Can Standard Be Fixed? | Dies To Removal 42 | Magic: The Gathering Video Podcast 

I thought I was having a deja Vu or Mandela Effect moment

Yo I started to think I smoked so much I forgot. This makes more sense

I thought I was losing my mind or something cause I remembered the topic, I remembered the first few jokes.

Great to see you fix any problems your videos may have even when RU-vid would incentivize you to do otherwise

@@FelipeASaito me too lmao I went to the comment section to comment that

I knew it! Where was that from!?

@@JTByrd386 the opening of this video

I clipped it and was panicking once the clip was missing

Me: "But why??" Kenobi: "JUST DO IT!!"

I literally told friends about this cold open and was so upset when it got lost for a few weeks there

And there's so much "just for commander" stuff printed elsewhere, even if you miss an important card it doesn't really matter... You can only play 99 after all!

Problem is; in every Standard product there are cards that are clearly designed for a format that isn't Standard. Along side the ability to pull Commander cards from packs, making your whole pack an even bigger dud if you not pulling the top-3 cards from the set. Also, in the old days you had your yearly Core set, and than a block of 3. If you didn't like the block, you either sat it out till the new Core Set or played Modern with your old cards. Now, you have to keep on your toes because even before you open your first pack, they already revealing the next set. Which isn't in the same block, same art style, same story telling so maybe there is something in it that hits all the marks for you. You cannot do the old "I took a break in Theros-block" any more.

I said this before and I’ll say this here: Commander is becoming the new Standard.

Not enough sets!

Exactly, they are burning through sets to create “commander” staples and reprints.

Shame that wasn't a Kickstarter stretch goal!

Exactly like, who doesn’t wish they could hit urself with their car?

I love the Genie "it's all commander now"

I’d buy it for sure. 🤣

With a pic of a car rolling over Urza on the back! Those who get it would laugh. Those who don't get it... Well, I mean, it would be horrible for them, but...

I tired out of it around 2 minutes in and jumped ahead to the meat of the video.

I actually considered getting a standard challenger precon thinking they had codes in them; I'm lucky I asked on the amazon store page before buying because it turns out they don't!

The professor went and did it. THE REPRINTS FOR EPISODES ARE REAL NOW

Oh thank god. I legitimately thought I was experiencing some kind of chronological impairment when the episode started.

@@TheMaskedHero same

me too

Wait so why is this a repost?

I am as well.

Pretty sure this is a re-upload.

I'm having dejavu watching this intro

I feel the more they have made cards specifically for commander the more commander has been hurt alongside the rest of the formats.

Seriously? That’s neat! How does it work?

I call that a win-win!

BUY SINGLES! (of youtube videos)

THANK you. I thought I was going crazy, but I was pretty sure this was a repost

Prof’s new deck box on the table threw me even more for a loop

I am in the *exact* same boat. I’m *dying* to go play the Standard I know and love from the “good ol’ days”. (Maybe even back to Onslaught/Mirrodin.) I have no incentive to do so. Why bother? Nobody cares about Standard anymore. I come from a tight-knit community of Gen-X “long-haulers” ($80k+ worth of cards in my group.) They are all practically in mourning over the death of this wonderful game. That death was entirely caused by the watering down of the Standard format in favor of other formats. Standard was our life. The Life. Of Magic: The Gathering. None of us ever made it to the Pro Tour, but the **aspiration** was what made us open our wallets every time. Even as an 11-year old child, I managed to spend an insane amount of money on cards. Because I played: Standard. Standard was the prestige format. The adventure of trying to play in the most competitive (and most rewarding) format, was a roller coaster of intense emotion. Those games *mattered*. The entire hobby for most of us was: casual play during the week with your buddies to “test out” your deck. All in service to Friday Night Magic. It created a reliable revolving-door community of “love-hate” fans of the game. Standard used to be the “sport” of Magic. The “sport” for the nerds. You may not make it to the NBA, but if you study the cards hard enough and spend your money wisely… you might make it to the Pro Tour. When that aspiration died. So did the “cash cow”. Other formats are “fine”, but Standard has to be in the driver’s seat. Standard drove this game for nearly 3 decades. Now the “long-haulers” are **running** for the hills because they’ve amassed a lifetime in a hobby produced by a company they no longer trust and now actively despise, because WotC has slowly stripped away all of the appeal.

Of Standard. (Type II as it was called in my day.)

Should be 3-4 standard sets a year, one main commander product(draft or precon), and possibly 1 other product (modern, Kickstart, other unique box). Then I might start playing when this game doesn't look like a straight cashgrab anymore.

That's exactly why I don't play.

Even commander players are done with buying, we don't want to be forced to upgrade our decks every other day to remain payable. I want unique strategies and adjacent power not just strictly better ones.

@@CorruptionAura the speed and power creep has changed Commander too. The days of easily playing 8-10 turns are getting less and less. And frankly, I don't see any way they can slow this train down (looking at you Treasure tokens) !

Also, ban all the fuckin planeswalkers in standard.

You can't convince them to stop trying to double profits every year. That is their only objective as a publicly traded corporation and in fact they are legally required to do that. If stock prices sink, shareholders can and do sue the corporation. It is just the reality of publicly traded companies even if every single person in Wizards of the Coast cared and wanted to improve the quality of the product rather than the margins they can't. They are legally required to be apathetic towards the game and you. Vote with your wallet not your words, you got to and everyone that has a problem with it has to stop buying packs that do not meet our standards or they will never change.

But then they can't ban Uro instead of Omnath and still sell packs of Zendikar to make money. Granted, I'm speaking specifically about the Modern format here, because I do think that Omnath got banned in Standard, but I don't know for sure because I don't follow it. With regards to Modern though, Omnath has become an absolute nuisance in the current meta. It isn't even that he is too powerful on his own. It's that he replaces himself as you play him, gives access to life gain and mana ramp in a format littered with fetchlands, and now also pitches to the Elemental Incarnation cycle. Wizards would rather ban old cards most of the time than to ever have to ban a new card from the newest set. So the Uro/Omnath money tribal piles saw Uro take the hit since Ikoria was already 6 months old by that point, and Omnath was the new shiny toy. So if the precedent was, "Hey, if this card becomes clearly dominant, it gets banned," that might help. But the reality is that there are fundamental rules ingrained into the current 6th Edition ruleset that arguably hurt the game worse than slow bannings, or banning around new cards to save face and, more importantly, make bundles of money. There are also issues with consistency becoming too high for all of these decks, even in Standard with the access given to cards that dig 5+ deep. Having 4 ofs for every format (but Commander obviously) drives up the cost of the deck, which keeps a lot of players away, but worse, it creates far too high a level of consistency for finding and executing your chosen gameplan. One of the easiest ways to solve both of these problems is to go to a 3 card max. It makes decks less expensive. It makes decks less consistent and should help with more varied play experiences. And perhaps best of all, it frees up deck slots to help with diversity of building, even within the same archetype. So although your idea of following the YGO banning practice could help a but, the reality is that as far as traditional 1v1 competitive Magic goes, there are a lot more issues than just how to handle bans.

Yu-Gi-Oh’s in an unplayable state.

@@Nephalem2002 it's very playable and the meta right now is really, really diverse Idk what you're talking about

ps - now to watch the rest - I hit pause at the 20.53 minute mark...

Oh gosh... further in... There is NO way that they will expand the team - because - that is an expense... They presently do not appear to have enough employed to ensure testing (happy to later ban - why... cha ching $$$). Forcing players to drop cards and pickup others. I will never play standard outside of MTGA. I would LOVE for MTG to become HUGE (again) - it looks like, I missed that boat. Best way to have this though - is to get arena codes in packs or decks. Yup, just like pokemon... They need to keep the physical game alive - but... maybe they are hoping for it to dwindle. WotC is bank-rolling its entire playing community. Yes - this is the capitalism world at play... but really? What about that 11% increase due to come in? I can justify a little of it - but... Is it WotC's wish to make this game elitist - and only for those with a high disposable income? They have scored HUGE profits - even through the pandemic. Something about all of this is really blocking me from getting too involved.

Oh, this is a reupload... this is what happens when you play singleton formats exclusively.

Looked it up and youre right

We've known it deep down lol

😮‍💨😔

I think the difference is that there are other options now. There are several non-rotating formats, commander is bigger than ever, etc. So people are just gravitating toward the formats that appeal to them. There isn't a problem with standard in the sense that there's anything to fix, the issue is inherent in standard. it's expensive and it rotates quickly. Most people prefer a different format.

We just prefer not rotating formats lol.

@@anannoyedpanda If that was the only reason Modern and Legacy would be a lot more popular yet they are dying off.

Continue.

Because it always sells packs ;)

Bolt is NOT what we need for a balanced standard.

@@surfinggarchomp2820 Bolt is okay ever few years. It makes 4 toughness matter, and makes incidental instant speed lifegain relevant. "What's that, you alpha struck and put me to 3, then bolted? I guess I'll flash in my 1/1 that gains me 3 life, then crack back for the win." My point is that a good Core Set should have simple, proven cards. Murder and Cancel get in on the low-end of power, Lightning Bolt @ (U) can get it at the high end. If you print Lightning Strike, players know they're not getting the best. But if you print Lightning Bolt, they know they're getting the best. So build your format around Lightning Bolt, don't bench it.

@@williamsimkulet7832 right now it would be terrible though. Mono-r would become pretty good, and it would give boros and grixis a boost they really don’t need.

@@surfinggarchomp2820 Obviously you need to design a format around Lightning Bolt being available. That said, mono red as an entry level deck seems like a good idea. Frankly it's backbreaking if you can put a +1/+1 counter on a 2/3 in response to their Bolt (lifelink or no), which opens up nuance.