u/HonorBasquiat

I've been really enjoying Standard lately and am fascinated by a lot of the discourse among enfranchised players. I've been thinking about the future of Standard and discussing it among my friends but I want to hear what the Magic Reddit community thinks.

Listed below are some questions I put together to encourage discussion:

1. How many decks should be viable at the metagame level for you to consider the format diverse and healthy?
2. When was the last Standard environment that you considered to be terrific from a gameplay perspective? What made that Standard environment so fun?
3. Are the interests and desires of Best of 1 players in direct conflict of the interest and desires of Best of 3 players? What changes can be made to accommodate both environments?
4. Which archetypes, decks or mechanics would you like to see supported or bolstered more in the current Standard meta game?
5. What do you enjoy the most about the current Standard environment?
6. What do you like the least about the current Standard environment?

**Here a few of my thoughts to get the conversation started**:

Obviously there is a big shakeup going on now with recent card bannings and The Hobbit set being released, but even before that, I can't remember the last time we had a Standard environment with so many different archetypes and color diversity that are competing at the top of the meta game.

The fact that there's a deck centered around a card with six black pips in its mana cost (\[\[Doomsday Excruciator\]\]) is pretty amazing. It's nothing like the mono green Landfall deck which differs greatly from the White/Blue/Black/Red Control decks that cast cards like \[\[Inevitable Defeat\]\] and \[\[Jeskai Revalaion\]\].

There's a Avatar Lessons Spellsling deck also which is very different from the White/Green \[\[Practice Offense\]\]/\[\[Brightglass Gearhulk\]\] deck. Not to mention the Sultai reanimator decks making great use of cards like \[\[Town Greeter\]\] and \[\[Bringer of the Last Gift\]\]. Not to mention the \[\[Slickshot Showoff\]\] aggressive prowess decks and the Elemental typal decks.

When I pause and think about how dynamic and unique some of the decks are in Standard, it really is quite amazing. Particularly because when many of these cards were previewed, the community dismissed some of these cards as bulk rares, Commander chaff or too awkward/niche for competitive Standard.

I am not bored of the meta and I don't think of it as one dimensional or shallow. We are talking about several distinct archetypes across the color pie spectrum that are viable at the top of the meta. There are aggro decks and control decks along with decks in between.

While there are some cards and play patterns that I'm not fond of, I haven't personally had this much fun engaging with a Standard environment since Kaldheim Standard and that was more than 5 years ago.

I'm curious to hear which cards from the new Hobbit set that the community thinks have potentially viability to slot into existing Standard metagame decks.

I'm also interested in hearing about cards from The Hobbit that have a chance to thrive in existing tier 2 decks in the metagame.

\--

To get the conversation started, I'll start by mentioning that the Mono Green Landfall deck probably wants to try out a few copies of \[\[Elven Passage\]\] over \[\[Escape Tunnel\]\] even though \[\[Llanowar Elves\]\] is the only Elf the deck runs because coming into play untapped sometimes seems better than none of the time

As far as tier 2 decks, \[\[Gollum the Abandoned\]\] is a card I'm eager to test out in Esper Self Bounce due to having the versatility of providing targeted graveyard hate, life drain and the ability to loop back to your hand from the graveyard easily. I also think \[\[Gollum, Riddle Master\]\] in that deck seems very solid against decks with limited removal (i.e. Mono Green Landfall and Selesnya Slop)

\[\[The Eagles Are Coming!\]\] is another card that could have a shot in Esper Self Bounce. It can't bounce your enchantments, but picking up a \[\[Nurturing Pixie\]\] or a \[\[Spyglass Siren\]\] at instant speed to make a 4/4 white flying Bird Soldier creature token seems pretty spicy.

It's a slow news week in the Magic space so I've been ruminating about the future of Magic next year. I'm curious to hear what players predict we will see for Magic in 2027.

Listed below is some known information and past precedent worth considering to encourage discussion:

• It's worth considering the direction the Magic Universe story is heading towards along with revisits and new Magic Universe sets are possible (In most recent years we get both).
• New Magic Universe worlds can be entirely new worlds (i.e. Bloomburrow, New Capenna) or first time visits to known planes (i.e. Vyrn).
• Return to sets in recent times tend to be designed with a strong intention of appealing to nostalgia of long time veteran and/or lapsed players.
• Typically revisiting a Magic Universe world doesn't happen until at least 4-5 years after its initial debut. I suspect that this precedent may grow in length given the frequency at which we receive Universes Beyond sets nowadays. (i.e. it's likely too soon to return to Bloomburrow or Duskmourn).
• Keep in mind that roughly half of the sets released next year will be Universes Beyond sets.
• Considering that we know that there will be several different Marvel sets so a Marvel themed set being released next year is extremely likely.
• Maro has said on the record that revisits to Universes Beyond worlds are on the table (we're seeing that this year with The Hobbit set).