Thank you for joining me today, and welcome to the largest Standard Environment in the history of the current Magic game. By my estimate, there is over 2300 cards currently in Standard. Ironically enough, I can't recall a time when meta game was more narrow. In recent year(s) the meta game has been defined by 3-5 top tier decks, and for nearly a year the meta has been defined by Faeries. If someone said they were not playing faeries in the last year the correct response was "why ?".
The real question to ask at this point is what impact Eventide will have on Standard, and I think the short answer is, not much. I really don't see anything in this set to 1) un-hing the current faeries build, 2)promote any other current deck concept to better compete with faeries, or 3) inspire any new build to adequately address the faeries dominance. Tribal was such a strong linear concept, and faeries was in the right place at the right time. They had the best selection of dual lands, support cards, and had no tribal color shift in Shadowmoor. This collectively gave them the largest pool of available playable cards of any deck concept currently seeing main stream play.
There really are some great cards, and many neat concepts in this set, but nothing that I really expect to challenge the place in the sun which faeries has enjoyed for so long. Most of the cards currently getting attention, seem to be Johnnie cards, and not Spike cards. I think most of our meta game is, like myself, looking forward to the Shards release this fall to finally provide some stimulus to Standard. The Spikes of the Standard environment seem to be checking out in droves, for a 3 month vacation prior to Shards.
Tune is next week for a sneak preview of the Shards concepts, and a summary of the rumors, the facts, and the theories. I may not all be right, but it is interesting. Standard needs a real shot of interesting right about now, and I think a healthy dose is coming our way.
The real question to ask at this point is what impact Eventide will have on Standard, and I think the short answer is, not much. I really don't see anything in this set to 1) un-hing the current faeries build, 2)promote any other current deck concept to better compete with faeries, or 3) inspire any new build to adequately address the faeries dominance. Tribal was such a strong linear concept, and faeries was in the right place at the right time. They had the best selection of dual lands, support cards, and had no tribal color shift in Shadowmoor. This collectively gave them the largest pool of available playable cards of any deck concept currently seeing main stream play.
There really are some great cards, and many neat concepts in this set, but nothing that I really expect to challenge the place in the sun which faeries has enjoyed for so long. Most of the cards currently getting attention, seem to be Johnnie cards, and not Spike cards. I think most of our meta game is, like myself, looking forward to the Shards release this fall to finally provide some stimulus to Standard. The Spikes of the Standard environment seem to be checking out in droves, for a 3 month vacation prior to Shards.
Tune is next week for a sneak preview of the Shards concepts, and a summary of the rumors, the facts, and the theories. I may not all be right, but it is interesting. Standard needs a real shot of interesting right about now, and I think a healthy dose is coming our way.
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