![]() ![]() But that wasn’t the only busted artifact to come from Mirrodin. ![]() In 2004, Skullclamp was banned – which won’t surprise many these days, as it, just like Oko, is only legal in Vintage and Commander. The original Mirrodin block created a lot of problems. Today, Oko has been relegated to Vintage and Commander, but his legacy as the most powerful planeswalker ever printed lives on in people’s minds. Shortly after Mythic Championship VI, Oko was banned in Standard, and quickly followed suit in other formats in the following months. Oko decks made up around 70 percent of the tournament, a level of popularity that had never been seen before (even with the decks at numbers one and two on this list!). You can see how inbred the format had become, with main deck Aether Gusts as well as massive, clunky spells like Mass Manipulation. There was no point playing any sweet creatures in this format, as Oko would just turn them into 3/3 Elks. The deck made ridiculous amounts of mana with Nissa, Who Shakes the World, had a nigh-unkillable Nekrataal with Wicked Wolf, was absurdly consistent with Once Upon a Time and used Oko not only to fuel its Wolves and Geese, but also to deal with… everything. Before these bans, however, Oko ran roughshod over essentially every relevant Constructed format – most notably Standard, where its oppressive impact was felt most strongly in November 2019, at Mythic Championship VI. More recently, Oko, Thief of Crowns usurped the title of best planeswalker ever printed from the likes of Jace, and in time was banned in almost every format under the sun. Caw-Blade left such a mark in people’s minds that Jace and Stoneforge weren’t unbanned until 20 respectively, and it remains one of the most infamously powerful decks in Magic’s history. It got to the point that it was 60 percent of the field – as the saying went, you either played Caw-Blade or you lost to Caw-Blade.īoth Jace and Stoneforge Mystic were banned in mid-2011 as a result, and in August of that year they were both grandfathered onto the Modern ban list when it began as a format. GP numbers dropped, attendance at tournaments everywhere was affected because people were so sick of this deck. This deck was so utterly dominant at the time that it drove people away from the game. Then, once the Scars of Mirrodin block brought powerful Equipment like Batterskull and Sword of Feast and Famine, the deck added Stoneforge Mystic and became Caw Blade. It played Squadron Hawk and Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and was a classic control deck with permission, interaction, sweepers and card draw. Still, for those two and a half weeks in Standard, Omnath was the headline act for one of the most unbelievably powerful decks ever seen in Magic’s history.Ĭaw Blade started off in life as a deck called “Caw-Go”, a play on the classic control gameplay pattern of draw-go. Omnath burnt hot and bright – it went on to be banned in Historic as well, while its Modern career was cut short by the banning of Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath. The fact that it replaced itself, stabilized your life total and added mana for just four mana made this card an unstoppable force, and it was banned very quickly as a result. The card was so good that the one major tournament while it was Standard-legal saw almost 60 percent of the field playing it.īetween Fabled Passage and Escape to the Wilds (Escape would also go on to be banned), getting three landfall triggers from Omnath was a lot easier than anticipated. It was one of the swiftest bans in Magic’s history, and with good reason – the card was broken in half, as it turned out that it wasn’t difficult at all to trigger Omnath multiple times in the same turn. Omnath, Locus of Creation lasted about two and a half weeks in Standard before it was banned. It’s a tough question to answer and I fully expect people to disagree, but you can’t deny these five decks definitely have to be in the conversation (although the consensus on number one seems to be pretty solid). Today, we’re going to count down the five decks that I believe to be the be objectively the most powerful Standard decks in the history of the game. It’s a difficult question to properly settle – each deck is a product of its respective environment – but it’s still possible to try to figure out which one is the most powerful in objective terms. Magic players love to argue about all sorts of inconsequential nonsense, and something that really fires us up is the debate over the best decks ever from throughout Magic’s history.
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