Top 10 Cards That Broke Standard 

But it wasn't tier 0. Jeskai Black, Esper Dragons, Mono Red Rabblemaster decks were also strong decks at the time

Siege Rhino was extremely flexible but it wasn't busted imo. Abzan decks were always top tier but those standard formats had plenty of other good decks. I remember Abzan aggro and midrange in particular really struggling against the RG ramp deck that was popular around the same time.

Every standard has tier 1 cards that define a format. The RTR block had sphinx's revelation, thragtust, resoration angel, and huntmaster of the fells which together made one of the most obnoxious non-busted decks

Channel Fireball's list of "top 10 cards we're happy to see rotate out" had Siege Rhino as number 3, behind the fetchlands and... the second Siege Rhino.

@@yaketyyakumo3315 Rhino was very powerful but not OP powerful. The only reason it saw so much play was because of how easy mana fixing had become. This was especially true with BFZ's launch.

modern and standard are different formats

@@angelgaming287 ...and?

@@angelgaming287 lol and almost every single one of these cards was/is very powerful if not busted in modern...

I remember during one eternal weekend final and the guy with the Oko TURNED HIS BLACK LOTUS INTO AN ELK AND THEN KILLED HIS OPPONENT WITH IT

It was a slightly better Kird Ape but in honest fairness cards like Tarmogoyf are exactly why cards like Doom Blade exist when Lightning Bolt exists already. Bolt doesn't really stop Goyf. Doom Blade is a fair answer. Path, Swords, and Fatal Push are *good* answers. Thoughtseize is a *really* good answer. Tarmogoyf will never actually be bad but it will never actually be broken either. It's just the Pro Circuit level of Wild Nacatl's budget dreams: The Best Kird Ape Ever is still kind of just a Kird Ape.

Jace and SFM were 2012 I think. Banned 2012, not printed. If I recall. Khans was only 4 years after that. 2011, the printing of Jace and SFM, was 8 years after 2003, which was Ravager Affinity. 2003 from 1998 was 5 years. The gap between Mirrodin and Jace the Mind Sculptor was absolutely unheard of and made this false sense of security that it was literally against policy to ban cards in Standard. It was always possible they just didn't need to until Jace, once Affinity was gone. Faeries and Jund were not that bad. They were strong but really the Core Set had answers at common to at least defend even if your deck wouldn't win. It was still "playing Magic" and you could sideboard and draw what you needed to crush them with some sack draws. Not likely and not consistent but it was arguably fair enough to not ban cards over. Lol. Jace changed that. Baneslayer died to Doom Blade. Jace and Stoneforge didn't. (Bc SFM you only care about etb really) 5 years to Mirrodin EIGHT years to Worldwake 4 years to Tarkir Like 2 years to "bans are normal now like they were before 1998" Jace was the singular card that even makes the conversation of the video's topic. Otherwise it's just "yeah card games ban cards" Jace and maybe Arcbound Ravager and Tolarian Academy are extra extra special among all other Standard bannings before or since.

Wasnt felidar soveriegn emergency banned 3 days after the ban announcement.

Not by emergency. It was part of the regular schedule of announcements.

Yes, and only a few months before he was set to rotate anyway. I also disagree about the Stoneforge thing. JTMS was a $100 standard card for a reason, as he was powerful since he released. Stoneforge was good, but didn't warp Standard. Hell, Batterskull was only released shortly before JTMS & Stoneforge were banned. People were using Sword of Feast & Famine, but JTMS made the deck dominant. Also, Splinter Twin wasn't really a big thing in that Standard format, Valakut was. It was a bulk rare until Deceiver Exarch was printed, again the most recent set before JTMS & Stoneforge were banned.

Siege Rhino wasn't the problem, Fetchlands were.

@@mattjayce2339 fetchlands were fine, they were fair and just ok. It was WOTC's numbsckull decision to print dual lands right after their inclusion that wrecked standard

Stoneforge Mystic is a conditional Demonic Tutor for 2 Mana. Fetch lands are a conditional Demonic Tutor for 0 Mana. Nobody would be playing Shocks with Fetches if they could play Seat of the Synod. It is not even about getting the land its about gaming the probability of your draw. Affinity lands do *their* separate *other* dumb thing for 0 Mana. Fetches and Artifact lands are the only land cycles that are better than Revised Duals. They're like, stupid good. Tolarian Academy cycle is *not* better than Revised Duals even counting Cabal Coffers in Black. Academy cycle is barely fair like Mirage Tutors. I mean like fair to the point of "if you're both allowed to put the card in your deck your math professor will say the game won't always end on turn 0" The Affinity lands are really close to 50 cent Moxen and the Fetch lands are basically a bunch of 0 cost Worldly Tutors. Run basics under opposing Wasteland and that right there is enough reason to run Fetches. Even if the Wasteland effect in Standard is weaker than Ghost Quarter. It is incorrect in every format to cut the Fetchlands which is why they are banned in Pioneer and frowned on in Standard. Your deck has more, faster, better, safer options with Fetches than without, assuming you are playing with a format ban list and your opponent gets to play Richard Garfield PhD as their Vanguard or Commander or Plane. Against a deliberately broken unfair opponent as a thought experiment, Fetches get you in with a chance. They are 0 cost Tutors and your deck is a deck of cards.

Fetch lands are card draw in White.

It feels weird to see 'Standard' and 'Extended' used in this context since I remember the numbered types ('Type 2' for example) being the term du jour of the era.

@@chiblast100x WotC named the formats somewhere around when Extended came to exist as a format (mid 1997). It was colloquially called "Type 1.x" but that was never a WotC name and never official. Type 1 was called "Classic" and Type 1.5 was "Classic-Restricted." I can't quite remember when "Standard" came in there. As you say, it took the playerbase a while to start using these names over Type 1 and Type 2, but I think Extended becoming more popular helped push that.

Field kept Oko in check.

Field of deez nutz

I remember that too ! But tbh, Oko wasn’t ban’ed not because fotd was here, but because it was too recent

I genuinely thought oko was banned first but after looking it up, it was field that was banned first. That said, they were banned within weeks of eachother. The announcements were about one month apart

@@Incbuba Oko decks were still good with Field around, no doubt and should be in this list. Just mentioning whats potentially false information concerning Field of the Dead deck related to Oko.

Took 7 months for Felidar Guardian to get banned. Memory Jar was banned in a month

The omission of Skullclamp is glaring. That card was in every single deck and was totally out of control. As for your other cards, that's pretty normal for Standard, though, that one or two cards really define and warp the format.

@@JD-gk7eh Ikr when banning Jace I remember them quoting skullclamp since both times were basically X deck and anti-X deck. Seems weird to leave off

Super annoying times. Stoneforge wasn't warping Standard at the time though, so this video is a bit off. Many people were genuinely surprised it got banned at all, as the only card people had been complaining about for nearly a year was JTMS only. But recently releasing Batterskull kind of changed that. You can tell Wizards was also thrown off guard, as seen by including 2 of them in their new Event Deck product line they had just released.

Isn't that just legacy ?

Oop

While it doesn't straight up break formats, Skullclamp is a good mention. To this day you can use it as your main draw engine in Commander with damn near any deck that has or can generate 1/1s. What I'm kinda surprised is that Smuggler's Copter was mentioned but Sensei's Divining Top wasn't. Talk about Deck multi-filtering. So long as you could support it that thing could draw out half your deck, and for the low low price of 2 mana gave you a permanent choice of which of 3 cards you wanted to draw next. Sometimes which 2 out of 3.

Mirrodin and Urza were basically blocks that were almost all cards fair game for this list depending on if he had chosen to represent each color equally. Looking at only blue and artifacts (only good cards), you would still have most of the rares eligible. Lol. "So. Here's how to play Magic the Gathering. Here's the neat part, I'm blue so you don't."

No. They aren't really broken in.....um....like Vintage. A lot of the Standard Decks he is describing could actually hold their heads up respectably in Vintage. Uro isn't a Vintage card lol. These decks happened to exist in Standard but were also Vintage tier. They earned their bans.

@@darthparallax5207 Uro is a legacy card, which is worth more than Smugglers Copter, which isn't even a modern card.

@@darthparallax5207 Oh also, CoCo. Not strong enough to be banned in modern either. Uro is

Well said, can’t stand try hards who neglect everything in their lives except this one thing whether it be magic or yugioh, it’s really a turn off and no wonder games like these get bad raps through the stereotypes THESE BUMS CREATE

Didn't ragavan get banned in historic before it was even released to arena?

Lol none of those cards are good. Do you have Mana Leak? 4x Mana Leak 4x Doom Blade 4x Lightning Bolt 4x Path to Exile 4x Abrupt Decay This isn't actually even a good plan, but it's a good test of whether a card is really obnoxious if it is racing under this or if the deck makes enough value that basic Core Set type of hate sort of bounces off. 4x Thoughtseize will probably deal with a lot. Really frigging insanely annoying cards......are not actually very frightened of Thoughtseize O.O

Kiora Bests the Sea God is playable. The rest of that list is trash.

Meathook is a good card, but not exactly busted. What brought it over the top was the deluge of absolutely, insanely, shamelessly pushed black cards printed after that brought the entire rotation to a halt. Truth is, out of innistrad, graveyard trespasser deserved a ban way more than meathook.

@@metalhev3989 Graveyard Trespasser can't leave your board empty for 3 mana

@@Darkusflame neither can meathook, unless your entire deck is made up of 1 toughness creatures that die to any 1 mana red sweeper.

@@metalhev3989 My grudge against that card is personal because my deck of choice at the time was a Gruul Aggro deck

Force of Will itself should never have been printed. But given that it was, it sets an inexorable path towards combo-control that the only remaining fair thing is for other colors to be allowed to play without requiring Blue. Either nobody gets 0 cost answers, or everyone does.

Pro Tour San Diego ended with Jund vs. Jund in the finals. Once Alara block rotated out, it was Stone Forge, Jace and the legendary Swords. (Bloodbraid’s 3/2 haste attack kept Jace in check.) Squadron Hawk was arguably a bigger card than Lotus Cobra at the same time.

Yeah but I feel like Field of the Dead is a bigger problem than Golos. Field is really what made that deck insane which is why it got banned in the first place. God that Standard was insufferable until they banned Field and Oko

It's probably fair in Constructed. It's still easily one of the very best mono green cards ever printed. The fact it makes Fetch lands better is as silly as if a blue card made tutors or cards that cost 0 mana better.

Tolarian Academy is the support it doesn't need other support mostly. If they make artifacts that cost less than 5 mana Academy is probably worth it. Artifacts that cost less than 4 mana and it can be tier 1. Artifacts that cost less 3 mana and Academy would always have to be banned.

Necropotence is like that. Copter is maybe like that but maybe not. Stoneforge Mystic is very close to like that but not exactly.

Uro was the Baneslayer or Goyf of his day. He was able to close games but he wasn't like doing anything that you couldn't do in any set. He was ultimately a fatty with a trick. Course he's a good card but he's not special. Power creep of the overall game was real. Green in general had a lot of bans those years. They were just recalibrating power levels to seed Pioneer with some playables. Same reason Hogaak got banned in Modern: because he was designed for it lol. Wizards is sometimes half drunk but they try. Uro was a really cool idea I thought escape would be balanced. Yeah balanced like Yugioh apparently lol. But a lot of stuff does beat these fatties. Somebody has to be the best creature to close game with. Usually the creature is not what should be banned.