[Official] State of Historic Thread

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ktkenshinx
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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

Welcome to the State of Historic Thread!

Historically, community members have expressed interest in talking holistically about the challenges and problems facing various formats and Historic is likely no exception. Whether or not Historic has "challenges" or "problems" is up for debate, but what is clear is that people want to talk about all of these issues in one unified setting.

As such, Historic staff have created this thread from the old MTG Salvation/MTG Nexus "State of Modern" versions. You can use this thread to talk about any and all of these varied Historic issues and their intersection. This thread will be heavily moderated, so be sure to read the rules before posting;
Anyone who posts in this thread is assumed to have read and understood these rules, the Historic forum rules, and the general MTG Nexus rules.
Approved topic examples
  • Bans, unbans, and all things related to the banlist and banlist policy
  • Metagame health and diversity
  • Reprint suggestions and reprint philosophy
  • New cards and design philosophy
  • Historic wild card policy and cost
  • Archetype definitions
  • Format health, successes, and challenges
  • Anything that constructively relates to these different issues

Prohibited topic examples
  • All MTG Nexus forum rules and Historic subforum rules apply here.
  • Rules spotlight: No flaming (insulting other users) or trolling (baiting other users into a hostile response). Posts must be civil and respectful.
  • Rules spotlight: No spamming. Posts must be constructive, on-topic, and supported with evidence and argumentation.
  • No format bashing. If you don't like Historic, that's fine, but constructively/respectfully explain why and be optimistic. Do not make sweeping, negative, verbally hostile statements about the format, its decks, cards, and/or players.
  • Similarly, do not use this thread to voice grievances, complaints, and personal gripes without constructive/respectful suggestions.
  • If you see a user flaming, spamming, trolling, or breaking any other rule, report him/her instead of responding to it.

The mod team will strictly enforce these rules. Please make this a place where people are unafraid to post constructive thoughts.



Update from the October 21, 2019 B&R Announcement:
No changes

Next B&R Announcement:
November 18, 2019

Current DCI Historic Banned List
  • No cards
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Post by rickster » 4 years ago

Well < SNIP > . The whole point of this format was to appease MTG Arena players into not leaving the system as their cards are worthless after rotation. They' :sleepy: re not even trying to promote it or make it a viable format compared to other ones that don't rotate. < SNIP >

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Post by hoser2 » 4 years ago

The "official" launch period was oddly positive. It seems the introduction of Pioneer and the announcement of evolution of Arena toward Pioneer (I should add a link here) took a lot of the pressure of expectations off.
I was pleased at the cards that were added. Rather than generically powerful cards, it seems to me that they added cards to power niche archetypes. I found that both the launch event and the "Historic Bundle" were unappealing, but not negative. I have a vague recollection that there was a statement that there would be a way to win the "never-in-Arena-Standard" injected cards. The launch event costing gold and providing only card styles could be regarded as an unkept promise, but there have been so many that it didn't seem that upsetting. Without the 2:1 historic wildcard ratio retraction and the choice of cards to be injected, I judge that I can play any deck I want. So I consider the format accessible.
Here is an article presenting one view of the early pillars of the format on MTG Arena Zone. It seems to be relying on early data, but I haven't looked at the data myself, so caveat emptor. It seems like a decent overview. It seems easy to start predicting bans if the format becomes relevant, but this post is already too long.

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Post by motleyslayer » 4 years ago

Tonight was my first time playing Arena in a month and first time ever playing Historic as a format. I bought both anthologies and used a few wild cards to build Sultai midrange, since I had a lot and it came in the anthologies.

I played through bronze and I think the only deck I played against more than once was the Gruul aggro deck. I think I like the way they've handled adding cards to the format but maybe my experience is limited

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Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

Been having a lot of fun with the format, I think its probably (almost certainly) solved, but thats just a symptom of the game right now.

Song of Creation + Runaway Steam-Kin is absolutely hilarious.
UR Control UR

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Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

I think that one thing that could cause the format to be more solved is the fact that it's a Players' Tour format now. That at least will draw more attention to the format

Once we get a few more higher level events the we'll get a more concrete idea of what the best decks in the format are. As for now all we can really rely on for decks are the user submitted decks on goldfish and then various social media/discord channels where people can post what they've been playing

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Post by Guardman » 3 years ago

I've been having fun with historic lately. I've only been playing best-of-one, but been doing pretty good only playing Boros and Jeskai Feather w/ main deck Lurrus of the Dream-Den and Alseid of Life's Bounty. Basically it's me preparing myself for when Feather rotates out of standard. On the other hand Lurrus is still broken, and adds a ton of redundacy to the decks, because Lurrus+Alseid is basically the same as Feather+Gods Willing or Fight as One, making your board unkillable.

I like the Boros version a bit more, just because it has a better mana-base, but finding a another two-drop besides Tenth District Legionnaire and two copies of Dreadhorde Arcanist has been a pain. Adanto Vanguard is just kind of bad in too many match-ups. Tocatli Honor Guard is too much of a liability with Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath running about. And drawing two Dreadhorde Arcanist just feels bad. The spot is currently being filled by Boros Challenger, but it is a spot that is really looking for an upgrade.

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Post by Guardman » 3 years ago

What are people's thoughts on the upcoming banned/suspension announcement for Historic? I play almost exclusively best-of-one, so I can't give my opinion on Nexus of Fate in the current format, but at least from the sounds of it, it is dominating best-of-three play. I also wouldn't be surprised to see all of the currently suspended cards upgraded to full on bans.

As for best-of-one, I would really like to see Field of the Dead get banned. The Field of the Dead/Golos, Tireless Pilgrim deck is just too hard to interact with, is extremely consistent, and has a bunch of different hard-to-interact with win conditions. If you can take care of the zombie tokens/field, then they have Maze's End, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. I don't think banning Golos, Tireless Pilgrim would do much since Scapeshift would just take its place (and some decks do play Scapeshift as well). And hitting a late game win conditions wouldn't do much since they have three pretty good back-ups, so unless you ban all three it won't do anything. Hitting Field of the Dead would take out ramps plan A and also one of their mid-game plan (the other being rolling Golos for value), forcing them to maybe play the more fair Nissa, Who Shakes the World (it feels weird to call Nissa more fair).

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Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

I'd probably like to see Field of the Dead finally just fully banned from the format, that card is just such a design mistake IMO

also I'd like to see Nexus of Fate banned, the deck just seems too good as well

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Post by Guardman » 3 years ago

Ban Announcement:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2020-07-13

"Agent of Treachery is banned (from suspended)

Winota, Joiner of Forces is banned (from suspended)

Fires of Invention is banned (from suspended)

Nexus of Fate is banned

Burning-Tree Emissary is suspended"

No big surprises, though I am disappointed that Field of the Dead wasn't banned. I am also a bit disappointed to see Burning-Tree Emissary to go, not because I actually played it, but because Gruul was one of my Boros Feather deck's best match-ups. I am pretty sure I had something like a 75% win-rate against it. It also means that ramp decks are going to become a much-larger percentage of the meta-game, which will suck. On the other hand, with Gruul getting slower and ramp becoming more dominant, it might be the perfect meta for some-sort of Azorious-based control deck.

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Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

I feel that the cards they moved from suspended to banned were probably to be expected based off of how good they are. Banning Nexus of Fate over Wilderness Reclamation was probably the correct decision as nexus is just oppressive and rec at least makes interesting deckbuilding decisions

I second being disappointed about the lack of a Field of the Dead ban

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Post by Guardman » 3 years ago

Ban announcement:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... nouncement

"Historic

Wilderness Reclamation is suspended.

Teferi, Time Raveler is suspended."

Interesting bans. It also seems to be more aimed at best-of-three than best-of-one (as they say).

I also wonder if these are meant for higher level games more than the gold/plat level I play at. I can say, at least at Gold/Plat level best-of-one, I've actually seen very few Wilderness Reclamation decks. Most decks I've played against at that level since Jumpstart came out are either tribal aggro (Elves, goblins, vampires, etc.), some sort of flash deck, or some sort of ramp/Field of the Dead deck.

I have seen a few Teferi Tribal decks, which seem to have supplanted Azorius Control as the control deck of choice. I wouldn't be surprised if Teferi tribal is pretty much dead. But I also wonder what control deck will be in the format since Azorius control leaned harder into Teferi, Time Raveler than Teferi tribal.

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Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

I hadn't played arena in about a month before trying a bit of historic last night. I got placed back down into bronze 1 and when I played I mostly saw aggressive white decks. With one each of red aggro and black aggro.

I'm assuming the higher tiers were much different, I've been hearing rec was all over the place

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Post by Guardman » 3 years ago

First off, Re: the bans. At least in best of one they've seemed to hurt more than they helped. Ever since the bans I've seen much less diversity in decks in the Historic Best of One queue. About 2/3 of the decks I face seem either to be Goblins or Field of the Dead decks. And I don't know about anyone, but I find these two decks extremely frustrating to play against. Field of the Dead has such consistency and is just hard to interact with any of their gameplans. And Goblins can either be explosive or extremely grindy since Muxus, Goblin Grandee and Goblin Ringleader can replenish their board after a wraith.

The other deck that seems to be popping up in the past few days is UW Boggles with Kor Spiritdancer, I'm not sure how good the deck actually is because almost every time I've played against it they have two Kor Spiritdancer, a Siren Stormtamer, and a bunch of auras, which seems like a hand they shouldn't consistently be able to open with.

I thought with Teferi, Time Raveler banned there would be some sort of control deck floating around to keep Field and Goblins in check, but I haven't seen any other than Grixis Control, which seems like should match-up bad against Field and Goblins. I'm not surprised to see it still being played though, as I know Grixis Control players love Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God and Nicol Bolas, the Ravager // Nicol Bolas, the Arisen, and will play it as long as the deck isn't complete garbage in the meta.

Finally I've seen several Feather decks floating around (woot!). Less woot, they all seem to be very untuned, and more of an almost one for one port from Ixalan/War Standard. For example, they have Seasoned Hallowblade or Adanto Vanguard over Young Pyromancer, which is the better two-drop in the deck in the meta (and probably in most metas). They also don't have a Lurrus of the Dream-Den package, which is somewhat understandable. And perhaps most importantly, they don't have Fight as One which is absolutely amazing in the deck. Also I see them making a ton of mistakes, which isn't surprising, since they probably just picked up the deck recently and haven't gotten in their two-hundred games. On the bright side, I've been preying on Feather decks like nothing else (it doesn't hurt that most of the time I know exactly the play they are going to make - the benefits of knowing a deck really well, I guess).

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Post by Guardman » 3 years ago

Ban announcement:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... nouncement

Field of the Dead is banned.

Good to see it finally happen. Looks like Hour of Promise was the card that finally broke the camel's back. Probably should've never been unsuspended in the first place, but better late than never. Interesting to see what control decks pop-up now other than the obligatory Nicol Bolas control decks that always seem to be floating around.

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Post by BeneTleilax » 3 years ago

We need some persist creatures to use Vizier of Remedies with.

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Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

I'm surprised it took them this long to ban Field of the Dead bu I'm glad they did. The meta seems super interesting now. I haven't played in a few weeks but wanna play more again

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Post by ktkenshinx » 3 years ago

motleyslayer wrote:
3 years ago
I'm surprised it took them this long to ban Field of the Dead bu I'm glad they did. The meta seems super interesting now. I haven't played in a few weeks but wanna play more again
Haven't been as active on the forums because my self-budgeted Magic time is going almost entirely to Arena and Historic. The format is sweet now. Found Rakdos Arcanist in mid-Platinum and except for a brief stint with Uro decks, never looked back or played anything else all the way to Mythic. I'm particularly excited for Arcanist as it transitions well into an existing Pioneer strategy when Pioneer hits Arena, and will probably remain relevant with the larger Historic card pool in its own right (Phyrexian Tower is a blast). This format is awesome and I definitely recommend people try it out.
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Post by Guardman » 3 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
3 years ago
motleyslayer wrote:
3 years ago
I'm surprised it took them this long to ban Field of the Dead bu I'm glad they did. The meta seems super interesting now. I haven't played in a few weeks but wanna play more again
Haven't been as active on the forums because my self-budgeted Magic time is going almost entirely to Arena and Historic. The format is sweet now. Found Rakdos Arcanist in mid-Platinum and except for a brief stint with Uro decks, never looked back or played anything else all the way to Mythic. I'm particularly excited for Arcanist as it transitions well into an existing Pioneer strategy when Pioneer hits Arena, and will probably remain relevant with the larger Historic card pool in its own right (Phyrexian Tower is a blast). This format is awesome and I definitely recommend people try it out.
I completely agree. Historic is probably the best constructed format right now. The Field of the Dead ban just opened up so many decks, it's unbelievable. I think it will probably go down as one of the best bans of all time (I might be exaggerating, but I can't remember a time when a single ban opened up a format so much).

I haven't been playing it as much for the past week as I made it my goal to reach platinum in both limited and constructed on Arena. I hit platinum in constructed earlier last week, so I switched to grinding limited. Got there after an impressive 7-2 Amonkhet draft where I got both green/black and black/white aftermath cards, plus Dusk // Dawn and Lord of Extinction (even though I ended up cutting Destined // Lead in the end). Anyways, getting off track, I will say I think the biggest problem with getting to platinum in Arena isn't the difficulty (if you are a 50% player and have the time you will get to platinum), it's the time commitment because seasons are only one month. I had to put in a ton of time this past month to grind up from Silver.

My only real complaint (other than when a Goblin deck RNGs into a turn three win on the play) is that they added Thoughtseize and Collected Company. Neither of them are cards I enjoy playing against and I would've preferred to have them enter the card pool naturally, rather than being shoved in so soon. On the other hand I think Wrath of God, Shatterstorm (though why it had to be a rare instead of an uncommon, I do not know), Anger of the Gods, and Rest in Peace are all great additions to the format. Jace, Unraveler of Secrets is meh outside of limited, even though I keep opening him. And adding Chandra, Pyromaster to the format specifically doesn't make any sense to me since Chandra, Torch of Defiance will almost certainly be in Kaladesh Remastered and it is basically a better Chandra, Pyromaster.

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Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

One of the biggest appeals to historic for me right now is that it's gotten quite the push lately and feels like a pretty fresh format.

While it has still had quite its share of bans and whatnot, I feel its at a point where it's not solved and is thus wide open. There's a bunch of different stuff seeing play right now. Plus they can just hand pick what they add to the format, which gives them some power to impact the format

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Post by Guardman » 3 years ago

So the Mythic Invitational for Historic finished, and overall it was pretty interesting, but nothing too unexpected. Four Jund Sacrifices (three traditional, one Bolas's Citadel), one Goblins, one Sultai Midrange, one Mono-Black Gifts, and one Rakdos Arcanist.

Two things I found really interesting:
  • Seven of Eight decks feature black, but about half of all Thoughtseize in the top 8 were in the sideboard, and two of the Jund Sacrifice didn't have it anywhere in their 75.
  • There was only white card in the entire top eight, Lurrus of the Dream-Den in Rakdos Arcanist. She doesn't exactly count though since she's hybrid.
To put into perspective how poor white's showing was in the tournament: 21 decks included white cards (note: I am not including Lurrus if she was the only white card for obvious reasons). That is 13.1% of all decks. Day two there were three white decks (as far as I can tell as they didn't break out the "other" section, but there were only three "other" decks that played white, so even if they all made it {unlikely} it wouldn't change the math too much). That is a conversion rate of 14.3% or 3.7% of all day two decks.

To even further drive home this point, the highest win rate white deck was Kethis Combo with a 50.0% win rate. Azorius Auras was next with 46.4%. Then Bant Control with 43.5%. And finally Azorius Control with a participation trophy at 32.0%. This does not include the three "other" white decks as they are grouped with the rest of the singleton copies of decks with a combined win percentage of 45.9%.

I can't remember another tournament where a color did so badly. I mean it's pretty obvious white needs help in Historic, but for the life of me I can't think how. The most obvious answer would be to inject powerful white cards into the format, but it just got two extremely strong cards in Wrath of God|9ED and Rest in Peace|RTR. I feel the true problem is deeper. White has by far the worst card pool of all the colors in historic. And almost all of its best cards aren't even mono-white, but multi-colored. I get the feeling that unless they release a powerful white-focused Historic Anthologies or do some massive bans, white is going to almost non-existent for a while in Historic until either a format defining white card is printed or enough sets with good white cards are printed to make the pool deep enough.

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Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

the Azorius aggro/boggles deck seemed to be good not long ago, what happened to it? Forgive my lack of playing the format in a while.

I'm not surprised with the Jund sac decks, I've heard multiple great players speak very highly of the deck

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Post by Guardman » 3 years ago

motleyslayer wrote:
3 years ago
the Azorius aggro/boggles deck seemed to be good not long ago, what happened to it? Forgive my lack of playing the format in a while.

I'm not surprised with the Jund sac decks, I've heard multiple great players speak very highly of the deck
Basically Boggles has a horrible match-up against the three top decks.
  • Jund Sacrifice has Claim the Firstborn to steal whatever creature you voltroned or Priest of Forgotten Gods to make you sac it since the deck can be light on creatures on board.
  • Sultai Midrange has Thoughtseize. graveyard hate, and plenty of ways to kill whatever you voltroned.
  • Goblins is more consistent and faster.
For the remaining popular decks: Rakdos Arcanist has the same package as Jund Sacrifice, except with main deck Thoughtseize. Bant Control has counters and Wrath of God. The deck has few ways to interact with mono-black gifts or Kethis Combo, both of which goldfish faster than the deck. So it has pretty bad match-ups against a lot of the Tier 1.5 and Tier 2 decks as well.

Basically this is a long way of saying I am personally surprised it did as well as it did at the tournament. It is just horribly, horribly positioned in the meta right now.

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Post by Guardman » 3 years ago

New B&R for Historic: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... nouncement
Historic:

Omnath, Locus of Creation is suspended.

Teferi, Time Raveler is banned.

Wilderness Reclamation is banned.

Burning-Tree Emissary is unsuspended.
Much as we've seen in Standard, Omnath, Locus of Creation is proving to be a powerful contender in Historic as well. Though win rates for these decks are lower in Historic than Standard, we are still seeing the meta share of decks using Omnath, Locus of Creation increasing steadily, particularly in Best-of-Three (where it is currently the most played deck). Historic also provides a wider range of tools for enabling the multiple land drops the deck is looking for, such as Explore and Growth Spiral. To ensure greater diversity and health for the Historic meta, Omnath, Locus of Creation is suspended in Historic.

We also have three current suspensions in Historic to resolve. Looking at how the meta has developed as a result of these suspensions, we feel that the removal of Teferi, Time Raveler and Wilderness Reclamation have increased the diversity and interactivity of the format, improving overall health and balance. As a result, both Teferi, Time Raveler and Wilderness Reclamation are banned in Historic.

Burning-Tree Emissary is a different case. Since that suspension, the power level of Historic has increased considerably with the release of Jumpstart and Amonkhet Remastered, and we have seen the meta share of Gruul Aggro fall off notably. After considering the overall power level of the format and the matchups for Gruul Aggro, we think there is room for Burning-Tree Emissary to be a healthy and interesting addition to the format again. Burning-Tree Emissary is unsuspended in Historic.
I don't really have anything to say other than this was a really good B&R overall.

Omnath was really beginning to warp Historic, similar to Field of the Dead decks of old. It had a good mana base that wasn't that painful, while having two strong incidental life gain cards in Omnath, Locus of Creation and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. It was just a deck that was hard to kill quickly, while it was a ramp deck that had a great late game. On the other hand we can go back to pretending that white doesn't exist in the format.

Also good to see Burning-Tree Emissary back. Hopefully it brings back Gruul, since most of the decks I play prey on it. :halo: But more likely it is just going to come back as a fringe tier 2 deck.

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Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

I'm actually super happy they brought back emissary. They gave the format enough time to grow and Gruul is probably just okay now.

3feri and wilderness rec deserved to be banned and I can't see Omnath being legal again. All of those are just busted card

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