The Worst Magic: The Gathering Format. Ever.

For awhile now, I’ve had a funny idea for a video knocking about in my head. I wanted to make a video called “The Best Magic: The Gathering Format” and in it, I would basically go over every format from Draft to COmmander to Modern to Pauper to Legacy to Standard to Cube, and conclude them each to be the Best Magic Format, only for different and unique reasons.

Because, of course, there is no such thing as a best Magic format. Magic The Gathering isn’t one game, but many, and with many magic the gathering players there are many, many wonderful and different ways to enjoy the game. That would have been the thesis of that video, but I opted not to do it because I didn’t want to encourage Commander players and limited players yelling at each other over which of their vastly different yet equally awesome formats was truly the best way to play Magic. As always, the best format in magic is the one you enjoy the most. If you are having fun, then you are doing it correct.

To my surprise, however, last weekend brought us many new things in Magic: The Gathering. It brought us The Mythic Invitational which wow’d audience with the first competitive MTG event played on Magic Arena, shattering viewership records, introducing audience to a veritable smorgasbord of amazing Magic personalities, from the MPL, literally best players in the world, to hand picked awesome and engaging streamers, community members, for what may be the most exciting group of competitors ever, and delivered into this record number of homes by the best coverage team Magic has ever seen!

It also introduced us to a brand new format, previously never before seen and, after this last weekend, hopefully never ever seen again. Why? I’ll tell you.

You see, I may not be able to do a video about the best format in magic the gathering, because an absolute best does not exist, but I can do a video about the worst format in magic the gathering, because thanks to Single Elimination Duo Standard, it now exists, and it nearly derailed the biggest, most successful Magic The Gathering event in the game’s history.

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[TolarianCommunityCollege]

I always try very hard to offer criticism that does no fall into a territory of blind, emotional complaining. I try to support my claims with evidence, so that even if you disagree you can still see where I am coming from. I also hate more than anything the idea of "yucking someone's yum" and try only to make videos like this when they are on an extremely important issue, and not just some personal distaste of mine. I hope very much I succeeded in those goals here.

[RiseInAfterlife]

"Your life total is a resource, use it as such"

Monored: Yes, use it.

[MerchantTV]

Competing in the Mythic Invitational was one of the highlights of my life really, the atmosphere was incredible and there was a real sense of Magic being propelled to the forefront, we had the strongest presence at PAX & the two worlds of pro & community colliding and hanging out was such a joy.


I think the format is terrible, and it's unlikely we'll see it again in my opinion, but I think WOTC didn't help themselves with the choices of feature matches at times. There were unique decks there, but often the feature match would be yet another Esper/Red v Esper/Red mirror.


A prime example of this is I believe Sjow v Savjz was featured over myself & Reid Duke, so viewers got another Esper mirror instead of Grixis Midrange v Golgari Explore. I think Duo Standard could probably put forth an entertaining tournament to watch, but no action was taken to not feature the same problematic matchups coverage wise again and again.


Or you know tournaments could just use bo3 with sideboards haha.

[Kalmight]

Galaxy Brain: wizards purposefully chose an unbalanced luck-based format so that the streamers could compete with the pros.

[selkiestorm]

Mtg is already prohibitively expensive for most formats, the idea of needing two decks is ridiculous.

[merfall]

You nailed it with the whole “being ashamed of magic” thing. The game has always been great and they should show confidence in it

[MRlebellion]

You are quite engaging, feels like you are in the same room. Subscribed.

[KingRarecrazy]

Teferi and red agro and white agro decks took down the video

[hermandarmawan]

WotC, if you ever force your players to play dual standard in magic the gathering paper tournament, a lot of your players will quit this game.

[jumanjiman]

“Do you hope we get another invitational next year?”
Such an innocent question at the time but hearing that at the end kinda stung

[TheBloodswordsman]

I am a die hard commander player. I play nothing else. To anyone who plays a different format:

Your format is amazing! It is as cool as you are!

[nickst.pierre]

Duo could be an interesting draft format, draft 5 packs and build 2 decks

[dylanaird]

Also getting a “video is unavailable” error

[OsirisLocke]

I like the idea of invitational tournaments having weird one off formats, especially if the invitees are not there based on pure competitive merit. My only issue with it was putting such a huge money prize on the line for pure spectacle. Save that for true competitive events in the traditional tournament formats, so we can believe the winners earned the prize (mostly) by skill and dedication.

[FraterPooP]

its like EA designed the format... burn it with fire. right now.

[c]

I'd like to note that the problem wasn't using an all new format;
the Magic Invitationals were similarly centered around experimental formats.
Duo Standard, however was not thought through so well.
Asking for two separate standard decks was too much.

[bionicleenjoyer]

Pauper pro tour (I’m not calling it a mythic championship, that’s dumb) please

[digitalstatictv]

Hey Professor! As a longtime Hearthstone player and viewer, I've got my first Magic deck sleeved up and am ready to head to my LGS today to play some paper. From all the talk of Arena killing paper, hi.

There's two ways I can see to go with the tournament. If they want to make it more Hearthstone-like then play their conquest format. Where you bring 3 decks and choose one, but your opponent knows the colors beforehand but not the cards. When you win with a deck you can't choose it again, so the winner of the match gets 3 best of 1 wins...

The other option is just to play best of 3 classic Magic. When watching the Mythic Invitational sideboarding was one of the best parts of the broadcast. While siding out Kaya's Wrath is easy, seeing people cut out cards that don't help in certain matchups for particular reasons and the commentary explaining in detail showcased Magic's depth and was absolutely fascinating to watch.

[Yourbeautiful]

The best format: Commander

The worst format: Not Commander

[jamesedwards]

Duo Standard is a massive pile of garbage. It always felt like a money grab. "Why make players buy 1 expensive Standard deck when we can make them buy 2?"