For a while now, Magic: The Gathering Standard has been in a bit of a sorry state. Hyper-efficient red Aggro decks have dominated in the format for over a year, their reign only interrupted by the even more busted Vivi Cauldron. Things are so bad right now that we’ve essentially been promised bans for November, which pretty much never happens. In the midst of all this turmoil, the MTG x Alienware Content Creator event was a breath of fresh air.
Battle Of The Bans
The MTG x Alienware Content Creator event took place yesterday, October 1st. The competitors were all established MTG creators, including pro players like NumotTheNummy, streamers like Voxy, and personalities like SaffronOlive. This pool, comprising 16 players in total, battled it out in a series of Standard constructed rounds, but with an interesting twist.
Prior to the event, all the players involved voted on cards that would be banned from decks for its duration. Each player got to pick five cards, and give each a number of points from one to five. In the end, as Fireshoes explained in a post on X, each card that at least two players voted for, that got at least four points, was banned.
This resulted in a list of nine total banned cards, many of which were fully expected. Vivi Ornitier got a staggering 46 points, making it the clearest ban by far. Kaito, Bane of Nightmares and Screaming Nemesis were next in line with 26 points each. Other powerful Standard staples, like Agatha’s Soul Cauldron and Enduring Curiosity, also made the list, albeit with fewer points. The players also made sure to protect themselves against a possible combo metagame by banning Omniscience and Temur Battlecrier.
On the low end of things, vote-wise, Stock Up and No More Lies rounded out the list. The result is a list of nine cards that many would like to see get the ban hammer in Standard, to a greater or lesser extent. Combined with the existing Standard ban list, this created a unique foundation for the event to come.
The MTG Alienware Creator Event Metagame
Seeing the cards that players wanted out of the format is one thing, but seeing what the metagame looks like once they’re gone is quite another. The MTG Arena Alienware Content Creator event was fairly small in scope, with only 16 players. Each player got to bring two decks to the digital table; however, so we got a decent snapshot of how things could look were such bans to be implemented.
The metagame leaders here were a mix of the surprising and the not-so-surprising. In pole position was Sultai Reanimator, with five lists total, representing about 15% of the field. This is pretty much a new deck entirely, leveraging Superior Spider-Man to cast Bringer of the Last Gift from the ‘yard, and reanimate a ton of big threats. Its big presence here may just be recency bias, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
The other big hitters in the event meta were less exciting. Mono-Red Aggro remained strong, securing four slots, despite the loss of Screaming Nemesis. Selesnya Kona picked up three slots, too, utilizing the same Planets plan that we saw put in work just after Edge of Eternities.
After this, a few other established strategies, including Orzhov Pixie, Azorius Control, and Simic Aggro, all claimed two slots each. The rest of the event featured all one-off decks, some of them pretty out-there. Few would’ve expected Five-Color Spiders or Orzhov Burn, for example.
While a full breakdown of the event’s matchups isn’t available yet, thanks to Fireshoes, we do know that the final was a battle between Boros Mice and Mono-Green Aggro, ending in the former’s favor. These decks were both one-offs in the event, which is interesting in itself. An Aggro showdown for the final isn’t exactly mind-blowing, mind you.
A Better Timeline?
While you could easily just view this event as a fun distraction, I think there are some real takeaways here for Magic as a whole. For a while now, there’s been a near-constant call for bans in Standard. Pretty much every time a new deck takes the top spot, players want its best cards banned. We saw this before with Cori-Steel Cutter, and we’re seeing it now with Vivi.
Players have debated whether or not bans are the best approach to solving Standard’s problems extensively by this point. What this event offers, however, is a chance to see if that approach, taken to the extreme, is actually effective. Cutting nine of Standard’s most notorious cards did indeed create a fresh metagame. The question now is whether or not that metagame is an improvement over what we have.
In some ways, it does seem to be. No deck making up more than 15% of the field is much better than the numbers we’re seeing right now, with Mono-Red Aggro at 22% and Izzet Cauldron at around 20%. The overall mix here is nice, too, with pretty much every archetype represented in decent numbers.
On the other hand, this micro-format retains some of current Standard’s biggest problems. Fast Aggro decks are still very popular, and apparently also the best option according to the limited results we have. This is common in new formats, so a pinch of salt should be applied, but it does show that reasonable bans likely won’t deal with the issue.
Ultimately, it’s hard to put too much weight on the results of a small event like this. It does highlight the fact that November’s bans, even if quite aggressive, may not save Standard single-handedly, mind you.
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