Is It Too Late To Save Standard?

[@marcbeaudoin73]

I really don’t understand why WOTC doesn’t sell us Standard pre-cons with an Arena code card. If they did this I would play standard and it seems like a no-brainer to me.

[@JStack]

They actively have moved away from free rewards for arena. Makes no sense. I reinstalled after a two year break and didn’t even get returning player rewards. They don’t want retention they have to work for when they have decades of addicts built into the ecosystemn

[@Kayametra]

⁠@@JStacknot to mention they took away the free 3 to 6 packs with the “PlayOTJ” codes they released with every set.

[@SilverAlex92]

They're too greedy to understand the concept of giving something for little value now so it grows the playerbase and nets more long term profit. They need those profits NOW to impress the investor and hasbro at the end of the qaurter

[@ryanedwards7487]

Or let those of us with old arena codes put them in so we can use our old Historic Decks.

[@U1TR4F0RCE]

There technically are standard precons the starter kit. I doubt they are super competitive but they are standard format and come with mtg arena codes

[@HeyApples]

I was at the event with the Liliana of the Dark Realms player, that was a real thing, nice guy, completely caught unaware. The sucky part not mentioned is that this a very low density area for standard events. Being effectively out of that one event was one of only a handful of chances to play Standard in the area, and only 1 of 2 stores doing the textless Urza's Saga as a store event. So when you have foul up's like this, it really amplifies the damage to the experience. This feels like collateral damage when WOTC fired 10% of their workforce and suddenly you don't have the guy maintaining the app anymore and no one notices for 6 months until stuff like this comes up.

[@PleasantKenobi]

I 100% agree. Thanks for the clarification and added insight.

[@TimsWheelbarrowMTG]

An issue we had in store a fair bit with newer players when it came to Standard, is that explaining what Standard is is *much* harder than in the bad old days. Standard cannot be summarised as 'It's 60 card constructed with the 7 most recent Magic sets, max of 4 of any one card' any more. It's not even 'The cards from this specific collection of booster packs'. The cleanest explanation we found that we could use of which cards can and cannot be played is 'It is cards with any of these expansion symbols, or that have reprints with those symbols'. On Arena, things work fine if you want to build Standard, because you can simply apply a filter on your collection. You never really need to internalise what cards are and aren't legal, it just happens. For paper Magic, a great start would be for WotC to send out a poster to stores, showing the set symbols that are in Standard right now. This deals with things like Wurmcoil Engine in Brothers War, or ancillary Commander product directly linked to a set. At present, the WotC page explaining what cards are legal in Standard doesn't make any mention of all the assorted cards you can open in boosters or ancillary products that are not permitted in Standard. It says Bloomburrow is Standard legal, but doesn't make clear that the Bloomburrow Commander deck you bought is jam packed with cards that are not allowed. Standard is pretty decent right now. I suspect we've had too long of Standard not being super fun, and (pun intended) standards on communication have slipped.

[@simonchi5372]

And pokemon solves all of this by putting a letter next to a set of sets so that when they rotate they just say all the cards with the letter F is not legal anymore. Super simple, not sure why a billion dollar company wouldn't be able to do that?

[@TyranAmiros]

I don't know about Pokemon but part of the problem of doing that in Magic is reprints. Let's take Murder. It's standard legal since it was in Murders at Karlov Manor. But you can play with a copy from non-standard legal sets like M13 or the Zendikar Rising Commander precons. As long as the card itself is legal, all printings of the card are legal. And maybe it wouldn't be such a problem for a ten cent card like Murder to require everyone to use a Standard-legal printing, but when it comes to more expensive reprints like Liliana of the Veil or commonly used dual land cycles, I think you'd run into push back - if I already have a playset of Concealed Courtyards, why should I be forced to buy another?

[@thebigsquig]

Explaining standard was easier when blocks were a thing. What’s standard? Khans block and theros block. Boom done. Now it’s like: dominaria United, brothers war but not brothers war retro artifacts, pheyrexia all will be one, March of the machine but not March of the machine multiverse legends but March of the machine aftermath is… and slowly the new casual players eyes fall back into their head.

[@doctordistracto8390]

Yeah we need blocks back and need to stop printing non-standard stuff in standard sets. And frankly that was hard enough to keep up with anyway. I've seen things in real life like a grown adult get DQed from a tournament because he didn't re-buy every new core set and didn't realize sedge troll wasn't reprinted in 4th edition.

[@Robofan998]

This is a problem that I started to see the last time i played standard at local in person events, around oath of the gatewatch. I got a game loss in a local tournament for having an illegal standard deck, not because i had included any commander cards or deceptive products, but because I had included a filter land in my tempo deck, from the expedition lands bonus sheet. Because I had opened it in a standard legal pack, I had assumed that It was a legal, playable card in standard. Cost me a game, and had it not been at my local, probably would have been a pretty miserable experience, had i not known the people there who could explain to me my mistake and were still willing to let me play out the other rounds in the tournament. Bonus sheets are cool, but it really sucks for newer players when standard sets have non standard legal cards in them.

[@neoteo7478]

Wizards needs Standard precons to rebuild a 1v1 playerbase. These really should be part of the product line for Foundations, but they're more likely to release Commander decks along side it

[@Chaoslorden]

That would be awesome if they had 10 standard precon decks, 75 cards. Then add more each set perhaps or quarter of a year.

[@josephcourtright8071]

They had the challenger decks. They ended them recently.

[@keeganbaker2325]

True, if they released some decent ones with foundations, that could be revolutionary LMAO. Maybe I could even get my friends to try standard.

[@devilmyarse]

it's really strange that they did it for pioneer when they were pushing that format but they've since seemingly completely forgotten what pioneer even is these days.

[@daguynexdoor]

I agree with this. The standard precons are what got me into standard years ago. Starting a new deck is honestly what's stopping me from playing the format

[@edwardstafford2234]

I played a lot of standard last month on arena and it made me actually consider buying into paper for the first time in years! That said I think the main thing that has me hesitant to do so is that the pace of set releases means that even though the formal rotation is slower now the functional rotation of the format (especially for more niche decks) still feels really fast.

[@RedWurm]

absolutely - plus arena pushes only the most recent stuff so if you're not dropping money into the game, sets are getting soft rotated out very quickly. I'm hesitating to upgrade the deck that I installed arena again to play, because it will essentially rule out making a playable second deck for weeks.

[@behemoth9543]

Its insane how powerful standard is directly after a rotation. A huge amount of sets per year plus 3 year rotation.

[@snakeman830]

FYI, the actual pace of standard legal releases has never wavered (aside from MOM Aftermath). It has always been 4 per year. They did shift the fall set to be much earlier in the year though for...some reason, which is why Duskmorn is coming out just a month after Bloomburrow.

[@przemekkozlowski7835]

I am a very old Standard player (from when it was called Type 2 :) ) who quit for many years and recently came back. What really bothered me about the new standard is the Mythics. Back in the 1990s it could already be a pain to get a playset of chase rares on a student's budget but the prices of the chase Mythics today are just stupid. I never opened a single Meathook Massacre and they would have cost me $150-200 if I wanted to buy them as singles. A set of Sheldroeds will cost me the same as my car payment. I like standard because it tends to have a nice variety of competive decks. However, if every deck I want to play requires hundreds of dollars in Mythics, I am going to play a casual format like Commander.

[@thebigsquig]

The answer to price is to move all mythics to rare. Mythic slots should be reserved for the special treatments of rares. Sheoldred should have been a normal rare, and all her treatments should be mythic

[@przemekkozlowski7835]

@@thebigsquig Exactly. They should have been done the way foils were introduced. A foil version took the slot of the same rarity card and overall card distribution was not affected. We used to buy a box of a new set and then play drafts with another box per person. That gave us the card base to be competitive in standard after a bit of trading. That does not happen with Mythics in the mix.

[@Evaders99]

Agreed. Mythics weren't supposed to be just a slot for competitive tournament chase cards and that's absolutely what they use it for now

[@cherry9787]

​@@Evaders99 Funny thing, everyone said this was going to happen when Mythics got announced ages ago

[@JimmieFae]

Very valid point, it is the case now that only the higher rarity cards see play most of the time.

[@amadhatter3280]

I think you hit the nail on the head the price to play standard is too high you need x4 of a expensive card which'll cost you $30 to $40 for a playset (e.g. Caretaker's Talent is around $13 a copy, x4 that $52 for a playset & I still need 56 other cards + 15 for the sideboard), or I can just pick up a full 100 card Commander Deck for a similar or lower price & these cards won't rotate so I can keep using these cards & any upgrades I only need 1 copy & not 4. If MTG wants Standard to be a thing again they need to release Standard decks just like they do with Commander (and the same for other formats).

[@Raghetiel]

There's an easy solution to "what's in standart" problem. Produce cheaper boosters, that don't include special guest or the list cards. Yes, return draft boosters

[@jozzyalthefool9273]

Well, they would have to be called "Standard Boosters" because Play Boosters are what is used for limited

[@Raghetiel]

@@jozzyalthefool9273 play boosters are essentially set boosters. Just separate them again, and leave sealed events more affordable and sane

[@davidsantiago7808]

cheaper boosters are a thing now they're called value boosters, and everyone hates them.

[@Raghetiel]

@@davidsantiago7808 because there is zero value in them)

[@jyrinx]

@@davidsantiago7808They didn't say “bargain-basement boosters that don't even always have rares.” Boosters that have all the same ability to play Magic but don't have the shiny collectibles seem like a good compromise

[@diamonddudeygo]

As for your question on printing banned cards: Yu-Gi-Oh does the exact opposite. There is a CLAMOR from the community for Konami to reprint old format staples (Trap Dustshoot, Royal Oppression, Phoenixian Cluster Amaryllis) so we can play the officially supported Time Wizard formats. These are basically Yu-Gi-Oh as it was in a certain point in time, the most popular ones are August 2005 (Goat Format) and April 2010 (Edison Format), and are played with historically accurate rules (The most important one being the player going first gets to draw a card, but there's some subtle differences I won't get into here). Konami flat-out refuses to put banned cards into their new products, so these staples just grow and grow and grow in price with no end in sight. These cards would also be extremely overpowered in Advanced (our "real" competitive format), so the chances of them unbanning them for a format, reprinting them and then banning them again are really, really slim. While our reprints are usually just vastly better in terms of accessibility than Magic's (often bringing $100 cards down to $10 or less), people who enjoy old formats (which again, are OFFICIALLY supported by Konami) are increasingly frustrated with the lack of reprints for formats with a better prize support than the main event of YCSs. Also, we don't have the problem of people thinking a certain card is legal when it's not because we only have one real competitive format. Time Wizard is only played at side events, and every OTS Championship (think old PPTQs), Regionals (think current day PTQs) and YCSs (think Grand Prix) are played with the Advanced format only, so a quick glance at the banlist will give you card legality, as will any of the unofficial simulators most people use to test. That said, we do have a small problem in this regard with people who are new to the paper game and come from Master Duel to play our FNM equivalents, because both formats are completely different from each other, having both different card pools and banlist hits.

[@U1TR4F0RCE]

Technically something like The Legendary Collection, the Retro Pack rewave or Legendary Heroes means someone could buy a Yugioh product from Walmart or a local card shop and get banned cards but it's usually not too bad about it. But again banlist check would be easy to do. Also I might be wrong but I don't think Phoenixian Cluster Amaryllis was an old format staple unless plant synchro has changed a bunch

[@AuraSniper]

Speed Duel used to be a clever way to print banned cards, like they did with Dandylion and the planned Maxx "C" reprint. But with the product line ending there's just about no workaround to Konami's policy in place that lets us get those needed Time Wizard reprints any time soon. Speed Duel about is the closest thing YGO has to a lower-powered new-player-friendly format like Standard, I'd argue closer than Time Wizard formats. So the fact that it's going to receive even less support than it already was just digs the trench between newcomers and established players even deeper. Standard's suffering poses a similar problem.

[@Alkhemia8]

​@@AuraSniperWe can hope and pray for Rush duel but that basically it own game and not normal yugioh

[@drakegrandx5914]

Even then, though, I must say: when the customers' biggest problem is "they aren't reprinting the banned cards that are staples in the extremely-specific side formats that have niche popularity, aren't sanctioned, and would be quite difficult to support one-by-one", it's really just a situation of "it's not perfect, but it's fine for the most part". Which is not something MTG players can say at all, both competitive and casual ones. (Of course, I'm only talking from a consumer's point of view, I'm not talking about the powercreep problem, which is another issue entirely) Also, YGO actually does something interesting in regards to banned cards (or at least the most iconic ones) in that it actually makes functional erratas of them, and they do reprint in that case. I'm guessing the problem is with those banned staples that, due to not being very iconic, don't seem likely to fall into Konami's watchlist anytime soon.

[@U1TR4F0RCE]

@@drakegrandx5914 I think it's worth noting the functional erratas to banned cards is the exception rather then the rule. Including a case where a card was functionally errataed solely in the OCG there have been 29 functional errated cards in Yugioh's history. There are currently 87 banned cards in the japanese version of the game and 106 in the Americas/EU version of the game. Funnily enough one of those banned cards is a card that got a functional errata, it's just that the equivalent of neither player can cast sorceries is a bit too strong even if it has a mandatory pay 1 life every untap step including your opponents.

[@PatJamma]

We had someone show up to our Standard Showdown with Kindred Charge in their deck because they pulled it from a Bloomburrow pack and didn't know it wasn't legal

[@mth4456]

I'm a competitive Pokemon player. Sometimes there are older cards reprinted in legal sets. They have a letter system though. There's a letter at the bottom of every card. The format uses these letters example letter F-on. So the reprints have the older letters so they are easier to see

[@RedPandaStan]

Old cards that arent standard legal will always have a different set symbol compared to everything else. He just thinks that system is confusing. p much the same as the letter system xd

[@mth4456]

@RedPandaStan I was just saying this in response to Kenobis question if other games reprint older cards that aren't legal.

[@RedPandaStan]

@@mth4456 ah ok

[@benjamingrove47]

@@RedPandaStan Block Letters are not the same as set symbols - for example, Spicy Seasoned Curry is an E-Block card first printed in Astral Radiance, a primarily F-Block set. It has the same set symbol as a card like Palkia V but a different block designation.

[@JoeyFangaz]

Constant cost to play is what hurt my store. We hosted mostly eternal format events mostly till Kaledesh roughly because of it. Covid came, more politics. Now it’s just commander. With the economy it’s even worse now.

[@Minastir1]

You won't escape the new cards treadmill in any format except premodern or oldschool

[@themoops4006]

@@Minastir1 difference is other formats force you on the treadmill by making the cards you have illegal to play with whereas you can still play with your old cards in commander. you don't have to buy new ones if you don't want to and not having playsets makes not getting the newest cards a lot less impactful.

[@kylegonewild]

@@themoops4006 Easiest format to just fall in and out of when you feel like playing but don't feel like spending. Simple as.

[@rbasara1]

I will say, there are a few budget decks that are competitively viable. Prof even made a video on two of these decks!

[@Minastir1]

budget standard decks cost less than 2 commander precons and they're fine for a year and might need some changes for the second and third year of rotation

[@VladdViever]

Cost is consistently the biggest reason I cannot engage with Standard and the game at large.

[@sussygamer3581]

Play in poor areas, we have a fun off meta brew culture here.

[@GiuliaGinik]

Play Arena. It can still be costly if you start buying shit, but it's doable as a complete f2p

[@VladdViever]

@GiuliaGinik I do play and do a fair bit of draft but I don't have the funds to buy in so m really only getting 3 or 4 drafts a week at best and with all the rare wcs you need it isn't practical to really experiment with different decks. This is aside from the real problem that just because I can play a deck on arena doesn't mean I can get my hands on the deck in paper for a reasonable cost

[@matthewmoran1866]

I've just been getting into mtg over the last few months and I absolutely agree that Cost is The prohibitive factor. I've just settled into playing commander because that seems to be where people are most friendly to proxies. I absolutely loathe pay to win games & if you don't use proxies...magic is pay to win. The only thing that would make me consider trying other formats would be if people were as accepting of proxies as they are in Commander, but that can't happen because Wizards, Hasbro, capitalism, etc etc etc.

[@VladdViever]

@matthewmoran1866 I will push back on the game being pay to win strictly. Most of the competitive decks are uniformly expensive, so it isn't really pay to win, it's pay to play at all.

[@gregbridge]

I feel that last point so much. I do NOT want to dump money into packs or wildcards to start trying to find out if I LIKE standard or not. I wish I could play more standard on arena because I wanna learn about playing in a constructed environment

[@RedPandaStan]

proxy and play it with friends. that's how i started playing standard!

[@Volkbrecht]

Playing on Arena is tricky. Because of the matchmaking algorithm, unless you are a very good player with a competitive deck, you'll always see the same relative success. That's not reallly conducive to learning.

[@joeltmo]

Create a second account. You get a bunch of free boosters in your messages. The wild cards from these booster are enough to build the backbone of a standard deck. Sure, you may not have all the rare lands you need, and you will have to make a few other sacrifices. Just do some research first, find the competitive deck you want on the net, and build it.

[@gregbridge]

@@RedPandaStan my friends are only commander players so thatll be hard sell. They don't even attend prereleases

[@SuperSparagus]

During my LGS Store Championship, one of the players had to be disqualified from prizes due to not having a Standard Legal deck but it wasn't caught until the end. They contacted the store telling them "Hey, Gatherer says that my deck IS Standard Legal and I was falsely disqualified" And that was an ordeal that didn't really have a good ending. Stuff like this is what's gonna keep players from EVER playing Standard. Like I haven't seen or heard from him since and I'm a weekly regular. Plus, I feel like Updating Standard is prolly easy to fix? Like can they go like "All Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Cards set to Not Standard" or something? Cause they'd only have to update it once a year and when new set come out.

[@cherry9787]

Yikes. That sounds like a nightmare scenario: doing well in your store's local championship and you're disqualified during the 11th hour because you are accidentally cheating

[@littlebighamm8693]

One of my local game stores, the one I go to most, tried to get a weekly Standard event going, as they did with other formats like Pauper. The problem is that people just wouldn't show up. The store tournament that they had was announced only one day ahead, and I sadly couldn't go. The formats that do well there? Commander, which they play 2/6 nights, and Draft, which is what I normally show up for. It was sad to see because I wanted to get some Standard practice in, but people didn't show up to the usual place in order for them to advertise. That being said, I did manage to go to a standard showdown this past weekend, and about 20-30 people showed up. it was great to see so many people giving it a go. I had a great time personally, and it was more fun playing that than some of the commander games I was playing. I don't want to get into modern because the cost is astronomical, but I feel like I could play more standard. I just wish Wizards would advertise it more and better.

[@keeganbaker2325]

"All that arena has done for me is make me want to play paper standard" YES... That perfectly describes it for me. I want to build one or two paper standard decks, but before buying all the cards, I want to test out decks on arena. I cant because I don't have the wild cards. So now im stuck doing drafts to grind out gems to eventually get packs and enough wild cards to try out a deck idea, to MAYBE build in paper, to MAYBE find an event near me.

[@timstoltzfus5252]

One challenge my store has is the plethora of non-Standard legal cards in packs. When you're trying to get a new/casual to buy in, many of them like buying a pile of packs to build their collection. For 25+ years, you could say "Buy these sets, you can play those cards in Standard." Lots of people were happy to build less than perfect semi-casual Standard decks with what they had to play Standard FNMs. Now? Yeah, you get it. And you mention the confusion issue as well. It directly impacts the saleability of sealed product to new players. And the only solution I can cone up with, making all cards in Play boosters Standard legal, isn't going to happen. Pulling the occasional Mana Crypt helps sell too many packs to another audience.

[@HeroTori]

I've played Magic off and on since 1999, meandering between casual and competitive play. I've played pretty much every format, but I ultimately stopped going to tournaments in 2015, near the end of Khans of Tarkir standard. I've picked up cards over the past years as well, but generally just cool flavor things to add to commander decks... the format that seems most inviting. There was a point during Gatewatch standard that I wanted to try and build a standard deck, as I had picked up a couple boxes and loved the artworks. And rather than look up decklists, I looked over the set lists and started brewing with cards I liked. Before I even got to purchase the cards I needed for that deck, Smuggler's Copter and Reflector Mage were both banned, and they were integral to what I wanted to do with my deck. I just never looked back after that. When I was an active standard grinder, I spent a lot of time and money trying to tailor my deck to be the beast I envisioned, and it was always so disappointing when the cards would rotate and go from $30 mythics to bargain bin jank (I played Esper Dragons in Khans standard so I still feel that one). As time went on, I had less opportunities to go to LGSs and experience constructed formats, so the amount of time I'd even get out of a standard deck was more limited than ever. It's for that reason I love eternal formats... though my main legacy deck (Manaless Dredge) has been pretty hated out of viability with power creep and hate prints, commander has at least been a place where I can play my cards and not be too worried about whether they're allowed or not. It is honestly hard for me to find players that have 60-card decks built, let alone decks tailored to specific formats. Most people I've met only have something like Pioneer built if anything, which I hardly have any cards that fit that format. It's a personal thing, but I know I played the most standard when I was actively attending weekend drafts and I had a large group of friends who'd frequent our LGS. It felt tight-knit, and the area I live now, I have to travel quite some distance to get to an LGS. Drafting really helped curb the feeling of spending money on a deck, but the last draft I got to play myself was a Baldur's Gate commander draft which only ran because we didn't have enough people to fill a pod for Ravnica. I think there's just so much product that it is confusing as well, probably even for the game stores. I don't own a single standard legal card besides basic lands I guess, so playing standard for me would feel like a completely fresh buy-in, for a format I'd hardly get to play.

[@vaazon]

"It is honestly hard for me to find players that have 60-card decks built" I had a similar issue but then I found one guy on the local facebook group that responded to my post. Since then I built 8 decks for 60 card format and we basically play a budget version of modern with commander sets included. I also convinced my friend to play Magic and he fell in love with 60 card format. This is the best Magic experience for me but it is so hard to find people interested in playing 1v1 outside tournaments :(

[@bex8538]

Play Boosters making pack pulls absolutely unpredictable coupled with the ridiculous cost of meta Standard decks is primarily what's keeping me from Standard play.

[@RedWurm]

Yeah - lower power, lower cost, more fun niche decks are great selling points, but when the format is still full of very rare, very expensive and massively powerful staples then it loses some of its lustre.

[@toschestation]

Being a returning player has been tough. At my local FNM, it's treated like the Pro Tour. There are so many new abilities and mechanics that it's hard to keep up, and the vibe is that if you’re not familiar with every card in the format or playing a meta deck, you're just wasting everyone’s time. Commander isn't much better around here either. What’s supposed to be the "casual" format often feels just as competitive, with players winning by turn 4 or 5. It's hard to find a laid-back, "beer and pretzel" group to just enjoy the game with. Wish I could find a better group, but besides going to lgs's, how do you meet casual players these days?

[@HeroTori]

I once had daggers stared at me when I asked what a textless card did in a standard tournament, a card that was a more recent printing that I was not familiar with. Followed by "are you serious?" rather than simply telling me what the card did. The attitudes some players will have to honest questions and obviously confusing information if you're not constantly consuming MtG content is wild.

[@cherry9787]

​@@HeroTori Do you remember what textless card it was? Using textless cards is already a red flag usually as almost ANY other version tends to be cheaper (with some exceptions) and grifty players either try to angle-shoot or flex their wallets

[@HeroTori]

@@cherry9787 I think it was Celestial Purge, which to be fair is a really simple instant, but not one I saw that often despite playing a lot of the Alara standard cycles. But I'm not sure if that was actually it, since I was big on Mythic Bant at the time and that card has zero interaction with that deck. 🤔 It was such an innocent question, too, but I'm sure it was taken like an attempt at slow-play or something, since Celestial Purge at least was likely to be in a lot of sideboards at the time. I think it was a Game Day, so some players were also trying to "rule shark" each other to get to day 2.

[@EpicGamerz01]

The issue I have with trying to play standard right now is rotation, which is an old one complaint, but like, I play a standard deck on arena that runs a pair of Sheoldreds I don’t own in paper. Most of the rest of the deck is pretty cheap being mostly Bloomburrow rares that are inexpensive, but those Sheoldreds alone would cost me $120,if I wanted to build in paper, and the pods I play in for commander don’t really play at a Sheoldred friendly power level so those cards would sit in my binder unless I find a buyer after rotation, and to me it’s just not worth it to run.

[@bennefib]

I feel like its like this in all formats rn with magic, the corporate greed .

[@jarnopiispanen3483]

I started to play standard on paper just recently, cause my friend bugged me about it for long time. Haven¨t played it for 13 years or so, it has been so much fun. We even have magic newcomers in the group that attends the standard events in my LGS. Some of the decks people play are tier 1 or tier 0 decks from arena meta and they cost 50 euros max. Most players have 20 euro decks so almost anyone can play.

[@toschestation]

sounds magical

[@Chaoslorden]

I miss playing standard with a bunch of people. Commander is a "bring your quarter of a boardgame" and it doesn't feel the same as playing 60 card standard. Price and avalanche of products are two reasons I don't play standard anymore, if there even was a place to play it. I can't keep up with all the mechanics and stuff coming out.

[@nerdaccount]

I spend more time building my deck, rather than playing them. For people like me crafting a deck with only one kind of creature or theme that also has a chance of winning is fun. My perception of standard is slightly reversed in that I need to look at the winning strategy first and the entertaining collection of cards second. Our playgroup is talking about having a standard night, so I'll have to figure out what I can play that is also fun to put together.

[@2424Lars]

Yes, same for me in Explorer. Back when it was first created, it felt like you could build any deck and have reasonable success with it, now the few top decks put such a chokehold on the format that my few control decks are the only ones that still feel playable

[@TheLarch]

I was playing Standard at FNM during original Ixalan and my opponent cast a spell that had rotated out. I told them and then said I didn't mind for that match (I'd rather play the game than win on a technicality). After we finished a bunch of other players started picking through his deck to pull the now-illegal cards. Couldn't have felt good for him, and that was before the product overload got out of control.

[@Subject00147]

4:39 - all the cards in Pokémon booster packs are legal for the current standard format, with cards becoming legal for play 2 weeks after their street date

[@Subject00147]

Also to add on, Pokémon card legality is now managed by regulation marks (a letter mark in the bottom left of every card). Current standard format is F-H, so any card with a printing with a mark in this range is legal

[@benjamingrove47]

Yes, but the one small nuance to that is that cards from the same booster don't always rotate at the same time due to differences is release of specific cards between Japanese and International sets. There are cards released in sets like Brilliant Stars and Astral Radiance that are not standard legal.

[@Subject00147]

@@benjamingrove47 true, though you can always check the regulation mark printed on the card

[@nathaniel1940]

I think something interesting to point out is how the cost of playing either paper or digitally can affect how people build decks. One thing i felt during my time in hearthstone (which had a slightly better economy then arena but not by much) was that it was hard to justify experimenting with decks. Since i was free to play i was constantly chocked on resources and could only really put together one deck per set (and i was completing all the daily quests. I couldve gotten more gold by winning 30 games for an extra pack's worth of gold each day but fuck that that's way too much time). Since i only got one deck id have to be careful what i craft because if i didnt like whatever i made then i was stuck with it for 4 months. So I'd often just lean towards whatever's popular. I didnt really have a chance to try and improve as a deckbuilder because if i ever tried to build a deck the punishment for making something subpar was far too extreme. Compare that to trying to deckbuild in paper magic. All of the expensive staples are a huge deterrent towards trying to play meta decks (like straight up trying to build a new standard deck every set at these prices would probably cost more then my current rent) but jank rares and mythics? Pennies on the dollar. While yeah you won't do as well without the meta decks you'll be able to try out a lot of new decks and get better at building decks because you dont have to break the bank every time you experiment like in hearthstone (and i assume arena as well) I think paper is important for that in particular. A place for new brewers to be able to hone their skills without paying an arm and a leg for it

[@Morancio]

I feel like the explotion of Commander's popularity has been detrimental to 1v1 formats, years ago if you wanted to play magic most people would instruct you to go play some drafts at your LGS and sell some cards to the Standard/Modern crowd while building a collection and keep doing that, or just flat out start with a budget Standard deck and have fun with that. You don't need a tier 1 deck to have fun after all and if Standard is the de facto way to play magic, you'll have a healthy mix of casual and competitive players, that balance i feel was broken when commander became the default way to play magic for the casual crowd, and most players still playing 1v1 are the competitive ones, so why bother entering a format with a high cost of entry just to get stomped by spikes? just spend 50 bucks on a precon and play with that. Commander basically divided the MTG Community, and like most hobbies, casuals are the majority of the population. The worst part is that the whole idea of Standard being the entry format to "Play draft, sell extra cards" or "Play budget 1v1" hasn't changed, i'd argue that with Pioneer now is even easier to pivot from Standard to a non rotating format, it's just that people aren't interested in that anymore.

[@Uryvichk]

Instructions unclear, reprinting Sol Ring into Standard.

[@SomeNativeOfficial]

4:41 for Yugioh the do occasionally but usually if they do it’s only in specialty sets, not in the regular standard sets.

[@Jays_V1ds]

The only time I played standard was when I got a challenge deck in 2019. Playing it made me want to buy upgrades to make it better, but I just couldn’t afford it at the time. It was a great way to enter the format without having the cost sink associated with building a new deck.

[@as95ms98]

I absolutely love standard right now and I've been able to make a ton of amazing brews from various archetypes on Arena since I play regularly. I also usually wait a couple weeks until after a set comes out to see how certain cards perform before going crazy spending wildcards. When I check the paper price of any of the decks I play besides my budget standard deck oh boy it's expensive. I feels like beating a dead horse but so many of Magic's problems could be solved if it was cheaper. At the end of the day it always comes back to price. I don't really know what the solution is for that though. Hasbro's greedy so they're going to jack up prices any chance they get. It would be cool if you could use proxies at a WotC sanctioned LGS to get people to get into the store, but it isn't fair to make an LGS take the potential loss for Hasbro's greed. I feel like it would be cool if WotC made it okay for people to use proxies for small events like FNM so that people could brew and try out decks or play with their Arena decks in paper. Then for actual events like Store Championships require eveyone to have the cards. That way people get to play and try decks, and then buy the cards they need from the LGS.

[@thebigsquig]

The answer to price is to move all mythics to rare. Mythic slots should be reserved for the special treatments of rares. Sheoldred should have been a normal rare, and all her treatments should be mythic.

[@TheInfamousCloaker]

Feels like the only way to play standard these days is Arena because of how ridiculous the entry cost is for a rotating format.

[@richarda3140]

Entry costs are even higher for non rotating formats and seeing as how they're printing cards exclusively for non-rotating formats and peinting tnem frequently I'd say this arugrment doesn't hold up much anymore. Not trying to be mean, just saying.

[@joshuagriffith9191]

@@richarda3140Modern is not nearly as expensive as it used to be to be though. $800 playset of tarmogoyf, $500 playset of Liliana, $400 playset of verdant catacombs. Nothing is that expensive to get a playset of anymore.

[@cherry9787]

​@@richarda3140 Funny enough, Modern rotates more than Standard due to Modern Horizons lmfao

[@902496]

I wonder how many people who only play commander would be open to standard. I am, by all accounts, an "entrenched" player. Been playing for over a decade, started with 60 card kitchen table and moved to EDH around 2013. I follow spoilers, watch magic youtubers, and buy lots of product every year, but the absolute closest I come to "competitive play" is pre-release. I have no interest in a rotating format and never have. I like magic for the social and creative elements it has. I like making interesting combos and seeing big things happen in games. The competitive aspect of it is tertiary to me. All this is to say, I'm not sure theres anything WotC could do to get me into those formats. I have no interest in digital magic either, I only play in paper, partially because commander support is lacking on the more polished platforms. Maybe one of the reasons they don't put a lot of effort into maintaining the competitive formats is because they see the numbers and there are a lot more people like me, who will never be interested in competitive or rotating formats, than we realize.

[@cherry9787]

yOu ArE tHe EdH pLaYeR rUiNiNg MaGiC Jokes aside, I feel you. I care more for the social aspect than the competitive scene but am slowly getting into Pauper and such

[@vaazon]

There are two types of Magic players. Architects and chess players. WotC can't do anything to bring architects from commander into 60 card formats because that is not your jam. I am casual but I like competitive formats. The chess aspect of the game is more appealing to me than combos and big things happening like 8 tokens a turn etc. I like consistency and duel, not solitaire with politics but I do ocassionally play commander, just not my main thing :D

[@Rheinguard]

I've noticed that instead of banning Sheoldred, the Apocalypse in Standard, they just power crepped the other newer cards in Standard. If this continues, MTG may have a Yu-Gi-Oh problem on its hands...

[@josephcourtright8071]

The yugioh-ization of magic is real. Focus on cool boss monsters aka commanders. Increase of whacky cards of random themes. Powercreep to focus on faster and faster decks. It's real

[@behemoth9543]

​@@josephcourtright8071Modern Horizons has majorly pushed a mechanic that only interacts with itself and barely touches other mechanics, Energy. Thats the sort of design they've DIRECTLY nicked from Yu-Gi-Ohs themes. And its currently one of if not the best thing you can do.

[@joshuagriffith9191]

@@behemoth9543 Energy was a pushed mechanic in Kaladesh also. Modern is a little more equiped to handle it than that standard environment.

[@vaazon]

@@behemoth9543 modern horizons are in general unhealthy to modern format. Power creep and limited availability drive the costs up and this does not bring new players to the format which slowly dies and becomes obsolete like legacy

[@SmashCentralOfficial]

The idea of people putting sol ring into their pioneer and standard decks is both funny and sad to me.

[@TheKarenWars]

I liked Standard when I was in high school and my early 20s. What really took me out of it is a combination of that feeling of time going by faster and cards constantly rotating out. For that reason, eternal formats were always more attractive to me. Also lets face it, a lot of us don't want to hang out in a card store and with good reasons. I don't miss crammed awkward smelly game rooms lol

[@LionheartLRJ]

Why? Cause no one plays it, I have two decks built for standard in paper but no one plays near me so my lgs has stopped.

[@KeenanPayne]

Please, WOTC, give us standard pre-cons with an Arena code so that myself and others can more easily get into the format 🤞

[@nobodyimportant72]

One of the number one requests to go with their Challenger Decks which I'll say I was very sad to see go.

[@admiralsky56]

I 100% feel your point about having no local stores for Standard. My local stores (closer than an hour) also only play commander. They did have the store championship, and I considered going, but the cost to make my arena deck paper just so I could have a deck for *one* event was just too high for me to participate in the end. But if my LGS had weekly (or even monthly) standard events, I would be much more willing to buy in. But with the level of current paper support in my area, it makes more sense for me to play standard only on arena. At this point, I'm very interested to see what Foundations will do for standard. Given your point about cards in boosters that aren't standard legal (like the BLC creatures), I'm especially curious about the idea that they seem to have given some of the cards in the starter collection the foundations set code while also saying they won't be standard legal as they're for commander? I'm hoping that I'm misinterpreting that point (and they're using one of the other set symbols) on their intro to Foundations post, but I could see that causing a lot of confusion for new players, especially if foundations is supposed to be for new players, as they might buy the starter collection to build a standard deck and then find out some of the cards aren't allowed.

[@spam0n0cheese]

Since I returned to Magic in 2009, this is the first time I wasn't prepared for the standard rotation. It was challenging to figure out which cards were rotating and which ones weren't, and I ended up losing two decks because of it. As a result, I haven't played standard in almost two months now.

[@jemolk8945]

The problems aren't limited to the companion app. Gatherer has also been saying cards that are not legal in Standard are legal. I found this out because I was helping my dad update his standard deck for the store championship post-rotation, and he hadn't initially taken End the Festivities out, because Gatherer claimed it was standard legal. This appears to have been fixed, but it's an absolutely ridiculous problem to have at all. Scryfall, of course, was correct the whole time.

[@TheBrothers759]

Wait, the companion app doesn't use the gatherer? Wtf?

[@isaacallen563]

I don't understand why you can't trade unwanted cards for wildcards on Arena. If I don't want to use a card anymore, why am I forced to have it in my collection? In paper, if I dont want a card, I can resell it. I wont get my money back from Arena, but I could at least use a different card

[@MattettaM]

In my city, Malmö, we haven't had any Standard events for as long as I can remember, instead we've had a budget Standard format called Gentry. Max of 15 Uncommons, and 4 unique Rare/Mythics, the remaining 41 cards has to be Common. I used to play during the Ravnica Allegiance and it's pretty fun and I like the deck building process for it a lot since problem cards in Standard aren't really in Gentry, but it is less powerful than Standard for sure and can be a bomby format like Sealed sometimes for who draws their rare first. I have since moved on to Modern, and there is a pretty active proxy friendly Legacy scene as well.

[@drewfurman1680]

As a new player that started with commander, I went to my first prerelease for Bloomburrow and it made me really interested in trying standard. Unfortunately, none of the local stores hold standard for FNM and don’t have any events for it. As far as Arena, I’m not interested in shelling out money for cards that will rotate out of standard and that I can’t sell or exchange in any way.

[@littlehill12]

Standard just hasn't come onto my radar as a format to try yet. I've played since mercadian masques and standard (type 2 back then...) has sort of always felt like chasing the dragon. they just changed the rotation, which i remember thinking was a positive change for the game, but that has not motivated me to jump onto the train. i think part of the reason being there are too many formats and things to maintain and keep up with; i have a very robust legacy collection and keep up with the format via articles with a similar approach to vintage although i don't actively update my "vintage box", i have just completed the EDH prismatic except 5C and colorless cause they seem boring, i have a 540 Pauper cube, a power cube, an Uncube, a "medio-cube", and a "Type 4" that i try to also keep up with, i have a couple of modern decks built (lantern control and green stompy cause i am a gentleman and a scholar) that i tune as needed as well as a handful of pauper decks to get new players into the game... with all that said, trying to get into standard just seems daunting, and trying to use arena as a means to playtest is a nightmare due to the economy and queue times and the saltiness and the... but basically i think i am at my magic limit for now and as much as standard occasionally sounds like a good idea, i look at the deck costs and card accessibility and determine its not worth the time and/or money. side note, can they please eliminate like 1 or 2 of the arena formats? they re confusing and i hate it... i don't know why i am requesting this of you like you're some sort of VIP wizard, but if you put this comment in a video maybe someone on staff realizes that one particular, very entrenched player does not like the breadth of formats and decides to make my day a bit better by streamlining the scryfall search engine so there aren't 5000 formats listed. Thanks and much love!

[@deucemoose7852]

Digimon does not have non-legal cards printed in new product with the exception of banned cards (either because it's a reprint set, or because it was banned in Japan months before it was released in English)

[@elioncaplan]

I live in a large city that's home to many game stores that run Magic events. Only one store runs weekly Standard events, and it happens to be a place that's notorious for ripping off customers and fostering a toxic environment. There are several other cool places that run a Standard Store Championship once a month, but I don't really want to have to go hunting around for a different place to play each week or have the pressure of every event feeling like a championship. For me to buy into tabletop Standard, one of the good local stores (the ones that care about the community) would need to run a weekly Standard event.

[@Spalovac]

There are two LGS in my town (roughly 400k pop., plus a lot of college students) that do magic stuff (one is even WPN Premium). Right now none of them has any organized Standard play planned for the rest of September. I wonder if anything changes next month or when Foundations comes...

[@JordanGrayson00]

I’ve really wanted to get into paper standard because my lgs does run store championships which look super cool. But I find that paper standard decks are just too expensive to be worth it. I have 4 commander decks that I was able to build for $40 (unchanged precon) or $100 and they are very viable and fun to play with. I also have a tier pioneer deck that I was able to build for $200 or so thanks to the precons. But I look at the standard meta game page and see $200-$400 decks that just don’t seem worth it knowing the meta game will change so fast and the deck will ultimately rotate and then not be powerful enough for pioneer. With my pioneer deck I at least know that I can play the deck for a long time. And I can play my commander decks forever, I’ve had one of them since 2016. I don’t want to elongate standard more though to make my decks last longer. I just want them to be cheaper. If I could build a tier standard deck that wasn’t only mono red agro for $50-$100 I would be playing standard right now. And I would probably buy one every rotation which might give wizards more money in the long run.

[@Vexe]

I recently fell back in love with standard, I LOVE playing whatever weird deck I try to optimize against the meta

[@robertpearce2244]

I’m currently playing ‘your’ landfall deck in standard on Arena, and loving it for the first time since about when Throne of Eldraine was legal! And I’m tempted to play it in paper, BUT, having only one LGS within an hours drive (FOUR? Poor PK…!) I’m not prepared to make that investment to play against the same old people all the time. All of whom invest more in paper standard than I do. Heck, I almost dropped $500NZ on a pre-made red-burn deck for standard the other day, but then bought a booster box of MH3 instead 😂 Keep up the good work bro, especially in brewing decks for lazy people like me to play 😅

[@ryanm9257]

Im mainly a pokemon player but i do play magic arena and the rare draft. Pokemon does print card that can not be used in the standard format but they also have a system in place that make it very easy to know if a card is legal. When a card is print it has a letter marking currently on H. With the current standard format being E,F,G and H. Each year they rotate a letter and add a new one. So we already know how long a card will stay in format. If you have any other question lmk.

[@JCon-hx3kc]

This is the first I've gotten into standard since Ixalon (the first time around). Totally understand your break from the format

[@pablosanchez5833]

Completely agree with the reflection. After a year playing casual commander I wanted to play more competitively without spending 2k in a cedh deck. Going to 100 € standar “budget” deck is a high enough entry barrier , but having to play tapped lands on arena while trying the deck out was awful. I do agree that having some standard pre constructed decks worth 80-90€ in value for 30-40 (reasonable ratio for commander pre cons) would help a lot for people to enter the format . They might not win a RFQ, but probably have some fun

[@algernonsblackwoods5859]

I just started playing again after like 25 years, what a new world. 5th edition was the new thing when I was playing back then. Commander is wild to me because I only ever played standard. My problem with Magic now is it's super easy to get exactly the card you want without going to the comic store on the other side of town that won't have the card you want, not good for my bank account.

[@runtime256]

I've been enjoying Standard on Arena. Bloomburrow got me into it and I have a paper deck. The problem is my local game stores (even in "the city") are not doing standard events at FNM or elsewhere. So the question is how can I do anything outside of expressing my own interest in standard to see something like it happen again?

[@travismcdonald2713]

My issue with standard is not just cost. The pushing of broken cards and 3 year rotation really make me question if I should even consider playing standard. I'd like a year and a half rotation which would keep costs lower

[@RedWurm]

Yeah, like the lower cost and power level are real selling points in theory - but if it's still dominated by incredibly expensive staples that now stink up the place for even longer, it kinda undermines the whole concept.

[@HaxDotCombo]

Yu-Gi-Oh doesn't have set rotation in their main format, but there are a lot of banned cards and those usually only get reprinted in side-products themed around the game's past or literal reissues of older existing product. They've started just actually doing new print runs of old booster sets with the old rarity spread but current card frame etc

[@Grooveworthy]

Im really glad to be playing standard again. I just started playing arena after attending a bloomburrow prerelease, and the prerelease kit came with a 6-pack code for arena. I really like what pokemon does where they have pack codes printed on the ad card slot that you can enter for a pack on their online client

[@PleasantKenobi]

I wish MTG was half as generous as Pokemon is with its online client.

[@Grooveworthy]

@@PleasantKenobi also, one other prop to Pokémon TCG: Their print quality and cool foil options and such are way ahead of WOTC. Always was really impressed by it.

[@user-tx2mu3cr2o]

It's so weird man. There's a Lotta people gassing up standard right now (ME INCLUDED!!!) but goddamn it's so hard to get people to play it :/ I'm thinking about making a couple decks and just handing them to people to play with

[@dmv99]

Why would I pay money to play when I can play basically for free on arena and always have people to play with and events that fire off when I want them to?

[@user-tx2mu3cr2o]

@dmv99 I'm not gonna knock arena, but sometimes I just want to shuffle up with someone who isn't behind a screen yknow? Maybe I should proxy the decks I unno

[@Minastir1]

We just started running it again in our FNM rotation a year ago and now it's the most popular competitive format here. Someone has to be the one to start it.

[@Aaron-l3l6g]

​@@user-tx2mu3cr2o because Standard isn't Commander and Commander killed every other format.

[@brennanclement8582]

After seeing your and others' videos on stamdard recently I have been wanting to try it out. But the combination of cost and rotation is such a massive barrier for me. I don't want to drop hundreds of dollars or 50 wildcards on a deck that I'll only be able to play a few months for cards that won't see much play anywhere else.

[@dashvash5440]

It was soooo mind blowing looking at mtg after a 10-15 years away and seeing that commander is so popular. I do get it because standard rotation always kept me from taking a stab at a, potential one off, tournament.

[@Russian_engineer_bmstu]

I don't like rotation. I started mtg around war of the spark, built a nice standard deck around Theros, it rotated, and I didn't want to bother with that I also still have a zada commander deck I changed less than 5 cards in since that time, and it's still pretty good(and costs less then 1 copy of sheoldred. The whole deck. I bought most of it as a list of cards from my lgs for roughly 20 bucks and then threw in stuff I had)

[@GentryPerry]

I'm a fairly new player to magic the gathering. I started on magic arena end of bought a lot of cards since I started without actually playing in person. One of the barriers I find most difficult is understanding the different formats of the game. I bought some jump start packs and played with my brother because that seemed fairly intuitive. But then I find some decks are composed of 60 cards, and then there's commander with 90 cards? And then on top of that I don't really understand the difference between modern, standard, pioneer. I really wish there was something intuitive about how to figure out what cards are legal and which formats like some kind of symbol on a box or a pack or even the cards themselves. Otherwise it feels like I have to research quite a bit just to understand if I have a legal deck or not. I bought a ton of the forgotten realms cards because I am originally a D&D player who is intrigued by magics integration. I'm really frustrated because I think my forgotten realms cards aren't legal anymore, or now they're lumped together with historical? Or other formats like that which I believe have a lot of really powerful cards. Perhaps this issue isn't as hard as I thought it was but this is just my opinion as a new player.

[@Lembo101]

My LGS doesn't host limited events, so people aren't building up Standard cardpoools (without just buying packs and ripping them open). I really think showing up to drafts then making a Standard deck is one of the best ways to get into magic. I certainly agree that it's VERY annoying to check what's in standard using WotC products, I have to check the fan wiki to know for sure.

[@polyroguegames5820]

I wanted to engage with 60 carf 1v1, but there was no easy way to get into it from my perspective for modern or standard. A lot of folks said to play meta decks and get a feel. In the end, the most approachable format for me was Pauper. Loved it, and it gave me a reason to try and and make a deck around one of my favourite terrible unplayable commons. Not many places to play pauper though, and my fellow casual commander friends have already gotten bored of it.

[@dag7227]

It would take a lot for me to get back into Standard (even just on arena); at a high level I'd need to see deck mechanics supported for multiple years and/or be able to see deck mechanics I like playing routinely come into standard even as others I like leave. Basically, I need to believe that 80% of the time ,the "next" standard will have a deck I like playing.

[@Unknown-qj9sm]

I know specifically YuGiOh doesn’t print anything that isn’t legal, including banned cards into sets. The Asian version of the game gets cards months ahead of the western version, and their sets will often look different. For example, a reprint set recently had Maxx c, one of the most powerful cards they’ve ever made in Asia, but it was banned in the west, so the card was removed and replaced in the set by some bad anime card so no one could pull it.

[@SomeNativeOfficial]

Incorrect, they do just not in the standard sets. Using your example of Maxx “C” it is being reprinted in the TCG in a Speed Duel set. And to go further the 25th anniversary sets had lots of band cards reprinted like Pot of Greed, Delinquent Duo and so on.

[@Unknown-qj9sm]

@@SomeNativeOfficial I wouldn’t say speed duel counts as it’s a different format where it isn’t banned to my knowledge, but I didn’t actually know they printed pot of greed for the 25th anniversary, when was that?

[@SomeNativeOfficial]

@@Unknown-qj9sm well speed duel is technically a different format, however you are allowed to use speed duel card in the TCG, but you can’t use TCG cards in Speed Duel. So if Maxx “C” was to be unbanned you would be allowed to use the speed duel version in the TCG. And Pot of Greed was reprinted last year in Legendary Collection 25th Anniversary edition. And the 25th Anniversary Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon set.

[@U1TR4F0RCE]

@@SomeNativeOfficial And that as well as Retro Pack rewaves are more like a Chronicles Reprint or a rerelease of boosters for all the sets in the Weatherlight saga.

[@arxius7114]

The second time of the Yu-Gi-Oh history in the mega tin you can open banned cards

[@Rith9789]

I enjoy standard quite a bit. It really gives your deck an identity.

[@justinmotley9685]

I think my biggest gripe is that I refuse to play any rotating format. I've even backed away from Modern and stopped even looking into Legacy/Vintage (since I only played on Cockatrice) with the advent of Modern Horizons sets. The only formats I regularly play these days are Explorer, Pioneer, and EDH. Even when these rotating formats are fun I just don't want to get attached to a deck and learn the ins and outs of them only to be unable to play it. There's also that ebb and flow where the decks that cater to the way I enjoy playing fall out of favor or back into favor with little recourse whereas in larger cardpools I can adapt a little better.

[@jarvvoitlus9458]

I've been loving standard lately. Had a few of the commander regulars watching my matches at the store championship and they expressed some interest in the format, having never really given it a thought before. I wonder how much of format preference is just momentum from the formats people started with?

[@Devininity]

I think having standard pre-cons with Arena codes (as well as Arena codes in play boosters) would be a huge way to actually support more standard play. Since Arena seems to be the easiest method for many people new to the game to try things out this would go a long way to at least giving players a chance at experimenting online while also increasing their physical collection. I won't hold my breath but it'd be a quick way for WotC to pull in a ton of more people imo.

[@zetachaox]

Back when I played standard, worse than the cost of entry was the cost of continuing to play. You rarely make a deck with only cards from the latest set, you play with the whole set, so when things rotate, you lose part of your deck AND the meta changes completely; very few decks survive that and now you're sitting on multiple copies of cards that don't really have a home and have lost most value.

[@donald422]

Anecdotally, I've heard from a lot of commander players in my area that they are actually kind of tired of playing commander, but when ever i talk to them at a later point, they are still attending their regular commander nights at their preferred LGS, maybe its just momentum at this point? Many of these players even have non commander decks, but they never attend the non commander events I really hope with foundations, WOTC consistently makes starter decks for each new set that comes out, hopefully if normal starter decks can eat up into some of the space that commander de3cks take up, people will start picking those up to play with friends which may translate into them showing up to play standard at stores

[@otterfire4712]

Sounds like they could look into playing pauper or they play too much commander

[@Aaron-l3l6g]

It won't. Commander is sadly Hasbro's Golden goose and they will find a way to include Commander centric products/card designs into Foundations.

[@jamsmadison3495]

great video. very thoughtful.

[@medievalknievelC001]

Pokemon does Standard really well. The pre-con decks they release are an affordable skeleton of meta decks, and you can usually do pretty well just by purchasing two of the same one. Meta cards are printed in special boxes, and the focus for profits is on collectible cards and not the game aspect. Pokemon makes the game accessible and so that's how people play it. The packs include a code for a digital pack in the online game, and people that play the online game want to play their pet deck in paper. It's a synergistic relationship between online and paper; whereas for MTG, the economy is so separated that it's just more affordable to play online for 60-card constructed, and have a commander deck (or a few) for paper play.

[@Banaanivatkuli]

I got newspaper version of Oko from Thunder Junction. Is it standard legal?

[@loganderhund606]

I really hope that foundations sets the foundation (pun intended) for better standard infrastucture. The long legality/being available for a long time could offer a really good starting point for newcomers to non commander formats/ magic overall. And what I really hope, is that Wotc returns the standard precons after the meta somewhat stabilized after foundations. Non commander Precons are the best way to hook in new players, and I can kinda understand that it could be wierd, selling a deck for a format that has a shelf life, but it is still a great way to test 60 card with friends. And Pioneer challenger decks were great and I'd love it, if they returned aswell.

[@kevinlee5753]

I mostly play commander but that's because I only play casually but you're right though. I hardly see standard getting any love. I mostly see my local stores supporting commander and modern outside of draft tournaments. It's kinda rare at least from what I've seen that any of my locals will host standard tournaments but I'm guessing that since commander has become the starting point for a lot of people myself included it makes sense that wotc supports it heavily.

[@johnrobertson1]

Arena-especially Standard, in particular-would benefit from a dusting/un-crafting system for wildcards. I would be far more inclined to invest in playsets of Standard-but-not-Historic-viable cards if there was a way to get back out of them, either due to a change of heart or rotation. Obviously, this may cost them some money, directly, though you have to consider the indirect impact of bringing in/losing players, as well. As it stands, the barriers to entry also have the effect of creating a very different player pool in Standard vs other formats on Arena. The players are more invested and, as a result, generally, more skilled, more up-to-date, more well researched, etc. Your games will be harder and you’ll see more hard meta. I got to Mythic in Historic this season with 3 decks that can only be described as ridiculous jank. In Standard, I feel like I am suffering because my opponents all have more Fountainports. Even players who don’t mind a bit more crafting can still be led to Historic or Timeless, for that reason. Lots of people want to play casual Magic, and Standard is the least casual format on Arena. I don’t think it *needs* to be casual, but I do think it’s worth noting that that has been the result. The ironic thing in all of this is that it actually makes a lot of players less interested in playing/spending. It’s kind of the reverse of the issue you mentioned, of cards in packs not being legal in Standard. For the Arena player who’s ruled out Standard, cards in packs aren’t viable in the formats they want to play. Why grind your 15 wins a day or buy 100 Bloomburrow packs if you already have your Brawl and Historic decks?

[@RedWurm]

Yeah, that is one of the weird things I find about arena - for the very newest players it's actually pretty cool, with precon-only and jump in, even if there's a lot of jank to put up with. But as soon as you think about upgrading one of those starter decks with some fun rares you pulled and jumping on ladder, you're going to get cooked. And once you do have a deck that can get you a few ranks, there's no point even trying to build a second deck that isn't at least as powerful until the ladder resets. A useful mythic for your historic deck costs the same wildcard as some niche standard role-player (and brawl doesn't want you to craft a playset of it) and isn't potentially going to brick every rotation.

[@Slightly.Lost.]

I want to get into paper standard after playing on Arena, but the decks that I'd like to play are $300-$400. Since the format just rotated, most of those cards will be usable for a long time, but that's a ton of money that I just can't justify. I don't think I've spent that much on magic in the last two years.

[@Chaosweaver667]

Same here. I want to play Golgari or Dimir Midrange, but both decks are in the $400-$500 range. I can afford mono red but don't want to play it.

[@ClexYoshi]

the problem with standard for me at the moment is that you can't just... choose not to interface with parts of the standard environment you don't like or that you can't be bothered to buy the singles for at the time. I've been significantly checked out for this Duskmourn preview season because every time I see a tube TV or someone in a sports jacket and high-tops my eyes glaze over and I can't really be bothered. also, buying playsets of the current relavent Mana base stuff is the equivalent of paying what tiny bit of income I have on soup broth. I'd need it for survival but it isn't pleasant.

[@Unknown-qj9sm]

I have a hot take. The long rotation has made me more hesitant to play standard. I would rather quicker rotation, my issue was never that things rotated out, it was how high power and expensive the format was becoming. But this is ironic I guess because I built a standard deck recently to play with a friend.

[@jacobh4077]

I've never had the companion app work for prerelease sign up. I don't know if its a store issue or an app issue, but its frustrating to have to wait for the store to manually type in each player after everyone has already sat down.

[@johnbts9216]

With meta rotation every set release, dismal card values, and negative EV with just buying a standard deck vs playing for free on Arena, it would be painful emotionally, financially, and a complete waste of time.😂

[@johnn3489]

I was wanting to build an otter deck for standard until I found out my lgs doesn't have it

[@GamerWannaB]

One idea I have had for a while is to bring back the time shifted rarity(purple) to show cards for reprints not for standard itself, that way if you see a card with that color it defaults in the brain to not legal rather than default to legal. They need to start making precons for formats that are 1v1 to get people into it more and have a decent way in. I think the 2 easy ones to do is pauper and standard as pauper has decks that they can basically print wholesale and not eat up that "reprint equity" that they defiantly don't look at and standard is the new set of new cards so do something with them. (they should have arena codes)(i would also want mtgo codes but I feel we would be pushing hard just for the arena ones) I wonder of mtg foundations will help mitigate some of the rotation problems I have with standard but time will tell.

[@mopanda81]

I’ve been loving standard, bought in because there were some cards I wanted to play with forever (the three year window for standard +pioneer are a good motivator). But there just aren’t that many events to play at round here outside of store champs. The default format for arena being almost dead in paper is kind of an issue they should work out.

[@nobodyimportant72]

I may not touch arena except to watch how certain decks play but as an economy one of the things that is a bit crazy is how much cheaper you can get the busted cards on Arena as opposed to paper. If you are needing to craft cards for Arena deck you spend the same wildcard crafting a card that goes for more than $50 in paper as you would a card of the same rarity that only goes for $0.50; I'm willing to be the number of One Rings, Sheoldred, and Fable of the Mirror Breakers in online collections vastly exceeds their percentage in paper collections.

[@aaronbill3]

To answer the question of if Pokemon prints illegal cards in current sets: No, usually. The only times cards are printed out of legality is when an old set is reprinted, or when certain promo cards are printed late. For the 25th anniversary a bunch of not-legal cards were printed as part of the celebration, but they say they are not legal on the cards themselves (Dragapult Prime as an example). Recently a sun and moon promo card was released about four years late, but that was a promo card and not in a pack. Every card nowadays has a rotation marker so players can very quickly determine legality for any cards pulled since 2020. This does allow them to print new art variants of cards without updating their legality, but generally cards are legal in standard when they are printed. Cards don't tend to be banned in expanded until after they rotate out of standard.

[@a.edenvargasmaldonado3064]

Each pack should have an arena code, either for a virtual pack, or if they are going to keep being crappy, a bit of in game currency for players to redeem. And arena events should land you in-store perks, those are harder to implement but worth it, IMO.

[@MasterFallenHero]

I love magic and I deeply missed standard. I'm the equivalent of a judge for pokemon and run events at my LGS. So I pitch "let me run FNM drafts and slowly start standard". This was around eldraine. By AC I got the first ever Saturday standard day running. I made 5 standard decks the store would sell from bulk for 10 bucks each. One for each mono colors. We did 3 events before people gave up. I recently went to a store championship at a big lgs. Only 7 people went. I used one of those 10 dollar decks. I want to play more. I want to invest more. But without a community I'm not willing to invest in paper. And it sucks because at least in my local area people treated like an oddball format and moved on after a one off. I'm old enough and have been playing magic long enough that standard was the format. And I miss that. That's why I picked up pokemon. To get a 60 card deck 1v1 competitive game.

[@maggiek8616]

I think a pretty big issue recently was Karakas reprint from LOTR with the commander set symbol. I had to be the person to tell a player they couldn't actually use that card in the format. There's no rotation of any Bandai related TCGs. Instead in Digimon we had the problem where Japan issued a ban announcement with a Secret Rare that flowed onto the US market release 1 week after the new set came out. Absolute dumpster fire lmao.

[@Warspud723]

I used to play standard a fair bit pre lockdown but not so much now since I work and it’s about a half hour drive to/from my lgs. I still play it when I can but have never really cared for building decks (I just throw in whatever I like and what happens in the game happens)

[@elijahgladdish6828]

Apart from commander of course, I pretty much exclusively play pioneer purely because of not having any way to use cards I’ve spent wildcards on after standard rotates on arena. This is only an issue because I don’t want to spend money to get packs on arena to get the cards needed because I only play casually. Explorer is just easier to get into on arena and then I make similar deck in paper

[@cjh.1920]

I got practically obsessed with magic earlier this year when I actually took the dive to get into the game. I’ve tried all the formats and I just have more fun playing commander. EDH/cEDH games are a lot more entertaining to me on pretty much every level.