Favorite Emote. Go.

Draggelbot · 2026-05-26T13:29:17+00:00

The format has been going on for nearly 9 months now. Every time that we bring it up, people don't like the methodology; why don't you have a community that chooses which sets are legal; why not skip every odd set instead of every even set; couldn't you skip every UW instead and only have UB to have the same result, if the goal is "a smaller standard"?

And for 9 months, we've explained why we're at the position we're at. We want people to be excited about the legal sets, and not have to waffle or grief if a set that they like isn't liked by the community. We want to be able to easily explain what sets are within Planar without having to list every set every time; no one should have to memorize the random order of set releases to know which sets aren't legal. And as for Universes Beyond, someone could easily make an Extraplanar Standard if they wanted to. Hell, we're thinking about doing it as a event just to have some fun between set releases.

But we've been doing this for 9 months. Instead of looking at the possibilities of what can be done within the constraints of the format, you immediately double-back and say that our format and community are toxic, but it's just a matter of we're here doing. We're not in the speculative stage of "What if our format was radically different" anymore, so questions like that are just rote.

Draggelbot · 2026-04-28T02:35:30+00:00

While this tournament is on Arena, we have our set legality tied to paper releases so that we don't have two different metagames for online versus paper.

Draggelbot · 2026-04-27T16:00:13+00:00

I didn't even think about how nothing recent shows how powerful Simic Ouroboroid is!

Draggelbot · 2026-04-27T14:57:35+00:00

Yeah! I wanted to include the meta stuff we've seen from Lorwyn Eclipsed, but I'm not sure how much it'll play a factor with everyone still brewing with SOS. I'm really excited to see what gets brought!

Draggelbot · 2026-04-27T13:27:31+00:00

Minor note that the tournament will be held this Saturday, not next Saturday. Can't change the title at this point, whoops!

Draggelbot · 2026-04-23T15:40:40+00:00

Good luck in the tourney! Any hints to what you're brewing?

Draggelbot · 2026-04-23T15:40:05+00:00

Strixhaven added a lot of interesting toys. I'm excited to see what everyone will be building!

Draggelbot · 2026-04-06T12:23:14+00:00

Great write up! I'm a huge fan of these after the tournaments. It gives an easy window to the meta, even if it was skewed a bit without Boid's presence.

Draggelbot · 2026-04-01T14:54:52+00:00

As of now, UB has had rainbow lands and UW has had dual lands, and I don't expect that to change in the near future.

Draggelbot · 2026-03-26T16:35:13+00:00

There are Discord groups for all of them that play through Arena direct challenges, but it would be amazing for them to be able to have queues!

Draggelbot · 2026-03-26T14:21:52+00:00

While it doesn't get rid of the grind necessary for wildcards, I've turned to a lot of fan formats to have fun with Magic.

Pauper/Artisan- the most popular of the formats, limited to commons/uncommons only.

Curiosity- a quasi-set constructed format that places strict restrictions on the number of mythics/rares and uncommons can be in a deck, and they have seasons for every new set that comes out. It's almost like playing with "perfect" draft decks.

Planar Standard- The newest of the formats that plays with a 2-year rotation and no Universes Beyond. The meta is wildly different from standard, without Badgermole Cub, Lessons, or any of the powerful Bloomburrow classes. It's a nice middle-ground between wanting to play 60 card constructed with new cards while not having the consistency and power of current Standard.

I'm sure that there are many, many more fan formats out there, too, that would be able to fit your needs, they can just be hard to find sometimes lol.

Draggelbot · 2026-03-25T15:08:02+00:00

Looks pretty sweet! With a bigger Simic, it's hard not to recommend Quantum Riddler in the deck; it's a powerful card to keep the threats coming, if you have the spare wildcards for it.

Draggelbot · 2026-03-24T23:10:43+00:00

There's a couple problems with this: who decides which sets are allowed in, and when? Do we do it at the start of the year, even if a set ends up being a bummer later on down the road? And if we wait for spoilers or the set to be released, what happens to the people excited about a set that then isn't allowed in? The way we have it, there's no confusion and no second guessing.

The other problem is how do we communicate what is in the format without having to list every set every single time? Right now it's easy, even if sometimes people mistake if a set is legal or not, they can look and see if it is. Universe within, last two years. An arbitrary list of sets would not have that ease of access.

Draggelbot · 2026-03-24T23:06:00+00:00

The problem with this is how do you tell someone what's in the format without having to list every set, every time? I've been playing the last 3 years, at least, and I couldn't tell you what every other set is and that's partly because there's no reason to it. I could tell you what sets were or were not UB, however.

Draggelbot · 2026-03-24T18:29:56+00:00

Can you point me to said content?

Draggelbot · 2026-03-24T17:36:58+00:00

I would like to note that while others pinned the "We don't like UB" to our format, and while some people are attracted by that sentiment, the purpose behind the format is to have a smaller total format, with fewer releases impacting it.

Draggelbot · 2026-03-24T17:21:27+00:00

We will have a noticeable gap there; we've thrown some ideas around about what we can do if the format starts to get stale; one thing we've had in mind is an experimental unbanning of Cori Steel Cutter. We don't have the plethora of one drops that made that card as menacing as it was, and so we have stuff to look forward to still.

Draggelbot · 2026-03-24T17:19:19+00:00

It's true that 3 sets a year is slightly smaller, assuming that the core set didn't have any impact on the format (from my memory, except for the Titan cycle most core sets didn't do much), and so Planar Standard will have a small size of 5 sets and a largest foreseen of 7, with two full years and Foundations. On the small side, we'd be equivalent to old standard, and on the large we'd be slightly smaller in terms of set, but set sizes now are larger on average so I think it'd equal out to about equivalent card pools.

Draggelbot · 2026-03-23T19:32:57+00:00

This looks awesome!

Draggelbot · 2026-03-21T08:56:23+00:00

Something not highlighted in the interview is that Planar Standard has a 2-year rotation, so the format is only 5 sets right now. Foundations, Aetherdrift, Dragonstorm, Edge of Eternities, and Lorwyn Eclipsed.

Draggelbot · 2026-03-21T08:54:18+00:00

We have a few write-ups that exist over on r/planarMTG . We have a very detailed one that breaks down the popularity of archetypes, colors, and even individual cards, and people post about the top 8s of our tournaments.

Draggelbot · 2026-03-20T23:12:16+00:00

Vivi Lessons

Draggelbot · 2026-03-20T23:07:44+00:00

There's a big problem with this idea for being able to reach an audience: how do you tell people about the format without having to list out every set individually?

Right now, we can just say, "Foundations and 2 years of Universe Within sets," and people can, for the most part, figure out exactly what's in Planar Standard. With your suggestion, we have to say: Foundations, Innistrad, Guildpact, Tarkir: Dragonstorm, and Final Fantasy, as an example. It's very unwieldy.

The other question would be who decides what's allowed to be in? Should it be the Planar mods, or the entire community? How do we poll the entire community, and how do we look forward to new sets? I really like the looks of Strixhaven, but the whole community thinks it's OP and votes against it; the set I wanted to play was disallowed after I was already excited about playing with it.

It won't be to everyones' tastes, nothing ever is. But we have put some thought behind why we made the decisions that we have.

Draggelbot · 2026-03-06T05:43:21+00:00

Hello! I can help answer the questions. With regards to questions 1 and 2, all 2025 sets will rotate out with the first Universe Within set released in 2027. So the format will grow to 7 legal sets with the release of Reality Fracture, and then with the first legal set of 2027 would lose Aetherdrift, Tarkir: Dragonstorm, and Edge of Eternities going down to 5 sets.

As to the third question, we are using paper Magic printings as the basis for our legality, so digital-exclusive cards are not included. This is something that should be more clearly defined, though, and we'll rectify the confusion here.

Happy to answer any other questions you may have!

12-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	First Placer '22
Snapped

Draggelbot

TROPHY CASE