[news] Standard switching to 3 year rotation

[Mookie]

Link

<> ...we also recognize we need to make a more public commitment to Standard and competitive tabletop Magic. As such, we'll be rolling out multifaceted plans over the coming months to do so.

Today is step one.

That step is that we're going to extend the lifecycle of all cards in Standard by one year: starting with the current Standard environment, sets will rotate out every three years rather than every two years.

This means that with the release of Wilds of Eldraine, there will be no Standard rotation for this year only. The following year in 2024, Innistrad: Crimson Vow, Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, and Streets of New Capenna will rotate out of Standard.

WotC is also planning to do other things to promote tabletop Standard, but those have not yet been announced.

Will switching to a 3-year rotation make you more likely to play Standard? Discuss.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I think it's a smart move to extend the rotation, but unless something drastic and wild happens, I just don't care for standard and I can't see that changing. I get all my new set jollies out of my system with Limited anyway.

[Venedrex]

If Fable of the Meta Breaker doesn't get banned in the next couple of weeks, I'm not playing Rakdos: The Format. You ban fable and invoke despair, then we'll talk about me playing Standard. Until then, enjoy the stalest meta since Oko. And yes, I know that it is "balanced."

Yeah but its balanced because everyone is playing a variant of Reckoner Bankbuster Fable of the Mirror Breaker Invoke Despair midrange pukefest. I'd rather go to boot camp then enjoy the unadulterated fun of playing my fable, then letting my opponent play their fable, then losing because they were on the play so their Sheoldred came down first.


BUT BUT BUT, THERES ESPER. Oh yeah, the esper playing Invoke despair sheoldred reckoner... oh it's just the same deck but with a slightly different twist. Gotcha. Oh, and I hope you don't like green because we don't do that in this standard since there are no good green cards. Or at least not enough to justify splashing the color.

Yeah, no thanks.

I was literally thinking to myself, eh Standard is bleh right now, but hey, rotation is coming up soon... HAHAHA NOPE!

Wotc better break out the banhammer or there won't be a standard to save.

Oh, and one more thing. *columbo*

Whichever designer keeps making Mazemind Tome Reckoner Bankbuster cards for Standard. Could you please kindly stop? These cards just turn things into midrange piles that never run out of gas and play grindy boring games. I could go my whole MTG career without seeing this type of card ruining standard again. Bankbuster turns into a creature so it can ruin aggro decks, and it draws cards so it can ruin control decks. Brilliantly done chaps.

[RxPhantom]

I'm not interested in Standard. The play experience of Commander still trumps all others for me. Maybe being 40 year-old husband and father has something to do with my disinterest in following any other formats.

[Guardman]

If Fable of the Meta Breaker doesn't get banned in the next couple of weeks, I'm not playing Rakdos: The Format. You ban fable and invoke despair, then we'll talk about me playing Standard. Until then, enjoy the stalest meta since Oko. And yes, I know that it is "balanced."

Yeah but its balanced because everyone is playing a variant of Reckoner Bankbuster Fable of the Mirror Breaker Invoke Despair midrange pukefest. I'd rather go to boot camp then enjoy the unadulterated fun of playing my fable, then letting my opponent play their fable, then losing because they were on the play so their Sheoldred came down first.


BUT BUT BUT, THERES ESPER. Oh yeah, the esper playing Invoke despair sheoldred reckoner... oh it's just the same deck but with a slightly different twist. Gotcha. Oh, and I hope you don't like green because we don't do that in this standard since there are no good green cards. Or at least not enough to justify splashing the color.

Yeah, no thanks.

I was literally thinking to myself, eh Standard is bleh right now, but hey, rotation is coming up soon... HAHAHA NOPE!

Wotc better break out the banhammer or there won't be a standard to save.

Oh, and one more thing. *columbo*

Whichever designer keeps making Mazemind Tome Reckoner Bankbuster cards for Standard. Could you please kindly stop? These cards just turn things into midrange piles that never run out of gas and play grindy boring games. I could go my whole MTG career without seeing this type of card ruining standard again. Bankbuster turns into a creature so it can ruin aggro decks, and it draws cards so it can ruin control decks. Brilliantly done chaps.

Funnily enough, in my LGS's display case there is a stack of maybe ten or fifteen Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki. I was talking to the owner about it on Friday and he didn't really get it, but thought that the problem was that it was too expensive and people just didn't want to play standard... Which makes sense since the store is more Commander/Limited focused. But still, a lot of people do play constructed formats at other stores, but prefer to buy their cards from him rather than the corporate LGSes. So the fact that he is having trouble moving a standard staple speaks to the fact that people just aren't playing standard right now in my area.

Also, as a person raised on classic procedurals, I appreciate the Columbo reference.

[motleyslayer]

I feel that seems like a desperate attempt to save a format nobody really wanted to played anymore. In between Kaladesh and now, we have had our fair share of formats that weren't great to put it lightly. Covid basically then gave people a reason to not play paper standard.

I mean I guess it is a good format to start off in for 60 card play and an RCQ format (especially after seasons coming back in terms of what format they'll be), I just don't know if this format will see much play outside of RCQs/higher level comp play

[Guardman]

I feel that seems like a desperate attempt to save a format nobody really wanted to played anymore. In between Kaladesh and now, we have had our fair share of formats that weren't great to put it lightly. Covid basically then gave people a reason to not play paper standard.

I mean I guess it is a good format to start off in for 60 card play and an RCQ format (especially after seasons coming back in terms of what format they'll be), I just don't know if this format will see much play outside of RCQs/higher level comp play

I think most of the formats have a problem in one way or another.

1. Standard has hovered between meh, unplayable, and just boring for a few years now with a month or two of it being enjoyable every now and then. Also, it has gotten really expensive for the entry-level format.
2. Pioneer has an interaction problem where the interaction is so much weaker than the threats that you get a format where a lot of decks are just trying to goldfish as fast as they can.
3. Modern has a Modern Horizons problem. And a price problem. It's still probably the best format, but that isn't saying much.
4. Legacy has a much bigger price problem. And to a lesser extent, a blue problem. Honestly, I would love to see more push for Legacy, since it is, on average, a fun format, with the potential for a lot of deck variety and people doing fun things with cards that don't see play elsewhere. Even cards from commander precons show-up every now and then.
5. Vintage... Do you have hundreds of thousands of dollars to drop on a deck?

Not really sure what the fix is since I think the best formats to focus on are Standard and Modern, which they are doing, but some of the "fixes" have made things worse.

[Venedrex]

I feel that seems like a desperate attempt to save a format nobody really wanted to played anymore. In between Kaladesh and now, we have had our fair share of formats that weren't great to put it lightly. Covid basically then gave people a reason to not play paper standard.

I mean I guess it is a good format to start off in for 60 card play and an RCQ format (especially after seasons coming back in terms of what format they'll be), I just don't know if this format will see much play outside of RCQs/higher level comp play

I think most of the formats have a problem in one way or another.

1. Standard has hovered between meh, unplayable, and just boring for a few years now with a month or two of it being enjoyable every now and then. Also, it has gotten really expensive for the entry-level format.
2. Pioneer has an interaction problem where the interaction is so much weaker than the threats that you get a format where a lot of decks are just trying to goldfish as fast as they can.
3. Modern has a Modern Horizons problem. And a price problem. It's still probably the best format, but that isn't saying much.
4. Legacy has a much bigger price problem. And to a lesser extent, a blue problem. Honestly, I would love to see more push for Legacy, since it is, on average, a fun format, with the potential for a lot of deck variety and people doing fun things with cards that don't see play elsewhere. Even cards from commander precons show-up every now and then.
5. Vintage... Do you have hundreds of thousands of dollars to drop on a deck?

Not really sure what the fix is since I think the best formats to focus on are Standard and Modern, which they are doing, but some of the "fixes" have made things worse.

Yeah, Standard used to be fun back in the days of diverse deck archetypes and when every card wasn't a literal book of text. Nowadays, you play a threat and it reads you War and Peace. You can't play aggro or control when every creature or enchantment or artifact does sixteen things when it etbs/when it sticks around. All you can do is pile up your cards and slosh around in midrange nonsense.

I mean, should you play a control deck when your opponent has Fable? How do answer it without 3-for 1ing yourself. Should you play aggro into Sheoldred's five toughness and life gain/win con built in? I miss the days of Dominaria (OG) Ravnica Ixalan standard.

You had Golgari Midrange, Jeskai Control, Mono red aggro, Mono blue tempo, Mono white aggro, Izzet drakes midrange... Tempo? I dunno. But they were all fairly viable and you could play some actual fun games of magic that were exciting and had a good representation of colors and archetypes.

[motleyslayer]

I feel that seems like a desperate attempt to save a format nobody really wanted to played anymore. In between Kaladesh and now, we have had our fair share of formats that weren't great to put it lightly. Covid basically then gave people a reason to not play paper standard.

I mean I guess it is a good format to start off in for 60 card play and an RCQ format (especially after seasons coming back in terms of what format they'll be), I just don't know if this format will see much play outside of RCQs/higher level comp play

I think most of the formats have a problem in one way or another.

1. Standard has hovered between meh, unplayable, and just boring for a few years now with a month or two of it being enjoyable every now and then. Also, it has gotten really expensive for the entry-level format.
2. Pioneer has an interaction problem where the interaction is so much weaker than the threats that you get a format where a lot of decks are just trying to goldfish as fast as they can.
3. Modern has a Modern Horizons problem. And a price problem. It's still probably the best format, but that isn't saying much.
4. Legacy has a much bigger price problem. And to a lesser extent, a blue problem. Honestly, I would love to see more push for Legacy, since it is, on average, a fun format, with the potential for a lot of deck variety and people doing fun things with cards that don't see play elsewhere. Even cards from commander precons show-up every now and then.
5. Vintage... Do you have hundreds of thousands of dollars to drop on a deck?

Not really sure what the fix is since I think the best formats to focus on are Standard and Modern, which they are doing, but some of the "fixes" have made things worse.

Yeah, Standard used to be fun back in the days of diverse deck archetypes and when every card wasn't a literal book of text. Nowadays, you play a threat and it reads you War and Peace. You can't play aggro or control when every creature or enchantment or artifact does sixteen things when it etbs/when it sticks around. All you can do is pile up your cards and slosh around in midrange nonsense.

I mean, should you play a control deck when your opponent has Fable? How do answer it without 3-for 1ing yourself. Should you play aggro into Sheoldred's five toughness and life gain/win con built in? I miss the days of Dominaria (OG) Ravnica Ixalan standard.

You had Golgari Midrange, Jeskai Control, Mono red aggro, Mono blue tempo, Mono white aggro, Izzet drakes midrange... Tempo? I dunno. But they were all fairly viable and you could play some actual fun games of magic that were exciting and had a good representation of colors and archetypes.

I feel that standard was great because of how many different decks there were. Yeah there were good cards but it didn't either force you to play those cards or just lose. Cards didn't do everything back then either, they were almost role players

[The Fluff]

this is good news for Standard players.

one reason why some of my friends do not play the format, is because it get expensive from rotation.

[motleyslayer]

most players in my hometown realized pretty early into their time playing that standard became much more expensive than modern pretty quickly

[The Fluff]

yeah, agreed.

anyway, I would have played Standard if they did this "3 years rotation time" back in 2012-2017. I was quite active in mtg during those years.
sadly, a little too late for it now. Financial losses from corona virus lock downs has eradicated most mtg stores in my area. Tournaments are still non-existent over here.

[motleyslayer]

one of the stores in my area changed owners maybe a month or two before covid, they've since stopped pretty much anything to do with magic. that store primarily ran modern fnms, with the odd weekend events that varied. The store that ran standard fnm stopped running magic events maybe a year before covid.

There were people who played standard regularly but most people in my area only really played it when it was the format of a pptq they wanted to play or when it was the only option. I feel that covid really killed paper standard in a lot of places because people's standard collections fell off and there was no real reason to buy back into it.

[The Fluff]

there used to be two dedicated mtg stores inside the large mall, one short bus ride from my house (approx 1 km away). Also there is one at an alley just outside the mall, where tournaments are done. Now all these three stores have bit the dust, with no return.

Wotc certainly aim to revitalize Standard with this new rotation. It's more kind to people's wallets. As said in previous post, I would have played Standard if they did it some years ago.

[motleyslayer]

I actually really hope more people start playing standard again, it'll be nice to play multiple different competitive events and see multiple stores run events. That way everyone will be able to play the format they want