. I like Infect and Proliferate

[Slyvester12]

My favorite set has either been Scars of Mirrodin or New Phyrexia. I like Infect and Proliferate

And I like the way you think. I miss those sets.