cephille Looks at the Late-2025 Standard Environment: Written Before the ECL Release

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

First of all, the purpose of this article is only to point out the problems of the current Standard, not to say that today’s Standard isn’t fun or isn’t competitive. As long as you pick a suitable deck and keep studying it, current Standard still offers a lot of playability and deck diversity.

However, just choosing a suitable deck is already a certain barrier for some players. Deck price is only one of the problems; the deeper problems will be explained in the sections below.

What’s Wrong With Standard Right Now?

Let’s first look at these three screenshots. They were captured on January 4, 2026.

Of the most-played creatures, the top 10 are basically all blue or green. Only Deep-Cavern Batholds 5th place, thanks to its play rate in black-based midrange, and Overlord of the Balemurksits at 10th thanks to its important role in Sultai self-mill.

In this chart I deliberately removed Llanowar Elvesand put Stormchaser's Talentin instead. The reason is that, besides Talent itself being counted as a one-mana curve creature, its play rate is as high as 28%, and the decks playing it all run a full 4 copies. And before Badgermole Cubwas printed, green-based decks had little share of the meta even with Llanowar Elves. What really made green-based decks the new darlings of the meta was actually the Cub, not the Elves; the Elves are more like infrastructure. And these two blue cards had a very high play rate even back in the Vivi Cauldron environment, and after TLA came in it became even more excessive!

For lands, it’s another victory for Island. Multiversal Passageis second and Mountain is third. But this is simply because Steam Ventswon’t be legal until after ECL is released. The fact that 4th and 5th are both blue-red dual lands also matches the current situation where blue-red decks take up most of the top 10 of the MTGGoldfish meta.

Among the 15 most-played spells, after removing Stormchaser's Talent, which should count with the creatures, it’s unsurprising to see many Lesson cards and graveyard-hate cards on the list. For black, besides Duress, which counts as infrastructure, the play rate of Bitter Triumphis propped up by Sultai self-mill, and for white only Seam Ripis pressed in at 15th.

Judging from the usage above, apart from the graveyard hate Soul-Guide Lantern, which every color pair can use, spells are basically still the domain of blue-red. You might ask why there are no green spells… silly child, green relies on its all-powerful creatures; who needs noncreature spells? XD

After looking at the spell list, the information above once again demonstrates a fact we already knew: winning in Standard is all about creatures. Why do I need to say this obvious thing? Because it has everything to do with why I’m writing this article.

Winning in Standard Relies on Creatures. So What?

That Standard creatures keep getting stronger is nothing new; since ELD, this trend has been irreversible. But creatures are endlessly strengthened while the corresponding spells (removal, counterspells, hand disruption, sweepers) have not increased in strength to match, and this is the biggest problem that has brought the Standard environment to where it is today. Whether a format has enough ability to balance itself depends on whether the strength of its creatures and of the corresponding spells can match.

So in today’s Standard, what ways does each color have to interact efficiently with creatures?

Color	One-mana removal (best only)	Counterspell (blue only)	Hand disruption (black only)	Sweeper
White	Seam Rip	NA	NA	Day of Judgment
Blue	Into the Flood Maw	Essence Scatter	NA	Aetherize
Black	Stab	NA	Intimidation Tactics	Day of Black Sun
Red	Torch the Tower	NA	NA	Pyroclasm

This table doesn’t list green, because green essentially interacts through creatures. If needed, it can be supplemented with some protective cards, such as Innkeeper's Talentor Origin of Metalbending.

Listing only one-mana removal doesn’t mean there are no usable two-mana removal spells; for example white’s Get Lost, black’s Bitter Triumph, and red’s Abradeare all quite efficient. But the problem is precisely that in many decks the creatures played on turn two are too strong, and letting them stay on the battlefield one more turn can tip the game heavily.

• White’s Seam Ripis sorcery-speed removal, but on the draw, against the opponent’s two-drop, it is still quite effective and doesn’t lose much to instant-speed removal
• Blue’s Into the Flood Mawhaving instant timing is very important, giving you a chance not to die outright to the opponent’s AABB; it can also bounce a land creature made by Earthbending straight back to hand, making play more flexible! I also have to mention Boomerang Basics, which has a very high play rate supported by the many low-cost permanents of blue-red, Warp’s Quantum Riddler, and so on; besides being soft removal, it is an engine that gains cards!
• Black’s Stab………………its range is only creatures with 2 toughness, which is really terrible! Many of the opponent’s key creatures have 3 toughness, so if you can’t kill them, you’re about to explode.
• Red’s Torch the Towerstill has the upside of killing 3-toughness creatures with Bargain, much better than Stab.

As for counterspells, the one-mana counter Spell Piercecan’t counter creatures, and Annulcountering a creature depends on fate, and mostly can’t. Phantom Interferenceonly makes the opponent pay two more, which is still too easy to play around, so the only one worth mentioning is Essence Scatter. Thank you Foundation, praise Foundation.

Discard is the same. Duresscan’t discard creatures, so the only usable one is Intimidation Tactics. Not to mention that two-mana discard comes too late anyway.

For sweepers, every color has usable options and it’s relatively balanced, but red has Pyroclasmand even Fire Magic, which is more flexible in the mid to late game; facing today’s environment, red’s sweepers are still especially excellent.

From the above, in a Standard where creatures run rampant, even though by color wheel design blue has the instant-speed interaction of counterspells and black has the sorcery-speed disruption of hand attack, none of the options currently usable in Standard make the grade. What’s more, after Cut Downleft Standard, black doesn’t even have a passable one-mana removal spell.

You Speak of Black So Badly, But Dimir Midrange Still Has a High Play Rate and Does Well at Big Events!

Yes, that’s true. But based on my personal experience piloting Dimir Midrange and what I’ve gathered from discussions with some friends, let me give the conclusion first: Dimir Midrange still works, but the margin for error has become smaller, and it demands even more careful positioning. All along, Dimir Midrange has served as a yardstick for Standard’s power level and kept playing the role of environment regulator (a deck stronger than it would likely get banned); but by the end of 2025, this role had gradually passed to Izzet Lessons, which is better at removal and card advantage.

If you look at the results of Standard Challenges on MO, Dimir Midrange’s performance has actually been up and down too. In an environment dominated by green-based go-wide decks, Dimir Midrange usually doesn’t do well; without good interactive spells, Dimir is easily drowned by the spread-out green mid-to-large creatures. And when the environment turns to control and Izzet Lessons-type decks, which Dimir has the upper hand against (they struggle to deal with Kaito, Bane of Nightmares), the chance of Dimir rising goes up.

In addition, the vast majority of Dimir Midrange players who have stuck with it to this day are masters of the deck, but even players at that level depend heavily on a correct understanding of the environment and good positioning. If a player less familiar with the environment played Dimir, the win rate would only be lower.

Now That We Know the Problem, Can We Expect Any Changes?

Above we learned that the reason creatures run unchecked in Standard is mainly that the interaction of blue-black is not strong enough. So if you were an engineer on the MTG team in charge of balancing Standard, how would you change this situation in 2026?

Ask the Design Team to Stop Printing Stronger Creatures

Not feasible. Wizards uses exactly this trick to force players to open packs of new sets. Look at the Universe Beyond sets one after another; which of them doesn’t rely on classic characters to attract players? Besides, doing this does nothing for the current situation, and in the end you still have to solve the problem with bans, which is the worst step.

Print Sufficiently Strong Answering Spells

The direction is right, but where do we start? White and red are not much of a problem, green is one source of the problem, so we start with blue and black mentioned above, especially black, whose color advantage has basically vanished entirely and needs a good overhaul.

The next question: Is there a reference point we can use?

Let me give the answer directly: “Yes. Follow the Pioneer format: whatever Pioneer has and Standard doesn’t, reprint those cards.”

Color	One-mana removal (best only)	Counterspell (blue only)	Hand disruption (black only)	Sweeper
Blue	Into the Flood Maw	Essence Scatter	NA	Whelming Wave
Black	Fatal Push	NA	Thoughtseize	Path of Peril

Actually, looking at Pioneer’s counterspells, the power level isn’t much different from current Standard; if the environment is creature-focused, Essence Scatteris still usable. However, Standard black lacks an efficient creature removal like Fatal Pushand powerful hand disruption like Thoughtseize, and this is indeed the main reason black in Standard is weak while Pioneer Rakdos Midrange remains evergreen.

Another reason is that today’s Standard rotates only once every three years. By the end of 2026, Standard will have 20 sets, and the total number of legal cards will be about the same as when Pioneer was created at the end of October 2019 (back then there were 29 legal sets, from RTR to ELD, but many of them were small sets of fewer than 200 cards, so the total card counts are close). In the past, Standard rotated every two years, and rotation could be used to balance the environment; with the current three-year rotation, the long-neglected answering spells really do need to be strengthened.

My personal suggestion: reprint Fatal Push and Thoughtseize. If you think Fatal Push is too strong, then at least bring Cut Downback to Standard; being able to use a one-mana removal spell on a two-drop with 2/3 stats when on the draw is too important.

Why Not Strengthen Blue’s Counterspells?

Simple: because blue is also one of the current causes of overly strong creatures in Standard. If counterspells are to be strengthened, it would inevitably mean bringing cards like Mana Leakback to Standard. Then blue, having gotten stronger counterspells, would only keep growing larger. Imagine a blue-red mirror where the player on the play can cast Quantum Riddleron turn four while holding Mana Leakto stop the draw player’s first spell costing two or more. Do you want to play in that kind of environment?

Why Suggest Reprints Instead of Printing New Functional Upgrades?

The reason is simple: to dampen Standard deck prices. Reprints let players get these important answering cards more easily, because plenty of copies are already on the market; if new functional upgrade cards are printed, it would only continue the current situation where whichever Standard card is strong or key gets so expensive that players can hardly obtain it. And after rotation, lacking key interaction would only repeat what we see now.

Besides, who says Wizards won’t print Foundation 2? If these reprints prove effective, they can continue to be reprinted in a later Foundation 2; as long as they prove effective, printing them to death is better than frequent bans.

Looking Ahead to Lorwyn: What Impact Will ECL Bring to Standard?

Welcome news: the last five pieces of the shockland puzzle are finally filled in. The previously suppressed color pairs (bluered pair: were we ever suppressed?) should be able to produce new builds after this, further driving changes in Standard.

But I have to say, this comes too late.

Because ECL was originally scheduled to be the set right after EOE, and it was only pushed back to 2026 after the UB policy was announced. That made Starting Townin 2025 Q3 and Multiversal Passagein 2025 Q4 especially important. In hindsight, this has actually been harmful to Standard’s development:

1. UB sets, because of their inherently higher pack prices, have expensive key cards
2. These two lands still can’t smoothly produce the colors the color pair needs; for example, Starting Town pairs poorly with Vergelands, and Multiversal Passage sometimes leaves a deck stuck on one of its colors, both of which are bad for casting double-colored spells early.

However, because these five ECL shocklands only come out in 2026, when Standard rotates in early 2029, the five EOE lands will rotate out first, which actually makes the ECL five-shockland color pairs relatively advantaged. This isn’t the first time, though, and we can only hope Wizards makes fewer of these decisions that put business ahead of playability.

In addition, in the ECL blue-red Pirates themed deck, Spell Snareappears in the list, to our surprise! Note that precon decks can be used in Standard events right after release, so unless it was added specifically to bolster this precon, it’s very likely that Spell Snare will be reprinted in ECL. Let’s wait and see!

And printing Spell Snare matches the observations above. It can be a good gatekeeper for the two-mana curve, and its presence means players must take it into account when building, finding ways to play around it or weaken its defense. Spell Snare will have a slowing effect on the Standard environment. Whether this makes blue decks too strong, we’ll keep watching!

Although there aren’t many previewed ECL cards, I’m already very much looking forward to it! The rest awaits the later previews slowly revealing themselves!