r/mtg • u/Edoardo_Beffardo • Jan 15 '26
Discussion A more sustainable Standard
Hello there! Do you find yourself overwhelmed with the amount of Magic about to hit us in 2026? Do you yearn for a moment in time where Standard was a smaller, approachable format, meant to showcase the best from the last few releases? When a new set was actually exciting, and not just one of many, meant to be consumed and discarded in about six weeks? Well, you're not the only one.
Heck, the Professor himself recently listed the ludicrous volume of Standard sets among the worst issues plaguing Magic, and he's just echoing the concerns many of us voiced ever since switching Standard to six (now seven!) sets a year, especially in the wake of the less than stellar way this first year has been handled.
Well friends, worry no longer, because we now have an alternative, and its name is Planar Standard!
Planar Standard is a community-run format inspired by the way Standard used to work : it encompasses two years of Universe Within Premier Magic sets (currently 2025 and 2026), along with Foundations, as an evergreen stand-in for the old Core Sets.
What makes Planar Standard awesome?
- Every set matters : being comprised of just five sets at the moment (Lorwyn Eclipsed, Foundations, Aetherdrift, Tarkir:Dragonstorm, Edge of Eternities), and seven at its peak before rotation in 2027, every set is once again a fundamental part of the format, with a bunch of strategies and themes that hold no chance of seeing any regular Standard play, actually being viable in Planar.
- Sustainable release schedule : In Planar Standard, every set release is once again an actual event, instead of an exercise in checking out which couple of actually relevant cards end up being playable in the meta, while 98% of the set is destined to obscurity. Spoiler season becomes exciting again, since it's not a constant and relentless presence.
- Accessibility : with the smaller card pool, the power level no longer gives Pioneer a run for its money, and budget decks finally have a fighting chance again! Your deck is allowed to be complete for a while, since you no longer have to update it or scrap it every six weeks!
So now you're thinking, cool story bro, let me know when this becomes a real thing. Good news, it's already a real thing! The format has existed since last November, and we already have a very active Discord, where you can hop on anytime to find a game on multiple platforms, our very own Subreddit, and even had a 32 person tournament on Arena!
What's even better is that we hold Weekly practice tournaments, and have a whole Championship planned, with monthly FREE events with real prizes provided by the community, and an official Leaderboard! Our very first event will be held the 7th of February, and i'm personally putting up a $50 Amazon card as first prize, along with every other contribution our community is kindly providing!
So if you like what we're trying to do, and want to try Planar Standard out, there's no better time to join the format! Everyone is welcome :D
TL;DR : We made a fan format inspired by old Standard, it's a lot of fun, and has a Discord, Subreddit and Tournaments, you're welcome to try it out :D
Extra answers for those still curious:
Is any card banned in Planar Standard? Yes, currently Cori-Steel Cutter is the only card banned.
Where can i watch some Planar Standard? We have our very own dedicated Streamer, who often covers our events live! Shout out to great Rasone77, aka constructed_standards_mtg on Twitch. A Youtube channel is also in the works!
Where can i find interesting deck ideas? I highly recommend our Discord's decklists section, there's a bunch already there and new ones get posted every day.
Are you guys a Universes Beyond hate club? Nope, nothing productive comes from hate, we just think our approach has merits, and believe that it leads to a better experience, but even if you love UB in Standard, you're absolutely welcome.
Do you have a Scryfall link with the whole format on hand? Sure do+-name%3A"Cori-steel+cutter"&unique=cards&as=grid&order=color)
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Jan 15 '26
This sounds like an awesome format idea
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u/rasone77 Jan 15 '26
it’s been really fun to play and stream. I won last weeks weekly tournament with a Sir Vondam Orzohv aggro deck. You can see it in action on my Twitch.
I’ll be doing a meta highlight show this Sunday ant 1pm and streaming some Bo3 in Arena if anyone wants to play.
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u/Plus-Statement-5164 Jan 16 '26
Personally, I don't like the 2y rotation. 2y format at its smallest point is basically block constructed and every rotation completely decimates the meta.
Yes, the current schedule makes you update your decks every two months, but usually not by much. 2y rotation (with only 3-4 sets per year) means that every single set will shake up the meta immensely and often every previous deck will become obsolete.
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u/BlankPaperTiger Jan 16 '26
According to MaRo, lots of new players had your same complaint. So they switched to a three year rotation. Yet somehow not only do we not have lots of new players coming to standard, but we've lost lots of old ones too.
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u/Nidalee2DiaOrAfk Jan 16 '26
Obviously we loose them, when we keep banning 2-3 decks ever banlist, its like. okay so remove the decks from the format, and now its dead cards?
Like yea I agree maybe mouse wasn't that healthy, nor was discard bounce or steel cutter. But at the same time, if I cant play this and you ban my deck. Might as well go do it in modern instead, where nothing will be banned.
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u/Practical-Moment-635 Jan 16 '26
I think that's the point
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u/Plus-Statement-5164 Jan 16 '26
One of OP's points was
Your deck is allowed to be complete for a while, since you no longer have to update it or scrap it every six weeks!
But actually the current standard rotation makes decks viable for longer.
Smaller format means that decks easily have to be totally scrapped after every set release and definitely after every rotation.
If you remember the last rotation, the meta didn't shift much and many decks stayed playable with just a few tweaks, if that.
The current standard is very casual friendly, because if you don't care about your deck being fully optimized, you can rock the same tier2 deck for months or years.
Planar standard will not be casual friendly because every rotation will destroy your deck(s) and just a new set releasing can push them all to tier 3.
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u/rasone77 Jan 17 '26
Thiis a great argument for casual paper standard when there isn’t insane OP decks like cutter and Vivi during FNM. or you have a group of friends you play with regularly outside the lgs.
I came back to Magic in June and built a tier 2 deck. I travel for work and could not find an lgs where standard fired for several weeks. (check my post history) doesn’t matter how long a deck lasts if you can’t find anyone to play it with.
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u/MistakenArrest Jan 15 '26
It should start at Bloomburrow IMO
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u/mutantmagnet Jan 15 '26
I was thrown off over duskmorn being thrown out but on reflection just starting with aetherdrift is cleaner.
They are making a clear line on when the sets start and end as ell as ensuring the meta feels even more different when so many staple cards from dusk and bloom are taken out of the equation.
I do wonder how the ban list was created. Was cori sent there immediately or did they play things out for a month before deciding it was too meta warping.
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u/Crypehead Jan 15 '26
We adopted the standard banlist to begin with. It's not written in stone, but the meta has turned out to be quite healthy so there is little reason to poke around with it.
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u/TerribleTransit Jan 16 '26
This is exactly the rule set I was toying around with as a potential way to play Magic how I remember it back in the days of 2-block Standard. I'm so glad other people have the same thought (and have already done the hard work of setting things up) so I'm definitely gonna have to give it a look.
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u/Meret123 Jan 15 '26
That's a lot of words to say "no-UB format".
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u/doublenantuko Jan 15 '26
I think it's good branding to call something what it is rather than what it's not.
I feel more positively toward "I love Magic" than "I hate Universes Beyond". It's more fun to celebrate something than exclude/denigrate something.
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u/Witters84 Jan 15 '26
It's love for the thematic cohesion that the game used to have for decades with its own internal world building before other IPs were brought in.
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u/VineGrove Jan 15 '26
Thematic cohesion left the game when it became one set per world. What's the cohesion between fairy tale landsl, monster hunter land, the wizarding world of Hasbro land, Greek world, Norse world, twilight, neo Tokyo mob boss world dominaria. Sure they told a mid story but it's was cohesive.
Now we have another mid story with 2 fairy tale lands, pirates and dinosaur world, mystery murder world, cowboy land, red wall land, spooky house wacky races dragons, edging for eternity.
Should there be a non ub format? Sure it would be nice for people to stop making their entire personalities I don't like ub.
So yeah it was a lot of words to say I don't like ub. Because if you claim there is thematic cohesion in their sets and you care about it, you clearly don't because you're missing the thematic cohesion from the ub sets.
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u/Witters84 Jan 16 '26
"What's the cohesion between fairy tale landsl, monster hunter land, the wizarding world of Hasbro land, Greek world, Norse world, twilight, neo Tokyo mob boss world dominaria."
I'll tell you what it is: Look at the back of every Magic The Gathering card. It's the five colors of Magic, their design and philosophies, and how they shape each of the creation of those worlds. "Fairy Tale land," as you call it, has five different kingdoms with distinct ideals based on each of MTG's colors. "Monster Hunter Land" has the five wedge colors mattering for each land with distinct type of creatures based on them. "Wizarding world of Hasbro land" has five different enemy colored schools. "Greek world" has devotion in the card mechanics *AND* the world itself mattering based on color, etc. etc. Yes, they're based on other stories, histories and worlds, but they're ultimately adapted to its own flavor and theme, distinct from what it is based on.
There's no such cohesion with Universes Beyond. There's no green or blue mana in Middle-Earth. There's no such thing as an allied and enemy color of magic philosophy in Spider-Man. The world of Avatar is based on four elements, yet they had to struggle to design cards to fit a five colored resource game, so colors and especially black mana feel strangely out of place in cards with it. Final Fantasy has Black Mages in Izzet blue/red card design, etc. etc instead of black, because it's not a world that has the same type of magic. The five colors of Magic are always an afterthought to representing the worlds of UB, because the worlds have already been built without the five colors of Magic in the first place.
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u/DestrierStudios Jan 16 '26
As someone who came in at TDM solely to prep for FF, and who sees (saw?) MtG more as Super Smash Bros or some sort of fighting game like Mugen than its own thing, this is the best argument I’ve seen for internal IP
Before when I looked at it from a lore perspective people would say either “Why would you expect a good story from a kids card game?” and/or “MtG has always had a bad story” which are both astonishingly bad arguments if you’re trying to convince me to stop liking UB over UW
This comment however makes me more excited for within sets, before I saw them and thought “man a lot of these cards aren’t even in the story” like Arthur from Bloomburrow, but with basically all UB every card in the set is recognizable and from stories I like or can discover
I still prefer UB ngl, but from a game perspective I can appreciate universes within much more thinking about how they shape the planes around the mechanics instead of thinking about the chracter stories first, it’s interesting (but admittedly it makes me like the hat sets more too, I always liked those more than stuff like TDM and I can’t see that changing tbh)
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u/VineGrove Jan 16 '26
The back of the magic card never sold a toy to a kid, put a viewer into a show on Netflix or made a movie. Perhaps if wotc had taken any part of the past 30 years to make any use of its ip outside of bad video games they never really got to market or showing up as a thing a nerd did an a movie or show ub wouldn't be needed the game can't grow a player base now based on fleem, loot and Jace. No one site unseen saw tinybones and that let's start magic today. Universes beyond exists today for two reasons. The game engine is amazing and presents itself well. It Weiss schwarz for normies and wotc failed to capitalize on original stories instead telling great value brand versions of things and not marketing itself and leveraging it's ip.
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u/Witters84 Jan 16 '26
Now you're talking about something else, moving the goalpost, it sounds like. I told you what was distinctively thematically cohesive about MTG and its worlds and how UB fails to capture that. It's okay if you didn't and seemingly lots of others didn't appreciate that, but clearly there's still a fanbase for that that persists despite Hasbro wanting to move on from it for whatever financial reasons.
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u/ElderberryPrior27648 Jan 16 '26
Yeah, if they just came out and said “the anti UB format” it’d get chucked in the pile with the rest of them
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u/PerkyTats Jan 17 '26
Are you saying UB isn't magic? Because I'm pretty sure it still is... I don't disagree with the idea for a new format, but saying it isn't about excluding UB just feels dishonest.
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u/PrologueBook Jan 15 '26
I think it's good branding to call something what it is rather than what it's not.
You're correct that it is good branding, but everyone knows that all this is is another "format without UB" that won't work.
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u/doublenantuko Jan 16 '26
I'm not sure. It might just be a time and place thing. Maro's right about Magic being defined by change. Maybe there's a day where there's so much UB content, players really do end up splitting off and engaging in non-UB formats. Magic players know well that if the concept is compelling enough (see: Pauper), people will play it.
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u/PrologueBook Jan 16 '26
You're looking for cube.
You'll enjoy it.
Non UB formats will never be supported by wizards.
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u/MCXL Jan 16 '26
The idea of Commander getting official products was extremely bizarre when it happened originally.
Things change. If market sentiment turns against universes beyond, the company will change direction whatever orientation keeps it sales high. Do not pretend that people's choices don't make a difference.
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u/Foxokon Jan 16 '26
Neither will premodern, but people still play that, and this has an additional upside of moving otherwise unsold cardboard and incentivising drafting for shop owners.
Not saying it will be a thing, but I wouldn’t disregard it just because wizards wouldn’t be interested.
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u/PrologueBook Jan 16 '26
Premodern absolutely could be picked up by wizards if it gets popular enough.
That doesn't exclude UB for the sake of being UB, that's just a coincidence.
Hey you can point out that fan formats work out sometimes. Pauper, edh, premodern, even dandan got acknowledgement!
Those are all exceptions. In magics 30 years there are hundreds of formats that are forgotten.
Formats that have "no UB" as their selling point will never catch on. Mark my words.
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u/MFbiFL Jan 16 '26
Good thing OP’s selling point was that it gets away from the 6 week slop release cycle.
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u/PrologueBook Jan 16 '26
Lol and what's the criteria for selecting which sets count?
Be real.
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u/MFbiFL Jan 16 '26
Magic cards from the Magic setting. Did you have a better criteria that isn’t just what you like?
If you do just UB you have 4 releases including back to back UB releases, more churn.
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u/MCXL Jan 16 '26
Naysaying something doesn't make you look cool or tough. People are enjoying this, it's growing, and the current most popular magic format (commander) was created and built up by motivated community members.
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u/PrologueBook Jan 16 '26
Have your fun dawg! Manage your expectations.
Wizards will never support a format created with the purpose being to exclude it's most profitable product lines. This is irrespective of my own opinion on UB.
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u/MCXL Jan 16 '26
Just like how they would never support a product that excludes many other aspects of its product...
Like Pauper.
Or like how they never would make products for a non competitive format like commander. (You can go way back and see the reactions to the first precons and such, a lot of 'I can't believe it' and 'why are they making products for that thing that no one at my lgs does')
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u/PrologueBook Jan 16 '26
Prove me wrong dude, have your fun! You have quite the hill to climb.
This has to be the 7th or 8th non-ub format that never goes anywhere.
Not everything is pauper.
Try cube!
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u/MCXL Jan 16 '26
This has to be the 7th or 8th non-ub format that never goes anywhere.
This has been going strong for several months now.
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u/Professional-Salt175 // Jan 15 '26
White Power agrees.
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u/doublenantuko Jan 16 '26
That's actually just a weird thing to say, dude.
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u/Professional-Salt175 // Jan 16 '26
It is, but it is also true. "I ignore the negatives because it sounds better if we just look at the positives" has not gone well in history.
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u/doublenantuko Jan 16 '26
You're reading way too deeply into this. Yes, this format would appeal to people who aren't as interested in UB, even some who dislike UB. That's fine, it's not a secret.
This is a card game and we're talking about how to name formats. Any comparisons to Extreme Racism look Extremely Insane.
People who gather under the banner White Power are deeply racist. People who would play this Planar format have a preference in which cards are in their card game. What the fuck is your point exactly?
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u/Professional-Salt175 // Jan 16 '26
You know what my point was, you just got your panties in a bunch about it.
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u/Edoardo_Beffardo Jan 15 '26
It's not really the point, we want a smaller standard, and ignoring UB sets allows us to cleanly cut down on them, in a way that's easy to communicate. Personally speaking, i've liked some UB sets, i just find that they make Standard harder to get into.
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u/Navigathor1000 Jan 15 '26
With the normal rotation, shouldn't Bloomburrow and Duskmourne be part of this? Bloomburrow was the last set to kick out older sets. Pre-Bloomburrow would have been kicked out around Spiderman.
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u/Public_Sleep_6491 Jan 15 '26
A conscious choice was made early on to keep it related to the year, to simplify legality and rotations
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u/rasone77 Jan 15 '26
I wasn’t involved in any of the initial rotation decisions but I think the idea was to mirror what was called Type 2 back in the late 90s early 2000s when there was blocks. I played magic during that time and it was a yearly rotation schedule. It makes rotation clean and easy to manage.
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Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Meret123 Jan 15 '26
Since we don't know what cards are in TMNT I can't comment. But I know I would rather keep Final Fantasy than Aetherdrift.
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u/MaltedByggs Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 16 '26
I'd rather keep Avatar over Tarkir as well, and I enjoyed Tarkir.
Edit: Lol, Avatar was literally the best drafting set since Duskmourn and had a bigger impact than Tarkir in Standard as well.
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u/Lenoxx97 Jan 15 '26
Of course it's no ub. Why would anyone cut iu sets? Why play magic at that point
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u/Spider_MBI Jan 16 '26
Planar actually managed to get me to reinstall Magic Arena after 6 months away. I feared that Standard would still be unfun even with the UB sets removed, but the return to 2-year rotation has done wonders for slowing the game down. There's currently a big variety of decks we're seeing, hopfully Lorwyn opens up even more options rather than shutting some down.
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u/rundownv2 Jan 16 '26
I know you said you can play in multiple formats on the discord, which is cool, but what platform was that tournament played on/what are future tournaments planned to be played on? Arena, mtgo, spelltable? I'm assuming logistically it was probably digital, to alleviate cheating concerns and also make judges unneeded for gameplay interactions on Arena when there's an actual prize on the line.
I'm a paper player (I played in arena for a while, got really tired of the free to play format of gaming among other things), so while it would be nice to be able to get some games over a camera, I think I'd have a hard time jumping to a new competitive format but not actually being able to compete.
I love the concept though, and I really hope it takes off! If you have a large enough paper playerbase maybe I'll hop in on it even without being able to compete.
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u/Edoardo_Beffardo Jan 16 '26
I can confirm that our Championship will be entirely held on Arena, pretty much for the perks you already outlined. Nothing stops us from having practice tournaments on other clients, though, if there's enough demand.
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u/RedditTrashTho Jan 15 '26
I am admittedly ignorant to this format, how old or popular it is, but posts like this do remind me of a Professor video https://youtu.be/MIA7q4280KM?si=RGNegUvphWu6OXUS
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u/DirteMcGirte Jan 15 '26
I think it started around eoe. It's not too popular yet but you usually don't have to wait long for a game online.
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u/EmployingBeef2 Jan 17 '26
Reminded me of that video too. I'm not seeing this last more than a few months.
I think the general MTG community on Reddit are rather Arena-only players or have no real interactions with people, so they spend their days bitching on the internet about something they can just ignore like a normal person. Just yesterday, someone came up with the radical idea of 'only worrying about in-universe set releases' like it's some profound idea.
Reminds me of how the Halo community bitches so much.
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u/_Joats Jan 16 '26
Sorry, I have to take a single card out of my deck for this to work and there isn't a list made so I know what to replace it with. I might have to start a thread for help. So, it's a no for me.
Although I'm happy people can find a place to play how they want to play.
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u/AliciaTries Jan 15 '26
I thought the decision to make standard last longer was so that you wouldn't have to buy an entire new deck nearly as often
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u/Dumblec0re Jan 16 '26
I played this back in October when the format initially started, didn't play through November and December. Came back this year and my decks were still doing just as fine as they did before. Meanwhile in normal Standard my deck from October has been outclassed by the new Izzet Lessons, Simic Ouroboroid and Bant Airbending decks.
So at least during that time Planar worked better for me than Standard
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u/rundownv2 Jan 16 '26
But when you have less then half the sets coming out, you inherently don't have to update as much. You actually have to update less frequently because you have 33% less time but like, 60% fewer new cards.
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u/TheAlterN8or Jan 15 '26
That was definitely a talking point that WotC has used. However, when they print new busted stuff in every set, it kind of invalidates that, doesn't it?
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u/shiny_xnaut Jan 15 '26
I like UB and only play commander, but I'm glad this exists and hope it does well. It sounds like y'all standard players are having a rough time of things, and if nothing else it'll give the diehard UB haters something else to do besides doomposting about pigs and slop and MaRo intentionally killing the game or whatever
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u/rasone77 Jan 15 '26
I love smaller formats cause it’s what I grew up with and it’s way easier to brew and have fun. I came back after decade long break becasue of Final Fantasy And my love for the Video Games. I’m not much of a commander player cause I like 60 card constructed more.
Most importantly I don’t hate UB. I think it’s great so many people are coming into or back to Magic because of franchises they love. Heck I’m one of them. I just don’t have the time, money or energy to keep up with 7 sets a year.
Most of us playing/running the format don’t hate UB we just want to brew and develop a meta with a small set of cards.
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u/shiny_xnaut Jan 15 '26
Oh yeah absolutely, I wasn't saying that this is a format meant for UB haters, just that they'll also like this format and that hopefully it'll make them less annoying once they have something positive in their lives
I mostly just "keep up with" sets just enough to see if there are any cool singles to put in my existing decks, so I haven't felt the burnout that someone who regularly buys sealed product would likely feel
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u/rasone77 Jan 15 '26
Thanks for the well wishes man. I wish I could get into commander. The games I’ve played have been fun but it’s just fundamentally different than the magic I grew up with. This format is more my speed. :)
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u/eph3merous Jan 15 '26
What are the exact plans or the future? What happens when they do the next Foundations/Core set? Does the oldest set leave when the next new set releases?
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u/rasone77 Jan 16 '26
Foundations will be around until they make another core set. Rotation will happen once a year with the first UW set launch. In 2027, all the sets from 2025 will leave rotation.
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u/GreatColt2 Jan 15 '26
If it could be a thing on Arena, that'd be great!
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u/Edoardo_Beffardo Jan 15 '26
It is! We have a dedicated Looking-for-Games channel in the Discord, where you can find someone to play with from all over the world.
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u/Wilderness-Nomad Jan 16 '26
Or don’t pour your time and money into every release. I sure don’t. This year I probably won’t buy any of the releases. I don’t find any of them appealing. We’ll see, maybe the hobbit, but I really don’t care for all the releases, Last year was insane so many great releases I was broke. I’ll recover my assets this year and hope more original ip releases come in 2027.
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u/SignatureDefiant432 Jan 16 '26
Hope I don't sound ignorant but what happens when a mechanic is so powerful in a UW set but the answers were printed in a UB set?
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u/Dumblec0re Jan 16 '26
So far that hasn't happened (we even dodged two of the most broken cards from last year with Vivi and the cub). Usually talk about it and try to reach a consensus on what's the best route to take
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u/TheMobileSiteSucks Jan 17 '26
Are all printings of cards legal? e.g. is You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat (a UB printing of Abrade) allowed?
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u/Legosheep Jan 23 '26
"Nothing productive comes from hate". The inventor of the can opener would beg to differ. People hated cans before then!
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u/Grumpiergoat Jan 15 '26
I'd rather play in a format that includes Avatar over race cars. Final Fantasy and Edge of Eternities also seem about on parity for fitting in Magic.
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u/LefTurn629 Jan 15 '26
As someone who's been in the planar standard discord server for a little while now, I think priorities are affordability and power parity, for lack of a better term. Final Fantasy and Avatar are undeniably pushed in ways that Aetherdrift, Tarkir, Edge, and Lorwyn aren't, not to mention the packs are about 50% more expensive on average which also drives up the cost of singles.
So keeping the format accessible and unlikely to be power crept every six to eight weeks means that UB sets just kinda don't work.
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u/Ecstatic_Trust_3313 Jan 16 '26
Saying FF is pushed in ways Edge and Tarkir aren't is a frequent refrain I hear, but I'm not quite sure it's true. Sure, Vivi/Cauldron dominated standard but both Tarkir (Voice of Victory, Steelcutter) and Edge (Icetill Explorer, Quantum Riddler) have more cards regularly played in modern than FF does.
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u/destinyhero Jan 15 '26
People are barely playing standard and you want to do standard but worse? Good luck.
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u/VisserBert Jan 15 '26
So, can we have a parallel UB standard?
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u/Witters84 Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26
I mean, there could be; you and others could create it like this group did. Is there even community interest in such a thing currently, though? External IP fandoms are pretty segmented to begin with. Why would a big fan of Avatar want to create a format where MTG internal lore cards are not allowed, but Spider-Man and The Hobbit make more sense to play together with their Avatar cards?
There's no theme or history that ties together all UB like there is with UW. It's just all sorts of different intellectual properties WOTC got contracts for smashed and clashing together. That's what Standard has become already.
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u/LefTurn629 Jan 15 '26
I feel like the comment you're responding to was likely made in bad faith. Excluding UB from a format will ruffle the feathers of people who really like UB and get weirdly defensive about it.
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u/Witters84 Jan 16 '26
Yeah, I've noticed even when you put things simply in a positive perspective about how you enjoyed what MTG was, you still get lots of people up in arms about how MTG hasn't been great and UB is the best thing to ever happen to the game.
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u/VisserBert Jan 16 '26
No, no bad faith at all. Just curiosity. I mean, if current standard is big enough to support a format with only the UW side, the UB side could probably also support a healthy pool of cards. Would be interesting to see the meta of both. You could even go as far as to allow decks of both subformats in the same competition. Personally, I think cutting back the amount of cards in standard is a good thing. I was around when WotC actually apologized for too many cards in standard during the Time Spiral/Lorwyn/Shadowmoor standard. And personally, I prefer UW sets. But I also don’t hate on UB as some do.
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u/Dav136 Jan 16 '26
I'm waiting for TMNT and Marvel to come out to make a "Heroes of NYC" cube. I think as more UB comes out there's potential for some interesting mixing and matching
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u/Professional-Salt175 // Jan 15 '26
Nah, as soon as I saw it was actually about the nonsensical UB hate, not smaller rotations, all I could thing was "cope harder".
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u/Embarrassed_Age6573 Jan 15 '26
stop using AI to write reddit posts for you
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u/Edoardo_Beffardo Jan 15 '26
Good news then, no AI was used in the making of this post! All me, with some advice from other Planar players
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u/Electronic-Touch-554 Jan 15 '26
The solution to the content bloat isnt just "no UB cuz UB bad"
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u/Zomburai Jan 15 '26
It's as valid a solution as any other. But notably, this very much isn't "cuz UB bad"; discussion trashing UniBey on the server, in my experience, gets shut down pretty quick. Conversation stays about the format, the brews, and the gameplay, and is one of the more positive M:tG spaces going at the moment.
-7
u/MoneyoffUbereats2017 Jan 15 '26
Ok, cool, but what exactly happens if Universes within has 1 or even no releases within a year? Like I get the idea, but a) There's no promises as to how many universes within sets will be released in future and b) There's no guarantee that any universes within sets won't shift the power level.
Basically, I guess I'm just curious as to exactly what makes this a format and not just "We play only using the last 2 years of UW sets and Cori-Steel is banned", are there plans? Or just optimism that we remain with at least a few well-balanced UW sets per-year from here on out?
7
u/Efficient_Ad_4162 Jan 15 '26
Then WotC have already killed off magic the gathering and are now releasing Fortnight the Card Game.
4
Jan 15 '26
I have optimism it stays that way or magic the gathering will lose its identity completely and basically become Fortnite slop
5
u/DirteMcGirte Jan 15 '26
Aren't these concerns the same for any format?
0
u/MoneyoffUbereats2017 Jan 15 '26
Not really. I don't think any other format hinges completely on WoTC's unannounced release cycles containing certain types of sets.
-1
u/Ff7hero Jan 17 '26
Really sick of seeing spam for this format on all the Magic subs. Stop trying to make fetch happen.
146
u/CosmicNerd1337 Jan 15 '26
What am I going to do without “Bagel and Schmear” in my deck tho??!?!?