What Should Have Been Banned In The History of Standard?

The nonsense that was the series of bans starting with Throne of Eldraine was a big part of what demotivated me from continued blogging, but it’s also what finally brought me back.

There's an image going around describing the current state of bannings that isn't quite fair.

Lumping the Kaladesh mistakes with the current ones is a bit dicey. There were massive overhauls after Kaladesh. Play Design was created to prevent another Kaladesh incident, and they fucking failed horribly, but it wasn't the same era of design that made Aetherworks Marvel and Fires of Invention.

Bans were just different for a ton of that time. You only had windows at set releases or specific calendar dates every few months, so your shots had to be sure. 

Standard was different. Did you know prior to 2020 people were actually allowed to play tournaments in other formats and they liked it? Imagine, a game client with more than three years of sets and a dartboard of added stuff. Maybe a bad format for one set had two major events and everyone played Modern instead. There were also just less events, so six weekends of development often meant multiple months of real time as opposed to four weeks after set release.

The Magic economy was different. I'll save my Arena rants for later, but cards costing different dollar amounts but also being sellable resources means people choose decks differently.

I started playing sanctioned, competitive Standard in 2002 and have done so the entire 18 years since. Between that start point of Onslaught and the beginning of this latest shit show with Throne of Eldraine, how many cards would have been banned under today's paradigm?

If you haven't been playing Standard for two decades, you might want Gatherer or Scryfall open for this one.

Reference Decklist: Daniel Zink, 2003 World Champion

Mirari's Wake was a bit of a Standard curiosity for about a year when it was printed in Judgment. It was clearly powerful, but tapping out for a five drop was punished by Psychatog with Force Spike and Counterspell or by Blue-Green Madness with Circular Logic. The kill mechanisms were also clunky and filled with subpar cards, largely centering around Cunning Wish loops with Mirari (you could Wish for exiled cards then) or Burning Wish for Firecat Blitz.

It's possible the problem started at Scourge, when you could just play Decree of Justice for a clean win with your mana and anthem or Cunning Wish could get Hunting Pack. But the dam definitely was broken when 8th Edition traded out the previous counterspells for Mana Leak, which Wake could easily cast. 5 of the 6 undefeated decks in Standard at Worlds were Bant Wake, half the Top 8 was, and it only lost mirrors there.

There are obviously huge parallels to the recent Wilderness Reclamation situation here. Moment's Peace was the Growth Spiral, with two free turns being about a land and a cantrip. It also represented a way to untap freely after Wake if you just had a sixth land to Peace off of, and with the old Wish rules chaining many copies was a given.

I think Moment's Peace would merely be an unfun card without a great home after a Wake ban, but I could be wrong and it may have remained a problem in some weird Mind's Desire deck or something. But Wake had to go at the end.

Probability of a Ban: 100%. Exalted Angel was even the good creature backup plan that Temur Rec had.

Notable No Ban Formats: Post Ban Mirrodin-Kamigawa, Kamigawa-Ravnica

There's a big possibility we were all dumb when Mirrodin was released and Atog Affinity was unbeatable, but after another year the right stuff got cleaned up. Disciple of the Vault was probably excessive, whatever, it and Cauldron Familiar can share that.

Urza's Tower, Plow Under, Chrome Mox, Umezawa's Jitte all were legal after the ban. You couldn't play two colors because the only duals were uncommons lands from Kamigawa that didn't untap if you used them. The format wasn't healthy.

But all the mono-color decks were miserably balanced. There were multiple blue and green decks. And 9th Edition brought Enduring Ideal with Form of the Dragon, which was the cool kind of broken.

Then in Kamigawa-Ravnica Standard rolled around, and there were multiple high tier decks based around playing eight Boomerangs and targeting their land on Turn 2. And Remand was in a million decks, and Umezawa’s Jitte mirrors were an entire pillar of the metagame and there was a combo deck that in retrospect was way better than it got credit for and…. it was totally fine.

I'm going to cite Theros Beyond Death Standard. That format was not good game play as evidenced by how many cards from it are now banned for sucking to play against. But it was playable because the sucky things were rotating in relative power and kinda dynamic. On the flip side of the same, you have 2018 Modern, where there were a million kinda broken things to do that you could be really selective about and do what you wanted. Mirrodin-Kamigawa Standard was on the bad side of that, and Kamigawa-Ravnica was on the great side.

Reference Decklist: Katsuhiro Mori, 2006 Japanese National Champion

I described Kamigawa-Ravnica Standard as a fine format. There was then a two-ish month period when Coldsnap came out where you could play Counterbalance and Sensei's Divining Top in Standard. It wasn't fine.

(Also, I assure you even if that player was suspended from the DCI a while after the event I cited the deck was actually good)

Probability of a Ban: 100%. This was more egregious than about a quarter of the bans that did actually happen.

Reference Decklist: Makahito Mihara, 2006 World Champion

Back in my day, we maindecked Shadow of Doubt to beat Dragonstorm and liked it.

I don’t think Dragonstorm was unbeatable, and the Mystical Teachings decks I'm referencing definitely beat it, but calling it OK to exist is probably stretching it. I’m unsure which of these cards would belong on the banned list, but it sure should have been some of them. That would have cost us the awesomeness that was Perilous Research - Hatching Plans Storm, but that's the fine line between "pretty cool and fine Storm deck" and "kinda just bullshit Storm deck" for you.

Probability of a Ban: 80%. Dragonstorm was beatable even if the play patterns were not great.

Reference Decklist: PVDDR, PT Hollywood Top 8

Pro Tour Hollywood had implications that Faeries wasn’t broken with just Paulo making Top 8, but it was really good and really oppressive to play against. 

Elves and eventually Mono-Red did have solid matchups against it, but I don't know if solid was good enough. I think at best it would end up in a spot like Pioneer Inverter, where it was the best overall deck, but beatable, but also made mid-level players feel horrible. Just like tracking their graveyard size and playing 5D future library size Chess isn't what people play Magic for, starting at UUUB open and trying to route through Spellstutter Sprite, Cryptic Command, Mistbind Clique, Scion of Oona, and later Agony Warp just broke people. 

The two clear issues were Bitterblossom enabling all the Faeries stuff too well and Cryptic Command being what let that deck really dominate many other strategies, with Thoughtseize being kinda reasonable for the power level of the format, and I would put it around a coin flip that one or both of those cards would have been banned today 

Probability of a Ban: 60%. There were decks I would consider good versus Faeries that existed in the format, and the format in general was really high power, so maybe it balances out.

Reference Decklists: Makahito Mihara, PT Hollywood Top 8 ; Gabe Nassif, PT Kyoto Champion

If Faeries went, I think there might be a cascade effect on these cards. Cryptic Command was a big part of both Reveillark and Five-Color Control, but it's possible they would have still dominated without being punished by a more tempo-oriented blue deck. Reveillark was especially well known for being 80% versus the field and 20% versus Faeries, which is part of why it did so well at the previously mentioned PT Hollywood in an era where Faeries could be the best deck but only 20% of the metagame.

Unlike these cards, Spectral Procession proved reasonably assailable over the format. Even if it would be the best card in the format, that's not inherently bad that White Weenie is good and the best card is a non-disruptive three power three-drop creature.

Probability of a Ban: 50%.... If the Bitterblossom ban occurred so net 30%. This is definitely guessing at second order effects.

Reference Decklist: Simon Goertzen, PT San Diego Champion

I don’t fault Wizards for letting some of the late format stuff ride in the past. You could run events in other formats for another couple months because you didn’t tie your entire enterprise to a single program that doesn’t have legacy content and probably isn’t even programmed to support a large chunk of it.

But wow did they miss with Bloodbraid Elf. 

If we played a Worldwake Standard Pro Tour under the same metrics as Mythic Championship Oko, it would be in a similar ballpark of dominance. 

Jund was the lone dominant deck in Standard from October to April. When Rise of the Eldrazi dropped, people made claims a bunch of decks beat Jund. The only one that really competed was Jace, the Mind Sculptor plus Spreading Seas, every other deck that "beat Jund" only beat Jund players with bad lists who didn't understand how to be aggressive or how to sideboard with cascade.

Bloodbraid Elf was so stupid, Primeval Titan plus Valakut being legal in Standard with Explore and Rampant Growth was the GOOD GUY because it beat up on Jund.

"But Ari, LSV 16-0, Mike Flores, Naya Lightsaber" you are wrong your Naya deck is trash. Jund won the PT. Worlds was only 6 rounds of Standard, that Naya deck went 4-2 there, Jund was half the 6-0 or 5-1 decks, and we were still too stupid to play more than 24 mana sources in our three-color deck that only lost if it didn't cast spells. Even the Naya Vengevine decks of the Rise of the Eldrazi era died to Jund players who declared attacks with Putrid Leech instead of trying to block unkillable stuff.

Probability of a Ban: 100%. Bloodbraid Elf in Standard was a taste of 2020 Standard ten years ago.

Notable No Ban: Post-Caw Blade Standard

This format sucked, but everything equally sucked. Splinter Twin and Valakut both existed, but they weren't over powering somehow. If Dimir Control can win US Nationals through that mess, I see no reason the format would default to bannings.

Reference Decklists: Matt Costa, Grand Prix Baltimore Champion ; Brian Kibler, Pro Tour Dark Ascension Champion

These fall under the simply boring category. 

Dark Ascension Standard was not good, and it was these two cards battling into each other that made it that way. There were two decks, each had like eight threats that mattered and 52 blanks when they faced off, but those 52 blanks beat the other 50% of the meta so it was still just them battling.

Maybe you could get away with just Snapcaster Mage. The Primeval Titan end game was getting Inkmoth Nexus and Kessig Wolf Run, and without Snapcaster plus Celestial Purge or Divine Offering pushing down Zombies or Red or Tempered Steel I think other decks could compete and make a fair metagame. This is basically what Primeval Titan did in the Jund era with Valakut: beat up on midrange, pushed aggro and control.

(Gee, overly broad and efficient color-hosing removal is an issue? Who would have Gust'd it?)

Probability of a Ban: 50%? They probably knew Cavern of Souls was coming down the line, so maybe you just wait it out.

Reference Decklist: Me, winning a PTQ

When Magic 2013 dropped Thragtusk and Elvish Visionary with the clock winding down on Birthing Pod in Standard, the card finally broke. Even without an infinite combo, the mix of mana dorks (Birds), untap effects (Deceiver Exarch), and powerful chain ends (Thragtusk, Acidic Slime, Elesh Norn) you could build a Pod deck that had all the answers and the raw power. I won a PTQ where the Finals was kicked off by me destroying two lands a turn from Turn 4 to Turn 6.

This was a Kethis scenario. We got to the end of the format, and suddenly all the pieces came together. Maybe more opposing Gut Shots would stop it, but I'm doubtful.

Probability of a Ban: 80%. Pod is a pretty inherently broken card, it just needs to turn the deck building and card pool corner.

Notable No Bans: Innistrad-Return to Ravnica Standard

Even when every deck was Thragtusk, this was still a good format. And that eventually got cracked open in a ton of ways well before a new set got added. Maybe the end with Magic 2014 Jund was a bit too good with Scavenging Ooze against the Abzan Aristocrats decks, but the format had more than enough flex to fight back if there was more time and iterations to develop against it.

I don't know if this format, the previous Ravnica-Kamigawa, Ravnica-Time Spiral, Khans of Tarkir, or the recent Ravnica Allegiance Standard right before everything failed horribly is the best of all time, but the only other format that is even in contention in my mind is the one right at the start here: pre-8th Edition Onslaught-Odyssey.

There probably should be a whole extra post about how good untapped mana and heavy multicolor themes makes for inherently good Standard formats.

Reference Decklists: Ivan Floch, PT Magic 2015 Champion ; Huey Jensen, PT Magic 2015 Top 8

We were all just too cowardly to play Theros-era Esper Control. There was all this talk about the round timer, but if we were playing with online clocks I think it would have been dominant against the field (that consisted of two and a half other decks). If it was gone, I don't think Mono-Black Devotion at full power would be something you could let survive. 

The format had bad mana and 3 decks anyways, so it may have been unfixable from the start in a way where banning anything caused a cascade to an even worse format.

Probability of a Ban: 50%. Like I said, it might just make things worse.

Reference Decklist: Reid Duke, GP Oakland Champion

Rally the Ancestors was way too good. It had all the staying power of the other midrange decks with Nantuko Husk powered fast kills versus ramp decka and a combo to break mirrors. And this was even before they printed Reflector Mage. I think the deck would have been easily banned if Standard was on year long rotations, but they hoped Kalitas was good enough and just let it ride until it got booted out.

The real question is whether the remaining Four-Color Pile format was acceptable or if the Pioneer maneuver of banning fetches was required. I think it would be totally fine if 4 fetchlands cost 4 rare wildcards and not 1 Benjamin Franklin, which would make it the only time the Arena economy was an upside. The same applies to Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. People generally enjoyed these grindy mirrors if they could afford to buy the cards and play them.

Probability of a Ban: 100%. Unlike Dragonstorm this deck didn’t actually lose to things attacking it.

Reference Decklist: BBD, 2016 World Champion

R&D members have said Collected Company would have been banned with another window between Eldritch Moon and the shortened rotation. The case is made for me.

Probability of a Ban: 100%. They literally said it.

Reference Decklist: Marcio Carvalho, PT Dominaria Top 8

Something needed to go from Rakdos Chainwhirler, I just have no clue what. My best guess is the cheaper cards like Scrapheap Scrounger or Goblin Chainwhirler, because there were too many redundant Chandra, Hazoret, Glorybringer-style cards to ban them all. At top level events it was showing the 40% metagame share, 50% Top 8 results that put it in a dominance tier just below Temur Reclamation, but it was miserably oppressive to the playable cards in the format.

Would that ban in turn make The Scarab God or Teferi, Hero of Dominaria too good? Probably not The Scarab God since that was beatable in Rivals of Ixalan Standard. Maybe Teferi, but that's fairly speculative.

Probability of a Ban: Maybe 50% on each of these individually, but over 80% of at least one of them going.

Reference Decklist: The basic Mountain you used as a proxy for your foil-only card

Yea just fuck everything about this card.

Probability of a Ban: Seriously, fuck it.

Reference Decklist: Stanislav Cifka's Kethis Combo

There's a chance Core Set 2020 should have kicked off the current era of bans, but there weren't iterated events to show it. While I promoted Mono-Red Aggro, that was largely because no one had the respect to play four Cerulean Drake. I didn't play enough Golos or Dinosaurs against Kethis to know if it was actually dominant or merely very good, but it has a lot of the hallmarks of something that was a real issue.

Probability of a Ban: 60%. The format was really high power and might be able to absorb Kethis if it started pulling on stuff too hard, but it wasn’t the most fun way to lose games.

What's the takeaway here?

Rounding off the maybes listed here, 10 to 20 more cards probably should have been banned between 2002 and 2018 in addition to the 20 that were.  These missed bans are mostly split between late format things that were just left to ride until rotation and single cards in a tail-chasing power spiral that occured between Lorwyn and Innistrad where there was a broken card every year that was either allowed to exist due to the prior broken card covering it or as an answer to that.

Standard wasn't a flawless entity before 2019 rolled around. The era of “seven years no bans” is probably long gone due to more people smashing away on the Arena client.

But two things can be independently true. The effects of War of the Spark through Ikoria are absolutely in line with the worst of Magic's Standard history, not the norm. 

In the last year, 20 cards have been banned or effectively banned from Standard. The companion case isn't power level errata the way we are used to it, that would be fixing Lucky Clover to not fizzle Petty Theft if there's only the same target for the copy. It was effectively banning the companions as they existed before.

That outpaces the adjusted prior fifteen year average by multiple times.

And honestly, I'm not even sure we are done.