Evaluation of Standard

Every standard season that I have ever played in, I always hear people saying how much they hate it. How much it is stale.
However, I feel like these people are complaining. Usually they are people who did well with a deck last season who are not doing well now. For example, people who loved Jund in INN-RTR who can't play such a powerhouse of a deck now, say they hate standard. However, I do not think Standard is stale. In many ways, it's a fun format because of the fact that the decks rotate every 6ish months. We

Although powerful, it was not oppressive last season

have barely had theros for a few months and people already are calling it stale! But those same people don't find modern stale! Especially at the local level, it's going to be the same few decks that everyone plays (because modern decks are 2 or 3 times more expensive), and the modern meta isn't that diverse either. BGx, UWR, Splinter twin, affinity, pod, and tron are basically the main decks that are considered tier 1. That's the same number of decks that would be considered tier 1 in standard at the moment: mono black, mono blue, esper, RG devotion, Rx aggro, and Gxx midrange.

Anyway, my rant aside, I wanted to talk about standard seasons that were TRUELY STALE. What do I mean by this? In my opinion, I think a stale environment would be one where this is a best deck. Even decks that are meant to beat the best deck don't do very well against said deck. These seasons are stale, in my opinion, because everyone is going to be playing the same deck, it's going to be a ton of mirror matches and similar games, and luck is going to play a bigger factor than it normally would.

Going backwards, the most recent standard season that was stale, in my opinion, was ROE-SOM standard. This was the infamous cawblade season.
What made this season so powerful?

AKA: Jace the wallet shredder

Jace the mind sculptor. The prior season, Jace was kept in check by jund, particularly blood braid elf (cascade into blightning? Means a dead jace and discarded cards). However, now that jace was unchecked, he was king to rule all. Everyone played this deck. Jace, on his own, was powerful. I mean you get to brainstorm every turn, and you had the worldwake fetches to shuffle away the two cards you wanted! But SOM added the powerful swords to the mix, stoneforge mystic and squadron

Ms. Anti-Jace

hawk became extremely powerful as they could easily grab and carry a sword to your opponent's face. Additionally, SOM also added phyrexian mana, essentially free spells such as gitaxian probe, mental misstep for faster decks that would try to combat jace, and such. This format even had baneslayer in it!!
This season was extremely one sided, as every match was cawblade vs cawblade.
This season also saw a lot of people leaving the format. Probably because of the dominance of the most powerful deck being so expensive (Jace x4 and baneslayer x4 meant over 400 dollars right there!)

Here is a sample list from the era:

• 4  Celestial Colonnade
  4  Glacial Fortress
  5  Island
  1  Misty Rainforest
  4  Plains
  4  Seachrome Coast
  4  Tectonic Edge
• 4  Squadron Hawk
• 4  Stoneforge Mystic
• 4  Day of Judgment
• 1  Deprive
• 3  Mana Leak
• 4  Preordain
• 4  Spell Pierce
• 1  Stoic Rebuttal
• 1  Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1  Sylvok Lifestaff
• 3  Gideon Jura
• 4  Jace, the Mind Sculptor

 So, the next big deck to talk about was faeries! This was a monster of a deck that oppressed many during the TSP-LOR season. I mean, let's talk about faeries for a minute. Bitterblossom, one of the most feared cards during the time is banned in modern for no reason other than the fact that it was once oppressive!

Combined with spellstutter sprite, it was pretty much a hard counter! Bitterblossom pretty much just

So much rage when you play this

made your army on your own, while you could spend all your resources to just countering what your opponent did. If you did, you could get to a point where mistbind clique could just lock someone out of the game, especially if you had two on the field.
This season even had damnation! Black wrath of god, to deal with fast aggro decks or for the mirror match of bitterblossom armies! Back that up with cryptic command, one of the best counter spells ever created, and you had a monster of a deck! It even had thoughtseize!
This season was essentially a field where you played faeries or anti-faeries. However, faeries for the most part was extremely dominant, with it only losing power because of rotation.


Here is a sample list from that era:

• 2  Faerie Conclave
  4  Island
  4  Mutavault
  2  Pendelhaven
  3  River of Tears
  4  Secluded Glen
  2  Sunken Ruins
  4  Underground River
• 4  Mistbind Clique
• 4  Scion of Oona
• 4  Spellstutter Sprite
• 3  Vendilion Clique
• 4  Ancestral Vision
• 4  Bitterblossom
• 4  Cryptic Command
• 4  Rune Snag
• 4  Terror

 
The next deck I am going to talk about is one of the most infamous decks in standard, affinity.
This deck was blazing fast, where anti-artifact decks could not even keep up!

The iconic card of affinity. Funny enough, it doesn't have the affinity keyword

 Turn 1 disciple of the vault, turn 2 arcbound ravager, ornithopter, and you get free frogmites with your artifact lands! Turn 3 after you attack with a buffed up army, you get to sacrifice everything to ravager so you can drain them with disciple!
The deck was TOO efficient. Thoughtcast, you get to draw 2 cards for 1 blue. You get 2/2 and 4/4 for free. Wizards had already banned skullclamp, but it wasn't enough to stop this powerhouse.
This deck was so oppressive, wizards banned so many cards for it in standard including ravager, the artifact lands, disciple, and aether vial!

Here is a deck from that era:

• 4  Blinkmoth Nexus
  3  Darksteel Citadel
  1  Glimmervoid
  4  Great Furnace
  4  Seat of the Synod
  4  Vault of Whispers
• 4  Arcbound Ravager
• 4  Arcbound Worker
• 3  Atog
• 4  Disciple of the Vault
• 4  Frogmite
• 4  Myr Enforcer
• 1  Myr Retriever
• 4  Aether Vial
• 4  Chromatic Sphere
• 4  Cranial Plating
• 4  Thoughtcast

The next oppressive deck is one called academy. This one was before my time in magic, but I had heard a lot about it from other players. It essentially was boring because it was a turn 1 solitare into a win with it's flagship card, tolarian academy.

With the craziness that was urza's saga and all the powerful artifacts that it produced, it's no wonder that the BEST deck was one that utilized the above land with synergistic artifacts. The problem was that it came down to a coin flip. Who gets to go first wins. No force of will type of effects in the format.

Here is a decklist from the era:

• 4  Ancient Tomb
  9  Island
  4  Tolarian Academy
• 1  Capsize
• 3  Intuition
• 4  Lotus Petal
• 4  Mana Vault
• 4  Mind Over Matter
• 4  Mox Diamond
• 4  Power Sink
• 3  Scroll Rack
• 4  Stroke of Genius
• 4  Time Spiral
• 4  Voltaic Key
• 4  Windfall

The final deck I'll post is necro. I know that when this deck was around, you could just not beat it.

 Necropotence, aside from yawgmoth's bargain, is one of the greatest card advantage engines ever. I think of current standard and mono black devotion, and if underworld connections was this card, it

Such strong discard

would by far be the best deck. Necro had some of the best 1 for 1 removal, had discard spells such as hymn to tourach! and had hypnotic specter, a key card in the old days! It also had dark ritual so you could do this turn 1! Decks that were meant to beat it could just not beat the card advantage that necropotence accumulated.

A final sample decklist:

• 1  City of Brass
  1  Lava Tubes
  4  Mountain
  1  Strip Mine
  4  Sulfurous Springs
  12  Swamp
• 4  Black Knight
• 4  Hypnotic Specter
• 2  Knight of Stromgald
• 4  Order of the Ebon Hand
• 1  Black Vise
• 4  Dark Ritual
• 3  Drain Life
• 1  Fireball
• 1  Hymn to Tourach
• 3  Incinerate
• 4  Lightning Bolt
• 3  Necropotence
• 2  Shatter
• 1  Zuran Orb

So, in conclusion I think that standard hasn't been stale or oppressive. There is no one best deck, the format is much more of a rock paper scissors format, which I think is healthy for a metagame in my opinion.  If anyone thinks the current format standard is stale and oppressive now, I would like for them to think of these standard seasons instead.
Instead, I think the current standard season is healthy. There is no best deck, as evidenced by the various SCG opens and GPs lately. I think it is healthy because it also is a bit more user friendly, and standard is THE format for new players to get into as it has the newest cards, and limited is usually more skill intensive and intimidating for a newer player. I hope that people embrace standard instead.