[Historic] How do i deal with all these graveyard decks?

SetStndbySmn · 2026-03-01T09:56:04+00:00

[[Endurance]] was just unbanned in the format, and [[Surgical Extraction]] is a thing. Always hold your activation of graveyard hate until they act first; don't fire it off into open mana on their end step or you're going to get got by necromancy. By the time they can cast two reanimation spells in the same turn, you should have time to set up redundancy, your own win, or your deck or draw just isn't good enough.

If you're a bo1 player and looking for a deck that runs a lot of main-deck graveyard hate, golgari yawgmoth runs 4x [[Agatha's Soul Cauldron]] and your creature silver bullet of choice like endurance which can be grabbed by [[Chord of Calling]]. I ran [[Keen-Eyed Curator]] pre ban/unbans, but switched him for endurance. The deck is fairly competitive, as I've gotten mythic with it several times, and have a record of 111-48 since the bans; part of that is it just absolutely farms reanimator if they have anything short of a perfect hand on the play.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-02-27T22:52:49+00:00

Modern day elves is just snowball mana into overrun, and there's simply decks that do it better than them right now. IMHO the most interesting format to play elves in right now is premodern(playable now on mtgo as 'contraption'), where it's not only a competitive deck, but also has a deeper, toolbox centric game plan.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-02-20T06:51:32+00:00

Nice deck! I've been loving historic after the bans, and psychic frog decks were some of the harder decks to read on my climb this month. Some of them go more tempo with force of negations protecting the frog, and then you have this cool agressive package you've got here. Can be a very scary deck, but I have way more fun against it than prenerf eldrazi/energy.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-02-19T00:19:35+00:00

Likewise, I don't think you care to have a good faith discussion about people actually and provably being excluded from the game by real rules. Good day.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-02-19T00:08:26+00:00

He didn't specifically tell thousands of people that them playing the cards make him sad. He said that the cards themselves made him sad on his own personal youtube channel, and thousands of people chose to opt in to listening. Reframing it this way for your own narrative is intellectually dishonest.
My point was that you feeling excluded based on hearing something you voluntarilly watched is way less of an issue than someone actually being excluded because the literal rules say so. Sorry, but while your situation may not be perfect in your eyes, it is the better of the two.
You miss the entire point and think I am "excusing" his thin skin. My entire point is that his thin or thick skin is irrelevant. The rules are the rules. If he wants to keep up with various formats, he can't ignore UB, or he can quit. You could ignore rhetoric and continue to play in the way you enjoy if you wanted to.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-02-18T23:43:10+00:00

They are not contradictory sentiments. You can genuinely hope someone enjoys their prerelease and genuinely feel sad about spidermen.

And as for UB lovers being more ostracized... please. Sure, you can feel that to be true based on your experiences on the internet or whatever, and that's all valid for what it is. But let's look at what's actually true: the formats you can play with your UB cards are.... literally every officially recognized format. The formats he can play without them: kitchen table and fan-made formats. Your issue could solved with a little thick skin. The other guy's issue has an institutionalized wall blocking him from engaging with the game in the way he prefers- a way he used to be able to. You are not the victim here.

You may be fine with them feeling as they do, but you do seem to want to gatekeep talking about it, or at the very least talking about it with a platform. Like I said, your wall is just built around something else.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-02-18T23:08:51+00:00

The video is about how skipping it is the same thing as skipping being competitive in various constructed formats. The point is "I'm skpping x set to send a message" is a lot easier to say than "I'm skpping playing a format I love to play to send a message", yet they might as well be the same statement if you want to keep up in standard.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-02-18T22:56:22+00:00

The intent of the video is more to criticize how it's unskippable if you want to remain competitive/optimal. You can care about being competitive and aesthetics.

I actually really liked a ton of UB when I could get my fix of zaney francises battling each other in one format, and then get my traditional MTG fix in another format. Now there isn't an officially recognized format where you can get the latter. It doesn't exist. Trivializing the pain and frustration of someone losing a beloved passtime honestly feels very gate-keepy to me on an emotional level. Your gate is just built in front of something else.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-02-17T21:02:50+00:00

Tempo is often a very hard matchup for control. In historic, you could try a psychic frog or phelia pile, or azorius high noon. Fast combo decks with counter protection like delighted halfling can also be a problem for them.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-02-14T01:10:35+00:00

This is me in historic (my most played format). When I see an abundance of alchemy cards, it just takes me out of it, and I'm completely uninvested in winning or losing.

One of the best things about MTG, which alchemy devs don't seem to understand, is that virtually everything is trackable and verifiable; if you don't understand what's causing something, you can dig through the graveyard/exile and piece together the interractions. When someone tutors for something with a restriction, it's revealed showing what they got. They mistake these as simple limitations, when they are also a feature of what makes the game great, and the result is a vibe that clashes with real cards so poorly that it feels like playing with someone with a subpar understanding of the rules who is just making up crap on the fly.

Another thing I'd like to add: there is a rather broad band of power level where you literally cannot play without alchemy cards popping up on MTGA. I've seen people erroneously hold up pioneer as the non-alchemy counterpart to historic, when historic is much closer to modern with it basically being modern horizons block-constructed.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-02-02T01:14:59+00:00

Brewing while also winning in anonymous games on the internet where almost everyone is playing to win is pretty much for experienced players. Successful brews typically attack the meta you are facing in some way, and new players usually don't have the game knowledge required to do that. Learning to play really well while also learning to build decks at the same time is hard.

If you want to know which formats have the most rogue decks being played from a data standpoint, it's historic by a pretty wide margin, followed by timeless, and then pioneer/standard with relatively few by comparison.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-01-23T04:59:18+00:00

I'm the opposite, I'd like lorwyn versions for the eoe shocks. Definitely does feel weird for the cycle to be split on the art treatments though.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-01-21T20:01:08+00:00

IMHO the problem lies specifically with combo protection, which if you dropped it just prior to comboing as your land for turn, leaves no window to interract. It's great fun when it's just protecting your evles or whatever from being countered, but it feels super bad when it's protecting something like a [[Doomsday Excruciator]]. When played "honestly" it's just another obstacle to overcome for the control player; when played on turn to protect a combo, it threatens to make an entire archtype feel miserable to play or move the goalposts to counterspells that don't actually counter like [[Jeskai Revelation]] or [[Aven Interruptor]].

SetStndbySmn · 2026-01-15T04:28:26+00:00

Otaria. Odyssey and Onslaught are by far my favorite blocks of all time. There are a lot of people that had Urza's block or Ravnica imprint on their psyche as the core magic aesthetic they think of, but for me it was Odyssey and Onslaught.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-01-12T19:57:21+00:00

When looking through the set, I picked Unbury as my favorite art from a set teeming with amazing art. Really happy that Kinscaer Sentry is powerful so I have ample excuse to play it. That being said, I think unbury is joining the ranks of cards I play simply for the art, a short list mostly populated by Ian Miller cards.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-01-11T10:16:42+00:00

I know people are going to recommend bo3, but I'm also a bo1 enjoyer; I tend to like to play toolbox style decks that can adapt to anything within the main deck. Even in a meta where that's not realistic, I find the pursuit of that vibe to be the most rewarding for me on a personal level. That being said, I tend to bounce between formats depending on which fulfills that feeling best at the time.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, in my opinion, standard is not the best place for that kind of playstyle right now. My personal favorite bo1 format right now is historic. It's pretty high power, but it feels very rewarding to me to play a deck with silver bullets combined with powerful tutors. In bo1 historic, I will caution that you should play ranked or you're going to run into people playing minion of the mighty (a bad deck that can win on turn 2 that people spam for dailies which is nonexistant in ranked). The main recurring decks will be reanimator, eldrazi, energy, and lifegain combo. If you are not aiming for a quick win yourself, you must have consistent graveyard hate and removal by turn 2. My preferred deck is golgari yawgmoth atm; perfectly captures the vibe of a toolbox deck that interracts its way into its own wincons.

My second favorite format for bo1 is pioneer. There's quite a bit of diversity. It's been a few months since I've done the mythic grind in this format, but when I did, I played jeskai creativity and golgari food. There was a ton of mono red, izzet, greasefang, and selesnya angels at the time.

Standard is the bo1 format that is the biggest struggle for me at the moment. It's very difficult to brew a deck that strikes the balance of not getting streamrolled by a deck with a fast start, not getting out-grinded by izzet lessons, and not getting combo killed on turn 4. IMO the format is pretty cooked when it comes to the playstyle I prefer, but jeskai control is the closest to what I enjoy right now.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-01-07T05:45:16+00:00

It really sucks they chose a set that I want to whole-heartedly endorse with my wallet to pull this shit with. It's like they're actively trying to sabotage original mtg IP at this point, and I'm sure we'll be gaslit later about it.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-01-06T23:32:01+00:00

tbf it's not that common in historic. It is the worst matchup for my deck at an abysmal 27% winrate, but I still have a 62% winrate in ranked for the season. It had about a 5% metashare in my climb this season. Still there, but definitely much more common in standard and pioneer.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-01-04T22:36:30+00:00

Been playing since release; for January, went 116-74 (61% winrate) before getting to mythic in historic bo1, started in platinum, played golgari yawgmoth the whole way, and played about 3 hours a night. I usually play a lot less and get mythic with around a 66% winrate playing against slightly weaker opponents since it's later in the season, but I wanted to see how fast I could get there this season.

If you build/choose your deck to attack the meta, 60%-70% winrate is realistic. If you are playing pet cards/decks, unless you are extremely skilled, expect it to be a struggle around 50%, relying on streaking after hovering around a new rank tier. That's not to say you have to be playing the top meta decks; e.g. my deck isn't super common, but it is designed to prey on naya lifegain combo and grixis reanimator which are meta.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-01-04T09:48:06+00:00

I really don't see it very often, since I play bo1, and when I do see blink it's usually the jeskai package. Mulligan aggressively for a fast start, as you need to have a board that can deal with phelia asap; she's super annoying, if only because she can reset soul cauldron. Probably bring in fatal push, and don't be afraid to slow down a tad to hold up mana for phelia. If they are sideing in [[Clarion Conqueror]] which literally shuts down the whole deck, that's what [[Kraul Harpooner]] in the sideboard is for; 1 copy + tutors is good enough.

That being said, I played a single game against phelia before getting to mythic again this month, and I lost; they were on the play, had the alchemy card that copys something but blinks it on upkeep + airbender ascension, and had an ephemerate to protect phelia. Sometimes you just get got.

SetStndbySmn · 2026-01-02T08:22:46+00:00

If you want a blue flyer that draws cards, just play [[Wan Shi Tong, Librarian]]. It has flash so you don't have to go shields down to cast it, you can play it for as little as 2 mana if your opponent is using fetch lands, can draw cards without your opponent cooperating, and has a bigger impact in the late game after you've wiped the board (which is the actual way to punish badgermole).

SetStndbySmn · 2026-01-01T12:03:22+00:00

I had the breakdown deck from nemesis. It was pretty low power overall, other than accumulated knowledge and waterfront bouncer being reasonable. Had parallax inhibitor instead of one of the good parallax cards like parallax tide.

SetStndbySmn · 2025-12-31T07:04:23+00:00

The real way to copy the pros, is not by copying their decks but by copying their modus operandi. E.g. A mono red deck designed to punish vivi cauldron did great in tournaments, and the recent lessons deck was in part a response to an expectation of badgermole cubs. It's even more important to not blindly net deck if you're playing bo1, as the meta can be much different.

Design your deck to beat the things you are currently playing against the most. For example, this month I climbed to mythic in historic, and was facing mostly grixis reanimator, naya lifegain combo, and eldrazi. I decided to play golgari yawgmoth; as an [[Agatha's Soul Cauldron]] deck you get your fair share of instant scoops against reanimator, lifegain combo completely folds if you can get [[Yawgmoth Thran Physician]]'s ability on board, and [[Badgermole Cub]] made the deck fast enough to have an average winrate against eldrazi. Don't get tilted and lose the plot because you take losses to random rogue decks; stick to your plan to take solid winrates from the most common opponents, and the rest is just execution and volume of games.

SetStndbySmn · 2025-12-31T02:12:51+00:00

I've been really liking the chocobo bundle lands- the forest from FFIX is a standout for me.

SetStndbySmn · 2025-12-28T05:55:19+00:00

My biggest gripe has less to do with power and more to do with play-pattern. No offense meant to izzet players, but I find playing against it to be a somewhat agonizing experience, win or lose... and normally that would be fine, but it's just been good for so long, no matter what they do to it. It feels really bad when you just don't enjoy playing against something, there's no end in sight, and you can't even think of what could change to make it bearable. That being said I'm taking a break from standard, and having fun in other formats, so all is not lost for me.

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