Where to find OLD Standard decks?
TappedOut forum
Posted on March 6, 2020, 1:39 p.m. by thechristophershow
I got into the Standard game late, so when I look at cards from older sets, I think, "Man, I wonder what the good decks back then were like."
I went on MTGGoldfish and did an advanced search for Standard decks from March 2015 to April 2015, and that did show me the good Standard decks of that time frame. But I don't know EXACTLY what sets Standard included in that time frame. The reason I want to know this information is so that I can try my hand at building Standard decks for each Standard period over the years.
Is there a website where you can see what Standard was during, say, the Invasion set? And then what rotated out, and what rotated in? Because I want to make decks based on each Standard period.
How do I find out what rotated in and out of Standard at what point in time? (Whatsinstandard.com doesn't do this.)
we have been considering something like this for a while, just haven't had anyone request it. basically allowing people to go back in time and search for any of the particular standards that happened.
You might be able to find some old standard sets by searching for standard and then also for a particular option in 'sets', but a lot of entries will be missing until we can make a fix.
March 6, 2020 1:50 p.m.
thechristophershow says... #4
FSims81, nice! That's exactly what I was looking for.
yeaGo, it's that timeline that I need, and from there I can do what you suggested. But searching through Standards from a particular period without having to find what sets were from that period and then manually entering those sets into the search would be nice. Still, the current workaround is fine.
March 6, 2020 2:37 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #5
The hard part is that people sometimes remove their old standard decks.
The second point to mention is that the top voted standard decks of that time on our site are not really the best standard decks of the time. Usually the best meta standard decks that are on this site have no votes at all, as people here vote unique, memetic, casual appealing decks rather than the decks that are most likely to become a large meta share. Also people who are regularly excellent deck builders that win in tournaments don't usually go out of their way to utilize the feature queue or deck cycles. This is problematic for reliable data as you won't really be able to tell what was a kitchen table deck versus something that actually had a meta share.
Also I would not use mtggoldfish. A lot of their data is unreliable since people can put in fake data to change meta percentages to their advantage, particularly if someone speculated into buying a lot of a certain card. Mtgtop8 has what you are looking for currently, back to I think Zen-Scars block.
If tappedout gets this feature, we should be able to have a catalog of decks that go a little further back ... but there's no solid way of knowing the reliability of the data that we could receive. Some users could have recorded their old standard decks from before tappedout became a thing, but until this feature gets made we have no idea.
March 6, 2020 2:52 p.m.
SliverJedi says... #6
whats the goal of building all those standard decks? do you have friends doing the same? theres always overlap between each standard era, so the decks don't typically change a whole lot unless something powerful rotates in or out. i couldn't find an exact rotation schedule for ya, but basically standard rotates every fall, and cards remain legal for a little under 2 years. so all you gotta do i think is google the release date of a set, and assume it rotated out in the fall of the following year (unless the set released in fall, then give it one more year).
Femme_Fatale: i'm not so sure about the "fake data" thing. it would take a lotta people, everyones "fake data" would counteract everyone elses, and there wouldn't be any advantage to it anyway. especially not for old standard decks. mtggoldfish just seems easier to navigate and has the decks laid out nicer, as well as a section on budget decks and sections on key cards for each deck. then again i also only look at currently legal decks.
March 6, 2020 11:14 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #7
This wikipage has a lot of really useful information for ya.
March 8, 2020 2:23 p.m.
thechristophershow says... #8
SilverJedi, the goal is just so I can play cheap but good decks at home with my wife. I don't play in card shops because I don't believe in buying something for $150+ that I soon won't be able to use and that I can't sell again without a huge loss in value. I don't follow the game very closely, and I don't have the memorization skills of knowing an entire set, which is really the only way to play competitively. I just want two decks to play around with at home for fun now and then, like how I used to when I was a kid. But I wanted some guidelines for myself, and I figured that restricting myself to the Standard sets of years gone by, I won't be spending too much money.
March 14, 2020 6:33 p.m.
TaurenMonk says... #9
standard is not the only format. there are nonrotating formats where cards remain legal forever unless hit by the ban list.
March 14, 2020 7:14 p.m.
thechristophershow says... #10
TaurenMonk, I know, but I'm not dropping $500 to $3,000 on cardboard, you know? I can't justify it, haha, though I understand others can, which is fine.
March 15, 2020 9:44 a.m.
TaurenMonk says... #11
then i would recommend the Pauper format. it allows cards from every set in the game, but only if they've been printed at common rarity at least once. you can easily make a deck between $50 and $100
March 15, 2020 10:48 a.m.
thechristophershow says... #12
TaurenMonk, thanks. Yeah, I know about Pauper. Can be kind of boring, but I do play that on MTGO. Like I said, though, I'm just looking for two decks my wife and I can pull out when we want to have a game night, and MTG can be one of our options on that night. FSims81 answered my question above; I'm all set now.
Thanks again, everybody!
FSims81 says... #2
Try this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Magic:the_Gathering_Standard(Type_II)
March 6, 2020 1:49 p.m.