A Walk Through Standard’s B&R Announcements – Part 1: The Recent Past

(Disclaimer: I love Magic, have a lot of respect for Wizards R&D, and understand that building formats is a very tough job. The following contains some… er… playful jabs at Wizards, but is hopefully enjoyed as good-natured.)

JANUARY 9 BANNED AND RESTRICTED ANNOUNCEMENT

Emrakul, the Promised End is banned.

Smuggler’s Copter is banned.

Reflector Mage is banned.

Hey, guys; Sam Stoddard here. Boy, this B&R was quite the doozy, eh? The first time we’ve had to ban cards in Standard in over five years. This is particularly shocking given the poll I recently conducted on Twitter asking players to rate this Standard on a scale of 1-10. The results are below.

Wow! A lot of people gave this Standard very high marks! People seem to love the deck diversity and skillEmrakul-intensive games. Sure, a couple of people had some criticism. But what happens if you round up just a little bit more aggressively?

I don’t want to paint too rosy a picture, though, because this Standard environment certainly had its problems. Let’s talk about each of the cards we’re banning.

Emrakul, the Promised End – Remember how busted Rally the Ancestors was because we didn’t try to break it hard enough? And then how basically the same thing happened with Collected Company? And then remember how we said we learned our lesson?

Oops.

This one’s really on you guys. We knew Emrakul was a powerful, game-ending threat that could be cast as early as Turn 6, which is why we only tested it in decks that could cast it around Turn 9 or 10. But then, all of you had to go out and put her in ramp decks, designed to turbo her out as quickly as possible. After that, we printed Aetherworks Marvel, and instead of casting Emrakul on Turn 9, you were doing it on Turn 4. (Seriously, how do you all live with yourselves?)

Now these explanations are not meant to sugarcoat anything, and we recognize that Turn 4 Emrakul is a tad format-warping. To be honest, we kind of missed the interaction between these two cards. We wouldn’t have allowed such a two-card combo that can win the game on Turn 4 into Standard, and will make sure it doesn’t happen again!

Smuggler’s Copter – This was us experimenting with a new card type and going too far. To be fair, it seems easy to miss that a two-mana flying, looting 3/3 in a format with no answers that could be put into any and every deck might be too powerful. Of the Vehicles, we knew that Copter would be the one guaranteed to hit Standard, so we at least got that right! Additionally, Dukhara Peafowl was a staple of our Future Future League (FFL) metagame, acting as a check on Copter. A last minute nerfing of Peafowl (it, too, originally had a Mindslaver stapled on) made Copter a bit too good.

Reflector Mage – Remember how much you all hate this card?! Remember?! You don’t…? Well, a year ago, it was oppressively good in Four Color Rally and Bant Company, and you would’ve loved to have it banned. As you know, R&D works a couple years in the future, and we’re thrilled that we managed to get this card into our B&R announcement today! Reflector Mage holds a special place in our hearts, as it was a last-minute addition to Oath of the Gatewatch intended to tie together the WU draft archetype. In the future, we’ll do our best to ensure that our last-minute, uncommon hole-fillers are not overpowered, format-defining staples. I’m sure it’ll be years before we ban another uncommon, if ever!

MARCH 13 BANNED AND RESTRICTED ANNOUNCEMENT

No changes to any format.

            Hey, everyone; it’s your boy Sam Stoddard with some bad news. We made a boo-boo. Remember how we banned Splinter Twin in Modern because in a format with thousands more cards and answers, it was suppressing deck diversity? Well, we printed it in Standard. I know, I know, you’re probably wondering how we missed that interaction. First, a little background.

One of our best developers is a seven-year-old named Timmy who learned to play Magic last year. Too many times, we haven’t taken Timmy seriously.

“Do you really think it’s a good idea to print Reflector Mage with no testing into a format with Collected Company and Rally the Ancestors, which currently struggles to answer the only hate against it in the form of Anafenza and Kalitas?” Timmy asked, sucking on a lollipop.

“Oh, Timmy,” I said, smiling gently. “Who in the world would struggle through the pain of playing a four-color manabase when they can play RW Allies or Tribal Eldrazi instead?”

Timmy shrugged, then laid down for his nap.

He was similarly on-point when he suggested that Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy would force every deck into playing blue just to run four copies. And that Emrakul was too good… The point is, Timmy has been right a lot, and we haven’t always lent him the credibility he deserves. In fact, we recently found out that the printing of Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and the changing of Standard rotation to keep him in the format was Timmy trolling us, revenge for us never listening to him.

Now that you know about our prepubescent secret weapon, we regret to inform you that Timmy’s mom made him go to summer camp during the summer that we were developing Aether Revolt. Without Timmy’s moderating wisdom, we’ve been a train wreck. We printed Copter, then banned it, only to print Heart of Kiran in its place. We printed Walking Ballista, shutting off all 1-toughness creatures in the format. We printed Aetherworks Marvel alongside Emrakul and Ulamog. But worst of all, we accidentally put Splinter Twin into Standard. Timmy will be so mad when he gets back from camp; he might not share his afternoon snack with us.

Despite acknowledging all these horrible things, that we missed this format-warping interaction, and that we don’t want it in the format, we’re gonna let this play out. After all, who doesn’t love cats?

MARCH 14 EMAIL

From: Sam Stoddard (stodthegod@wizards.hasbro.com)

To: Magic R&D

Guys, we can seriously never drunk-develop again. Kaladesh block is a complete disaster, and I have no memory of any of these cards. Just glad that someone changed the Beer mechanic to Energy at the last minute; “Aetherworks Brewery” would’ve been a PR nightmare. When is Timmy coming back?

MARCH 15 EMAIL

From: Timmy (timmyarmageddondragonofworlds@wizards.hasbro.com)

To: Sam Stoddard, Magic R&D

Attachment: Gideon_Good_Friend_of_Amonkhet.jpg

            hey guys im coming back soon. just finished at camp, got kicked out early cuz i mixed prune juice into all the water coolers

            ive attached a new card design for Ixalan. check it out and let me know what you think.

            so hows things doing back at r&d?

p.s. hows ur water been?

MARCH 15 EMAIL

From: Sam Stoddard (stodthegod@wizards.hasbro.com)

To: Timmy (timmyarmageddondragonofworlds@wizards.hasbro.com), Magic R&D

Attachment: MARCH13_B&R_ANNOUNCEMENT(NO CHANGES)

MARCH 15 EMAIL

From: Timmy (timmyarmageddondragonofworlds@wizards.hasbro.com)

To: Sam Stoddard, Magic R&D

f***

APRIL 24 BANNED AND RESTRICTED ANNOUNCEMENT

No changes to any format

            Hello, folks! Like a neglectful father who keeps coming back and keeps disappointing, it’s me, Sam Stoddard!

            So here’s the thing. We told you early on that we’d keep an eye on Saheeli Rai/Felidar Guardian, and believe me, we have. In fact, no matter where we looked at tournaments, we couldn’t not see the combo. And yes, the existence of this combo has done what we feared when we mistakenly printed it and admitted regret for doing so: it has warped Standard into a two-deck metagame.

            I’m sure that many of you are expecting a banning today. After all, we banned three cards a couple months ago in the name of deck diversity in a format that had a significantly greater degree of diversity than the format does today. We banned Splinter Twin in Modern, again in the name of diversity. But there’s one thing that many of you haven’t taken into account. One thing that has impacted our confused and contradictory highly logical, mathematical thoughts on banning cards.

            Amonkhet.

            That’s right. During a preview season that was completely overshadowed by whether or not the combo would be banned, you may have noticed some highly impactful, powerful cards being spoiled. Cards that could throw the metagame wide open, shattering the two-deck metagame our negligence has created. As such, it doesn’t seem fair to ban the combo purely based on months of unparalleled dominance, widespread begging by players to ban, and falling Standard attendance. We need more data!

            You’ll hear from us again after the next Pro Tour, which will either be dominated by Copycat or completely empty. Until then, enjoy all the meta-disruptive cards that Amonkhet has to offer! Cards like Glorybringer, which slot perfectly into 4C Saheeli, upping its power level even further… um… and cards like Manglehorn and Druid’s Deliverance, which destroy its one remaining competitor…

…

(…hey, Timmy…? I think we made an oopsie.)

ADDENDUM TO THE APRIL 24 BANNED AND RESTRICTED ANNOUNCEMENT

Felidar Guardian is banned.

            Hey, guys! By now, I’m sure you know who I am. Not because you want to, but because we keep screwing up. It’s me, Sean Spicer! No, just kidding, it’s Sam Stoddard! (same initials though, isn’t that cool?)

Why are we making this call today instead of two days ago? The answer to this honestly befuddling question is simple: data. That’s right. Data. That thing that we didn’t have enough of after several months, when Saheeli was around 35% of the metagame. Well it turns out that when we said we didn’t have enough of it, we just needed, like… ten more matches. And what we saw… what we saw was horrifying: it turns out that, somehow, Four Color Saheeli got even better when we gave it new tools and wrecked its main adversary! I know, it surprised us as well. If only we hadn’t nerfed Dukhara Peafowl…

Anyways, just like the last several times we’ve created horrible Standard formats warped around a single card or interaction, I promise that we’ve learned our lesson! From here on out, it’s smooth sailing!

APRIL 27 EMAIL

From: Sam Stoddard (stodthegod@wizards.hasbro.com)

To: Magic R&D

We slotted Gideon into Hour of Devastation! Represents his ascension after fighting with Bolas. We balanced the design by increasing his cost.  This should help to stabilize Standard at last!

Stay tuned in a couple weeks as Ryan imagines what the next year of B&R announcements will look like!

Ryan is a grinder from Boston with a GP Top 8 and PT Day 2. His fragile self-esteem is built on approval from others, so be sure to tell him what you think of his articles on Twitter @RyanNormandin.