Historic format issues day 1.

[bradcoish23]

Historic is rolling out tomorrow, and I guess we Arena players are suppose to be excited. I even tried to start deckbuilding for the format, but I pumped the brakes quick. The format has one major issue: nothing is banned.

Historic is going to be an ugly format starting out. We are going to see Field of the Dead, Oko, and Nexus of Fate dominate early on. Maybe a touch of mono-red at the top as well. Ugly format that I want no part of. The format needs to ban Oko, Nexus, Field, Veil of Summer, and Once Upon a Time and then it might be worth looking at.

Thoughts?

[CleanBelwas]

I think it's fine to start without bans as long as they are as proactive about banning as they have been with Pioneer. Giving a format a little breathing room at the start is personally something I'm a big fan of.

Those cards were all undoubtedly powerful in standard, but a wider card pool is sometimes enough to make them more balanced, so I'm in favour of giving a bit of time to see how things pan out.

I don't personally play on Arena so I'm not too up to date with how far back Historic goes and therefore how realistic the answers to these major threats are going to be. I know Arena had cards as far back as Kaladesh, but given how poorly Arena has been managed I won't assume it includes everything since then. All that said though, I think with any new format, keeping the initial ban list as empty as possible is a good thing providing they are proactive about bannings if they are needed.

[bradcoish23]

Historic goes back as far as Ixalan. 9 sets total (previous standard +Throne of Eldraine) and also 20 cards they are introducing into the format that players can buy playsets of for $20. These look like they will be released once per quarter. Nice little WotC cash influx in down times between sets, very crafty on their part and whoever came up with it deserves a nice Christmas bonus (something better tha na gift box lol.)

They look like they are going to follow the model of pioneer bannings, however pioneer had such a big card pool that it was hard to predict which cards would be overpowered. Historic's overpowered or punishing to play cards are: Nexus of Fate, Teferi Hero of Dominaria, Field of the Dead, Oko Thief of Crowns, Veil of Summer, and Once Upon a Time. In other words all the cards that were banned in standard and Teferi (should have been banned due to horrible gameplay). They should have just banned those out the gate and moved on from there.

[CleanBelwas]

Damn, only as far as Ixalan? That's not great.

At least if they went to Amonkhet there was a decent mono red aggro shell and a decent Dimir Scarab God control shell that could have put up a fight. I'm more inclined to agree now. Not much in Ixalan can put up much of a fight. Obviously Vraska's Contempt is formidable removal, but really what else is there?. Search for Azcanta is strong, Field of Ruin is kind of an auto include against Field of the Dead and Carnage Tyrant is a good finisher, but Ixalan kinda sucked outside of limited.

I was really hoping to get into Arena once the Mac version was released, but a large part of that was playing Historic so I could get all my favourite Amonkhet cards out again (I loved that plane), but seems I won't be bothering.

[Blong]

Historic is arena only, correct?

[MonteTribal]

Historic is arena only, correct?

You could play in paper, but I think it is only supported on Arena. No MODO if that was what you were looking for

[nifty129]

Surprisingly things are pretty balanced right now. The truth is Oko doesn't really stand up to the older control options esper/asorious had available to it.

You just have to remember how control ran during dominaria and merge it with the newer sets.

I'm like 3/3 without breaking a sweat.

But as soon as someone plays something off meta like a fully optimized vamps list, that's when I feel really challenged.

Keep in mind when m20 dropped that was what was considered to be the strongest list.