If hypothetically Amonkhet block had followed immediately after Shadows over Innistrad block, and had the same cards that the real Amonkhet block had, would we have had a better Standard this year?
Amonkhet had the graveyard hate that was needed to keep delirium in check (at least on paper), as well as the artifact hate to help curb the shenanigans Kaladesh block was up to. It also directly supports some of the themes in Shadows over Innistrad block, including zombies.
The reason I ask this is that I remember reading somewhere that Amonkhet was initially meant to be before Kaladesh, but got switched around.
Innistrad lacked artifact removal, Abrade was badly needed to fight vehicles and the non-existence of any actual reasonable graveyard hate made Delirium way stronger than it would be in any normal format.
On the other side, we would have The Scarab-God even earlier and i can only imagine what it means to "reanimate" something like Ulamog and Emrakul with it ... But probably still better than what Aetherworks Marvel produced with the Eldrazi ... so theres that ...
Also, with the addition of MonoRed decks the format would have a reasonable form of aggro decks that could have fought against the stream of Gideon decks , and with Avacyn and friends in the format, it would have been a much more interesting match against MonoRed too.
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Short, switching the sets around was a MASSIVE error and produced all the terrible problems they had to deal with, together with the idea to change up rotation of standard formats only to find out shortly after that was a terrible idea too.
Innistrad lacked artifact removal, Abrade was badly needed to fight vehicles and the non-existence of any actual reasonable graveyard hate made Delirium way stronger than it would be in any normal format.
On the other side, we would have The Scarab-God even earlier and i can only imagine what it means to "reanimate" something like Ulamog and Emrakul with it ... But probably still better than what Aetherworks Marvel produced with the Eldrazi ... so theres that ...
Also, with the addition of MonoRed decks the format would have a reasonable form of aggro decks that could have fought against the stream of Gideon decks , and with Avacyn and friends in the format, it would have been a much more interesting match against MonoRed too.
----
Short, switching the sets around was a MASSIVE error and produced all the terrible problems they had to deal with, together with the idea to change up rotation of standard formats only to find out shortly after that was a terrible idea too.
Thanks for commenting, and that is what I was thinking.
I know that it's not that black-and-white, and there were other issues (such as the general design philosophy and rotation problems), but I couldn't help but wonder if this played a role too.
Innistrad lacked artifact removal, Abrade was badly needed to fight vehicles and the non-existence of any actual reasonable graveyard hate made Delirium way stronger than it would be in any normal format.
On the other side, we would have The Scarab-God even earlier and i can only imagine what it means to "reanimate" something like Ulamog and Emrakul with it ... But probably still better than what Aetherworks Marvel produced with the Eldrazi ... so theres that ...
Also, with the addition of MonoRed decks the format would have a reasonable form of aggro decks that could have fought against the stream of Gideon decks , and with Avacyn and friends in the format, it would have been a much more interesting match against MonoRed too.
----
Short, switching the sets around was a MASSIVE error and produced all the terrible problems they had to deal with, together with the idea to change up rotation of standard formats only to find out shortly after that was a terrible idea too.
We can't really say it was the order they printed the sets that was the problem because I expect many of the anti-graveyard or anti-artifact cards in Amonkhet block were added very last minute in a response to how out of control things were getting in Standard. If they had done Amonkhet and Kaladesh in the opposite order, we would've seen different cards in them.
That said, I agree that if we took the cards in the blocks we got in reality, then reversed the two blocks, we would've ended up with better Standards. There might have still been some bans, but not as many. Interestingly, I wonder if CopyCat might have been spared--you would have the very strong card Sorcerous Spyglass in the very next set, and it wouldn't have been legal for as long so they might have been willing to deal with it.
In regards to The Scarab God, I don't see that as a problem. Reanimating Emrakul and getting a 4/4 flyer with protection from Instants is hardly gamebreaking. Ulamog is much more of a danger because he wins the game in several turns if your opponent doesn't have an exile effect, but it still takes a good amount of setup to make it work (you need to get him into your graveyard, cast The Scarab God, then pay the requisite 5 mana) and there's certainly more cards to deal with it than there were to deal with Aetherworks Marvel.
I cannot find the quote but I remember MaRo saying that they wanted to print answers/hate for Block A in Block C, which contrasted with how it worked in the old system where answers for Block A would be in Block B.
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Amonkhet had the graveyard hate that was needed to keep delirium in check (at least on paper), as well as the artifact hate to help curb the shenanigans Kaladesh block was up to. It also directly supports some of the themes in Shadows over Innistrad block, including zombies.
The reason I ask this is that I remember reading somewhere that Amonkhet was initially meant to be before Kaladesh, but got switched around.
Innistrad lacked artifact removal, Abrade was badly needed to fight vehicles and the non-existence of any actual reasonable graveyard hate made Delirium way stronger than it would be in any normal format.
On the other side, we would have The Scarab-God even earlier and i can only imagine what it means to "reanimate" something like Ulamog and Emrakul with it ... But probably still better than what Aetherworks Marvel produced with the Eldrazi ... so theres that ...
Also, with the addition of MonoRed decks the format would have a reasonable form of aggro decks that could have fought against the stream of Gideon decks , and with Avacyn and friends in the format, it would have been a much more interesting match against MonoRed too.
----
Short, switching the sets around was a MASSIVE error and produced all the terrible problems they had to deal with, together with the idea to change up rotation of standard formats only to find out shortly after that was a terrible idea too.
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Thanks for commenting, and that is what I was thinking.
I know that it's not that black-and-white, and there were other issues (such as the general design philosophy and rotation problems), but I couldn't help but wonder if this played a role too.
That said, I agree that if we took the cards in the blocks we got in reality, then reversed the two blocks, we would've ended up with better Standards. There might have still been some bans, but not as many. Interestingly, I wonder if CopyCat might have been spared--you would have the very strong card Sorcerous Spyglass in the very next set, and it wouldn't have been legal for as long so they might have been willing to deal with it.
In regards to The Scarab God, I don't see that as a problem. Reanimating Emrakul and getting a 4/4 flyer with protection from Instants is hardly gamebreaking. Ulamog is much more of a danger because he wins the game in several turns if your opponent doesn't have an exile effect, but it still takes a good amount of setup to make it work (you need to get him into your graveyard, cast The Scarab God, then pay the requisite 5 mana) and there's certainly more cards to deal with it than there were to deal with Aetherworks Marvel.