What the hell happened Wizards? Are they just more willing to push the mold now? Have they gotten more ban happy? Or is it something else entirely? I already know many people that are dropping the game or at least moving away from Standard due to the more..Yugioh-ish nature the format has taken on over the last few years and while not a fan of the format myself, it's a bit disheartening to see.
I don't think we've ever had bannings in Standard this frequently before. Even during Tempest/Urza's Saga, it took "only" three separate banning announcements to get things back to normal. Now we've had four separate announcements in just one year.
I don't think there have been such innocuous cards banned since the day of Kird Ape and Serendib Efreet. Rogue Refiner at least brings a disproportionate number of advantages and bonuses for its cost, but Felidar Guardian does almost nothing by itself*. Even Smuggler's Copter reads like something that's "just good", and it's at least as easy to deal with as Umezawa's Jitte was. Oh, wait, it was in an artifact block without a Shatter variant.
*I'm surprised nobody has tried yet to make a conspiracy theory about this one, involving Felidar Guardian being an uncommon and Saheeli Rai being a mythic planeswalker.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching.
Oh, wait, it was in an artifact block without a Shatter variant.
Yes, I found that an odd decision to make. By Force and Abrade should have been cards in Kaladesh block instead of the following block. Also, regarding Energy (the main boogeyman of Kaladesh block), from what I hear, even MaRo wishes they had actually printed hard answers to that mechanic. Hopefully, going forward, they print real answers to mechanics like Energy instead of deliberately having next to none just to ensure it does something in the metagame.
*I'm surprised nobody has tried yet to make a conspiracy theory about this one, involving Felidar Guardian being an uncommon and Saheeli Rai being a mythic planeswalker.
Are you saying that you're surprised nobody speculated that they made Guardian in such a way that it could go infinite with Saheeli on purpose?
Are you saying that you're surprised nobody speculated that they made Guardian in such a way that it could go infinite with Saheeli on purpose?
Not quite. What I had in mind was more speculation that given a format-breaking interaction, they chose to ban the uncommon as opposed to the planeswalker that could potentially be a "face card" for the set, and a chase mythic more generally. I am agnostic about that idea myself, but I couldn't recall whether anyone else had mentioned it.
Of course, it turns out that Saheeli Rai is not as good not as part of the combo.
Have they specifically stated whether they missed the interaction? Or that they didn't but thought it would be okay?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching.
The problem with the last several sets is that Wizards is refusing to print good, cheap spot removal and counterspells. These are essential to the game. People whined about getting their things countered and now this is the mess we're in. Where is Doomblade? Go for the Throat? Color hate cards? They have been so intent on making creatures stronger that they put aside all the instant and sorcery counters/hate cards that keep things in check that the current situation bred from those terrible decisions. Just my opinion on why things are the way they are right now.
The real problem is that WotC is not printing "answer" cards. Yes, they eliminated the Core Set, which made printing answer cards more difficult (since those answer cards were often very powerful in limited and ate up spots in normal sets). What I never understood was why they did not put these answer cards into the Deck Builder's Kits. The Deck Builder's kits were already filled with a random assortment of cards, some of which come from Magic's past (like Shivan Dragon and Sera Angel). The answer cards are all commons or uncommons and have all been reprinted a hundred times before. All WotC needed to do was slip one copy of each answer card into the Deck Builder's kit to "active" those cards for Standard play. They could have done the dame with the Planewalker Decks. Just slip an answer card or two in those. No one would have to draft those cards and yet the public would get access to those coveted answer cards into Standard.
The lack of answers is an issue but I also think the shifting design goals of Standard is also a major obstacle. We went from one 3-set block and a core lasting 2 years, to two 2-set blocks lasting 18 months, to two 2-set blocks lasting 2 years, to 3 individual big sets and a core set lasting two years. That is going to wreak havoc on design. The change from 18 to 24 months alone necessitated the latest bans, since all of the banned cards would have rotated out in April, rather than September.
Standard is a mess because WotC is changing too much too quickly.
Honestly, Standard probably won't be "right" until September of 2021, once the last sets that started their lives under the 2-block system finally rotate out.
I don't particularly play standard that often but my quick opinions:
1) I agree with Rosewater's statement that a complete lack of bans means they aren't pushing the envelope and improving the game.
2) The only recent "mistake" was the copy-cat combo. Energy and vehicles have been at the heart of the majority of recent bannings and both are interesting new additions to the game. History shows that interesting new additions are often riddled with issues at the beginning. Vehicles are very reminiscent of equipment and there were serious power level issues with equipment in the beginning. Energy is an excellent concept that is also very dependent on building a shell that harnesses it. When cards are built for a particular archetype they make the whole much more powerful than the individual cards and in this case they dedicated a chunk of two sets to the archetype.
I don't particularly play standard that often but my quick opinions:
1) I agree with Rosewater's statement that a complete lack of bans means they aren't pushing the envelope and improving the game.
2) The only recent "mistake" was the copy-cat combo. Energy and vehicles have been at the heart of the majority of recent bannings and both are interesting new additions to the game. History shows that interesting new additions are often riddled with issues at the beginning. Vehicles are very reminiscent of equipment and there were serious power level issues with equipment in the beginning. Energy is an excellent concept that is also very dependent on building a shell that harnesses it. When cards are built for a particular archetype they make the whole much more powerful than the individual cards and in this case they dedicated a chunk of two sets to the archetype.
That would all be fine if there hadn't also been times when they introduced a radical new concept which didn't break Standard in half.
Double-faced cards look insane, but there have never been any power level issues with them. The most powerful werewolf was Huntmaster of the Fells, and he (or she, if you use the From the Vault version) is just fine.
I do not believe for a second that broken Standard seasons are the result of simply "pushing the envelope". If that's what Rosewater really said, he needs to take a break from design for a couple of sets. They do not seem to know how to playtest.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching.
The problem is that they tried to reconfigure the game to make it more "exciting to watch" so they purposely slowed the game down followed by making the same mistake they made with Zendikar 1.0 with Emrakul, the promised end, then proceeded to let Mark Rosewater create his favorite pet mechanic he was trying to create since mirrodin (yes, the block that broke standard and nearly annihilated the game) and made no way to interact with it, and then pushed any high value playable card into masters sets so they could make more money at the cost of the main product line. Now we are all stuck waiting for this absolutely sluggish nightmare of a company to actually change course and in the meantime have to listen to their PR representatives assure people we will "see changes".
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Turns out when you don't print land destruction, you need to ban utility lands. Whodathunkit.
And when you don't print Shatter, you need to ban artifacts. And when you don't print gravehate, you need to ban things like Emrakul, the Promised End, who, oh yeah, has protection from the most common removal spells.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
honestly, I'm beginning to feel more and more like Kaladesh was a mistake, energy is just a messed up mechanic. Either Kaladesh was a mistake or Wizards was just really bad at noticing the power level of stuff in their internal testing
Turns out when you don't print land destruction, you need to ban utility lands. Whodathunkit.
And when you don't print Shatter, you need to ban artifacts. And when you don't print gravehate, you need to ban things like Emrakul, the Promised End, who, oh yeah, has protection from the most common removal spells.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
Change that "shatter" to shatterstorm, null rod, or even meltdown and the answer is "yes". See: affinity. The distinct lack of cheap and reliable ways of dealing with artifacts made affinity the monster that required a few rounds of bannings in standard.
Turns out when you don't print land destruction, you need to ban utility lands. Whodathunkit.
And when you don't print Shatter, you need to ban artifacts. And when you don't print gravehate, you need to ban things like Emrakul, the Promised End, who, oh yeah, has protection from the most common removal spells.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
Change that "shatter" to shatterstorm, null rod, or even meltdown and the answer is "yes". See: affinity. The distinct lack of cheap and reliable ways of dealing with artifacts made affinity the monster that required a few rounds of bannings in standard.
I don't think he was being sarcastic unless I'm missing something. All the answers they printed were weak over the last couple sets outside a few notable examples. Solemnity would have been better as a 2 mana card and we really could have used Pithing Needle over Sorcerous Spyglass.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Yep. The dearth of answers was what I was getting at.
Energy has that issue as well, since it's hard to interact with, and there were several ways to just win with energy.
Even Longtusk Cub is only slightly better than a standard Slith, and easily answered like any creature with nothing on the order of (protection, shroud/hexproof, indestructible, the Cho-Manno, Revolutionary ability). But Aetherworks Marvel? Any meta needs an answer to cards like that.
Artifacts, by the way, are also problematic because they warp the color pie. Notice how nine banned and restricted cards from Alpha (excluding dexterity cards and ante cards) are artifacts (Black Lotus, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Time Vault, and five cards with "mox" in their name)? And two of the most problematic blocks are artifact blocks? There's a reason for that.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
The whole thing does circle back around to a simple question: if no one likes the bans, what is keeping people caged up in standard? No amount of complaining is going to change the ban list: Wizards saw the data and they decided that this was the course of action to take. What communities need to start considering is if standard is the best way to keep playing the game going forward. The thing is there's a ton of product on the market right now even from out of print sets like RtR block, Kahns, etc. It's not hard to mix things up and just run maybe a RTR block + Ixalan block, or maybe mix M15 in. I definitely think running RtR + Gatecrash could help the current block get some wings just from the shocklands.
At the end of the day there is no one shoe that fits all the feet in the world. Sometimes, the best plan is to play the game the way that the microcosm enjoys instead of trying to play the way the company pushes. It's also a faster answer to a simple problem than trying to ask a company like wizards to fix it.
Also, I do not agree with MaRo on saying that bans are a sign of them pushing the envelope and improving the game. The kinds of cards that are getting banned aren't pushing the envelope: They are outright "oops" cards. A 4 mana card that blinks something on ETB is not too powerful when it has the stats it had in comparison to things like Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. What made it too powerful was them letting it blink anything including a planeswalker. Then they banned Smuggler's Copter, which was probably the first decent 2 drop in ages that could compete on a grand scale with modern and had no answers printed for artifacts to cover for it's presence.
MaRo is in the same boat as Peter Moleneux, Richard Garriot, Keiji Innafune, and by gods I'm hoping I don't have to add Koji Igarashi to that list. They are old vanguards running off of the fame of their past successes to try and push projects through, often at the cost of their fans and supporters. I've seen this so many times now on kickstarter and the only one so far to make it past the finish line has been Chris Roberts thanks to him pushing the growth of his company through digital ship sales, constant updates via their website, a news channel with a number of community support channels spreading word, and seriously pushing some major technology and visuals.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I have no idea why people remain playing standard..but I think in a general sense isnt that kind of the issue? Standard does not fire, when once it did?
Maro tried to justify the bans on that basis? Got a link so I can shout at him that he is wrong?
I have no idea why people remain playing standard..but I think in a general sense isnt that kind of the issue? Standard does not fire, when once it did?
Maro tried to justify the bans on that basis? Got a link so I can shout at him that he is wrong?
This was from ages ago. I'm not going to imply that Mark Rosewater thinks that the current bans fall under this context, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did. Pushing into a two block structure with no core set is definitely changing the design of standard simply by the reprinting restrictions placed on new sets. Also my original statement is more so going off of sbfinly who posted above, so I'm assuming that he has encountered something more recent.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I have a theory that pretty much every standard/type 2 environment has been fundamentally broken, and that it was only because sets rotated in/out fast enough for people to figure it out in time. Because we live in a world where information availability and Magic resources are increasing at an exponential rate, they are solved before rotations can solve the problem. The average Magic player is also so much better than before. I think that if the current level of sophistication and information existed before, we would have had bannings in pretty much every Standard environment ever.
As for the current Standard and bannings, I think that Energy was just plain executed wrong. By giving players an additional resource to use and not making them spend any other resources to create it and giving players no way to interact with it, you are just asking for trouble. If they actually made players invest cards, mana, life, etc. into creating energy, the mechanic could never be broken the way it was. For a game that is fundamentally about resource management, I’m surprised that this didn’t manifest itself during development.
I will say this in defense of Kaladesh: the draft format was excellent.
I have a theory that pretty much every standard/type 2 environment has been fundamentally broken, and that it was only because sets rotated in/out fast enough for people to figure it out in time. Because we live in a world where information availability and Magic resources are increasing at an exponential rate, they are solved before rotations can solve the problem. The average Magic player is also so much better than before. I think that if the current level of sophistication and information existed before, we would have had bannings in pretty much every Standard environment ever.
As for the current Standard and bannings, I think that Energy was just plain executed wrong. By giving players an additional resource to use and not making them spend any other resources to create it and giving players no way to interact with it, you are just asking for trouble. If they actually made players invest cards, mana, life, etc. into creating energy, the mechanic could never be broken the way it was. For a game that is fundamentally about resource management, I’m surprised that this didn’t manifest itself during development.
I will say this in defense of Kaladesh: the draft format was excellent.
That's largely the issue I think they are dealing with, actually. It's probably why they've been making a big deal about trying to control information going out via MTG Goldfish, which is kind of stupid because it's actually just collecting observations from players and people will still see the top deck relatively fast regardless of WoTC intervention. What we are probably going to live through is the death of the draft / limited mentality and the birth of MOBA like efficiency in set design.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
UBBreya's Toybox (Competitive, Combo)WR
RGodzilla, King of the MonstersG
-Retired Decks-
UBLazav, Dimir Mastermind (Competitive, UB Voltron/Control)UB
"Knowledge is such a burden. Release it. Release all your fears to me."
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
*I'm surprised nobody has tried yet to make a conspiracy theory about this one, involving Felidar Guardian being an uncommon and Saheeli Rai being a mythic planeswalker.
Standard is now designed with zero potential to self police. I pity this generation of players.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
Yes, I found that an odd decision to make. By Force and Abrade should have been cards in Kaladesh block instead of the following block. Also, regarding Energy (the main boogeyman of Kaladesh block), from what I hear, even MaRo wishes they had actually printed hard answers to that mechanic. Hopefully, going forward, they print real answers to mechanics like Energy instead of deliberately having next to none just to ensure it does something in the metagame.
Are you saying that you're surprised nobody speculated that they made Guardian in such a way that it could go infinite with Saheeli on purpose?
Not quite. What I had in mind was more speculation that given a format-breaking interaction, they chose to ban the uncommon as opposed to the planeswalker that could potentially be a "face card" for the set, and a chase mythic more generally. I am agnostic about that idea myself, but I couldn't recall whether anyone else had mentioned it.
Of course, it turns out that Saheeli Rai is not as good not as part of the combo.
Have they specifically stated whether they missed the interaction? Or that they didn't but thought it would be okay?
"We knew going into Monday that the Saheeli-Felidar combo was a significant issue for Standard and were watching it closely."
"we pre-released a new card set on Magic Online before the formal release date."
So, yeah, they knew, even before the set hit the stores.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
The lack of answers is an issue but I also think the shifting design goals of Standard is also a major obstacle. We went from one 3-set block and a core lasting 2 years, to two 2-set blocks lasting 18 months, to two 2-set blocks lasting 2 years, to 3 individual big sets and a core set lasting two years. That is going to wreak havoc on design. The change from 18 to 24 months alone necessitated the latest bans, since all of the banned cards would have rotated out in April, rather than September.
Standard is a mess because WotC is changing too much too quickly.
Honestly, Standard probably won't be "right" until September of 2021, once the last sets that started their lives under the 2-block system finally rotate out.
1) I agree with Rosewater's statement that a complete lack of bans means they aren't pushing the envelope and improving the game.
2) The only recent "mistake" was the copy-cat combo. Energy and vehicles have been at the heart of the majority of recent bannings and both are interesting new additions to the game. History shows that interesting new additions are often riddled with issues at the beginning. Vehicles are very reminiscent of equipment and there were serious power level issues with equipment in the beginning. Energy is an excellent concept that is also very dependent on building a shell that harnesses it. When cards are built for a particular archetype they make the whole much more powerful than the individual cards and in this case they dedicated a chunk of two sets to the archetype.
That would all be fine if there hadn't also been times when they introduced a radical new concept which didn't break Standard in half.
Double-faced cards look insane, but there have never been any power level issues with them. The most powerful werewolf was Huntmaster of the Fells, and he (or she, if you use the From the Vault version) is just fine.
I do not believe for a second that broken Standard seasons are the result of simply "pushing the envelope". If that's what Rosewater really said, he needs to take a break from design for a couple of sets. They do not seem to know how to playtest.
Starting in rivals of ixalan, eh wizards?
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Death and Taxes
Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron
Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
And when you don't print Shatter, you need to ban artifacts. And when you don't print gravehate, you need to ban things like Emrakul, the Promised End, who, oh yeah, has protection from the most common removal spells.
On phasing:
I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
Change that "shatter" to shatterstorm, null rod, or even meltdown and the answer is "yes". See: affinity. The distinct lack of cheap and reliable ways of dealing with artifacts made affinity the monster that required a few rounds of bannings in standard.
See also psychatog era, with it's lack of cards similar to tormod's crypt.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
I don't think he was being sarcastic unless I'm missing something. All the answers they printed were weak over the last couple sets outside a few notable examples. Solemnity would have been better as a 2 mana card and we really could have used Pithing Needle over Sorcerous Spyglass.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Energy has that issue as well, since it's hard to interact with, and there were several ways to just win with energy.
Even Longtusk Cub is only slightly better than a standard Slith, and easily answered like any creature with nothing on the order of (protection, shroud/hexproof, indestructible, the Cho-Manno, Revolutionary ability). But Aetherworks Marvel? Any meta needs an answer to cards like that.
Artifacts, by the way, are also problematic because they warp the color pie. Notice how nine banned and restricted cards from Alpha (excluding dexterity cards and ante cards) are artifacts (Black Lotus, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Time Vault, and five cards with "mox" in their name)? And two of the most problematic blocks are artifact blocks? There's a reason for that.
On phasing:
At the end of the day there is no one shoe that fits all the feet in the world. Sometimes, the best plan is to play the game the way that the microcosm enjoys instead of trying to play the way the company pushes. It's also a faster answer to a simple problem than trying to ask a company like wizards to fix it.
Also, I do not agree with MaRo on saying that bans are a sign of them pushing the envelope and improving the game. The kinds of cards that are getting banned aren't pushing the envelope: They are outright "oops" cards. A 4 mana card that blinks something on ETB is not too powerful when it has the stats it had in comparison to things like Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. What made it too powerful was them letting it blink anything including a planeswalker. Then they banned Smuggler's Copter, which was probably the first decent 2 drop in ages that could compete on a grand scale with modern and had no answers printed for artifacts to cover for it's presence.
MaRo is in the same boat as Peter Moleneux, Richard Garriot, Keiji Innafune, and by gods I'm hoping I don't have to add Koji Igarashi to that list. They are old vanguards running off of the fame of their past successes to try and push projects through, often at the cost of their fans and supporters. I've seen this so many times now on kickstarter and the only one so far to make it past the finish line has been Chris Roberts thanks to him pushing the growth of his company through digital ship sales, constant updates via their website, a news channel with a number of community support channels spreading word, and seriously pushing some major technology and visuals.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Maro tried to justify the bans on that basis? Got a link so I can shout at him that he is wrong?
Spirits
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/banning-good-or-bad-2003-02-21
This was from ages ago. I'm not going to imply that Mark Rosewater thinks that the current bans fall under this context, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did. Pushing into a two block structure with no core set is definitely changing the design of standard simply by the reprinting restrictions placed on new sets. Also my original statement is more so going off of sbfinly who posted above, so I'm assuming that he has encountered something more recent.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
As for the current Standard and bannings, I think that Energy was just plain executed wrong. By giving players an additional resource to use and not making them spend any other resources to create it and giving players no way to interact with it, you are just asking for trouble. If they actually made players invest cards, mana, life, etc. into creating energy, the mechanic could never be broken the way it was. For a game that is fundamentally about resource management, I’m surprised that this didn’t manifest itself during development.
I will say this in defense of Kaladesh: the draft format was excellent.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
That's largely the issue I think they are dealing with, actually. It's probably why they've been making a big deal about trying to control information going out via MTG Goldfish, which is kind of stupid because it's actually just collecting observations from players and people will still see the top deck relatively fast regardless of WoTC intervention. What we are probably going to live through is the death of the draft / limited mentality and the birth of MOBA like efficiency in set design.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Spirits