Craig Wescoe
7/5/2012 11:08:00 AM
This article is broken into two unrelated sections that can be read consecutively or independently. The first is an analysis of what I take to be the ten biggest changes M13 will bring to Standard. The second is my Hall of Fame ballot along with my reasoning for why I chose exactly who I chose. Next week I will have two articles: a financial review of M13 on Monday and my regular strategy article on Thursday.


Section I: Top Ten Changes M13 will bring to Standard

#10 Foreshadowing Ravnica Duals

Farseek replaces Rampant Growth. Arbor Elf replaces Llanowar Elves. Ranger's Path replaces Solemn Simulacrum. Why? I think we all know why by now: because Ravnica duals are returning in the next set (Return to Ravnica)! Commander players are hoping for functional reprints while Standard players just want Rav duals, whether functional or actual reprints. Given this assumption that Rav duals will return, green looks like it will have plenty of solid mana fixing that also accelerates. I'm interested to see what color combinations arise once the lands finally arrive. I'm looking forward to Bant aggro personally.

#9 Functional Replacements

Beyond the three examples mentioned above, a handful of other cards were replaced with a card of a similar function. Act of Treason is now Mark of Mutiny. Incinerate is now Searing Spear. Doom Blade is now Murder. Distress is now Duress. Day of Judgment is now Planar Cleansing. Mark of Mutiny and Searing Spear are approximately the same as their M12 counterpart, though the others are markedly different in unique ways. Duress is less able to be played in the main deck, though higher impact out of the board. Planar Cleansing does more, though at a price that renders its primary function (staving off an aggro assault) much harder to pull off – overall a much weaker card and only situationally better than Terminus. Murder is worse than Doom Blade, though it is still viable as one among many different black removal spells at our disposal.

#8 Red's New Dragon

No, I do not mean Slumbering Dragon. I'm referring to the sexiest hotness to come out of red's 5-slot since Arc-Slogger. She turns Lingering Souls into a joke, is de facto unblockable, is hard to kill (especially after Dismember rotates), and smashes hard into the red zone right out of the gates. Patrick Chapin compared the card to Baneslayer Angel, and I haven't been able to come up with a satisfactory reason to believe otherwise. This may actually be the most powerful Dragon ever printed (apart from Worldgorger Dragon's combo role). I fully expect this Dragon to ravage Standard for the next two years.

#7 White Aggro Takes on a New Dimension

The hallmark mechanic of white aggro is, once again, exalted. Sublime Archangel has some stiff competition alongside Restoration Angel, Angel of Jubilation, and (for a short time) Hero of Bladehold. The other three cards each have the same support cards (most notably, Blade Splicer) and encourage you to attack with as many creatures as possible as often as possible. Sublime Archangel, on the other hand, encourages you to attack with only one creature, which changes the supporting cast. Instead of wanting to produce tokens via Blade Splicer, we want to produce a single evasive threat to attack with. Knight of Glory really shines in this spot as it essentially gains double exalted with the Archangel in play, and it works exceptionally well as a follow up to Champion of the Parish.

As good as Sublime Archangel is, Ajani, Caller of the Pride is the biggest reason exalted is the new best strategy for white aggro. Like Liliana of the Veil, there will be plenty of times when the opponent will be better off not attacking Ajani – not because they don't care about the +1/+1 counter but rather because they are dead to a second Ajani if they kill the one on board. Ajani essentially gives evasion (or forces the opponent to chump block) upon entering the battlefield via its +1 ability. Then on the next turn Ajani threats near lethal damage with its -3 ability. And as I said, if they choose to kill Ajani, this will likely seal their fate with the second Ajani, thus making Ajani an easy 4-of in an exalted aggro deck. Honor of the Pure and Angelic Destiny leave some large shoes to fill, but I fully expect white's new toys to live up to the task.

#6 Green's Two New Monster-Makers

It's unfortunate that Dungrove Elder is on its way out because he and Rancor are a match made in heaven. The two will have a couple months to showcase what they're capable of together as they attempt to turn Standard into a land of forests and unicorns. Then Ravnica will return and put an end to the fairy tale shenanigans, booting the treefolk and leaving Rancor looking for a new mate.

Rancor is not the only way to make a monster in M13 – there is also Thragtusk! Phantasmal Image will likely keep this beast in check until M12 rotates, at which point the beast will be set free to roam the landscape of Standard for the next two years. Sure, there will be Clone, but that is hardly the stifling influence of either Phantasmal Image or Phyrexian Metamorph.

#5 Black Control Given New Life

For a while the control side of black has been getting the shaft – but no more! Mutilate is back, which is an actual upgrade to Black Sun's Zenith that borders on Damnation's power level. Alongside Mutilate we also see Duress, Vampire Nighthawk, and Sign in Blood returning to M13. Despite Doom Blade getting downgraded to Murder and Grave Titan leaving the format, black's control elements improve quite a bit overall. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention…

Liliana of the Dark Realms is also in M13! Liliana conveniently mentions "Swamp" instead of "basic Swamp," which means she can also help fix your mana by fetching Ravnica duals (when they get printed). Between Liliana and Mutilate, I suspect there will be a 3-5 color black control deck. I also suspect Patrick Chapin and Conley Woods will each play it in every Standard tournament for the next two years. If you're a black control player who's been waiting so patiently over the years for this moment, the Renaissance you've been waiting for is finally on the horizon!

#4 Green Loses its Two Best Cards

Every legitimate green strategy in Standard the past few years has hinged on either Birds of Paradise or Primeval Titan. Think about it. Now consider this: neither is in M13! I suspect that the mana birds may make a return via Return to Ravnica as they did in the original Ravnica set, though with Arbor Elf and Avacyn's Pilgrim already in the format, I would not be entirely surprised to see them absent. Either way, these other two replacements would likely hold down the fort and keep afloat whatever Birds of Paradise archetypes exist. The omission without a replacement, on the other hand, is old Prime Time.

Primeval Titan began his legacy alongside Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. Then after Zendikar block rotated, Inkmoth Nexus and Kessig Wolf Run proved that P-Daddy's time was far from over. His new supporting cast led him all the way to the finals of Pro Tour Dark Ascension where he faced off against the mirror to secure both first and second place. His time has finally come to an end. It was a good run, but it's time for Standard to take on a new complexion, one without Titans.

#3 White's Control Elements Vanish

Gideon Jura? Gone. Day of Judgment? Gone. Sun Titan? Gone. You think you can still salvage a white-based control deck? Try coming up with a sideboard that doesn't include Timely Reinforcements or Celestial Purge because neither of those are in M13 either. The days of Esper Control appear to be numbered, and blue/white aggro decks will no longer have access to a sideboard that will allow them to morph into a mid-range or control deck. Everything is gone! I expect red aggro and black aggro to benefit the most from these changes since they now have a chance at beating white decks post-board. Any other deck that felt stifled by these white control elements will be granted new life as Standard is made new post-rotation.

#2 Blue Becomes Destitute

Snapcaster Mage and Delver of Secrets are arguably the most powerful cards in Standard right now, and certainly the most powerful creature tandem. How will they look without Vapor Snag, Gut Shot, and Dismember when Scars block rotates? Salvageable? What if we also took away Ponder, Mana Leak, and Phantasmal Image? Now what's left? Well, that's exactly where we'll be in a couple months because none of these cards are surviving the rotation. Snapcaster Mage will still be a very powerful card, but it appears the blue/white menace will be gone shortly. Blue is so weak in M13 that the most it gets are some fringe playable cards like Void Stalker, Augur of Bolas, and Jace's Phantasm. If you're tired of facing off against blue decks all the time in Standard, you're about to get your reprieve.

#1 Gilded Lotus is the New Primeval Titan

With the Titans rotating, six mana is no longer the turn where the game effectively ends. No one will be ramping into Primeval Titan or filling up their graveyard with Phantasmal Images for Sun Titan or using Birthing Pod to search out Inferno Titan. The game will be won with creatures up the curve, typically ending at five, just as Standard used to be prior to the Titans. Or it will be won via control elements and a big finisher. One card, however, does something extremely powerful that no other card in Standard is able to do: Gilded Lotus ramps from five to eight mana, without even skipping a turn to do so! Consider the following line, which you'll have to start getting used to before long:

Turn 2: Farseek (off the BG Rav dual, or Sphere of the Suns pre-rotation)
Turn 3: Mutilate to kill your team.
Turn 4: Gilded Lotus, tapping it to Murder or Oblivion Ring whatever you did to recover from Mutilate.
Turn 5: Griselbrand or Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker.

I fully expect this card to single-handedly require players to run main deck answers that would otherwise be relegated to the sideboard, whether Duress or Negate or Naturalize or Oblivion Ring or Smelt. Sure, the Swords will be gone, but a deadlier artifact has emerged. Can you afford to let your opponent untap with a Gilded Lotus? Let me rephrase that. Can you beat a Griselbrand or a Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker?

With the advent of M13, Standard looks to be taking on an entirely new form, one with fewer stifling influences and a more fertile environment for off-the-radar strategies to flourish. How will you chose to take advantage of the opportunities this new world offers? What archetype are you most excited about? We all know mine (hint: it involves Plains and white creatures).

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Section II: My Hall of Fame Ballot

I'd like to begin by expressing my gratitude for being chosen to vote for Hall of Fame candidates as part of the Selection Committee this year. Last season I finally crossed the 100 lifetime pro point threshold and thus earned a spot on the Player Committee, but to my surprise I was also chosen to be on the Selection Committee, whose votes carry even more weight. As someone who has been involved in Magic at the Pro Tour level almost since its inception, I take this responsibility very seriously. Consequently I've been diligent about researching candidates and am confidant my ballot is a reflection thereof. Here is my ballot…

Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa

Nine PT top 8's, one win, and 358 lifetime pro points. Paulo's stats make him such a shoe-in for Hall of Fame this year that I (briefly) considered voting for one of the bubble candidates instead (i.e. Scott Johns, Mark Herberholz, or Justin Gary), just to make my vote count for someone who needs it more. After some reflection though, this would be a mistake. Paulo obviously should be voted in, and I couldn't in good conscience submit a ballot without his name on it. If I did, I may (rightly) never again be asked to be part of the Selection Committee.

Kenji Tsumura

I was a rookie to the PT back in the 1999-2002 era, back before Kenji's success on the PT. Then I took some years off before making a comeback in 2009, around the time Kenji stopped playing on the PT. As a consequence, I basically missed his entire career and have never actually met him. With this said, his stats speak for themselves. Six top 8's and 250 lifetime pro points put him easily into the top 5 candidates. The thing that really impresses me though, is the way other pros speak of him. The first thing I hear people say about Kenji always has to do with his high level of sportsmanship. He did not just put up consistently strong finishes worthy of induction but he did so while playing the game the way it is supposed to be played, which in itself deserves high praise.

Masashi Oiso

This is another candidate I had to do some extra research on before deciding whether to vote for him. With six PT top 8's and 257 lifetime pro points, however, I would need a strong reason not to vote for him. Instead I only found reasons in favor of voting for him. Multiple top Japanese players have recently claimed he is the best ever Japanese player. I suspect this is an overstatement in an effort to get him into the Hall of Fame, but based on his accomplishments, it can't be far off from the truth. Paulo and Sam Black have also recently claimed he played very well against each of them on the PT.

Patrick Chapin

Four PT top 8's and 217 lifetime pro points (and counting) certainly puts him in the discussion, but slightly behind a couple of other bubble candidates if we were to judge solely by performances. According to the HoF voting rules, however, “voting shall be based upon the player's performances, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, and contributions to the game in general.” When we factor in all those other variables, Chapin very clearly stands out from the others as worthy of a vote. With respect to Magic, I have not once seen or heard of Chapin lapsing in sportsmanship or integrity, and in my opinion deck building is part of ‘playing ability,' of which Chapin is among the game's best ever. And his ‘contributions to the game in general' go way beyond his (widely read and influential) weekly column, his published book (Next Level Magic), and the fact that he spends perhaps more time and energy promoting Magic than anyone outside of WOTC. One of his most meaningful contributions to the game, in my opinion, is his willingness to take new writers under his wing and help them to Cultivate the skills necessary to build a following and to be a successful Magic writer. He also goes out of his way to help aspiring pros to learn how to make good choices both inside and outside the game. These intangibles make my decision very easy to vote for Patrick, and I hope others also come to this same conclusion because he is a true Hall of Famer and should be voted in.

William Jensen

If a player had 219 lifetime pro points, a Master's Series win, 4 PT top'8s, two of which resulted in victories, that player would be so far above the bubble that he would have been voted into the Hall of Fame years ago. Unfortunately for Jensen, Osyp topdecked twice against him in the finals of one of those PTs, thus leaving him with (merely) 214 pro points, a master's series victory, a pro tour victory, and three other PT top 8s – rendering him only “in the discussion” instead of “the easiest vote on the ballot.” It is widely agreed upon that he is among the strongest players ever to play the game, and if it weren't for his pursuing a career in other, more lucrative, games, he would likely have put up career stats similar to those of Kai and Jon. Jensen said he would make a comeback if he gets voted in, and I'm looking forward to seeing again firsthand what everyone else claims concerning his abilities.


The Other Candidates People are Talking About

Scott Johns

I really want to vote for Scott. He has five Pro Tour top 8's, including a win. Granted, the win was a team win, but that still counts for more than zero wins – and even if he only had five top 8's and no wins, he would still easily be in the Hall of Fame discussion. My first time ever hearing about Scott Johns was when he explained how he was able to deduce the cards in his opponent's hand. Back in the day, people were ignorant about many of the things we take for granted as common knowledge today. Back then, people would typically organize their cards in hand according to casting cost, with lands in front (or some other similar method). A player would not shuffle their hand around like we see today. Instead, when a player drew their card for the turn, they would simply place it in the appropriate spot in their hand and leave it there. Then they would take a land card from the front (or back) of their hand and play it, thinking nothing of the free information they are giving their opponent. Scott was the first person I'd heard of who openly discussed the strategic advantage of shuffling your cards in hand and of being keenly aware of the positioning of the opponent's cards in hand. Still to this day I think of him every time I sit down across from an opponent who gives away free information in this way. At some point I would like to see him enshrined as a Hall of Famer, but I'm thinking it will probably be yet another year for Scott based on the stiff competition this year.

Tomoharu Saito

Saito was voted into the Hall of Fame two years ago but then got disqualified from a tournament and suspended, making him ineligible for the Hall of Fame that year. Paulo recently argued that Saito has served his punishment and deserves to be voted in again this year. While I agree that he should be given a second chance, this is certainly not the year to vote for him. He needs to prove over the course of the next year or two that the past will not repeat itself. If I vote for him this year and he gets into trouble again, I will have wasted my vote. And even if he doesn't get into trouble, and let's say he gets voted in over William Jensen, then this means William Jensen will have to wait at least another year before being able to compete on the Pro Tour again. Is it fair for Jensen (or Scott Johns, or whoever else) to pay this price for Saito's lapse in judgment? For these reasons, I am not voting for Saito – perhaps in a year or two, but not this year.

Mark Justice

I suspect Mark will never get into the Hall of Fame, which to me sounds a bit odd. When I first started playing Magic and hearing about the Pro Tour, Mark Justice was the biggest name in Magic. Nobody had ever heard of Jon Finkel or Kai Budde because neither had accomplished anything yet. The best player in the game was Mark Justice, and the only other player that could potentially rival him for that title was Mike Long. Sadly though, Mark left Magic too early, and with everyone else padding their stats at an increasing pace, I suspect Mark will get fewer and fewer votes until he eventually falls off the ballot. I think his only chance to ever get in is to make a comeback, which I would like to see, but is probably a long shot.

Justin Gary

I talked to Justin at Grand Prix Bochum a little over a year ago and I asked him if he would attend PTs if he got into the Hall of Fame. He assured me that he would. This is a big consideration for me when it comes to candidates on the bubble. I don't want to vote for someone who doesn't care to be voted in. I'd much rather vote for someone who will take advantage of the opportunity and make a comeback. I'm glad Justin is still competing in GPs (albeit occasionally, due to his career) because this shows he still wants to compete in high level Magic tournaments.

Mark Herberholz

I believe Mark has already done enough to merit inclusion into the Hall of Fame. The problem is that there are at least five other players who have also already done enough. He hasn't done much in the public eye since leaving the Pro Tour, other than writing a few articles, and this lack of community involvement is really the biggest thing keeping him off people's ballots I think (which, due to the remote location of his job, makes traveling to Magic tournaments impractical). But unless he makes a comeback to competitive play to show he can still compete at the highest level (and is willing to put in the work to do so), it may be a few more years before he gets in. I Foresee myself voting for Mark in the coming years, and will be happy to do so, but not this year.


Concluding Remarks Concerning Hall of Fame

When it comes to players on the bubble, the fate of each player is still in their own hands. Granted, many have a career or family life that impedes their ability to grind out PTQs, and making top 4 of a 1,000+ player GP is quite the task. Nevertheless Brian Kibler did it and various other bubble candidates (Osyp, Gerard, and Antonino) are continuing to qualify through these methods. My personal position is that it would be good for the game to extend a single PT invite to a small number of bubble candidates in order to give them an opportunity to make a case for themselves, as I wrote about last week, but I may be a minority in this view. Perhaps, as Steve OMS suggested, the Selection Committee could vote on such invitations.

As for myself, I currently have 125 lifetime pro points and a pair of PT top 8's. In my estimation this puts me about halfway to serious Hall of Fame consideration. I finished Level 6, Level 6, and Platinum the past three years (including both PT top 8's), so if I'm somehow able to continue this trend, maybe in another three years or so I will have done enough to enter the discussion. As for now, I'm honored to be able to vote for the first time in my Magic career, and I look forward to seeing who makes it in this year.

Craig Wescoe
@Nacatls4Life on twitter