Is Standard… Too Good?

What’s good, Spirit Squad!

Today we’re gonna talk some about the Standard format since it’s the current Regional Championship Qualifier format. The first thing I’d like to bring up is that Standard has been my favorite competitive format lately (I’ve mentioned it in our T’is the Season(al) B&R and Party Like It’s 2029! articles right here on The Mana Base!), and it was even the only format to go untouched during the huge wave of bans in December.

The only problem with this is that… maybe Standard is a bit too good right now.

Before we get into why that could be the case, let’s talk about the good things about Standard:

• Standard is a balanced format right now! There are a few “best decks”, but there isn’t one definitive best deck and the Top 8 results of most tournaments have at least 5 different archetypes represented.
• Every color has something cool to do at the moment. This isn’t one of those formats like Dominaria United Standard, where playing Black was all but mandatory and Blue may as well have not existed.
• Each of the major archetypes is represented in Standard! Aggro, Control, Combo, Midrange, and Big Mana are all things you can expect to see in the Top 8 of just about any relevant Standard tournament right now.

Seriously, the format’s pretty diverse and I still love that.

For anyone who isn’t really in-tune with Standard, here are some of the decks you’re most likely to see:

• Dimir Midrange, featuring a Flash game plan and Kaito, Bane of Nightmares
• Esper Pixie, a deck that gets value from low-cost cards like Hopeless Nightmare and Stormchaser’s Talent plus bounce effects like Fear of Isolation and This Town Ain’t Big Enough
• Golgari Midrange, featuring value cards like Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber
• Red Aggro, featuring Pioneer playables like Monstrous Rage
• 5-Color Domain, with multi-format staples like Up the Beanstalk, Leyline Binding, and Atraxa, Grand Unifier
• Jeskai Convoke, complete with the Gleeful Demolition + Knight-Errant of Eos combo you still see in Pioneer
• Azorius Reanimator, the predecessor to the Modern Dimir deck. You put Abhorrent Oculus into the graveyard and bring it back Helping Hand and Recommission instead of Unearth.
• Mono-White Control, featuring powerful draw engines like Caretaker’s Talent and Enduring Innocence

So if Standard is this diverse, what’s the problem?

The main complaint people have about Standard right now is that the format feels a lot more powerful than Standard “should”. Monstrous Rage gives Red decks the ability to win somewhat reliably as quickly as Turn 4, Stormchaser’s Talent’s Level 2 ability + This Town Ain’t Big Enough is an infinite loop, and the Convoke decks can put a Knight-Errant of Eos into play as early as Turn 2.

While the format itself has quite a bit of diversity, players feel like Standard has become a more powerful format than what we’re used to. Not that being more powerful is all bad; formats like Modern exist because we want to be playing with stronger cards.

The main issue is that the powerful decks also have the most annoying play patterns. The Bounce decks like Esper Pixie actively try to rinse-and-reuse cards like Hopeless Nightmare, leading to a frustrating grindfest of a game. The Monstrous Rage decks don’t even allow you to effectively remove their creatures between Heartfire Hero’s or Screaming Nemesis’s triggered abilities and protective cards like Snakeskin Veil. Even the Mono-White Control deck can draw like six cards a turn between Caretaker’s Talent and Enduring Innocence.

Got it. So where does the format go from here?

I think Standard is in a good place, even if it’s probably a bit more powerful than we’re used to. My biggest concern about the format was that Llanowar Elves was going to be a bit too powerful because of just how skewed a good one-mana card can be in a Standard format, but it turns out that one-mana cards in Standard are just going to be what we get used to. Heartfire Hero, Monstrous Rage, Llanowar Elves, Stormchaser’s Talent, and plenty of other one-mana cards are among the best cards in the format, and we’ll just have to live with that.

With that said, I think players will adjust to this powerful new format and will ultimately have fun doing their thing in the months to come. I certainly look forward to finding out over the course of 2025. If you’re playing in any big Standard events this year, I may see you there. As for everyone else, I’ll see you in the next one!