Top 8 Bad Cards in Standard

Well, there's a new set out with Dragon of Tarkir and with it a whole bunch of sweet new cards are hitting Standard play.  However, instead of looking at the new good cards, today I went and put together my Top 8 list of bad cards that see Standard play.


Top 8 Bad Cards in Standard

8:  Evolving Wilds

This card keeps managing to sneak its way into real Standard decks and every time it does a part of me dies a little.
Unfortunately, the current Standard mana base is god awful and Evolving Wilds remains a necessary evil.


7:  Foundry Street Denizen

I have chosen this pass out draft common as the poster child for the current available 1 drops for the hyper aggressive red deck.  Dragons of Tarkir have introduced 2 great red 1 drops in Zurgo and Lightning Berserker but the synergy with Hordeling Outburst is unfortunately still keeping the old Denizen in decks.


6:  Satyr Wayfinder

I get it.  It’s an enabler.  That doesn’t change the fact that this is a 2 mana 1/1!
Is this card needed in the decks that run it? Yes, it probably is.  Does it still suck? Absolutely!


5:  End Hostilities

Five mana wraths are awful.  Yeah they’re all we have but they really are bad.
End Hostilities gets the nod for the list here over Crux of Fate because I do like the dragon win con synergy Crux allows you to build into your deck.


4:  Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver

Every time I play against a blue-black control deck and my opponent smugly plays one of these one turn 3 I let out a sigh of relief, untap, play a Rabblemaster and kill my opponent.
I have no idea why people still include this Tibalt level planeswalker in their decks but I’m ok with it!


3:  Outpost Siege

See my previous blog entry regarding the specifics on this one.
Additionally, I feel that with DTK hitting standard, Outpost Siege has gone from bad to outright embarrassing.  There was so much main deck and side board enchantment hate already and the addition of Dromoka’s Command made it even worse.  That coupled with the fact that Thunderbreak Regent is now a standard legal 4 drop make this siege a very bad idea.


2:  Ashcloud Phoenix

This.  Card.  Sucks.
There are roughly a million exile effects being played but all the top tier decks (Chained to the Rocks in RW, Abzan Charm in all forms of Abzan, Perilous Vault in control, Banishing Light in GW Devotion, Silence the Believers still comes up from time to time) that all crap all over this card.  Couple that with the fact that token decks are a very real thing at the moment and that it has 1 toughness and you end up with one unplayable bird.
This card’s always been bad and Thunderbreak Regent firmly closed the door on ANY excuse you had to still be running this.


1:  Every card in the Blue-White/UWR heroic deck

Was there ever any doubt?
The top spot here cannot be given to any single card but instead goes to this entire deck.
I’m not saying the deck itself is bad, apparently it STILL puts up results… , but it cannot be denied that almost every card in it is an atrocity and an affront to constructed magic.
There have been other successful draft commons/uncommons decks in the past, current season mono red, last season’s mono blue ect, but none of them come anywhere close to this deck’s level of jank cards.
This is not a draft commons deck.  With all start like Aqueous Form, Lagonna-Band Trailblazer, Stratus Walk, Battle Mastery and even the format defining Mortal Obstinacy often making the cut, it truly is the first constructed playable draft passouts deck.

Outpost Siege is a Bad Card

Outpost Siege has been seeing heavy play out of red decks to gain card advantage but it is actually worth it?

How many cards does a draw spell need to give at sorcery speed for 4 mana you before it's actually good?

Harmonize is probably the line where it's acceptable; 4 mana sorcery speed should draw 3 cards before it's a consideration.

The standard legal comparison is Treasure Cruise, a card that has proven super busted in older formats, and that matches up fairly similarly to the Harmonize rate where you're happy paying 4 for it and anything under that is just gravy.

Sorcery speed draw 2s cost 3 mana and don't really see much play in main decks at that cost so you're certainly not happy playing a 4 mana draw 2.

If you take this and look at Outpost Siege you find that it takes 4 turns to return 3 cards for your 4 mana investment!

When you further consider that flipping cards to it is not as good as drawing them, since it doesn’t let you hold up removal ect, it will realistically take at least 5 turns to be on par with a sorcery speed draw 3 in terms of raw card numbers, and that's assuming you're not dead and that your opponent can't remove it which in a format full of Sultai Charms, Perilous Vaults, Utter Ends, Ugins and Erases is FAR from a sure thing.

In my experience, if you take a turn off to play Outpost Siege and your opponent kills it at instant speed, you almost always lose the game due to the massive tempo loss.

Yes Outpost Siege draws you cards, yes drawing cards is good but current standard is extremely hostile to doing nothing.

Even against blue black control, a glacial deck which is the reason the red decks need Outpost Siege and where it is the best, I've been in situations where I knew if I played siege I would just give my opponent the breathing room they needed to get to Ugin mana and lock the game up.

I would rather it have been any threat.

I've won more games off Chandra than I can count and it's always upsetting to me to see more and more people cutting my Lady in Red from their deck lists for a stupid 4 mana enchantment that only has 1 of her 3 excellent abilities.

In my experience, Chandra's +1 wins more games than her zero in an aggressive red deck and I'll be sticking by her through thick and thin.

Yes, she dies to Hero's Downfall but she will be avenged with stormy breath if my opponents dare such heresy!

Disclaimer:  Tom takes no responsibility for your deck building choices and cannot be held accountable for any games lost due to not running outpost siege.