Is the format stagnant already?

[Zooligan]

Looking at the top lists from scg mn it looks to me that other than the (unwelcome,to me anyway) addition of BW Control, it's the same 4 or so decks in the top spots.

Is standard fully developed less than a month in?

[Jamie]

'the same 4 or so decks' change their 75 three times week
maybe next month, we're not quite there yet.

[Jojja]

If you look at the GP Stockholm results you'll see the top8 and top16 was rather diverse.

Mono red aggro, mardu midrange, R/W aggro, Abzan midrange/aggro, Temur aggro, Jeskai aggro, Sutai Whip, G/B Enchantress all featured there, thats 8 different archetypes right there. I'd say the format is far from solved, and we have no mono-black/mono-blue type dominant decks in the format. Even the supposedly good match-up of Abzan vs Jeskai is just slightly over 50% and then there are the other decks like Sutai Whip and G/B Enchantress who have a great Abzand match up and slightly unfavored Jeskai match up. Add to that the diverse options for hate in all colors I feel like standard is rather healthy right now with decks being tweaked between tournaments to play slightly different from the same archetypes that where played a month earlier. Sure the core of the decks still stay the same, but there is nothing like last season where the decks only had 2-3 cards change in their 75 over 6 month periods.

SCGOpen is not really worth putting to much stock in since it's rather inbred. The pro's play the same decks that they all think is the best and the rest is up to the regional meta. Some places play more midrange decks, others have more aggro players and in sordid places control reigns.

[rcwraspy]

This is the most fun I've had in Standard since innistrad rotated.

[LP, of the Fires]

This is the most fun I've had in Standard since innistrad rotated.

.

[Zooligan]

This is the most fun I've had in Standard since innistrad rotated.

Oh, I agree, it is fun. Right now.

I'm just wondering if after a few more weeks of Abzan, Jeskai, Mardu, and possibly some aggro red thrown in being pretty much the same decks in the top 32 if it will still be fun.

Or is there still room for new archetypes to dominate, and then ebb back to the dominant archetypes at the beginning of standard?

Are we in a healthy churning standard, or one that is asymptotically honing in to "meh"?

[TheCleaner]

Wait till the 2sets1block time and all your problems will be solved!

[ADarkConfidant]

Are we complaining about standard already? It's been a month, and one can play a ton of decks and do well.
I'm sure we haven't even found everything yet.

[jsilv]

You can run a deck with 4 Hornet Nest maindeck or 18 land Mono Red. Get the fuck out.

[Christen]

I have to disagree. While it is not doubt that Abzan and Jeskai are the strongest decks right now, they are not dominating and there are a lot of other viable decks in the format. RTR-THS was stale, THS-KTK is looking to be a very healthy format so far.

[Guttler]

Not stale at all. I've been testing Temur and been very please at how it does vs both Abzan and Jeskai decks. The format doesn't even have a proper control deck nailed down yet. We have a lot of evolution ahead of us.

[rcwraspy]

Jeskai. Abzan. Mardu. Ub control. Green devotion. Gb devotion. Constellation. Red aggro. Rw heroic. Uw heroic. And now we're seeing uw control and temur midrange start to come together. All those decks are capable of putting up results. This is a fairly diverse standard and one that awards meta gaming correctly. Almost by definition it's not stale. Oh yeah and there's a competitive combo deck too.

[Tyrael]

This is the most diverse meta I've ever been part of

I also love how there is no 'best control deck' right now as people are still figuring out the meta

I've seen UW, UB, Mardu PW, Sultai PW and Esper decks all put up results over the course of the past month. They might not all be 'tier I' but the fact that they all 'work' is a ton of fun imo.

[Zooligan]

Yeah, I thought the field was going to narrow significantly towards abzan and jeskai, instead it full out exploded into different directions, Mardu shoring up, temur and sidisi coming up, even seen Naya and all sorts of two color decks.

All I can say is I'm so glad it's not like RtR/Theros!

[Christen]

It's looking to be as healthy as INN-RTR standard, and that was because it had access to superb mana-fixing. Our mana-fixing this season is still shit compared to it, but I also think that's one of the reasons we can't just run 4-color decks and still dominate.

[Kaitscralt]

No format with UWR as a top archetype can be considered boring.

[Mcdonalds]

I miss inn-rtr