Magic the Gathering
So...they went and broke it again.
And...not necessarily in the way the DL expected from stuff I've seen posted here--in particular, not because they printed
big scary creatures (nobody's playing the stuff I just linked anymore anyway). But rather because of some interesting miscalculations. Let's start with the most harmless-looking.
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Squadron HawkRemember
Skyshroud Sentinel? That card was bad, eh? You got to pay 3 mana for a 1/1 (by all accounts awful on its own) just for the right to get three more cards...but you know they're going to be terrible cards so who cares? The best use for them was when you had other cards in your deck with lines of text like "discard a card: something awesome happens".
Now, when Squadron Hawk was first revealed, people were like "Ok, 1 less mana, and you get flying; maybe that's enough of an upgrade to be useful. Well...there'll be some deck that uses it. There's discard costs, there's decks that want to play two creatures in a turn, and there's some effects that put cards from your hand back into your library, so it'll probably squeeze into a niche deck." And yeah, Squadron Hawk totally does get used in those decks, but the thing is, it's much, much better than that--to the point that it's used in just about every deck; to the point that slow white-blue control decks stopped playing big angel creatures and started playing 2 mana 1/1 birds. Let's analyze.
Sliver Queen and her modern cousin
Ant Queen are good, not because they've got big bodies (which is actually hardly used) but because "2: make a 1/1" is just a powerful effect. For that matter,
Sacred Mesa was a control staple; recently, and generally involves spending a fair bit more than 2 mana for each 1/1 flyer you get from the deal. On the one hand, these work at instant speed, but on the other hand, they're easier to stop--you blow up the source, the flood of 1/1s ends; there's nothing to blow up in the case of Squadron Hawks. Granted, infinite uses vs 4 uses, but 4 is actually quite a lot; given the pace of games these days, the game will often be over before you're left wanting a fifth.
The other way of looking at it:
Skyshroud Sentinel was kinda 3 mana to draw 3 cards...which would be a good deal except it's 3 absolutely awful cards. Squadron Hawk is like 2 mana to draw 3 cards...except 1/1 flying for 2 isn't irrelevant, so kinda like 1 mana to draw 3 cards...which would be broken beyond belief...except it's 3 sub-par cards (which is still quite good).
Of course, it isn't helping that 1/1 flier is better than it normally would be right now--we're in another artifact block, which means lots of powerful equipment trotting around, and 1/1 fliers love equipment. Speaking of equipment, that leads us nicely into...
Stoneforge MysticLet's pause for a minute and look at
Elvish Visionary (or for you old-schoolers in the audience, Wall of Blossoms). Elvish Visionary is played in...just about every format; mostly in Elf decks, sure, but it's pretty solid. We're back to the "2 mana for a 1/1 that doesn't cost you a card = good".
Stoneforge Mystic is 1/2 instead of 1/1. It has an extra ability (which I'll get into later). And instead of drawing a card it searches for a very specific kind of card (Equipment). Now, initially this seemed balanced enough--since (at the time Stoneforge Mystic had been printed) they had been pretty careful with the equipment they were printing, search your library for an Equipment was at the time probably worse than draw a card, just due to selection. And indeed, there's evidence to back that up--when Stoneforge Mystic first came out, a columnist I have a great deal of respect for (Craig Wescoe) got top 4 with a white weenie deck that maxed out on Stoneforge Mystic, running such uninspiring equipment as
Trusty Machete.
So...that was then; what's changed since then? For starters, decks with lots of creatures were common then; one of the downsides of equipment in general is that if you have nothing to attach it to, it's a dead card--but Stoneforge Mystic herself can always be equipped; problem solved! You can now gain all the benefits of powerful equipment in decks filled with counterspells and card drawing. So...that's one extra aspect that's handy. Next up: Stoneforge Mystic has a second ability: "2 mana, tap, put equipment from your hand into play". Now, when Stoneforge Mystic first came out, the equipment worth considering at all generally had casting cost 1 or 2--no real saving, although maybe you'd use it to avoid a counterspell or keep mana open until your opponent's end of turn. As the artifact block came out, this became "good equipment costs 3 mana" (1 mana savings) and then "good equipment costs 5 mana" (3 mana savings). The instant speed of this effect gained in value, with the introduction of equipment that comes with a creature token attached (so you can drop an instant-speed blocker). Finally, the third way Stoneforge Mystic became better is just that the artifact block introduced
more powerful equipment--better stuff to search for.
So...overall we went from the starting point of "this is a pretty good creature" to the ending point of "this is a scary win-con all by itself--arguably scarier than the ridiculous big creatures they print at twice the mana cost".
Jace the Mind SculptorYou know, unlike the other two, this one isn't remotely subtle. The other two snuck up on me a little--they initially seemed "that looks decent, I think people might even play that" not "that's going to warp the entire format", and I had to go back and think "oh, yeah, actually that does make sense when you do the math and add a few new combos." Jace 2.0 on the other hand, was hit-you-over-the-head obvious.
All you need to know is that
Jace Beleren is a good card that was already being played in most tournament blue decks. -1 loyalty for draw a card is a pretty good deal. Jace the Mind Sculptor admittedly costs an extra mana, but has -0 loyalty for an effect considerably better than draw a card. Even if he had no other abilities, blue decks would likely still run him just for that effect.
But as an added bonus, if you find yourself in the lead, where you don't desperately need to draw cards, he can be your win condition. And if you find yourself in danger, he can bounce the dangerous creature. He just happens to be a swiss army knife in addition to being ridiculously good card draw.
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These three cards form the backbone of the most dominating deck in Standard since Affinity. (Backed up by hey: counterspells and card draw don't actually suck right now). Oh but hey wait, here comes a new challenger.
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Deceiver ExarchDeceiver on it's own is an ok card; possibly tournament-worthy but hardly gamebreaking--just neat; certainly
Pestermite was before it. Consider: you can untap one of your lands, or tap one of your opponent's lands, so right away it's like 2 mana for a 1/4 (assuming you can't think of anything cooler to tap/untap than a land). Not bad, kinda fun to play; pretty versatile in what it can do, but hardly terrifying. Enter Splinter Twin:
Splinter TwinEnchant Deceiver. Tap it to make a copy; when that copy enters the battlefield, untap the original. Repeat a billion times. Now attack with your billion hasty creatures. Yep, turn 4 infinite damage with a 2-card combo. They had to know this was coming--older formats were dealing with Splinter Twin + Pestermite. For combo purposes, Deceiver Exarch is actually better than Pestermite anyway: 4 toughness, so it doesn't die to Lightning Bolt. I'm well...a little bit surprised; historically they've said that they try not to print 2-card combos in Standard, only 3 card combos.
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Not that I'm expecting them to run around and ban a bunch of stuff now; it's 4 months till all the crazy rotates out of Standard.
And until then there should be a metagame; blue-red combo beats stupid white-blue deck (probably). White-blue-black control with lots of combo-killing cards beats blue-red combo. Stupid white-blue deck beats white-blue-black combo killer. And combo is probably not going to be only one deck anyway (given that it only needs two cards; the rest of your deck can be pretty much whatever you want). And hey, every once in a while, if these decks focus too many of their cards on killing each other, a "how bout I just kill you" deck might surface briefly. So...strangely this might be a metagame with some diversity.
It's more that...the power of the best decks is kinda wtf-worthy. And there's the unhealthy factor that a lot of emphasis is being put on a small number of cards, which adds more luck into the equation (did you draw key card X?)
