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Re: Standard Meta Discussion
Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2020 1:08 pm
by Guardman
So we have the decklists for today's Grand Finals, and well... they are something:
https://mtgazone.com/2020-season-grand- ... me-report/
Omnath Adventures is 59% of the field, and if you throw in Omnath Ramp as well, it goes to Omnath decks representing 72% of the field. All are playing a full playset of the card. The one caveat is that this is a smaller tournament with only 32 players, but still, I can't remember a tournament where one card was basically 72% of the field. I don't even think Oko reached those levels. And even worse, unlike Oko decks which were at least interesting to watch most of the time, Omnath decks always seem to be more about who can get Omnath to stick first.
I wouldn't be surprised if Monday there was an emergency ban announcement.
Re: Standard Meta Discussion
Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2020 3:34 am
by MAGUSZANIN
https://mtgazone.com/wizards-may-make-b ... ober-12th/
I would say it's virtually certain, given the data mining done here.
Re: Standard Meta Discussion
Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2020 3:12 pm
by Guardman
B&R Announcement:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... nouncement
With last month's Standard banned and restricted update, we highlighted that we'd continue to monitor the Standard metagame as well as Omnath, Locus of Creation decks and would make further changes if necessary. Observing ladder play and tournament results over the following weeks, as well as the field of the Grand Finals over the weekend, we've concluded that additional changes are necessary.
The two most popular decks in the Standard metagame, Four-Color Ramp and Four-Color Adventures, both feature Omnath, Locus of Creation as a key component. While we did see a marked decline in the win rate of Four-Color Ramp after the banning of Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, particularly against red and green aggressive decks and Blue-Black Rogues, Omnath ramp decks continue to have a warping effect on the metagame. Moreover, Four-Color Adventures has become the deck with the highest overall win rate and has a favorable matchup against 9 out of 10 of the other top decks that don't play Omnath.
This metagame dominance manifested itself in players' deck choices for the Grand Finals. While it's common in a small-field invitational tournament for players to test together and converge on a few decks, in this case the field was a striking 23 Omnath decks out of a total of 32.
To address the dominance of Omnath, Locus of Creation, it is banned in Standard.
Without Omnath in the environment, ladder play data makes it clear that Adventure decks would remain as the strongest strategy. Therefore, we're also choosing to ban Lucky Clover as a powerful and difficult-to-interact-with part of that deck's engine. We expect that individual creatures with adventure and decks using Edgewall Innkeeper will continue to show up but that after this change, a greater number of other decks can successfully compete with them.
Finally, as a further step to ensure that ramp decks don't continue to dominate the Standard metagame, we're also choosing to ban Escape to the Wilds. This card plays a unique and powerful role as a bridge between strong ramp enablers, like Lotus Cobra, and powerful payoffs, like Genesis Ultimatum and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Of nonland cards in the Grand Finals, Escape to the Wilds was played in the second greatest number of copies. As the card common to many ramp variants, this is the most straightforward way to weaken that strategy as a whole and ensure a shift away from recent Standard metagames.
Nothing too surprising. Omnath had to go. And Lucky Clover too (Temur Adventures would be the default best deck without Omnath running around). Surprised Escape to the Wild got banned too. But I completely understand why. Standard has been dominated by ramp decks for way too long. Hopefully this will reset the meta to a more stable aggro, midrange, control triad for a while.
The best decks will probably be Gruul Landfall/Adventures, Temur Adventures (if losing Lucky Clover didn't take out its kneecaps), Rakdos Escape, and Dimir Rogues. Plus there will still be like fifty different mill decks running around. Will be interested to see if new decks rise up now that Omnath and Ramp have been banned from the meta.
Re: Standard Meta Discussion
Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2020 3:20 pm
by AvalonAurora
I have my doubts this'll be enough to fix Standard, but we'll have to see how the meta shakes out.
Re: Standard Meta Discussion
Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2020 11:16 pm
by motleyslayer
I'm actually kinda glad they didn't hold much back, they banned a few things. Omnath at the bare minimum needed to be gone and they banned a few cards that could have been absurd without Omnath
Re: Standard Meta Discussion
Posted: Wed Oct 14, 2020 8:46 am
by Card Slinger J
It really shouldn't have to be the MTG community's responsibility to tell Wizards of the Coast how to do their job when it comes to maintaining balance within Standard when all it does is show just how incompetent they are. First they ban
Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath last week only to wait 2-3 days later to "emergency" ban
Omnath, Locus of Creation when the MTG community had already addressed that they were both ruining Standard awhile ago.
Most of the time Wizards of the Coast will profit off of valuable Mythic Rares breaking the Standard format by selling as much sealed product as they can to big box retailers and Local Game Stores before banning them. Why? Because it's more convenient for them to make Standard players miserable as a means of attaining as much money as possible to fit their own bottom line. If they truly cared about Standard players then they wouldn't be in the mess they're in right now.
Re: Standard Meta Discussion
Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2020 8:42 pm
by motleyslayer
While it was pretty obvious
Omnath, Locus of Creation was a problem in standard at least, I can understand them not wanting to ban it right and and just banning
Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath first. I say this for a few reasons, first we know that Uro had been a problem for a while and probably should have been banned earlier. Second is that it's from the latest set, so banning it would probably be a last ditch attempt. I know there was probably a VERY miniscule chance that it wasn't a problem too, I can understand them wanting to wait a few weeks, especially with how they handle bans now and can just announce an announcement at any time. On the other hand, there is the fact that they could scare people away by leaving a problem card for too long
On a more positive note, standard seems more interesting from the outside looking in. I plan on trying some ladder again soon. I wanna start finding events online again
Re: Standard Meta Discussion
Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2020 5:33 am
by Card Slinger J
There's a lot of life gain in Standard right now where it makes it nearly impossible for Red Deck Wins to compete against especially in Pioneer where there's still not as many options to prevent your opponents from gaining life easily. Trust me I know, I run Red Deck Wins in Pioneer where my friend is practically unbeatable with
Omnath, Locus of Creation in Temur Elementals with
Young Pyromancer and
Risen Reef ugh.
Re: Standard Meta Discussion
Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2020 10:33 pm
by motleyslayer
a few weeks after the bannings, standard seems to be more open and diverse than it's been in a while. At least in my opinion. It seems like there's no common consensus and the best deck seems to be changing on a weekly basis
Re: Standard Meta Discussion
Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2020 12:54 am
by Card Slinger J
motleyslayer wrote: ↑3 years ago
a few weeks after the bannings, standard seems to be more open and diverse than it's been in a while. At least in my opinion. It seems like there's no common consensus and the best deck seems to be changing on a weekly basis
That's probably because Arena is the future of the format so we're going to have to get used to In-Store Organized Play being suspended at least until 2023 with the way things are going right now. Never thought I'd see the day when I'd have a midlife crisis at 37 but at least it's better than having one at 50 when the Singularity is supposed to occur. I don't see myself spending the rest of my life playing Paper Magic when 2020 has taught us a valuable lesson that life's too short.
Re: Standard Meta Discussion
Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2020 3:30 am
by motleyslayer
with the nature of how standard is especially, there's no real point playing standard in paper right now with in store play suspended for who knows how long.
I plan on putting more effort into standard. I have already played a bit of Rakdos midrange but the Gruul aggro seems cool a swell. As someone who loves UB decks I guess I need to play rogues as well
Re: Standard Meta Discussion
Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2020 11:48 pm
by AvalonAurora
MTGA has a temporary special 'Standard' format with an extended banned list.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2020-12-10
You get a free random cosmetic for winning a match in the event.
Looks like they've realized some of their problem cards, and are trying to gather data on how Standard would be without them, although some cards probably don't deserve to be on even this list. I suspect they are unhappy with Standard's current popularity if they're trying this, quite possibly with it's diversity and/or certain win-rate statistics and such as well. Or maybe these are just cards they get a ton of complaints about and they want to see how popular this event is to appease the complainers?
Edit: Or it's just their normal mtga thing with popular cards banned in some events to try and create artificial diversity.
Re: Standard Meta Discussion
Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2020 9:58 pm
by RedCheese
Banning Eldraine might help with diversity XD
Re: Standard Meta Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 11:48 pm
by motleyslayer
it's crazy just how many Eldraine cards are still really good in standard right now. Even after all the Eldraine cards that have been banned in standard, there are still several cards from the set that are absurd (looking at
Questing Beast and
Embercleave to name a few)
Re: Standard Meta Discussion
Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2021 12:34 am
by rujasu
Getting back into Standard on Arena the past couple of weeks, and... format seems kinda good actually? Good diversity, all of the decks feel powerful but not unbeatable, and the games have felt fun. Thoughts?
Re: Standard Meta Discussion
Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2021 2:22 am
by motleyslayer
I've played a bit of standard lately and the format seems pretty healthy, It's only been a few weeks but it hasn't been solved yet. The Sultai Ultimatum deck is really cool