[Lord Seth]

Originally Posted by tgva8889

Is Venser Control actually a major problem for UW Delver?

It is when Stonehorn Dignitary and Venser are in play together and you can't attack at all (despite having a Geist equipped with a Sword) and can't do anything but watch your opponent buff up their Vensers/Tamiyos until they hit their ultimates and become essentially unbeatable.

To be fair, I didn't exactly lose to it, the game got stopped on time in the middle of the third game, but by that time they had hit me with Venser and Stonehorn Dignitary. I looked at my library and eventually would've gotten an Oblivion Ring, though at that point it might have been impossible to come back. Still, Phyrexian Revoker shuts down the combo and can be used to hurt other planeswalkers also.

Originally Posted by Mystic Muse

Random thoughts about Infect since it's rotating out of standard soon and at my local FNM it seems to make you "That Guy" with everybody else.

Spoiler

After mulling it over a little, I do have one major complaint about Infect, though it's not the same kind that most people have. (Well, two, but that's because I despise cards with Unblockable as an inherent ability anyway, and I'm mostly talking about people I've met at my Local FNM).


It's hard to use in anything but a dedicated deck, and even then some colors are really bad with it. I mean, there's all of 3 cards with Infect in red, There's only 4 in white, and there's 4 in Blue.

Now, let's go over to Black and Green. There's 14 cards with infect in green, and 15 in black, plus a few others to give other creatures infect or put creatures into play with infect.

The only real saving grace for other decks is the artifact cards with infect, but even that won't help much.

I wouldn't mind so much if other colors got a little something to make it more even, since I think you should reasonably be able to make a Praetor deck with Infect (So, White Elesh Norn deck with creatures with Infect, Red Urubrask, ETC.) but the only ones that's really practical for would be Vorinclex and Sheoldred, and neither of those comes with Infect so it's a bad idea then too.

I'd have liked something like Wither more, or if they came with Poisonous X so that cards were more easily usable in other deck types besides Infect. I'd like to be able to use Skithiryx or Phyrexian Crusader in a non-infect deck without having Melira out.

Anybody else have thoughts on mechanics that are going to be rotating out of standard?

I'm surprised people would dislike Infect so much, considering it's not really that competitive.

Though I'm not sure how much the rotating out of the Scars of Mirrodin block will affect Standard, considering the biggest current decks can probably reasonably adapt. For example, sure, Delver decks lose the Swords, but a lot of them already play Runechanter's Pike instead. Birthing Pod is out, but they can be reconfigured into Ramp decks. The duals are gone, but Return to Ravnica is almost certainly going to have lands to replace them with. Venser Control is obviously going to take a major hit, though.

I don't think any of the actual mechanics rotating out will make much of a difference. Some individual cards will, though. Birthing Pod decks are on their way out, though to be fair they can be reconfigured into a Ramp deck--heck, if you don't get a Birthing Pod then a Birthing Pod deck essentially is a weakened Ramp deck. Other than that, the other major deck types seem like they'll be able to stick around. Sure, Delver might lose the swords, but half of Delver decks are playing Runechanter's Pike instead anyway (I play Runechanter's Pike mainboard and put the Swords in the sideboard). Though I do wonder what Solar Flare will do now that they've lost Elesh Norn. They might turn to Avacyn. It'll really depend on what Return to Ravnica offers.