Whats Missing in M14?

I know thats kind of an odd question, but bear with me.

Without an addition from Theros we're not going to have a Rampent Growth in Standard come October for the first time in... I think forever. 

Now newer players might not know this but Rampant Growth effects being tournament playable is a pretty new development. Before the Ramp decks took off thanks to Zendikar blocks the only time the effect really saw play was in Mirrari's Wake decks thanks to Krosan Verge, and it had the double benefit of both being a land so that it didn't take up valuable spell slots and it for you two lands. There were also the Explosive Vegetation decks in Onslaught Block Constructed but most of them disappeared when Astral Slide and Lightning Rift teamed up. The last died with the release of Scourge and its hordes of hasty goblins. 

But thats about it guys. The world where Jund is the best deck in standard when it hits its Farseek is totally different. A huge part of that is that creatures are so very, very much better than they used to be. Especially the larger ones. Playing Serra Angel, or even Archangel a turn earlier isn't that big a deal. Cutting a turn off of Huntmaster into Thragtusk into Runic Tharr is huge.

So what does a lack of Rampant Growth mean for standard? Even more importantly, the analogue card for it in M14 is Verdant Haven? Well, if Wizards is really looking to scale back the power of the mana base as was said in this article then this is a huge step in that direction. Multicolored fixing not coming into play until turn 3 makes it inefficient enough to be nearly unplayable. I've considered running Verdant Haven before but cooler heads prevailed. This, combined with the lack of duals in M14 likely mean that we're looking at two color decks being the primary set of color combinations. If the Theros duals work well with the shocklands, like say the M10 lands did or possibly the Nimbus Maze cycle then we might be able to splash a third but without spell support I doubt it. 

This means that quantity and color will be equally important in our mana base. It means that the days of cards like Acidic Slime (another none reprinted card that has repercussions) cutting off a color are likely over and that if you're trying to disrupt your opponents mana you're likely trying to keep them off of a critical number.

It might be enough to put Midrange as an archtype back to bed. It was unplayable for a long time and its entirely possible that the use of Rampant Growth effects is what made it finally shine.