June 20th and what it could mean to Standard

Tomorrow marks the day of the ban list update. Wizards will officially announce any changes to the banned list of cards that can't be used in Tournament level play.

Wizards of the Coast only announces ban list changes a few times a year. The current schedule is roughly quarterly, December 20, March 20, June 20, and September 20. After each announcement the effective date is the first day of the following month. This means that any cards that are announced as banned tomorrow will be legal until July 1st.

The last time that there were cards banned in Standard was March of 2005. Arcbound Ravager, Disciple of the Vault, and all Artifact lands were banned from Standard. This was added to Skullclamp, which was announced as being banned in June of 2004.

Now let's talk about cards that could possibly be banned, why, and what impact they would have.

Stoneforge Mystic: This card is what is allowing for a lot of degenerate strategies when combined with all of the amazing equipment that the Scars block added. First is its combination with Living Weapons, which essentially allows white decks to Flash in blockers. Second is merely the fact that it puts equipment into play, preventing counterspells from being effective. If Stoneforge is banned the X-Blade decks would be knocked down significantly in power levels. One of the strongest aspects of Blade decks is that they can pass the turn with mana open, allowing them to counter spells if absolutely needed, otherwise they get to cheat in expensive equipment that also comes with its own creature.




Jace, the Mind Sculptor: This card is hands down the most powerful Planeswalker ever printed by Wizards. He has 4 activated abilities, compared to the 3 abilities that every single other Planeswalker has. His Ultimate ability will win you the game instantly, it is uncounterable and unstoppable. Blade decks use him to gain card advantage (his 0 ability), prevent their opponent from drawing useful cards (his +2 ability), remove bothersome creatures from the board (his -1 ability), and win games on his back alone (his -12 ability). This card is regularly a 4 of in 90% of the decks placing in the top 16 of Standard tournaments, essentially forcing players to play Blue in their decks simply to have access to him. Jace being banned would greatly upset the current balance of top level decks in Standard and would nearly change the format as a whole, as so much of the format currently rides on him.

Preordain: An incredible deck digging card, Preordain has been seen in the top decks of every Standard tournament since its release. Preordain is often the only card a player needs in his opening hand to make that hand worth keeping. Pro players have been asked before "Would you keep a hand with 5 lands and 2 Preordain?" and the answer is always a resounding yes. This single mana card allows you to dig through up to 3 cards in your library. There hasn't been a card this powerful since Brainstorm, and Brainstorm doesn't allow you to put cards that you don't want on the bottom of your library. It should be noted that Brainstorm is restricted in Vintage, that is how powerful the ability is. This card being banned would result in a decrease across the board of the power level of Blue decks. Much like Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Preordain has become an auto-include in decks that have access to Blue mana.



These are the 3 cards that I feel have the highest chances of being banned. However, having said that, do I think that any of these cards will be banned? Short answer, no. I do not see it being very likely that Wizards of the Coast will announce any cards as being banned in Standard. Despite the overwhelming popularity and winning percentages that decks like Caw-Blade are posting due to these cards, the game as a whole is not suffering for it.

Standard tournaments are seeing only about 25% of the decks showing up as one variant or another of Caw-Blade. While that is a large portion considering the number of possible decks that can be played, it isn't overwhelming. You are 3 times more likely to face a non Caw-Blade deck at a tournament than you are to face one, and that says a lot. It means that you would be better off not focusing your deck solely on beating it, as you would be more likely to lose to some other strategy.

Also, tournament turn outs are not decreasing. Standard tournaments as a whole are keeping roughly the same number of participants ever since Caw-Blade premiered. This means that players are not staying away solely because of the perceived dominance of the deck type, which is something that has happened in the past.

Finally, the last 2 Standard Open tournaments hosted by StarCityGames, have had decreasing numbers of Caw-Blade decks in the Top 16, and both tournaments were won by Vampires decks. I will be the first person to point out that Vampires decks as a whole are doing incredibly poorly. They have one of the lowest win percentages of any of the "Top Tier" decks, and generally have never been seen in the Top 8 as more than a one-of. Also, the most recent Vampires deck that won didn't have to face off against a single Caw-Blade deck during the entire tournament.

Most importantly however, is the recent article that appeared featured on Wizards of the Coast's website. The article was written by Mike Flores (it is available here if you missed it). Essentially the article states "Look, Caw-Blade is not dominating, there were only 3 of them in the Top 8, and the deck didn't even win." This is an unfortunate and incredibly short sighted viewpoint. There were a great many factors that led to Caw-Blade not showing up in large numbers at SCG Denver: many top players were at the Grand Prix, many Caw-Blade players had focused their deck solely on beating other Caw-Blade decks (and as mentioned, you are 3x more likely to not face Caw-Blade), and SCG removed the Byes that were given to top players, which forced Caw-Blade players to face more "rogue" decks, which they lost to after having focused their decks on beating other Caw-Blade lists.

There is a huge number of things wrong with Mike Flores' article, and I could write an entire article debunking nearly every single statement that he makes, but now is not the time for it. It is best to take his article with a heaping pile of salt even though it is on Wizards' website.

The updated ban list will be announced tomorrow, and put an end to all of these silly predictions. I will have an article up as soon as possible talking about any changes it may have to Standard.

I will be out on a business trip this upcoming week, so posts will be less frequent and much shorter.

Thanks for reading!