The Importance of Hate and Hosers in Standard

by SaffronOlive // Nov 14, 2016

Magic was born as a game of hate cards and hosers. It doesn't take more than a quick glance through Alpha to see that this is true. In Magic's first-ever set, we see Armageddon destroying all lands, Stasis and Winter Orb locking players out of games entirely, and powerful color hosers like Red Elemental Blast and Blue Elemental Blast, which still see play in Legacy to this day. This trend continued through the early years of Magic, and in some sense all the way up through Eighth Edition or Ninth Edition with Boils, Static Orbs, Chills, and Trinispheres.

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Of course, I'm not here to argue that all of these cards are good for the game. Actually, the opposite. It's pretty clear than many cards from Alpha would simply be too powerful for current Standards or Modern, or even Legacy. I mean, plays like Turn 1 Black Lotus into Nahiri, the Harbinger would be pretty hard to beat, and no one wants to see RW Vehicles dropping a bunch of one-drops and then slamming the door closed on a comeback with Winter Orb or Armageddon.

That said, just because some of the hate cards and hosers from across the game's history have been too good, overpowered, and even unhealthy does not mean that we need to get rid of these cards altogether. If you really think about it, there have been cards of every type that have been too good, overpowered, and unhealthy like Skullclamp for equipment, Jace, the Mind Sculptor for planeswalkers, Yawgmoth's Will for sorceries, and so forth, but Wizards wisely realized that you don't just give up on equipment altogether because they messed up with Skullclamp or planeswalkers because they had to ban Jace, the Mind Sculptor in Standard. However, for some reason, Wizards treats hate cards and hosers as different and, because of mistakes in the past, is actively trying to push these types of cards out of the game altogether.

So, today, we are going to take some time to talk about hate cards and hosers, and why Wizards' newfound dislike of these cards is a bad thing for the game overall, especially for Standard. Instead of focusing on old cards like Stasis and Armageddon, we are going to be talking about the last few years of Standard, which provide a really stunning example of how Wizards suddenly decided it hates printing hate cards, and why this choice is making Standard much less fun.

Innistrad and Shadows over Innistrad

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The plane of Innistrad brings to mind a lot of different things—Werewolves, flip cards, horror—but, most important to our discussion, graveyard-matters cards and mechanics. The first time around, Innistrad brought back flashback and also Snapcaster Mage and a tier-one reanimation archetype in Solar Flare (with the help of Unburial Rites), not to mention Undying, Gravecrawler, and a bunch of other graveyard-focused synergies. Then, in Shadows over Innistrad came delirium, headlined by Emrakul, the Promised End and Ishkanah, Grafwidow, alone with tier-one graveyard-based emerge decks featuring Prized Amalgam and Haunted Dead, which end up playing a lot like a Standard-legal version of Dredge where you don't really need to cast spells to win the game—you can simply discard and then return things from your graveyard.

The point of all this is that both Innistrads brought to Standard potentially devastating graveyard mechanics and graveyard-focused cards with legitimate arguments for being the best in their Standard formats, in Snapcaster Mage and Emrakul, the Promised End. It's also important to realize that the original Innistrad was only five years ago, which is a blink of an eye in the lifetime of a game that's pushing 25 years of age. Furthermore, in the past five years, there hasn't been a significant, large-scale shift of design philosophy like there was with the emergence of the New World Order. As such, it seems reasonable to expect that things would remain more or less than same, but this couldn't be further from the truth when it comes to hate cards and hosers.

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The original Innistrad followed a time-honored pattern of set design. The first set of the block (in this case, Innistrad) unleashed a potentially devastating theme—in this instance, graveyard-based synergies. Wizards then gave players a few months to go wild with their graveyards, and then, in the second set of the block—Dark Ascension—it printed a graveyard hoser in Grafdigger's Cage (along with a bunch of more powerful graveyard cards like Geralf's Messenger). Of course, printing a narrow sideboard card like Grafdigger's Cage doesn't mean that Snapcaster Mage goes from the best card in Standard to completely unplayable, but it does offer players a way to compete with the graveyard theme from Innistrad. If you were willing to dedicate sideboard slots to the do-nothing artifact, you could have an improved matchup against graveyard-based decks. Later, after the end of Innistrad block, Wizards gave players another option for fighting graveyards in Tormod's Crypt. Then finally, with the release of Return to Ravnica a year later, it unleashed the most powerful graveyard hoser of them all in Rest in Peace.

You can see the presence of these hate cards reflected in the decks. During the beginning of Innistrad Standard, UW Delver decks built around Snapcaster Mage dominated. In fact, there's a good argument that UW Delver was one of the most powerful Standard decks during the Mythic Era, especially if you discount decks like Caw Blade that were good enough to be the target of bannings. As time moved forward and more hate cards entered the format, the popularity of UW Delver waned. While it was still a playable and powerful deck, by the time Return to Ravnica hit the format, it was no longer a dominant force, which was a good thing because it gave other cards, sets, and mechanics get a chance to shine in Standard.

Now, let's compare the original Innistrad to Shadows over Innistrad. See that blank card above? That's the graveyard hoser we have in our current Standard format, and it's been that way for a long, long time. We are on our third set since Shadows over Innistrad, and we don't have a single card that interacts with the graveyard in a meaningful way. Even worse, if you think back to last year when Rally the Ancestors was dominating the format, it was the same way. And it's not even that Wizards isn't printing good enough graveyard hate; it simply isn't printing any at all.

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And this problem goes beyond just Shadows over Innistrad—before the last few years, there was a long-held tradition of a later set in a block (or the first set of the following block) providing a powerful hate card to suppress the dominant mechanic or theme from earlier in the block (or previous block). Overpowered artifacts in Scars of Mirrodin block brought with them Stony Silence in Innistrad. Creaturelands in the original Zendikar block also gave us Tectonic Edge (while creaturelands in Battle for Zendikar came without any real way to interact). A few years ago, it was possible to write this off as an oversight. Maybe Wizards simply didn't realize the true power of some of these cards, mechanics, and themes and didn't think that providing good hate cards was necessary, but it's been long enough that it feels safe to call this a trend, which means that Wizards simply doesn't want powerful hosers and hate cards to exist in any way, shape, or form.

Why Wizards Hates the Hate

I talk all the time about how one of the things I love most about Magic is there are so many different ways to play the game, which in turns allows each individual player to play the game however they choose. Maybe you like burning people out (probably my least favorite way to play Magic), and that's great—you probably don't understand the joy of resolving a Turn 1 Blood Moon the way that I do. For most of Magic's life, Wizards has supported and embraced this ideal, but with the recent destruction of hate cards, it feels like this is changing. Rather than printing cards and allowing players to figure out what they think is fun, Wizards is forcing their view of fun (or, perhaps, the view of a small group of players) on everyone. This technique might work if Wizards really knew what everyone wanted (although this would still take away from the game being different things to different people), but by attempting to force one ideal of fun on everyone, Wizards is actually making the game—as a whole—less fun for everyone.

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Here's what I believe to be happening: Wizards wants new players in the game, which is a reasonable and worthy goal—we all want new players in the game. Wizards believes (rightly or wrongly) that new players don't like any form of hate cards in Magic because these cards lead to feel-bad moments (e.g., you build a janky Ever After Reanimator deck and your opponent slams a Rest in Peace). While this may be true to some extent, I don't think this is giving new players enough credit. I think I've told this story before, a long time ago, but when I first started playing Magic, my playgroup was uber-casual—until another friend returned to the game and brought with him a fully powered Isochron Scepter / Orim's Chant deck, which he used to lock me out of doing anything several games in a row. At first I was mad, like flip-the-table mad—this was a type of Magic I'd never seen before. Eventually, I learned how to interact with the combo, and the first time I beat that deck was one of the greatest days I've ever had playing Magic (after I learned to beat that, he brought a Stasis deck, which caused more table flipping but also another great experience once I eventually figured out a way of beating that deck too). The point is, as a super-casual new player, having this horrible game didn't make me say, "Well, that sucked, I'm never playing Magic again"; it actually did the exact opposite. Sure, it made me mad and frustrated, but it kept me coming back again and again and again until I finally figured out how to beat that damn deck. As strange as it sounds, getting Scepter locked and then getting Stasis locked is what got me addicted to Magic. Now, I'm certainly not arguing that we want these cards or synergies in Standard, but I do think my experience provides an example of how Wizards underestimates new players. Getting your graveyard exiled while you're trying to delirium your way into Emrakul, the Promised End isn't going to cause many people to quit the game and may even have the opposite effect.

Disregarding new players, the complete elimination of hate cards is dangerous for the game as a whole, and even more so now that we are moving back to the once-a-year rotation schedule. Printing hate cards and hosers that diminish the power of the dominant mechanic or theme of the block is one of the best ways to keep the metagame fresh. Having a Rest in Peace in Standard would make Rally the Ancestors just another good deck, and Grafdigger's Cage would have kept Collected Company from dominating the metagame. With two rotations a year, dominant decks are less of a concern because they leave the format faster, but now that cards once again have a Standard life of up to two years, when a theme or mechanic is simply too good, the impact on Standard will not only be severe but also long. It's completely possible that energy could end up next on the list of overpowered and oppressive mechanics in Standard, depending on what support it gets from Aether Revolt, and if Wizards doesn't print a hate card or hoser for energy, it's completely possible that Standard will once again by dominated by one mechanic, but this time for 18 months rather than for nine.

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I love watching Magic coverage, but there have been a couple of times over the past year when I simply didn't have it in me to sit through an event, even with casters I enjoy and high production values, simply because Standard didn't interest me. The first of these times was last winter, when I skipped some SCG Opens and GPs because everyone knew that Rally the Ancestors was the best deck in the format, since there was no way to interact with the graveyard. The second was this summer, when Bant Company was half of the format. Both of these problems could have been solved by the presence of a targeted hate card or hoser, but in an effort to keep new players from feeling bad when their graveyard gets exiled or their Collected Company gets fizzled, Wizards instead decided to make the entirety of Standard unplayable and unwatchable.

Basically, in an effort to prevent what may be a feel-bad moment for a certain segment of the Magic-playing population, Wizards has instead spread the feel-bads around to everyone by taking away options and making Standard less fun for the masses. From my perspective, having six months of unwatchable / unplayable Standard because Rally the Ancestors was so much better than anything else in the format due to the lack of answers is a much bigger threat to the overall health of the game than a new player running into a hate card or hoser. Also, by making sure Rally the Ancestors got to shine by not printing any graveyard hate, Wizards is also making sure that tons of other cool, flavorful, and popular cards are unplayable in Standard because Rally the Ancestors is so good. What really feels worse for a new player: occasionally getting your infinite-energy combo deck hated out by some energy hoser, or not being able to compete with your infinite energy combo deck at all because the format is 60% Aetherworks Marvel energy decks that kill you on Turn 4?

The Solution

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While personally I love Blood Moons and Stasis locks, I'm also the first to admit that those types of cards are certainly not good for Standard, and I'm willing to listen to arguments that they aren't good for the game at all. So, as much as I'd love to, I'm not asking for the return of cards that essentially say, "Your opponent can't play Magic." The same is true of mass land destruction like Armageddon and Winter Orb, and even extremely swingy color hate cards in the vein of Choke and Pyroblast. While I appreciate that these cards exist and are part of Legacy (and to a lesser extent, Modern), they don't have a place in Standard.

On the other hand, hate cards and hosers that target specific, powerful mechanics, themes, and strategies are completely different. Magic walks a tightrope. Players want powerful cards and decks, and along with powerful cards and decks come decks that are too powerful for too long a period of time, which makes Standard unfun for nearly everyone. Targeted hate cards and hosers are safety valves that make sure nothing gets too out of line. Ideally, when Rest in Peace, Grafdigger's Cage, and Stony Silence are in Standard, they will go more or less unplayed—these aren't cards you actively want to put in your deck (even in your sideboard) because they are extremely narrow. On the other hand, when we have a graveyard deck that is simply too good, having a random Tormod's Crypt sitting around can, all by itself, take Standard from miserable to fun and playable.

Without these cards, Standard will simply bounce from six months or a year of one broken deck, to rotation, to six months or a year of another broken deck until everyone gets sick of playing the format and simply gives up, like I did during the reign of Bant Company and Rally the Ancestors. In this age of easy information and tournament results, people are going to figure out the best deck quickly. These results will filter down to even the lowest level of competitive play like Friday Night Magic, and you'll always have some people who will run that deck because their primary goal is to win. Without printing an answer in the form of a hate card or hoser, Wizards risks losing a large group of players that go to Friday Night Magic for other reasons, like to have fun or test new ideas. You can also lose to Rally the Ancestors or Bant Company so many times in a row before it's simply not worth it anymore. If you give players the tools to solve these problems, it can become a great experience, like when I finally figured out how to best the Scepter lock or Stasis, but new players are missing out on this sense of discovery altogether because the answers simply don't exist.

As Erik Lauer said in his article The Role of Hate, "hate is such an ugly term, but it helps bring balance to the Multiverse." Let's hope that Wizards re-discovers this wisdom and brings some balance back to Standard, before it's too late.

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.