The Foundations of Standard

Last week we were made aware of a new highly controversial Magic product that will be released before the end of the year. There are so many Magic sets on the horizon, and while we'll certainly get into those upcoming sets, the one I want to talk about today is MTG Foundations.

We don't know much about MTG Foundations yet, but we do know it's a Standard set that is going to be legal in Standard for at least five years.

So why is MTG Foundations controversial? Well, "controversial" may be a strong word, but one of the pillars of Standard was that it constantly rotated, and MTG Foundations changes that dramatically. Five years is a long time to anchor it around a specific set.

As a person who's played Magic for more than 25 years now, my relationship with Magic has waxed and waned. I've always played in some form, at least a little bit, but I wasn't always focused on the competitive scene. Booster draft kept me playing even when not truly competitive, but Standard was always the Constructed format I felt comfortable dipping my toes back into. If I got that competitive itch to play some tournaments, I'd be able to start fresh in a new Standard format and not feel like I was so far behind other competitors. They would know the cards better than me, but I wouldn't have to play years of catch-up with interactions. It can be daunting to cross that threshold, and anything that takes away from that fresh start goes against the grain.

We now have a three-year rotation and an additional set that doesn't rotate for approximately five years. While this won't be too hard to parse, it's also unintuitive and strange. I prefer that we preserve at least one Constructed format that is constantly changing to prevent staleness. Foundations could work in a faster churning world so long as the card pool is curated well.

A well-curated non-rotating Foundations set has some nice Standard staples you can always use. This would be some cycle of dual lands like we used to have with Glacial Fortress, Rootbound Crag, and that entire cycle. I would also like to see some generic cards like Lightning Strike, some version of Doom Blade, and these kinds of reactive cards that we are used to having printed in Standard sets.

We saw some cards like Omniscience and Day of Judgement, which are fine, though I don't understand having Omniscience included. Day of Judgement is the perfect card type to have in this set because we see a version of it in most sets and it's a nice tool to have.

I wouldn't like to see proactive cards that are always going to be the best thing at their slot on the mana curve. This will take away from design space in other sets and make more new cards less playable.

I don't like to see Llanowar Elves. I'm fine with Llanowar Elves in Standard with a shelf life. I love strong proactive Magic. It's fun and swingy. However, I don't want to play with the same card forever and always. Almost every green deck will play Llanowar Elves, and it will change how we build every green deck in Standard. Additionally, it's going to change how we build every other deck to keep up with this card.

It's going to be difficult to top Llanowar Elves as a one-drop in a five-year span and leads to awkward opening-hand decisions. One reason I disliked Pioneer during the dominant run of Mono-Green Devotions is how pressured you were to put one-mana removal in your deck and have a piece of one-mana interaction in your opening hand. If you didn't bolt the bird, you fell too far behind and were playing several turns behind.

Llanowar Elves punishes players for losing the die roll. Imagine a world where you're playing Standard, you played a Triome on turn one, you untap, and you're looking down at an opponent with a Llanowar Elves and a Fable of the Mirror Breaker in play. What range of Standard decks can keep up with that start? Fable isn't legal anymore, but more cards like Fable will inevitably see print. Every time it happens, Llanowar Elves will pressure you to build your deck a certain way, regardless if you're playing with or against the card. While it's fine when its an experiment and it comes and goes in Standard, Llanowar Elves will always be a pillar of the format. Some will be happy about that, and others will loathe it. I would have printed Llanowar Elves somewhere else, which would give a safety valve to remove it on a shorter lease.

Call me crazy, but I'd almost rather see Sol Ring in the set so every color is on the same playing field. Obviously, that's an insane take, but I don't like how Llanowar Elves will be a staple in every green deck, and we can't escape it for five years.

This is also the problem with three-year rotation, and it seems WotC wants people to feel they're getting value with their purchases. People will be more willing to buy cards if they know they can play with them for a long time. I'm certainly sympathetic to that, but it's the opposite for me.

I prefer an evolving Standard, and I'm willing to spend more to enjoy a different experience. A stale Constructed format is a big deterrent for me to even enter the player pool. If I see the enfranchised player base is calling a format stale and know that's not going to change, I'll be more reluctant to buy cards and test the waters.

MTG Foundations is a reasonable product and idea, but it needs to be carefully examined. Llanowar Elves is the exact kind of card I don't want in the set, so it worries me it's one of the first handful of cards we see. I'd rather see a card like Lightning Bolt, a strong reactive card that is iconic and would draw in more players. Who knows? Maybe they'll add that one, too.

Foundations doesn't seem like a product you should take chances on, as its design is for new players to have a product they know they can purchase and be safe to play with for a long time. Banning something from Foundations is basically off the table, so taking any chances with cards that might be format-warping should be off the table.

I am happy to see WotC experimenting with new ideas. Foundations is an excellent concept. If done right, it can help with player acquisition at a low cost. My worry is that it will fail in doing that and also hurt player retention when players get bored after three years of playing against turn-one Llanowar Elves in Standard and see there are two more years to go.

Regardless, I'm excited to see what other cards they have in the pool so that I can better understand their goals.