Last updated on April 3, 2025
Monstrous Rage – illus. Borja Pindado
The Magic community has been fiercely debating about Standard this last week, specifically whether it was right for WotC to ban nothing in the format. While WotC has certainly attempted transparency (with a writeup explaining their rationale and discussion of no bans in a follow up stream), many players are still clearly feeling a lot of feelings. Let's try to lay out the cases on both sides and see where the chips fall.
Busted Cards Cause Problems
Rules Lawyer – illus. Sean Murray
Standard currently has three decks that arguably run the format. The “Big Three” completely dominate the metagame, accounting for over half the format! It can feel like you're at a disadvantage If you aren't playing Rx Mice, UBx Bounce, or 4c Domain. What's worse is that two of these decks have been omnipresent for months: Heartfire Hero and Up the Beanstalk have been Tier 1 cards from the day they were printed until now.
Completely Overpowered Mice
The Mice package is mind numbingly fast and consistent for Standard play. Monstrous Rage makes Red decks feel like combo decks, as they frequently present turn 3/4 kills, while also just playing good aggro cards. Heartfire Hero is the crux of this, as the deck's most degenerate sequences all revolve around this overpowered one drop mouse. Screaming Nemesis also provides free hate for counters to an aggressive red strategy, and can completely lock your opponent out of gaining life if they don't kill it immediately. Mice truly raise the stakes in Standard. Content creators and high profile players such as Brian Kibler, PleasantKenobi, AND Ashlizzle have all noted that Mice and Rage make certain key parts of the game (like blocking) feel virtually impossible.
Questionably Tested Limited Cards
Up the Beanstalk and This Town Ain't Big Enough are both random Draft uncommons that seem to too broken for Limited. Up the Beanstalk violates an unwritten rule of card advantage engines: It only costs 1G, and it cantrips, which is ridiculous when you consider similar cards like:
Clearly a pattern is being established above; if you untap with this and jump through some easy hoops, it will draw you cards. For every card like Ride's End, Up the Beanstalk gets stronger. It does feel like Up the Beanstalk might end up being restrictive, as it makes cost reduced spells too broken. Wilds of Eldraine needed an exciting way for UG 5+ Ramp, which is how we got this Overpowered mess of a card.
This Town Ain't Big Enough is arguably less egregious, and owes most of its power to Stormchaser's Talent. The Otter loop synergy gives decks with it a free late game engine, letting Esper outgrind you despite having a mana curve that looks like Mono-Red Aggro.
The Best Cards Always Rise to the Top
Stock Up – illus. Izzy
Standard is going through some growing pains. Yes, Monstrous Rage may be annoying…But for every turn 3 kill it gets, there are 3 games where the Mice player just ends up getting blown out. The tools to beat Red clearly exist, which is why Domain won the Pro Tour, WU Control had a 60+% win rate, and non-red decks repeatedly 5-0 Leagues and win Challenges.
Domain is also highly solvable; yes Up the Beanstalk is egregious, but cards like Jace, the Perfected Mind and Riverchurn Monument turn Beans into a liability. Aggro decks also do a remarkable job of just killing them before they setup, which we've seen many times. While it is indeed a bad matchup for classic midrange, this is a feature of ramp decks in all Standard formats.
As for This Town Ain't Big Enough, Esper is a deck that can be attacked in a variety of ways. You can disrupt their synergies (Duress is particularly good for this), use graveyard hate to stop Town loops, or just go over the top of them in a variety of ways. As annoying as they are, Town loops will almost never beat a proper late game like Caretaker's Talent or Zur, Eternal Schemer.
Undiscovered Strategies on the Horizon
The Pro-Ban side is also dramatically underplaying the viability of other decks. While it's tough for any one deck to beat all of “The Big Three”, several decks can manage positive matchups versus 2/3 of them! GB Midrange for example is slightly favored vs Mono-Red and Esper, and can dedicate 8-10 slots in its sideboard for shoring up the Domain matchup. WU Control was already mentioned as a deck that can theoretically beat anything, it just 5-0'd a Standard Last Chance Challenge on MTGO. The Big 3 were nowhere to be found in that Top 8 WU Omniscience crushes Domain preboard, and has a fair shot against both Mono-Red and Esper too.
And we haven't even gotten into how many other viable decks the format has, such as:
- Jeskai Oculus
- Jeskai Convoke
- UB Doomsday/Jace
- BW Bounce (Bounce doesn't even need This Town Ain't Big Enough)
- And much more!
In Conclusion: It's Chess, not Checkers.
Tarkir: Dragonstorm looks much stronger than Aetherdrift, most of which wasn't really Standard playable. The Big 3 are undeniably very strong, they feel like the power crept norm to a lot of players Corbin Hosler, an MTG journalist posted on X to say, “It's one thing when they don’t ban a problematic card when it’s brand new and I can see that argument, but every indication they have is at that standard is the most popular in a long time.” WotC sees Standard as the beating heart of MTG, and solidified its intentions of reviving it two years ago. We're in an exciting period of research and development here.
Players are passionate about the formats they love, and when such visceral power gets printed into it, they react accordingly. Power levels are high in Standard, and only time can tell how the format will evolve.
Follow Draftsim for awesome articles and set updates:
Add Comment