Ravnica Allegiance White Losses
: Another casual favorite, this high-end enchantment, like its Guilds of Ravnica counterpart , was never taken too seriously by the competitive crowd, but still grew a small group of passionate admirers. After all, it's reasonably costed and has some chances to impact the board right away. Grief Factor: 2/10.
: The very popular Gate deck didn't necessarily need the lifegain from this Angel, although it helped stabilize slower games, making it a secondary, yet still widely played cog in the Gate machine. Grief Factor: 3/10.
: Possibly the main payoff for having so many multicolored-oriented sets in Standard at the same time, the Hero was the centerpiece of a multiform archetype that at times courted the top tiers of the meta, and consistently enjoyed support by players of wildly different profiles. Grief Factor: 9/10.
: The bulky enabler for exquisitely janky combo decks that involved multiple Battlements — or their clones and/or flickerers — to create an infinite loop of enter-the-battlefield triggers culminating in a miller like . As fun as it was unlikely to win a Pro Tour event. Grief Factor: 3/10.
: A mana ramp engine in white is an odd occurrence, therefore worth a mention in itself. However, this card proved its value almost exclusively in Brawl. Grief Factor: 3/10.
: White Weenie changed configurations, and fortunes, several times across the past two years. But this two-powered two-drop that taxes the opponent and replaces itself has been firmly in the conversation since Ravnica Allegiance released. Grief Factor: 7/10.
: The favored finishing move in White Aggro and related builds, second as mass pump only to . Many games had their violent climax in the unrecoverable assault of an army of enhanced, indestructible, vigilant critters. The only issue with Unbreakable Formation was its high dependency on board state, whereas Loxodon could give up on value and provide a decent body on an empty board as well. Grief Factor: 8/10.
Ravnica Allegiance Blue Losses
: During the nine months in which Biomancer shared Standard with the Merfolk from Ixalan block, the card was employed as a solid one-drop, trading lands for gas every time or placed a +1/+1 counter on it. (This was, for instance, the team Raphaël Lévy brought to Mythic Championship I.) Once these tribal synergies migrated out of Standard, Benthic Biomancer was still occasionally sighted within blue tempo builds, but by now it has mostly disappeared from the metagame. Grief Factor: 6/10.
: Only one deck has ever been interested in this harder-to-cast variant, but that deck happened to be wildly successful for a while: Monoblue Tempo. It had the perfect mana base to guarantee access to double blue on turn two, the opportunity to keep mana open for countermagic, as well as the creatures to put the free +1/+1 counter on. Grief Factor: 5/10.
: One of the most powerful top-end plays in the environment, it was the crowning moment of awesome of Simic Ramp before saw print. It would take a lot of mana to steal four or five permanents, but not much effort to win the game afterward. Grief Factor: 8/10.
: The time for this Octopus to shine never came, probably because a 4/5 with no evasion is not the best turn-five play, even if it can't be targeted, and the "freeze" ability from the Illusion tokens isn't going to carry weight too often. It was nonetheless a somewhat respected mythic, deserving more space in this article than I felt like devoting to . Grief Factor: 2/10.
: Gimmick card is gimmicky. Will people actually miss the Petitioners deck? Probably, since it's about milling and casual players have an insane obsession with milling as a win condition. The Arena team was also particularly fond of banning Petitioners in most of their special formats, just in case. Grief Factor: 4/10.
: After the rotation of , Pteramander was left alone to hold the fort of Monoblue Tempo, or better to ensure a reliable finisher was still present. It did a good job in that regard, although the archetype would experience the transformation into Simic Flash during the same time, and the new deck had better options than the adapting Salamander. Grief Factor: 7/10.
: The measure of the worth of soft counterspells is the number of turns during which they remain relevant. Quench was a strictly worse — indicating the intention of keeping Leak out of Standard for the time being. But a two-mana tax to any kind of spell was still effective enough to make Quench one of the most played pieces of countermagic in the metagame, especially off the sideboard and on the draw, when three-mana, double-blue counterspells like wouldn't really be a sensible option. Grief Factor: 8/10.
: Blue always has its choice of ways to dig into the library, and Shimmer working at sorcery speed didn't sit well with the color's usual patterns, feeling like a worse . Compared to the latter, though, Shimmer goes one step deeper — it's in fact a sorcery-speed — and that would matter to decks requiring specific cards to function, which is why builds played Shimmer for a while. Grief Factor: 5/10.
: Another card that was brought to the general populace's attention by players, due to their need to structure their hand and draws as efficiently as possible. This Sphinx wasn't too bad of a four-drop in a vacuum either, with a decent flying body and a free scry trigger per turn. Unfortunately, no other deck deemed it impactful enough on its own merits. Grief Factor: 5/10.
: The 2018–2020 Standard mill archetype came equipped with a dedicated hard counterspell — or two, after Thought Collapse's functional reprint joined the pool. It's the same archetype that also ran sometimes. Grief Factor: 2/10.
Ravnica Allegiance Black Losses
: Broadly speaking, Cry of the Carnarium has been for Esper Control what was for Jeskai Control — that is, the safety valve against aggro on turn three. Cry would hit fewer targets than Clarion, but its impact was often much greater due to the exile clause hindering revenant creatures. Just to mention the most blatant case, Cry was one of the safest ways to deal with , as it was able to catch the darn Cat even if it were to be put into the Oven before resolution. Now, black has had this kind of small sweeper in its arsenal before — was the progenitor, the improvement, the most recent iteration from the previous cycle — and Core Set 2021's is taking a version of it into the next Standard. But Cry of Carnarium's graveyard hate will be gone, and it's going to make a difference. Grief Factor: 10/10.
: Of course Drill Bit is only good — in fact, even better than — if spectacle is enabled, which isn't going to happen on turn one. Decks with many ping effects, like sacrifice builds with , employed it as a defense against combo or hate. Grief Factor: 3/10.
: There are two elements that made Gutterbones a star among black cards of this era. First, its two points of power, which are a requisite of all great aggro one-drops. And second, the simple recursion for a reasonable cost and condition, which didn't just insure against removal in low-to-the-ground aggressive builds, but would directly combo with sacrifice setups, and particularly with . Skeletons are often given this kind of self-returning shtick, but the difference between and what Gutterbones does is substantial. Grief Factor: 9/10.
: One of the better low-rent afterlife creatures. The Enforcer trades, is replaced by a more relevant flier, doesn't mind being sacrificed. It was an honest role player. Grief Factor: 6/10.
: One could argue that sacrifice decks wouldn't have even existed in this cycle if not for this cute little priestess and her penchant for ritualistic murder. It took a very specific set-up to get her going, but all the tools were there, and the advantage was massive. Definitely one of the most unique among the competitive cards of its time — too unique to be replaced. Grief Factor: 10/10.
: A very good beater when cast for three mana and still playable at four, this Demon was a staple of Rakdos and more so Monoblack Aggro. The upkeep trigger was more relevant than one would imagine, in a meta where spectacle was a thing. Grief Factor: 8/10.
Ravnica Allegiance Red Losses
: The deck based around Cavalcade was arguably the worst monored archetype in recent memory, too reliant on the signature enchantment's routine turning mediocre 1/1s into weapons of destruction. Granted, once everything was in place and running, the fireworks would start, especially when and, later, were involved. Grief Factor: 8/10.
: This powerful-looking spell didn't find the right support to shine in Standard. Or maybe it wasn't meant to be to begin with, since a effect is often preferable to what Electrodominance is trying to do. In wider formats, it's used to cast otherwise uncastable no-cost spells like and , but it's not like it broke Modern or anything, still. Also, was it an Izzet leftover from Guilds of Ravnica? It might be — and Mark Rosewater might have even confirmed it somewhere. Grief Factor: 3/10.
: The Gate deck's sweeper. The number of people who'll miss Gates Ablaze corresponds directly to the number of people who enjoyed the budget-friendly archetype it was a part of. So a fair amount, I would say. Grief Factor: 4/10.
: One of the best "draw" spells ever printed in the color, Light Up the Stage characterized the totality of monored decks from the very moment it was added to Standard. An archetype that is usually defeated by gas consumption had a couple of amazing refueling systems this time around, with both this and . The next Standard will have to work extra hard to match their accomplishments. Grief Factor: 10/10.
: This silly, silly card was the of casual decks. The appeal of a potential blowout resulting from a flurry of successful coin flips was straight up irresistible to the more whimsical segment of the player base, never mind the six-mana cost, or the very real possibility of all this excitement petering out in a dud. Sometimes it did deliver, as proven by the various YouTube videos of people drawing their entire deck by Mirror Marching a single . Grief Factor: 4/10.
: A nice Rakdos rummaging bear, which from time to time could be able to draw three cards on an empty hand. Not the most essential card, more like an honest curve-filler. Grief Factor: 3/10.
: The resident five-mana hasty Dragon of this Standard cycle. Not as good as some of its predecessors, like , , or , but still the most played monored Dragon of this era, and a staple of Gruul Midrange. Grief Factor: 8/10.
: In decks where enabling spectacle was easy, this was as close a relative to as they get. Elsewhere, it was pretty much unplayable. But considering Burn is an archetype that exists, even more commonly outside of Standard, those defiant critics will keep being skewered for a while. Grief Factor: 9/10.
: Some decks were really preoccupied with enabling spectacle, and the Spewer was a last-resort solution, if perhaps not the most elegant. Grief Factor: 1/10.
: Here's one of those sketchy one-drop 1/1s that players found themselves playing. ( from Guilds of Ravnica was another member of the same shoddy club.) would later put this guy to shame, at least theoretically. In practice, the Dodger, however dodgy, remained a role player because of Torbran. Grief Factor: 2/10.
Ravnica Allegiance Green Losses
: The greatest Ooze lord didn't have the full impact its rule text would suggest, because a five-drop that takes a while to deliver the beating didn't align profitably with the way 2019–2020 Standard shaped up. It's undeniably a cool card, though. Grief Factor: 7/10.
: The of its age. Decks ramping into it didn't fully rise to tier-one status at any point in time but were still scary and respectable enough to eschew the casual label. Too bad Historic on Arena has now gotten its hands (via Jumpstart) on Craterhoof Behemoth itself, which is now ready to lead all the format's most overwhelming alpha strikes. It looks like our angry Boars will have to cool off and spend their retirement peacefully grazing. Grief Factor: 9/10.
: One of the two win conditions of the Gate deck, the other being . It was hard for aggro decks to face a fully developed Ram, its big body trampling over your defenses and still able to vigilantly slow down your attempts at racing. Grief Factor: 4/10.
: A valuable card advantage engine under the guise of a creature, in perfect green fashion. While not being the fastest to activate or protect, the Guardian's self-replacement capability made it competitive enough to see play. It was also excellent in combination with , , and other +1/+1 counter factories. Grief Factor: 7/10.
: Clearly only meant for Brawl. And despite being such a specialized card, it was such a staple in the format — on par with and in decks running even a small amount of green — that we can't easily dismiss the grief caused by its rotation. Grief Factor: 7/10.
: Arguably the second best mana dork of this cycle after (which is also rotating out, by the way). Like Growth-Chamber Guardian, it interacted winningly with anything putting +1/+1 counters on it for free, which allowed the Druid to generate three mana on the spot. Of course in the Standard to come there will be other green two-drops that tap for mana, as there always are, but it's hard to imagine too many of them will rank higher than Incubation Druid. Grief Factor: 7/10.
: After Throne of Eldraine and even more so Theros Beyond Death inundated the pool with a vast number of cheap, value-generating enchantments, some crazy, wonderful people actually built combo decks around Rampage of the Clans. They were like noncompetitive, acid versions of builds, and we'll miss them dearly. Grief Factor: 1/10.
: Turbofog lists all but evaporated with the rotation of , but the next generation of them might well not see the light of day at all, now that Root Snare will be gone — at least if the next effects will all be along the lines of . Grief Factor: 5/10.
: Were we to compile a list of the cards that defined Standard's competitive scene for the past two years, even with all the bans the format has accumulated since Throne of Eldraine, Wilderness Reclamation would still rank among the top five, perhaps even the top three. It was just that broken, but unlike other cards of the same power level, it got to stay around for almost the full extent of time it was allowed to. Almost. Grief Factor: 11/10.
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