Rotation and You - a players guide to September's standard meta

[nifty129]

So were fast approaching every player's least favorite time of year.

Rotation season...

So let's go over everything we'll be loosing out on, and all the decks that will entirely cease to function.

Number 1 - mono decks ... good old dominaria brought us tempest djinn, chain whirlers, champions, and marshals.

They remained not only relevant but archetype defining for the entirety of standard. Without them, red aggro, blue tempo, green stompy, white weenie all suffer hugely.

Some would say that they might cease to exist all together.

Number 2 - Tribal decks, this one's very obvious but is sad none the less. Tribal lists have been synonymous with fun for the entire time they've been in standard.

Say goodbye to merfolk, zombies, vamps, dinos, dragons, shroomes, goblins, wizards, and cats.

Ideally the new core set would have featured aggressive reprints for these lists but it did not, so the tribes die with ixalan/m19/dominaria.

Number 3 - Powerhouse singles, god there are so many powerhouse cards I'll only go over a few, wildgrowth walker and friends, rekindling pheonix, Og Tefari/Karn, Lyra, resplendent angel, nexus of fate, spell pierce, dive down, chart a course, syncopate, siren stormtamer, ravenous, kitesail, vraska's, all the legendary lands, curious, angrath, immortal sun, history, seal away, blink, antiquities, trickster, lanowar elf, cleansing nova, bugler, Sai, all the m19 walkers which were pretty swag at the time, and the legendary dragons...

So what are we left with in standard.

Well war of the spark basically, whatever your personal opinions, expect walker heavy lists to be un-opposed going into September

Tefari junior, Narset, and Nissa, being probably the big 3 that will absolutely be squeezing the casual out of the game like water from a sponge.   

Expect all your favorite control staples like kaya's wrath, thought erasure, enter the god eternals, and dreadhorde to be just as powerful.

Don't forget grixis ceases to exist without bolas dragon, so it's gonna just be different versions esper from here on out...yaaaah I guess...said no one

Without the lanowar plus walker and friends every green control list takes a huge hit, but not enough to stop ramp nissa lists, but they go further into tier 2.

But the big deal is that the only playable creature lists that remain are gruul spellbreaker/boros feather at tier 3, and aristocrats not even on the radar.

Finally honorable mention to bolas's citadel and phonix decks that will no longer work.

So what do you think?

I for one will probably be taking a break until return to theros is revealed or whatever, and we get some strong indestructible creatures to counter out those walkers.

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Bonus time - where we go way too in depth - feel free to skip

Why doesn't pheonix work now? It could run tormented voice instead of chart a course.

You are very right but voice requires discard before draw, and course discards after draw.

So you draw 8 let's say by turn 2, you voice you have to hit phoenix in your top 8 cards.

You play chart a course you actually have 10 chances to it phoenix, this is statistically huge over the course of 100 games.

Also people chart several times in 1 game so the impact of this stacks exponentially as you dig for even more hasty birds, 1 won't win on it's own.

Also bolas's citadel obviously doesn't work without a way to heal as much now, but command the dreadhorde is fine esper runs that anyway without life gain.

 

[WWolfe]

I don't know that rotation is the least favorite time of the year. When I was playing Standard I looked forward to the challenge of building new decks to adjust to the new meta.