Standard No Longer Makes Sense for Magic

Hard to disagree with any of the points he makes, but Standard accounts for most of my playtime right now, and I'd feel pretty lost if it went away.

It's not actually that I like Standard in particular so much as that I prefer formats with lower power levels. I like games to last longer and involve more back-and-forth. I would actually prefer a power level much lower than Standard, but Standard is the best I can get, so I take it. I would rather have seen them change Standard rotation to one year than three years -- but they'd have to accompany that by making it much, much easier to obtain new cards quickly, and it's hard to imagine that happening.

I would probably quit the game rather than move to Modern. Modern combines the worst aspects of Legacy/Vintage (high power level, short games, high monetary cost) with the worst aspect of Standard (you don't get to play all your cards). Pioneer/Explorer are a little better I guess, but give them time, they'll become "Second Modern" eventually.

I'll play Commander with friends, but not with strangers. It's alright but it's not really the same game. Too swingy, too flashy for my tastes. No opportunity to gain small advantages over time. It's nothing for the entire battlefield to be wiped and refilled twice before it even comes around to your turn again. And no sense of personal achievement, even when you win. Commander is about doing cool things, and all winning means is that you did the last cool thing. It doesn't necessarily reflect on good strategic decisions you made. Sometimes things just happen to line up for you due to decisions that other people made while you were tapped out and in the kitchen getting a soda. And Commander seems to be filling up more and more with Universes Beyond cards, which are a real turn-off for me.

I like Draft and Sealed plenty, but I can't afford to play them every day. How many of us can? Plus, without Standard, how much do I care about the cards I acquire in Limited? Is there room to make free or very low-cost phantom drafts available on a permanent basis? I'd consider making that my primary format, but I doubt Wizards can justify it financially.

So yeah, it's pretty much Standard or Pauper for me, and Pauper isn't available on Arena.

I see what he's saying but I think removing Standard would be a colossal mistake. They would have to replace it with some other low powered constructed format because I think that is in fact a big market of competitive players.

Sounded clickbaity to me, but I took the bait and he does bring up some very good points.

@MysticKetchup I continue to mentally entertain "Chaos Standard" as a format. 60-card, 4-of, constant rotation (ie if a card was released Nov 13, 2020 it wouldn't be legal in this hypothetical format, or date\>=2020-11-14 / today's date as this is read on Scryfall) but any printing with the real card back puts the card into legality again.

Biggest problem with this would be attempting to onboard people to a 60-card format that's currently just the obnoxious bits of present Modern.