Standard is Broken... or Goodbye Coresets!!!

I just had something of an epiphany about standard.



I have always been troubled by standard. And then it hit me. While I was showering and yelling a song or something (well I did'nt but it seemed a funny thing to write).


Standard is broken.


Now I know, it sounds stupid. And if it did'nt you probably think I am referring to Treasure Cruise.

Well no. I mean Standard as a whole, as a concept is broken.


Somewhere.


Now my initial line of thought was:

Hey, I can't play counterspells, I can't lock down, I cannot play extreme fast weenies (currently anyways), I cannot LD my opponent to tears etc etc etc.

Well sure, the first retort is likely: Damn well you can't you whiner!! THOSE be BROKEN cards!!!

And my next line of thought was... so standard is balanced. Or at least an aim was balance. Still it did not sit well with me.Balance is actually easily achieved. Yep i said it. Balance is easily achieved. I can say it again, but then it would be like the song that does'nt end, so I'll spare ya. So anyways, as I mentioned in previous rants, to achieve balance you print everything powerful or everything weak. So balance in and of itself is not a big deal. What concerned me was... why balance? What is the point of balance, do we play magic to go back and forth like  some kind of Sim City? I dunno, Farmville? Why balance? ... well I guess balance helps to make money. And it stems power creep no?

So another thought came along... power creep... Power creep monitoring hints that there is some kind of balance we are aiming for...

So what is that Standard/Benchmark/Marker?

And it hit me again! Say Mana Leak. Should I reasonably be able to play Mana Leak. If Mana Leak is in an environment and it is BAROKEN!!!, is it Mana Leak that is broken or the FORMAT that is broken.



How can a format be broken for gwad's sake?!?!?!



I dunno... its just that bad tummy, gut feel. SOmething is broken. So I kept thinking. What if there were more cards that I should reasonably be able to play? And then it hit me again! Thats exactly what the CORE SET was for?!?!


Coreset. Think about it, think about the lineage of coreset. The first, the fabulous! was Alpha! then Beta! then Gamma! no wait. Then Unlimited, then revised, then errr 4th 5th 6th etc to today's M15 and soon to be extincted M16.


Think about it. Why did Alpha/Beta became revised? Some cards were too powerful and were taken out. Taken out of what? Taken out of what was then the BASIC set. Yup. There you have it, the coreset was the measure of what a standard game of magic should be. It is kinda like the marker of the power level by default. Hence the core set was where you got your llanowar elves, Wrath of God, terror, counterspells, stone rain...

The coreset was a collection of cards that one should reasonably be able to play in standard!!!


So when I came to that conclusion it hit me again!! *ow*


but but but, coreset is going to be taken out of existence! Coreset is irrelevant! I mean heck,  almost all the spells I mentioned in the above paragraph has been removed or nerfed!! Now think about it: the CORESET was/is being changed to adhere to another standard, rather than being the core that was supposed to be THE standard.


I think that was why the coreset failed. It lost its purpose. It was no longer the standard set of cards that Magic should be played by. When statements like , coreset is irrelevant because any card can simply be reprinted in another expansion, it reeks of the source's incomprehension of the concept of a set of basic standard CORE cards. When the coreset, starts to be nerfed... that is when it is no longer being used as a marker or standard to be held against, rather it is now being tweaked to fit another standard. Another bench mark. At this point it totally loses its purpose!

Which was why I guess they started putting in new cards! Which further emphasises the fact that coreset... is no longer the standard. No longer THE CORE set. No longer a bench mark of Magic as a game. No longer the CORE set of cards that a player should play Standard by. It was by that time simply another expansion. And with M16, and the subsequent removal of CORESET as a product. It is clear that the concept of a core set of cards that one can use as a measure of Magic as a game is now lost.

but something must be in its place? no? There is! And very oddly too. The new STANDARD to be measured by is actually.....  An archtype. It is the Midrange deck.

Anything that is too fast, or is able to interact in an axis where the Midrange deck is vulnerable to (i.e. ironically anything that only interacts via the stack derp derp - ironic because slinging spells is now being nerfed - we no mages. we beast masters rawr!!!!) is now taboo or nerfed. Sure there is alot of theory crafting in adjusting casting costs, making sure everything is fun. but the I guess the idea of fun now is Midrange, and everything lives or dies by that standard.


I don't know about you but I do regard a Standard that seems to revolve around Midrange to be broken. Not powerful broken, but ... "yo Magic! why art thou in a Pokemon 2.0 suit?" broken.(Again I apologise to my Pokemon loving friends, Pokemon is just too funny to not poke fun of, I myself like the pika pika choo!)



Hmmm I hate it that I ended up with a "sob, Standard is all midrangy" rant again. But I honestly feel that the Coreset's concept was forgotten somehow (maybe it was planned, i dunno), and somehow, somewhere in the murkiness of history and all that power creep monitoring, the measure went from CORESET to a Midrange range deck concept. And with that, the purpose of having a Core set. Hence the demise of Coreset.


Hmmm, I never really liked the Coresets anyways aside from the first three. From 4th ed onwards it was a constant barrage of nerfs and buying coreset became kinda stupid, since you can get stronger cards from expansions. I guess that was why they added new cards to the coresets (which were originally all reprints). That both made me happy and annoyed. Happy because, hey who does'nt like new potentially broken cards ;) and annoyed because, now I actually have to buy core sets to keep up in the arms race ?!?!?! .... and get a shitload of reprints in the process since I can no longer ignore the coreset. In order words.. coreset became a half baked kinda expansion.


... Still. I like tradition and core sets have been something of a tradition. So I will miss ya Core set! but having lost your purpose and intent... you were just a sucky expansion with lots of irrelevant nerfed reprints, sorry if it hurts your feelin's but thats the way the cookie crumbles bub.

Noir

Mono black at the moment is the strongest deck. Note that does not mean it is the strongest deck possible =)

There is a big difference. Being the strongest deck possible means there is nothing in the pool that can defeat it. Which is rubbish of course. The fact that a meta even exists means that minimally cards that hate on it exist. But I don;t think we are even at that point. I still think decks currently in the meta have a shot at it.

Now building a deck that can tango with Black devotion does not mean making a deck that will beat it 100% of the time. Anything with a 40% to 50% chance of beating it means it is a deck that is respectable in terms of going toe to toe against it (in my books at least).

Is there such a deck at the moment that can beat it consistently? Personally I feel ... yes and no. Yes in that you have your 40% win rate decks, but not so the 50% and more decks. Not because Mono Black devotion is the best possible deck, but because it is (at the moment) the most tuned. It has the support of the masses and running it in a tournament is just a matter of tuning it right.

In the tournament won by a S.Korean (sorry abt not remembering his name), if you look at the side board as well , it was extremely similar to the one played by Turtlewald, but with more duress and a reduction of Bile blight and more Devour flesh. This seemed to be in response to azorius's rise at that time. The most recent win by the Japanese pro included artifacts that gained life. All meta tunings.


To defeat your enemy you must know their strengths.

What makes the deck tick?

It has first turn removal: Thoughtseize.


It has 2nd turn threat: Pack Rat

By third turn it has:

Devour Flesh and/or Hero's Downfall

For card advantage it has Underworld Connections

In tandem with that it has lifegain via Grey Merchant.

So there is a card advantage engine. This is relatively interesting. Against blue/white decks, their sphinx's revelation is a one shot. Wherea's the black card advantage is an engine. Less powerful in a short frame of time but long term is at least just as good.


There is also another reason the Underworld Connections is strong, that is that LD is practically unplayable except to stop corner cases of powerful lands. But that is a very minor point. (well depends on how you look at it, auras used to suck because of the potential for two for ones, by placing the aura on a land, it is as good as a plain ole enchantment in terms of risk, I used to joke that chronic flooding practically turns lands into Bazaar of Baghdads in standard)


At turn four, Mono black devotion gains Desecration Demon. The Demon used to be poo pooed because a fourth turn 6/6 is not so scary to an aggro deck going wide (horde of weenies as opposed to one big threat). Those days are kinda over (I miss my blitz deck hoho). Most decks do not kill at the 4th turn these days. Mono Blue Devotion is trying to do that which is also the reason why it has a relatively okay shot of defeating Mono Black Devotion, but not consistently. However Mono Blue devotion is no Blitz.

What do the threats of Desecration Demon and Pack Rat mean. They actually complement each other. A deck normally attacks wide (like most aggro e.g. blitz) or it attacks narrow (like hexproof auras during rtr/innistrad block). Mono Black Devotion can do both.

Mono black can hit you with a horde of rats or a singular evasive 6/6.

The rats are not as weak as they look (sure laugh at me for saying its weak, but before it became prevalent it was largely poo pooed by Mono Black devotion players themselves). The key is the 2cc. It looks innocous at 1/1 turn two, but it does something important. It skips below most counters and then grows if its pilot so wishes.

The best counter is essence scatter and now nullify. Dissolves clock in too late. And all this, is with thought seize and duress as cover.


This is actually Mono Black Devotion's strength against blue.

Against fast aggro, it has lifegain and Phat. Nuff said. (even blitz eventually fell to one card : the Armadillo Cloak pretender.... Unflinching Courage i think.)

Against ramp? ThoughtSeize, Doom Blade.. oh you haz hexproof, that sexy sylvan Caratid? Meet Devour Flesh =)

That in a nutshell is why I think Mono Black Devotion is strong.

1) It has multiple angles of attack in combat
2) It has natural strengths against various archtypes
3) it is currently quite optimally tuned


That is not to say the other decks are hopeless. That is never the case, but there is no doubt that Mono Black Devotion is strong.




Is it a bad thing?


Three Reasons why No!:


1) The current Dominance is more of a lack of people innovating other decks, too much group think.

I have a penchant for not playing the strongest deck, I always try to beat it. As such a dominant deck does not bother me. Many people like to have a balanced environent however.

But thats the thing, I do not think the current reason for mono black's dominance is the lack of balance but rather the lack of creativity.

Top 16 usually show more archtypes, people will poo poo and say, hey thats why they are not top 8: "because they are not viable". Well then, my retort would be: Well see, you obviously are'nt playing it, thats one less person tuning/developing the deck. Extrapolate that to all the people poo pooing and group thinking and just tuning Mono Black Devotion. Yes that is alot of poo. Nuff said.


2) Mono Black is currently pushed

Another reason why the current strength of Mono Black Devotion should'nt be viewed negatively.

Mono Black Control fans have been clamouring for a viable MBC deck for a long long long while. And WOTC has listened. Its really not a bad thing that Mono Black is being pushed. It means WOTC listens. (oh yes fear the coming of LD!!! Like poison, it will one day prevail!!!! =P)



3) The finesse of Balance

Another reason why the current strength of Mono Black Devotion (or blue devotion and u/w control) should'nt be viewed negatively.

There are two ways of achieving balance:

Make everything strong.
Make everything weak.


Thats really about it. Everything must be at same power level. It is boring. If a tall dwarf is standing in the midst of short dwarfs. He is still the tallest dwarf =)

What I am trying to say is, the moment they print something relatively strong, if the overall power level is weak, that something will unbalance the whole environment. Is mono black really that broken? Is thoughtseize really that broken? I doubt it is.

Lets say it is. So you really wished they would stop printing these Bah-ro-ken cruds that unbalances our sacred Standard format.

Would you rather they print weak cards (i.e. all cards are weak so balance is achieved)?

I actually know of people who would say YES! but lets put some other facts on the table:

1) Standard is rotating. Your cards last for about two years. During those two years, to remain relevant, you need to continually buy more current cards.

In short, it is a) Expensive b) Temporal

a)
This is important. If you are rich then you have no worries, you like opening pieces of card board that will either be worth nothing immediately or will be worth nothing in two years. Good for you brother! Let move on! This article: it no for you. =)

b) Temporal is important because, EVEN if a card is truly broken, it too will pass. Into the abyss known as Modern =P


2) Your cards fall into Eternity. This actually ties in with point b above. Your cards will eventually be your arsenal in Modern (or Legacy or *cough* Vintage or EDH). Do you really want weak unplayable cards? Think Thragtusk. Hero in standard, zero everywhere else. Ricky Martin says: Do you really want it?



Now Why do I talk about balance? Because they will never balance by making everything powerful. If you are one of those who LOVE weak cards. Fear not!

They will never print a set that is balanced and powerful (by that I mean at least in Modern context)

Why? Power creep, less design space, plus how much can you print if you keep printing powerful stuff, eventually people will still quit standard if everything is powerful (its easier to print new stuff by varying power than to be creative laterally, this is a point even Maro made).

Strangely what makes people come back to standard is the printing of weak cards. Either to balance limited. Or, to have weak cards form the bulk of the set but have a few true gems, that is something that keeps veterans interested in new sets.

So you will never have, all powerful sets. So long as limited play exists and WOTC want to keep printing NEW sets.

What you can "hope" to get is a few cards sprinkled into the sets that have some power (again I am not referring to relative to the home set, but at least at the level of Modern). And hopefully slowly and painfully build your AWESOME modern deck. (yes I hate modern).

Hence in a very long winded way. That is why when they print stuff like Thoughtseize, there has to be less hate. Else if WOTC is listening, and we know they do, you may well get sets where EVERYTHING is weak. Unless thats what you want. Then we have different wants =P

If you don't likez the toys, mommy takes them from youz.

So...

Stop complaining and git creative.

Gild is actually pretty potent. ;) not in Modern no. But Mono Black is standard no?