The Best and Worst of Magic 2013

[Souplex]

@Encaen: Your criminal hatred of artifacts has been cemented by this article.
The worst of 2013 was that it brought few worthwhile artifacts to the table while taking the Scars block out of standard.

 

[crimson sickle2]

If any magic player honestly believes Rewind to be a weaker version of Mana Leak, then they either suck at magic or don't understand the idea behind control decks. It's almost a free counterspell while still keeping car advantage the same. The same kind of deck may also run Diabolic Revelations, they're made for slow decks.
The giant mana mythics are their for johnnies or insane people that like breaking cards for all their worth, myself included. Worldfire is awesome, just add a Spellshift or Spellweaver Helix and the game is won.
If you prefer only thinking about aggro/ramp standard, please don't insult any cards usable in other formats or play-styles.

 

[Draconalis]

Honorable mention has to go to [mtg_card=Trading Post].

That card just has so much flavor... and it won me a a couple of games by providing stability.

Edit:

Someone above mentioned that the new lands should be Land - color/color comes into play tapped.

I can actually get behind that if they count as basic land types. Basic Land - C/C Comes into play Tapped seems fairly reasonable to me.

You can fetch for them with plenty of effects, and it still sets you back a turn if you play them from hand... so it seems kind balanced for standard.

Anyone disagree?

 

[ace_of_something]

I've always been a Red/White deck constructor. The thought is with all those aggressive white cards it might seem even more obvious mix. I could see rift fire working with the right kind of burn deck but that's a damn big gamble. I actually got the starter deck 'mob rule' coming my way.

 

[jimbob123432]

As an older fan, I'm getting a little sick and tired of the rampant powercreep in Magic today (see Thundermaw Hellkite) and it's making the game not fun to play any more (to see more of my opinion on powercreep, read this [http://magiccardaday.blogspot.ca/2012/06/powercreep.html]). But, looking at it from a Standard-only perspective, it's pretty balanced.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

As far as top constructed cards in the set, I'd generally hold off evaluation until R2R comes out because a lot of stuff (Liliana, Mutilate, the dual color common creatures) gets insanely better with shocklands.

I really hope the shocks don't come back, and they make an alternative like "Land - Plains Swamp Taps for W or B, comes into play tapped."

By bringing back $20 lands, they widen the standard gap between players with money and players without. Mana fixing should never be expensive, because of how essential it is to the game. You don't need a Planeswalker or Titan to win, you need mana of the appropriate colors.

If they bring back the current Ravnica shock lands, I'm not playing standard till Ravnica 2 rotates. Sorry, I'd rather not spend $80 on lands.

The reason why they're $20 is because they've been out of print for so long. Print them again, the price goes down. That's a VERY GOOD THING for people that want to get into Modern especially. Not to mention that you get more of them as you draft/buy packs.

Look at the M10 lands (Dragonskull Summit, Glacial Fortress, etc.) they're $2 a piece (or so) now and they were $20 when they came out.

Supply and demand, thought it'd be obvious.

Except when something is that important, a single re-print barely changes the price.

Example 1: Primeval Titan. First print stabilized at $30, second at $25, currently at $15 after a THIRD printing.

Example 2: Solemn. First print was $20, second one stayed at $15 until recently.

I expect the prices to go down by $5 at most. That's still $15 per land.

That's actually pretty cheap as far as staple lands go. Try and get your hands on some Wastelands or Duals for that much.

Wasteland was printed way back in the day. Of course its price is high, because of the rarity of the card.

Yeah, and by extension, Shocklands aren't expensive.

The point was that mana-fixing shouldn't be expensive. Rosewater has said as such, because of how necessary it is to gameplay.

And it isn't, unless you're playing Eternal formats. Also, this may be kinda rude, jumping in like this, but with regards to your discussion about Legacy with the other guy, Legacy is really diverse.

Have a look at all of this year's winners for SCG comps. [http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/deckshow.php?t%5BT2%5D=3&deck_name%5B%5D=&event_ID=&feedin=&start_date=2012-01-01&end_date=2012-07-15&city=&state=&country=&start=1&finish=1&exp=&p_first=&p_last=&simple_card_name%5B1%5D=&simple_card_name%5B2%5D=&simple_card_name%5B3%5D=&simple_card_name%5B4%5D=&simple_card_name%5B5%5D=&w_perc=0&g_perc=0&r_perc=0&b_perc=0&u_perc=0&a_perc=0&comparison%5B1%5D=%3E%3D&card_qty%5B1%5D=1&card_name%5B1%5D=&comparison%5B2%5D=%3E%3D&card_qty%5B2%5D=1&card_name%5B2%5D=&comparison%5B3%5D=%3E%3D&card_qty%5B3%5D=1&card_name%5B3%5D=&comparison%5B4%5D=%3E%3D&card_qty%5B4%5D=1&card_name%5B4%5D=&comparison%5B5%5D=%3E%3D&card_qty%5B5%5D=1&card_name%5B5%5D=&sb_comparison%5B1%5D=%3E%3D&sb_card_qty%5B1%5D=1&sb_card_name%5B1%5D=&sb_comparison%5B2%5D=%3E%3D&sb_card_qty%5B2%5D=1&sb_card_name%5B2%5D=&card_not%5B1%5D=&card_not%5B2%5D=&card_not%5B3%5D=&card_not%5B4%5D=&card_not%5B5%5D=&order_1=finish&order_2=&limit=25&action=Show+Decks]

They're definitely not dominated by combo decks because of the checks and balances of the formats. There's Force of Will, all of the best removal cards ever printed and tonnes of great hate cards like Tormod's Crypt and Gaddock Teeg. Dredge may win almost every pre-sideboard game it plays, but from there its win ratio goes way down.

3 in 4 decks in the Top 8 of Legacy tournaments this year have been combo. That's a higher percentage than the Caw-Blade decks when Jace the Skull Fucker dominated standard, and that card got banned as a result. The only non-combo deck to place regularly has been Canadian Threshold.

Did you even read that list?

Spoiler: Spoilered for length

Stoneblade
Rock
Aggro Loam
Junk
Maverick
Dredge
RUG Delver
Elves
Sneak and Show
RUG Delver
Sneak and Show
Reanimator
RUG Delver
Goblins
Stoneblade
Lands
Merfolk
RUG Delver
RUG Delver
UR Delver
Punishing Maverick
Burn
Burn
Dredge
UR Delver
Welder MUD
Punishing Maverick
UR Delver
Aggro Loam
Stoneblade
Blouses
Storm
Punishing Maverick
RUG Delver
RUG Delver
NO Bant
UW Control

That's all 38 comp winning decks from this year's SCG tournaments, only 12 of which are combo decks (Storm, Stoneblade, Welder, Dredge, Reanimator, Sneak and Show, Lands and Elves). What the hell are you talking about? Legacy has been really diverse lately. Legacy pro-players have been talking about how good the format is for a while now. Just yesterday Drew Levin put up this [http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/24462-M13-Overview-And-The-State-Of-Legacy.html] article. If you don't have a sub to SCG, that's fine, his evaluation of the format is in the free section of the article.

 

[Paragon Fury]

@Encaen: Your criminal hatred of artifacts has been cemented by this article.
The worst of 2013 was that it brought few worthwhile artifacts to the table while taking the Scars block out of standard.

If memory serves, Scars will be legal until October/November, when RtR comes out, just like the set before Scars was legal until Innistrad. Wizards tneds to keeps 2 "themed" blocks in Standard at all times, otherwise the card pool after the Magic 20XX release would be ridiculously shallow.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

As far as top constructed cards in the set, I'd generally hold off evaluation until R2R comes out because a lot of stuff (Liliana, Mutilate, the dual color common creatures) gets insanely better with shocklands.

I really hope the shocks don't come back, and they make an alternative like "Land - Plains Swamp Taps for W or B, comes into play tapped."

By bringing back $20 lands, they widen the standard gap between players with money and players without. Mana fixing should never be expensive, because of how essential it is to the game. You don't need a Planeswalker or Titan to win, you need mana of the appropriate colors.

If they bring back the current Ravnica shock lands, I'm not playing standard till Ravnica 2 rotates. Sorry, I'd rather not spend $80 on lands.

The reason why they're $20 is because they've been out of print for so long. Print them again, the price goes down. That's a VERY GOOD THING for people that want to get into Modern especially. Not to mention that you get more of them as you draft/buy packs.

Look at the M10 lands (Dragonskull Summit, Glacial Fortress, etc.) they're $2 a piece (or so) now and they were $20 when they came out.

Supply and demand, thought it'd be obvious.

Except when something is that important, a single re-print barely changes the price.

Example 1: Primeval Titan. First print stabilized at $30, second at $25, currently at $15 after a THIRD printing.

Example 2: Solemn. First print was $20, second one stayed at $15 until recently.

I expect the prices to go down by $5 at most. That's still $15 per land.

That's actually pretty cheap as far as staple lands go. Try and get your hands on some Wastelands or Duals for that much.

Wasteland was printed way back in the day. Of course its price is high, because of the rarity of the card.

Yeah, and by extension, Shocklands aren't expensive.

The point was that mana-fixing shouldn't be expensive. Rosewater has said as such, because of how necessary it is to gameplay.

And it isn't, unless you're playing Eternal formats. Also, this may be kinda rude, jumping in like this, but with regards to your discussion about Legacy with the other guy, Legacy is really diverse.

Have a look at all of this year's winners for SCG comps. [http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/deckshow.php?t%5BT2%5D=3&deck_name%5B%5D=&event_ID=&feedin=&start_date=2012-01-01&end_date=2012-07-15&city=&state=&country=&start=1&finish=1&exp=&p_first=&p_last=&simple_card_name%5B1%5D=&simple_card_name%5B2%5D=&simple_card_name%5B3%5D=&simple_card_name%5B4%5D=&simple_card_name%5B5%5D=&w_perc=0&g_perc=0&r_perc=0&b_perc=0&u_perc=0&a_perc=0&comparison%5B1%5D=%3E%3D&card_qty%5B1%5D=1&card_name%5B1%5D=&comparison%5B2%5D=%3E%3D&card_qty%5B2%5D=1&card_name%5B2%5D=&comparison%5B3%5D=%3E%3D&card_qty%5B3%5D=1&card_name%5B3%5D=&comparison%5B4%5D=%3E%3D&card_qty%5B4%5D=1&card_name%5B4%5D=&comparison%5B5%5D=%3E%3D&card_qty%5B5%5D=1&card_name%5B5%5D=&sb_comparison%5B1%5D=%3E%3D&sb_card_qty%5B1%5D=1&sb_card_name%5B1%5D=&sb_comparison%5B2%5D=%3E%3D&sb_card_qty%5B2%5D=1&sb_card_name%5B2%5D=&card_not%5B1%5D=&card_not%5B2%5D=&card_not%5B3%5D=&card_not%5B4%5D=&card_not%5B5%5D=&order_1=finish&order_2=&limit=25&action=Show+Decks]

They're definitely not dominated by combo decks because of the checks and balances of the formats. There's Force of Will, all of the best removal cards ever printed and tonnes of great hate cards like Tormod's Crypt and Gaddock Teeg. Dredge may win almost every pre-sideboard game it plays, but from there its win ratio goes way down.

3 in 4 decks in the Top 8 of Legacy tournaments this year have been combo. That's a higher percentage than the Caw-Blade decks when Jace the Skull Fucker dominated standard, and that card got banned as a result. The only non-combo deck to place regularly has been Canadian Threshold.

Did you even read that list?

Spoiler: Spoilered for length

Stoneblade
Rock
Aggro Loam
Junk
Maverick
Dredge
RUG Delver
Elves
Sneak and Show
RUG Delver
Sneak and Show
Reanimator
RUG Delver
Goblins
Stoneblade
Lands
Merfolk
RUG Delver
RUG Delver
UR Delver
Punishing Maverick
Burn
Burn
Dredge
UR Delver
Welder MUD
Punishing Maverick
UR Delver
Aggro Loam
Stoneblade
Blouses
Storm
Punishing Maverick
RUG Delver
RUG Delver
NO Bant
UW Control

That's all 38 comp winning decks from this year's SCG tournaments, only 12 of which are combo decks (Storm, Stoneblade, Welder, Dredge, Reanimator, Sneak and Show, Lands and Elves). What the hell are you talking about? Legacy has been really diverse lately. Legacy pro-players have been talking about how good the format is for a while now. Just yesterday Drew Levin put up this [http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/24462-M13-Overview-And-The-State-Of-Legacy.html] article. If you don't have a sub to SCG, that's fine, his evaluation of the format is in the free section of the article.

Those are just the #1 finishers. Check the rest of the Top 8. Delver became such a huge hit because it's easy aggression while keeping counters up, something badly needed because of the combo decks. It was extreme compensation.

Ok, I set the search to look at the top eight. Out of the first 100 decks I read, about 55 or so were not combo decks, these were all placed 1st-3rd. There's another 195 decks to go through, but I think that's a pretty good indication.

EDIT: Around 53 on the second 100 decks weren't combo. Definitely not 3/4 combo. Will check the remaining 95.

EDIT: About 49 of the last 95 decks weren't combo. Keep in mind that both this and my previous two numbers are counting any deckname I don't recognise as combo, so there's probably even more fair decks than in the numbers I've given.

 

[gintsume]

Avacyn block = Creature base

Ravnica I can see being mostly spell and multicolor block (as seen before in Zedikar), and as M12 gets cycled out when Ravnica comes out, I think we can expect to see a few cards being removed from M12 to be reprinted in Ravnica.

I personally love playing standard as it makes you look closer at the few cards at your disposal and force you to learn each streangth/weakness and what would best synergize with them.
And an obivous combination for Worldfire if your running a solid red deck in standard, Hellvault. Yes I will agree that Worldfire (like Omniscience) is rather expensive and I dont see them working many standard decks as a base idea to win, but it can still work.

To me, the most interesting thing about M13 is the return of Battle of Wits and Door to Nothingness. M13 has brought in a few instant win cards. As usual, it will take about 3 weeks for us to really see what this set can truely do.

 

[2xDouble]

[mtg_card=Worldfire]'s actually fairly interesting in Standard. Just whip out your old White buddies [mtg_card=Fiend Hunter] and [mtg_card=Oblivion Ring]. (honestly, who doesn't play red/white these days?) Have them target something you control that has a damage ETB effect (*cough, cough*[mtg_card=Inferno Titan]), or a Haste creature (which Red and White both have plenty of) and you're golden. Swing and/or poke for the win. Also fun in multiplayer... especially EDH or Planechase.

You could float some mana before casting Worldfire (assuming you have extra), then pull [mtg_card=Misthollow Griffin] back from exile... if you like playing Blue/Red (which I do... very much).

 

[vxicepickxv]

Shimian Specter is a 2/2 flier for 4 that comes out after/same time as and doesn't get past the following:

Flipped Delver
Lingering Souls tokens
Midnight Haunting tokens
Fettergeist
Talrand's Invocation tokens
Dungeon Geists
Falkenrath Aristocrat
Olivia Voldaren

And the HUGE one: Restoration Angel

And that's just stuff that's actually played in Standard. There's a ton of other, looser cards (though I'm stretching it with Fettergeist, I really want him to be good) that block him too. Not to mention he does nothing for 4 mana when he comes into play AND you have to be playing decently heavy black.

He also dies to all the flying hate that people side against Delver (Corrosive Gale, Crushing Vines, Plummet, etc).

Not a fan.

At my prerelease, the combination of Courtly Provocateur and Liliana's Shade made a functional Death Wind every turn, which I was very happy to exploit. Opened 3 mediocre white rares and no playable commons/uncommons so ended up running a no rare deck that had no chance against bombs like Sublime Archangel and planeswalkers unless I drew really well (and I didn't).

As far as top constructed cards in the set, I'd generally hold off evaluation until R2R comes out because a lot of stuff (Liliana, Mutilate, the dual color common creatures) gets insanely better with shocklands.

I can see why you're not a fan, but black did get a very good card against most of those. You're already playing heavy black, so except for the Aristocrat, you have murder. For him, tragic slip. If you also run green, Rancor will help you kill them without card loss.

If you do that, you're forced into Black/Green, which isn't a good combination by itself, it needs a 3rd color (conventionally, Red) to stick together. Then you run into mana base problems.

Plus, the upside of cramming 4 Specters and 4 Rancors into a deck vs cards that are good on their own (read: not Specter) just isn't good enough. Sure, you get to see their hand and MAYBE get a decent card out of it, but here's the deal: an aggressive deck is beating you down hard enough on board that playing a 2/2 you aren't blocking with on T4 means you're going dangerously low on top of the fact that they've already played out enough threats that maybe getting rid of one in the hand does nothing, and a control deck has 50 different ways to kill or block your specter. So if you get the nut draw Specter into Rancor + Murder against a control deck that didn't draw removal and doesn't draw removal off of its draw spells in response, didn't counter the specter or the murder, doesn't flash in Restoration Angel, and now has less than 4 toughness worth of flying in play...sure, I guess it's pretty sweet.

You're better off just playing Memoricide, it's the same mana and does the same damn thing without requiring you to actually get in with an overcosted, tiny flier.

You do raise several good points with that, but if you're playing the Specter, you're probably playing a control based deck. Between[mtg_card=Tragic Slip], [mtg_card=Murder], [mtg_card=crippling blight], and [mtg_card=Death Wind] most of those creatures shouldn't be a problem.

 

[fanklok]

Looked up the results for legacy tournaments this year.

Winners:
GP Atlanta: Elf Combo
StarCity 6/24: Land Combo
StarCity 6/10: Reanimator
StarCity 6/3: ForgeMaster OTK
StarCity 5/27: Sneak and Tell
Legacy Bronze Tournament: Sneak and Tell

GP Atlanta Was won by a RUG list, Aggro/Control, and only had 2 combo decks in the top 8.

That Land "Combo" deck is actually a control deck, you lock the board down with Ensnaring Bridge by dumping your hand with Manabond and use Life from the Loam so your Creeping Tarpits can attack.

Reanimator was one of 3 combo decks in that top eight.

MUD took second place, first place again going to RUG with the top eight being an even split between combo and not combo.

And again top 8 is split 50/50.

I have no clue what a Legacy Bronze Tournament is and google thinks I should be buying bronze statues.

I'd really like to know where you got this info and why you think that only the deck that finished in first defines the entire meta game.

 

[fanklok]

Looked up the results for legacy tournaments this year.

Winners:
GP Atlanta: Elf Combo
StarCity 6/24: Land Combo
StarCity 6/10: Reanimator
StarCity 6/3: ForgeMaster OTK
StarCity 5/27: Sneak and Tell
Legacy Bronze Tournament: Sneak and Tell

GP Atlanta Was won by a RUG list, Aggro/Control, and only had 2 combo decks in the top 8.

That Land "Combo" deck is actually a control deck, you lock the board down with Ensnaring Bridge by dumping your hand with Manabond and use Life from the Loam so your Creeping Tarpits can attack.

Reanimator was one of 3 combo decks in that top eight.

MUD took second place, first place again going to RUG with the top eight being an even split between combo and not combo.

And again top 8 is split 50/50.

I have no clue what a Legacy Bronze Tournament is and google thinks I should be buying bronze statues.

I'd really like to know where you got this info and why you think that only the deck that finished in first defines the entire meta game.

tcgplayer.com, same people who help run the Star City Games Opens, the largest non-GP and non-Qualifier level tournaments.

And it wasn't just the Top Decks. As someone above was kind enough to find for me, Of the most recent Top 8's in the last 200 tournaments in Legacy, almost 46% of them were combo. According to tcgplayer, 72% of the overall Top 8 finishes of the last calender year were combo. When almost half of your Top 8 is combo, it's fair to say it's a LARGE section of the meta.

I would love to see a link showing that actual percentages here because I for the life of me cannot find any percents on tcgplayer. And according to MTGTop8 a website that is nothing but top lists and standings combo has only made up 27% of the meta in the last year and 24% of the meta game since the format was created.