We did a few M14 pre-releases here this weekend. I played in two of them, the midnight and the 1 pm and in an impressive display of unevenness I went undefeated in the midnight and couldn't buy a win in the 1 pm. My deck at Midnight had everything you could want. spot removal in the form of 2 Liturgy of Blood, Quag Sickness, Corrupt and a Plummet, solid creatures including double of the new Muscle Sliver, Megantic Sliver, Syphon Sliver, Mutavault, Scavenging Ooze and of course good old Sengir Vampire. My 1 pm had... nothing. I mean nothing. the only pieced of removal I had in the entire pool was a Claustrophobia and a Plummet. My white had almost no actual cards, instead it was primarily Suntail Hawks. My red was full of Wild Guess and Dragon Hatchlings. my green was deceptively playable. I ran it in addition to my black in round one and got demolished by Blue White flyers. Seraph of the Sword into Serra Angel into Charging Griffin into Jace's Mindsheeker is pretty good against my one plummet. Which the Mindseeker hit and killed my blocker with. So After that beating I took a look at what I had and rebuilt into Black Blue hoping that limited all stars like Cancel and Negate would be better than double Elvish Mystic into nothing. So of course my next opponent was in a blue white flyer deck, chock full of cards I can't beat like Serra Angel, Charging Griffon, Air Servent, and for extra style Fireshrieker. Then, at the end of game three he conceded to me because he accidentally mulled to seven. Which we caught before the game started. So he beat the hell out of me on a mull to 6. So going into round 3 I'm 1-1 when I should be 0-2. What do I play against? UB flyers! With Jace! Because if you're going to get your ass kicked then at least do it consistently. Mark of the Vampire on Sengir Vampire when I can't get to a second blue for Claustrophobia is pretty good.
So what did I take away from this? Honestly, not a whole lot. Its core set sealed, and while its noce about... once a year as a bit of a pallet cleanse after a year of shenanigans I;m certainly not about to do it all the time. I do think that Draft will be better because I can see archetypes forming already. I'm eager to see how crazy the Naya or 4 color sliver deck can be/ RG beasts is always a favorite to draft for me and Advocate of the Beast is amazing. And if I don't get to open the Witch at least once and dive in as deep as I can go there I'll be extremely disappointed.
So as far as new Standard, I think its might rotate around how much play one card is seeing.
If Burning Earth is a card everything changes. Right now we have some INSANELY powerful manabases in Standard. Insanely powerful and extreme lazy. 4x of each dual in a three color combination, maybe shaving one or two for an appropriate utility land. Shuffle up and go! Except if Burning Earth is a one sided Manabarbs then pretty much every deck in Standard that isn't RG Aggro looses. Right now I've been kicking around the idea of GW Little Kid aggro for week one. Rancor, disruptive guys like Imposing Sovereign and Thalia, and resiliant creatures like Voice of Resurgence and Strangleroot Geist all seem like they're well positioned in a Burning Earth heavy world.
But if its not a card... Then nothing changes. We keep the same decks but Jund gets Scavenging Ooze and Junk Aristocrats likely runs some number of Archangel of Thune. Bant hexproof gets more guys.
I really hope its a card. I want to see a big shakeup in Standard. I want to see something change. And I want to see people put some thought into their lands instead of just jamming as many duals as possible.
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