Won't have to wait until Innistrad for a new Standard

Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic became the first cards to be banned in the Standard environment since Affinity had the rug pulled out from under it in 2005. For official announcement: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/148

Caw-What? If they would have banned only Jace or only Stoneforge, perhaps the deck could have hobbled around on a peg leg until Standard rotates again in October, but now the entire engine is gone! Turn 3 Batterskulls? Not as easy as you'd think anymore. Establish a board position and bury your opponent in card advantage? Maybe, but you'll only be Brainstorming in Legacy.

What does this mean? Primeval Titan you're starting again. You too Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas! Koth of the Hammer get in there! Even Venser or Elspeth might see some minutes. Jace wasn't the only powerful planeswalker in Standard. He was just the MOST powerful. Oppressively so.

I'm not saying it was a good or bad thing because these decks happen. Millions of players and thousands of Pros worldwide are working on a format 24/7 and eventually any format will find itself strangled by the 'best deck'. The post-Scars Standard format just proved to be too easy of a nut to crack. Especially when Mirrodin Besieged so conveniently windmill slammed that last puzzle piece into place.

I'm excited for the first time since Scars was released! Here's to hoping this Standard provides a challenging format and that we spend all summer trying to figure it out before finding another Caw-Blade type deck (hopefully that deck won't present itself until the month Innistrad releases). Change is definitely good in this case!