specialfred453 no, since jace meant vraska on ixalan were going there now after dominaria so now since we went to doninaria which had Karn we're gonna probably go back to new phyrexian and finish that storyline wizards has been neglecting so much
Wow, thinking about it now, Guilds of Ravnica Is literally gonna do the same thing that the first Ravnica did; saving standard by kicking the annoying artifacts outa town.
Overall I love the Kamigawa block, the themes, the art. I wish we could return these but that is but a fever dream of a mad man. With how much Wizards is into Commander and Brawl and with the Success of Dominaria, it shows Legendary cards can be done really great. Heck even bring back Sagas too. Seems fitting for Kamigawa
Kamigawa doesn't have enough history to make Sagas sensible. They did them for Dominaria because that Plane was the showplace of basically any core-story relevant plot until we got Return to Ravnica :>
Preach! Kamigawa was weird and wonderful and it paid the price for Mirrodins sins. Can't wait for Wizards to take us back there so Kamigawa may reclaim it's honour!
@@docterfantazmo no being a fan of jitte and stoneblade and a few cards from that block like there r some very cheaky combos from that set that can be quite back breaking
Yeah, Kamigawa suffered for the fact that Mirrodin was OP as FUCK. It always looked bad, but was actually solid. Just had to compete with Mirrodin, which wasn't happening.
7:35 "Do you like Thragutusk decks winning via mill? How about putting a bunch of auras on a cheap hexproof creature? Or, maybe you prefer a mindless, 'cast the most expensive card in my hand until the game is over' Primeval Titan deck?" I answered "Actually, that seems fun." Is this why I like Modern?
The entire argument he made for why og mirrodin was busted was because Affinity was an oppressive deck.... possibly the only viable deck. INN/RTR standard had a bunch of decks: Green/Red Ramp, Wolf Run Bant, Esper control, junk reanimator, aristrocrats, mono red-aggro, naya humans, black/white tokens, g/w aggro...and thats only the tier 1-1.5 decks. There were even a bunch of fringe brews like heartless summoning that could sneak in a win. There was no 'best' deck in inn/rtr because there was a proper counter-matchups and nowhere near enough sideboard slots to cover them all. You can argue that it wasnt the best standard format but to say it wasnt fun or is revisionist history seems shallow to me. Long Live Swagtusk.
Also, I would argue Sensei's Divining Top is considered just as Iconic, popular, and powerful, if not more so, than Umezawa's Jitte in the kamigawa block.
I’m long retired from MTG. I began MTG during Kamigawa. This was by far my favorite block thematically, I loved the art, and the mechanics. This block is definitely - criminally underrated! I have so many good memories from it all
I started with kamigawa: I loved ravnica-kamigawa standard Snakes, white weenie, kiki jiki, the dragons,ninjas, it was amazing I was sad there were only a bunch of spirits and not even one Arcane in Ravnica
kamigawa sees so much play in commander i absolutely agree that the issue with kamigawa wasnt that it was a bad set but that it came out at a very strange time and inbetween two of the most powerful sets ever miroden and original ravnica
With O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami as your commander, you can actually build a really bloody reliable and consistent 5c Spirit Tribal deck using mostly, if not exclusively cards from Kamigawa block. One of the better builds I found is under a hundred dollars and also relies primarily on Kamigawa cards, with the few exceptions of some lands, Sol Ring, a bit of Ramp and like, 3-4 spirits like Rattlechains and a Lord or two tops.
I started playing MtG back in the day when Ravnica was just about to come out. There was this "Which guild are you?" test in a German MtG magazine. For me it was either Izzet or Golgari. Went with Izzet. Niv-Mizzet is still one of my favourite beings, EVER. I didn't really experience the Standard format of that time, though (Kamiwaga + Ravnica) as I just started. Could you please make a video on that? :) EDIT: And yes, Kamigawa was and still is amazing. Also, the books. If you guys haven't read the books, do so. I still have fond memories of them and they're some of my favourite books of all time. Even to this day.
Kami-Rav standard was the best standard format, but I think that the present-day Ixalan - Guilds of Ravnica standard is up there with it. Funny that the two best standards ever were with Ravnica in there. Ravnica-Time Spiral was also a solid standard, though it suffered a bit from Dragonstorm.
I think Innistrad RTR is a highly regarded Standard because of the manabases that players had access to. The shock + buddy land combo enabled 2 and 3 color decks well without allowing people to go all the way to 4 and 5 color decks without a cost for it. The mana was good, consistent, and equally represented across all of the colors and color combinations. It sucks when you want to play a certain color combination but only have a single dual land to facilitate it that might not even play well with the strategy, while another color has 2 duals that work really well with the deck. The mana is the biggest constraint to any format and that format hit the balance of letting people play with the cards they wanted to play while not completely degenerating down into utter nonsense.
I keep coming back to this video and you left it so open. Please talk more about the Kamigawa/Ravnica standard in more detail. I loved it so much. So many great an unique decks and fun decks from Greater Good control, to Owling Mine, to Mill, to even Selesnia Tokens. It was sweet.
I had just entered high school when Kamigawa hit and I don't know if it was the sets fault, but my LGS was /not/ kind to me. I tried my best to keep up with the game I had been playing since Tempest, but no one seemed keen on helping a 14 year old get better at a game they loved. So for 6+ years I didn't play Magic until I rejoined at the glory that was the tail end of the Mirrodin/Innistrad Standard format and boy howdy did I have a fun time, and just fell in love with Infect. Then Ravnica hit and WOW was that a cool set. And then learning that it was the part two of Ravnica? I had to look back and see what part 1 was, Lorowyn, Zendikar, Alara. I could not believe it. Such interesting sets. I quit at one of the worst times in Magic and now it has it's claws sunk into me again. Moral of the story, be kind to people who want to learn your game, even if they're some punk high school kid, because one day they'll be your opponent, and chances are you'll wipe the floor with them, because they're still as bad at Magic today as they were 20 years ago.
I keep telling my buddies that are newer to Magic than Kamigawa/Ravnica that that was it. After that things weren't as good anymore. The diversity of decks that were viable in standard, and the simple fact that random homebrews had a chance was amazing. Also: Ink-Eyes. Also: Casting that second Kokusho to drain your opponent for 10. And if I recall correctly, Coldsnap was in the same Standard for a little while, for added weirdness. RETURN TO KAMIGAWA PLEASE!
Yess! Kamigawa is an awesome set- Splice onto Arcane is a sick awesome mechanic- I can’t remember the card off the top of my head, but I was particularly fond of this card that gave target creature shroud (great for fizzling an opponent’s pump spell) and unblock-able, but the best part: you could splice onto arcane and the “cost” was returning a blue creature you control to it’s owner’s hand. Before the spell even went on the stack, you could save a blue creature to play again later. Magnificent!!
"Jitte wasn't busted" ...What? Did you forget how broken (buh-roken) that thing was with damage still being on the stack?! you just deal your damage, triggering the counters, then used the counters to pump or drain, then let damage resolve. Nothing EVER died once you dropped a Jitte. That legend rule change was notable because Jitte warped standard so hard MonoU was playing a playset with a single Meloku. The primary reason to play Jitte, even with no creatures IN YOUR DECK was to nuke opposing Jittes.
Not to mention aether vial nightmare, but kamigawa was a really flavourful set and i wish they return to it someday, great atmosphere, slow gameplay, but interesting.
Masques and Kamigawa had players leaving in mass because of a larger issue. Those years were when older players started leaving for college. Nobody had the extra time and money for Magic. We were introduced during elementary school and college was more important than magic.
Been playing since around 5th edition, I was like 8 when I started. I have always been a lore person as well, I have read most of the books for the released sets since they started doing it. Mirrodin was my favorite block (yes it was OP but not for that), artifacts are my favorite card type by far. My first tournament ever was a draft when I was like 15 or 16, it was kamigawa. It was then I noticed the massive power difference between blocks. But in draft I didn't care at all, from ARTWORK and LORE Kamigawa has been my favorite set since then. I don't care if the mechanics were unpopular, clunky, or weak. I get that in rotation blocks need to be somewhat balanced, and maybe they dropped the ball there. But I hate the fact that Kamigawa, one of the coolest and most lore rich sets they have ever done suffered the brunt of that mistake. No revisits or anything, Tamiyo is the only word we have heard that Kamigawa still exists. No one at all hated Kamigawa for it's artwork or lore, they just wanted better mechanics. And instead we just get the whole fucking world abandoned.
I would like to see Kamigawa back again ...It deserves that. I've started playing MtG with Kamigawa, White-Red Samurai deck, Ghost Prison, Soulblast, Myojin ...Man, I loved it all ... I now have a complete block of 636 cards ...Champions, Betrayers, and Saviors ...all NM/M condition ...for me ...it is priceless!!!
Kamigawa gave us a flavorful block and a more streamlined flavor. Onslaught and Mirrodin block had some ideas but Kamigawa was more polished flavorwise. So what it lacked in power it got in flavor.
Kamigawa was a total flavor win but competitive fail. We need a return but just power up the cards this time. I think the best standard in recent memory was Theros/Khans. I know Elspeth and Seige Rhino were great at the time, but the games were interesting, fun, and there was many viable strategies. Abzan, Jeskai, constellation enchantments, UB control, heroic, etc
Respectfully I have to disagree because innistrad Return to Ravnica we're pretty good considering the fact that you wouldn't have had abzan and all those other decks without Ravnica block in as good as it was without a Return to Ravnica simply because the fact that you had cards like grisly Salvage and all those other cards and you actually had reanimation to...like I was trying to build standard at the time and I remember building abzan reanimator basically having unburial rites llanowar elves Grizzly salvages and then you had Armada Wurm and I think there's a couple other cards but I can't remember off the top of my head and then the deck kind of morphed after Ravnica rotated out it turned into abzan and Siege Rhino with whip of erebos and all those other cards and then you had thoughtseize over and above that too
Except the barrier to entry to Theros/Khans was a $1000 standard environment, with Jeskai Black and Abzan Blue being the forefront. Not exactly the greatest.
You are right Theros /Abzan was amazing. You had more diversity than any other format I remember. You had Abzan and Jeskai as Tier 1 decks but also had black devotion, blue devotion, mono green stompy/devotion, heroic decks, Sidisi sultai/whip of erebos, UB control decks as Tier 1.5 but very competitive at the same time. Standard has never had so many competitive decks as that period again.
I find it funny the Eldrazi you showed is the one that can't work with that instant, since it shuffles the graveyard (with itself) back into your library, so there's nothing to revive from the graveyard once it dies, rendering the instant useless.
It's a triggered ability.. So you can revive the eldrazi in response to its shuffle back trigger.. Has to be an instant thou.. Like goryo's vengeance.. I think you are thinking about replacement effects.. Like the one in progenitus
MysticIbra the topic of the video was that Kamigawa wasn’t the worst set ever. His opinion on why kamigawa OG ravnica standard was the best standard is a different video all together.
I made Cube for Kamigawa Remastered. I select only the most efficient cards in each color, reduce the impact of the spirits in the block and use only arcan spells. The draft was awesome, you have tons of archetypes to deal with. Ninjutsu was a really good mechanic and samourai are cool when you want play aggro. Honestly, one of my favorite block. It will be great to go back to Kamigawa.
The best standard, in my opinion, was Invasion Block + Odyssey Block. Sure, Psychatog run rampant through a lot of it, but there was a wide variety of playable decks that challenged it, it had a fundamental rock + paper + scissors relationship between deck types, and nothing was too overpowered or underpowered. In addition, it had fantastic flavor of having both the pre-Apocolypse world and post-Apocolypse world in the same standard era. The decks weren't just handed to you through the design team either, save for U/G Madness, which even itself was pretty fair. The only blackspot on this entire block was Flametongue Kavu. The format was so fair and reasonably balanced that decks like Battle of Wits, Squirrel-Opposition, and Goblin-Bidding were all extremely viable, as people didn't typically have to worry about either dying before turn 5 or facing some inevitable game-winning engine. Invasion-Odyssey standard has to be it for me.
Another factor no one takes into account: Legend of the Five Rings was a year into its revival when Kamigawa came out. Yu-Gi-Oh! also dropped it's first ban list the same month as Kamigawa came out. If you were younger and into "Japanese culture", you had Yu-Gi-Oh! at it's highest point of popularity. If you were into Shinto mythology, you were probably already playing L5R, which had a ton of players circa Kamigawa.
i came in with gatecrash, and never got all that far. dropped it for a while and came back with eldraine. finding out that my cards from like 6 years ago were now not only legal in standard but also going for a decent amount was what really brought me back.
Daaaamn, I came into taking competitive magic seriously at the end of Kamigawa block, having only flailed in tournaments through Mirrodin. I don't know what compelled me to build Tooth and Nail, being that I had a fully built Raffinity (everyone could build it, it was so cheap to make aside from ravagers/skullclamps), and everyone said Tooth and Nail was dead. I tooled it, shadowboxed it at work, and focused on learning my meta to build the right sideboard. In only 2 months of standard tournaments, using my version of the deck everyone thought was dead, I went from 1300th in my city to 30th, placing 1st and 2nd in 13 consecutive tournaments. Don't ever count out a creative take on a "dead" combo, and don't underestimate an opponent on matchups. I to this day remember unseating a "shop king" running mono red land destruction.dec using a deck that was supposed to be utterly crippled by it. No one saw a splash for white/sacred grounds coming in from the side. :P
Even if wizards doesn't want a return, we should petition them to make a Kamigawa supplementary set like battlebond has. Make it a side story about how the Spirt and physical world were split and how it settled into a world not unlike our own Japan, where the mortals called upon their various Kami to aid in their lives, going to shrines (they should make a cycle of lands, a cycle of new enchantments [hallowed grounds] and artifacts (the little shrines dedicated to various spirits, make one of them generate tokens, some boost, maybe make all of them rocks in addition, it'd be cool)), make a tribe of clerics that represent shrine maidens and either make them Bant enchantresses or Jeskai spell slingers. Make the story about Feudal wars and the different tribes teaming up under certain color combos, like Mardu Samurai featuring Humans and Kitsune, make some of the monstrous races form an alliance (either goblins and rats, rats and snakes, or snakes and goblins, or all 3) and play it out over supplemental sets and some Commander decks/cycles. Make the spirits align themselves with the factions based on color, with Blue going to the Bant Shrine maidens for a mortal representative, as I'm pretty sure the Kami were the main blue creatures in the set if memory serves. Doing so would allow them to expand on Bushido with effects that trigger off it or spells that interact with it, making it supplemental allows them to not fear standard or modern (and honestly, Vintage and Legacy don't have to worry about new cards being completely broken, the old stuff suffices). They can fully expand on arcane cards while really only having to worry about commander, or maybe make a small expansion to splice, or put arcane on permanents and have them interact with splice differently by expanding the ruling of the ability. Maybe do something with the spirit ability and the shrine maidens.
This is the era when I stopped playing Magic. It wasn't due to the standard meta, it was because all my friends stopped playing... so I stopped playing. I didn't want to, but the whole group I used to play with quit and I didn't want to find a new group. I basically took 2004 - 2019 off.... I just got back into it a couple months ago.
Kamigawa was one of my favorites flavor wise. The mechanics were also great, but the power level was just completely overshadowed by the Mirrodin block. I also agree that Kamigawa/Ravnica was a pretty great standard environment. If only Kamigawa's power level had been pushed a bit and some seriously busted artifact hate had been printed things could have been so very different.
And now we're gonna go back in 2022! Except now it's neonpunk, which is sick. I'm a bit worried that Rosewater is the lead designer of the return to Kamigawa, but I'm still really excited.
Can someone please elaborate on what was so great about Ravnica - Kamigawa Standard? That was the time I started playing, but I didn't play much Standard ever. All I can remember is some grindy Abzan Reanimator deck saccing Yosei and Kokusho to Greater Good over and over again.
This is a good video, but I think it's misleadingly titled: it's much more about (rightfully) directing the blame for Affinity Standard towards Mirrodin than it is about assessing Kamigawa on its own merits. Besides mentioning that Limited and Kamigawa-Ravnica Standard were awesome, there's not much detail about what makes Kamigawa good - and I would have liked a bit more of that.
Kamigawa also had some great lore, remember back when the game had stories about people in the game? and not planeswalkers squabbling with each other while the people of the actual plane look from the side, hoping to not get accidentally incinerated? If kamigawa was made today you can bet Takeshi Konda would be mind-controlled by Bolas that is trying to summon the serpent god to steal its power, while Toshiro Umezawa would be just replaced by Jace with amnesia or some shit.
You left out the most relevant point: Kamigawa Block Constructed was a really fun format. At the time, it was the only format I played on Magic Online, and it wasn't at all hard to find opponents, which leads me to believe it was quite popular.
I was a huge fan of Time Spiral/Tenth Edition/Lorwyn standard. Although, I was an old player by that point (I started with Tempest), and a lot of the mechanics and philosophy of those sets were aimed at older players. So, I probably have a bit of bias on that one.
It's a shame that WotC view Time Spiral negatively. It really was a fun standard environment to go through, and was fun to draft, too. But, it's their go-to example of what not to do because it confuses newer or less enfranchised players, and they cited as a time when they lost a lot of potential long-term players.
I learned to play magic back in Alara Reborn, but the reason I play magic is because I love faeries so much (the deck and the creature type. I wouldn't have gotten back into magic at all if that weren't a thing). I'm still upset that I missed out on standard during that time... the card pool looked like a blast. Meanwhile, my only standard experience so far was during kaladesh with emrakul. And when I finally got my playset on Christmas she was banned, and I haven't touched standard since. I wish I could go back in time and experience what I missed... oh well.
Mirrodin-Kamigawa was my favorite block ever. I played Tooth and Nail... Clamp Elves. And then in Kamigawa Block I played Gifts! It was great. The themes were great.
Kamigawa's my favourite plane. Granted, I only started playing a couple of years ago so I didn't witness kamigawa standard, but as a weeb-commander-player, Kamigawa's just perfect for me.
Uh, Jitte... The card that made our kitchen table casual games heated :D What I remember the most from that block was actually building a deck from an Article by Wizards. Rat-Reanimator. Since we were beginners from 8th edition and Mirrodin it was all just casual level and hell was it fun.
I hear what you're saying about Thoughtseize standards, but I really enjoyed Theros block, the flavour was off the charts, gods and enchantment creatures. I played RUG monsters and had a blast, lost only to our locals 1 mono black devotion every now and again. I can't speak for everyone else, but I loved it.
Just found you, so I'm very late. But I believe the Wizards logic at the time was "Players get enough Standard at FNM so let's focus high profile on other stuff." So you're right, no accident that Standard was excluded from the Pro circuit list.
Kamigawa-Ravnica Standard was crazy. I'd play against UR control that bounced your land on turn 2 and Stone Rained it on turn 3, zoo decks, RG Wildfire, and Owling Mine, among others.
It's a very flavourful block, and despite the parasitic nature of most of the cards, ironically, this makes the perfect candidate for a commander deck as you can basically go top down flavour-wise on the Kami side of things with O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami as your commander and basically play 5c Spirits, and most of your cards can come from Kamigawa. I think in most of the deck lists I've seen online for O-Kagachi Kamigawa spirits, the only spirits not from Kamigawa in the deck tend to be like, Rattlechains and any lords the deck happens to run. Somewhat unfortunately, on the human side of the Kami war, you basically have to pick a job creature type (so like, samurai or ninjas) and run that as your tribal deck, instead of a Kamigawa Humans deck with all the humans working together.
Isn't there a 1 mana green thing in that block/set thats "draw a card every time you play a creature for the turn". I'd like more of them than I have :)
Kamigawa is my absolute favorite block. I joined during Onslaught, but after the ultra oppressed Ravager Affinity meta in Mirrodin block, Kamigawa was a nice change that smoothly slid into Ravnica after. I still think I joined MTG at one of the best times.
That block has so many fun cards for casual play. It’s not the most competitive. But it’s an amazing set, great flavor and fun cards. It’s aged better than what it was in standard.
I said yes to everything you said about the Innistrad+RTR block. Who _wouldn't_ want to win through mill with a Thragtusk smacking people at the same time.
Kamigawa did at least try to end affinity's iron grip on standard. Cards like "Kataki, War's Wage" and "Splinter" both showed that WoTC was aware of the standard environment that they had created and were trying to create effective counters to it.
Ah man I remember that block, I had a black/blue ninja deck that was all about becoming unblockable, equiping my 1/1 fodder with shuriken and different effects going off whenever I dealt damage to a player or creature, one of the first decks I ever made (along with a green elf deck) and something I must have sunk a regretful amount of money into lol
I started playing in Onslaught block so I was kind of oblivious to how fucked up standard was when Mirrodin block came out, but I can attest that I was one of those players who kept playing through Kamigawa (because I didn't play standard) and I loved Kamigawa draft and sealed. Champions - Champions - Betrayers was definitely one of my favorite draft formats of all time.
As crazy as it sounds, Kamigawa is the block that made me get back into Magic since Weatherlight. When I looked into the block, I thought to myself, ok going for a Japanese theme and really overhaul the Legends mechanic.
I agree, Kamigawa/ Ravnica was probably the perfect standard. Diverse deck archetypes, games just slow enough to enjoy but not so slow as to hate your life. I want a return to Kamigawa so bad! The setting is gorgeous and if any mechanics return from at least main set or Betrayers they have a lot of potential for growth with the right development team.
I've only been playing since RTR/Innistrad standard, but my favorite has been Khans/Theros. Abzan Midrange was a super fun deck for me, and I played against and with a lot of variety. Thoughtseize + siege rhino + elspeth in one deck.
I was around during Kamigawa-Ravnica standard, I top16'd a regional with Ghost Dad (Orzhov Midrange) and it was the best time of my life! The meta was pretty fun too :)
I started playing magic at kamigawa but didn't know where to go to play against other people, so to me it's one of my favorite sets ever. I'm still trying to get my green black iname spirit deck to work, even if I know it's impossible to make it work well
It's eerie how similarly mirrodin and kaladesh block played out. Both had cards emergency banned, both times wotc tried to hide standard by shifting to limited and eternal formats, and both printed linear synergy decks (affinity and energy respectively).
2 words "Rat Ninjas" bouncing rats back into your hands big value. Also gave a lock that is a bit to setup but is not expected. Marrow Gnawer, Chittering Rats, and the graveyard hero rat. You'll never draw another card.
I love Kamigawa for mostly nostalgic reasons, my first deck was the premade Spiritcraft from betrayers, and Loam Dweller remains my favorite card in mtg
I have to disagree with a lot of what you said about RtR and innistrad standard and the following claim that any standard environment with thoughtseize is a bad one, innistrad and RtR had a lot of answer cards with thragtusk being the only real exception, Pro tour Gatecrash is still my favorite recent pro tour i've seen, and the amount of decks that were viable was amazing compared to what we have today. Shocklands without fetchlands made the perfect incentive to play two color decks that had a theme and weren't trying to do everything like the overwhelming amount of mid range that standard often sees.
So I just watched this video and I have to say that while the Kamigawa block was not that great, I built a good W/R Samurai deck. It had 4 Etheral Haze and 4 Holy Day. I usually had Godo out before I cast Fumiko. This was my group game deck. So when a player would attack, if their creatures weren't powerful, I would cast a Call to Glory and block. If someone attacked with big creatures, I would cast Holy Day or Ethereal Haze. Players were always tapped out so I would attack twice. It was actually a fun deck that I am looking at rebuilding.
My first deck was from SOM-INN standard, it was blue red counterburn. I had Ponders, Mana leaks, Bolts, Wurmcoil engines. it was great. I also had mono black suicide with soulcage fiend. Good times.
I play a green blue Moonfolk deck and it is pretty good. The art is amazing, theme and everything. My friends always complain some cards are too powerful compared to todays sets. 1U 1/2 flying with a cool ability isn’t something you see often these days. I was 4-5 years old kid who had no idea of what magic is when it got out so it might’ve done bad. But I think it is a good addition to Magic.
Kami/Rav/9th was insane, truly a wonderful time for the game. My area saw an LGS come back from the brink of collapse via that standard format bringing in tons of players... There was a period in that era (before Guildpact came out I think) when I piloted a ridiculous 5 color "Magnivore" monstrosity... The gameplan? Cast Cranial Extraction enough times to strip my opponent of literally anything their deck contained that could stand between one angry boi and victory... basically surgical memes, but long before surgical was a magic the gathering card. By the time I cast one of the two copies of my deck's only threat, they either literally had no outs or at best a single topdeck that could possibly save them, assuming the often gigantic red monster didn't just end it in one swing. It's rainbow manabase functioned entirely on basics, with Rampant Growth, Farseek and Kodama's Reach consistently finding the only two plains in the deck in order to cast Final Judgement (I was too poor to afford wraths, also judgement happened to be really good against dragons) two Islands for Tidings, and finally two mountains for the finish. Between it's four maindeck copies of Cranial, Diabolic tutor and Recollect, the deck was quite consistent at either ramping into a turn 3 cranial or a tutor for cranial/something to address the board. Hilarious tutor bullets included Flowstone Slide (an extra sweeper that could clear blockers while simultaneously pumping Magnivore to instant lethal) and literally the cycle of exile cards from Betrayers minus the blue one. Sowing Salt kept pesky lands like Vitu-Ghazi off the table while Scour and Splinter would handle any troublesome non-creature permanents that managed to be cast before cranial could deal with them. The only hole in the strategy was that it rarely ever got off the ground against anything resembling a decent aggro curve, but dying to Isamaru and Boros Swiftblade was in my mind a small price to pay for just about never losing to anything else. The deck was truly a nightmare to face, and I was a stupid teenager having entirely too much fun literally pulling all the toys out of my opponent's hand, deck and graveyard so my own could smash them with no fear of being countered, putrefied or fettered.
everytime i remember that cranial plating existed in standard at a time i feel that it is the reason we dont have good equipment in standard resently, but i have only been truly playing magic since oath of the gate watch so maybe im wrong
Scars had a bunch of good equipment, like the swords and batterskull, Godsend was a beast in it's time, and some recent equipment saw some competitive play in their time, like stoneforge masterwork, Ghostfire blade, Prying Blade, and Blackblade Reforged! (also Helm of the Host is OP in commander)
Cranial was busted but it isn't the case of few equipments, equipments are like boosted aura, check the aura that can go into your hand : they are near all unbalanced (often underpowered). Equipments are like that but you have to add the fact that they are not colored, which puts even more weight on the design. And you can't make them underpowered because of their reusability or colorlessness because it's their core design.
It's funny you mentioned commander, one of the reasons I started getting interested in commander was when I finally gave up on trying to make a decent samurai deck (after literally years of trying)... it would just run much better in a singleton format with a go-to legend. And it did.
Kamigawa / Ravnica standard was really awesome, I don't know if is the nostalgia talking (because it was the standard the I played the most in my entire life) but the format was really a jungle: lots and lots of viable decks, who doesn't like that? And all of them were fun! I can't believe me and my partner had like 5 full decks. I wish I were a better player back then, I basically had just entered competitive Magic (in fact I was playing for 2 years tops). Anyway, it was an awesome time to be a Magic player, even after the big wave of quitters that Mirrodin caused.
the most criminally underrated block ever. we need a return to kamigawa
How about a return to return to Ravnica? No?
Aren't we going to Kamigawa after Ravnica?
no, it'll be return to return to return to return to Ravnica.
specialfred453 no, since jace meant vraska on ixalan were going there now after dominaria so now since we went to doninaria which had Karn we're gonna probably go back to new phyrexian and finish that storyline wizards has been neglecting so much
That got me thinking of we do return to kamigawa what r ur thoughts on after that lorawyn
Wow, thinking about it now, Guilds of Ravnica Is literally gonna do the same thing that the first Ravnica did; saving standard by kicking the annoying artifacts outa town.
yep
well kaladesh is an artifact themed set so
Kaledesh cards are really fun compared to affinity...
chosenjuan hence why i said "compared to affinity"
None of the artifacts from Kaladesh have been a problem for a long, long time now. Mono Red isn't gonna rotate out.
Overall I love the Kamigawa block, the themes, the art. I wish we could return these but that is but a fever dream of a mad man. With how much Wizards is into Commander and Brawl and with the Success of Dominaria, it shows Legendary cards can be done really great. Heck even bring back Sagas too. Seems fitting for Kamigawa
Brawl. You mean Singleton with a commander. ;P
Well it was unofficial confirmed that kamigawa is getting a revisit in the next two or three sets. I think it was right after guilds
How was this confirmed? It would be amazing if this was the case!
Yes. I want to see Kamigawa redeemed in the worst way, and die a little when we return to a non-Kamigawa plane instead.
Kamigawa doesn't have enough history to make Sagas sensible. They did them for Dominaria because that Plane was the showplace of basically any core-story relevant plot until we got Return to Ravnica :>
Preach! Kamigawa was weird and wonderful and it paid the price for Mirrodins sins.
Can't wait for Wizards to take us back there so Kamigawa may reclaim it's honour!
Did you mean 'clunky'?
@@docterfantazmo no being a fan of jitte and stoneblade and a few cards from that block like there r some very cheaky combos from that set that can be quite back breaking
Oh, cheaky, fair play. I was worried you mean't something else there for a second.
Yeah, Kamigawa suffered for the fact that Mirrodin was OP as FUCK. It always looked bad, but was actually solid. Just had to compete with Mirrodin, which wasn't happening.
It literally was the best standard.
I remember the first time a room of 24 people and all of them having a unique deck.
7:35 "Do you like Thragutusk decks winning via mill? How about putting a bunch of auras on a cheap hexproof creature? Or, maybe you prefer a mindless, 'cast the most expensive card in my hand until the game is over' Primeval Titan deck?"
I answered "Actually, that seems fun." Is this why I like Modern?
Yeah, I don't consider it revisionist history as I enjoyed all those things along with omni-door thrag-fire.
Patrick McSupafly Aristocrats was very cool and a G/W aggro deck won the PT. There was a lot of deck diversity.
That was the last standard format I actually enjoyed.
Yeah same here i really liked bashing people with geist and stalker. Or just blinking thragtusk for value.
The entire argument he made for why og mirrodin was busted was because Affinity was an oppressive deck.... possibly the only viable deck. INN/RTR standard had a bunch of decks: Green/Red Ramp, Wolf Run Bant, Esper control, junk reanimator, aristrocrats, mono red-aggro, naya humans, black/white tokens, g/w aggro...and thats only the tier 1-1.5 decks. There were even a bunch of fringe brews like heartless summoning that could sneak in a win. There was no 'best' deck in inn/rtr because there was a proper counter-matchups and nowhere near enough sideboard slots to cover them all. You can argue that it wasnt the best standard format but to say it wasnt fun or is revisionist history seems shallow to me. Long Live Swagtusk.
Also, I would argue Sensei's Divining Top is considered just as Iconic, popular, and powerful, if not more so, than Umezawa's Jitte in the kamigawa block.
I’m long retired from MTG. I began MTG during Kamigawa. This was by far my favorite block thematically, I loved the art, and the mechanics. This block is definitely - criminally underrated! I have so many good memories from it all
To this day, the best Kamigawa-related video on TH-cam.
When you liked Kamagawa when it came out and it's still my favorite set. Fight me.
I'm a simple man
I see someone else praising kamigawa
Im happy
Moonfolk aoh ! 🌒
Do continue with a video on Ravnica standard
PLEASE
The artwork was amazing, second best after Lorwyn block.
Aw sweet! I love these videos as they're so high quality!
I started with kamigawa: I loved ravnica-kamigawa standard
Snakes, white weenie, kiki jiki, the dragons,ninjas, it was amazing
I was sad there were only a bunch of spirits and not even one Arcane in Ravnica
kamigawa sees so much play in commander
i absolutely agree that the issue with kamigawa wasnt that it was a bad set but that it came out at a very strange time and inbetween two of the most powerful sets ever miroden and original ravnica
With O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami as your commander, you can actually build a really bloody reliable and consistent 5c Spirit Tribal deck using mostly, if not exclusively cards from Kamigawa block. One of the better builds I found is under a hundred dollars and also relies primarily on Kamigawa cards, with the few exceptions of some lands, Sol Ring, a bit of Ramp and like, 3-4 spirits like Rattlechains and a Lord or two tops.
I started playing MtG back in the day when Ravnica was just about to come out. There was this "Which guild are you?" test in a German MtG magazine. For me it was either Izzet or Golgari. Went with Izzet. Niv-Mizzet is still one of my favourite beings, EVER.
I didn't really experience the Standard format of that time, though (Kamiwaga + Ravnica) as I just started. Could you please make a video on that? :)
EDIT: And yes, Kamigawa was and still is amazing. Also, the books. If you guys haven't read the books, do so. I still have fond memories of them and they're some of my favourite books of all time. Even to this day.
The Kamigawa books were dope.
Kami-Rav standard was the best standard format, but I think that the present-day Ixalan - Guilds of Ravnica standard is up there with it. Funny that the two best standards ever were with Ravnica in there.
Ravnica-Time Spiral was also a solid standard, though it suffered a bit from Dragonstorm.
I think Innistrad RTR is a highly regarded Standard because of the manabases that players had access to. The shock + buddy land combo enabled 2 and 3 color decks well without allowing people to go all the way to 4 and 5 color decks without a cost for it. The mana was good, consistent, and equally represented across all of the colors and color combinations. It sucks when you want to play a certain color combination but only have a single dual land to facilitate it that might not even play well with the strategy, while another color has 2 duals that work really well with the deck. The mana is the biggest constraint to any format and that format hit the balance of letting people play with the cards they wanted to play while not completely degenerating down into utter nonsense.
I keep coming back to this video and you left it so open.
Please talk more about the Kamigawa/Ravnica standard in more detail. I loved it so much. So many great an unique decks and fun decks from Greater Good control, to Owling Mine, to Mill, to even Selesnia Tokens. It was sweet.
I had just entered high school when Kamigawa hit and I don't know if it was the sets fault, but my LGS was /not/ kind to me. I tried my best to keep up with the game I had been playing since Tempest, but no one seemed keen on helping a 14 year old get better at a game they loved. So for 6+ years I didn't play Magic until I rejoined at the glory that was the tail end of the Mirrodin/Innistrad Standard format and boy howdy did I have a fun time, and just fell in love with Infect. Then Ravnica hit and WOW was that a cool set. And then learning that it was the part two of Ravnica? I had to look back and see what part 1 was, Lorowyn, Zendikar, Alara. I could not believe it. Such interesting sets. I quit at one of the worst times in Magic and now it has it's claws sunk into me again. Moral of the story, be kind to people who want to learn your game, even if they're some punk high school kid, because one day they'll be your opponent, and chances are you'll wipe the floor with them, because they're still as bad at Magic today as they were 20 years ago.
Mispronouncing Pithing Needle? I thought you were better than that
He's paying tribute to Saffron Olive
PIE-thing Needle sounds tasty
so we're just not gonna talk about his mispronunciation of "CAMMY-gawa?"
The whole time! AHHHHH it hurts my ears.
Aaron Schilling FUCK SaffronOlive.
I keep telling my buddies that are newer to Magic than Kamigawa/Ravnica that that was it. After that things weren't as good anymore. The diversity of decks that were viable in standard, and the simple fact that random homebrews had a chance was amazing.
Also: Ink-Eyes.
Also: Casting that second Kokusho to drain your opponent for 10.
And if I recall correctly, Coldsnap was in the same Standard for a little while, for added weirdness.
RETURN TO KAMIGAWA PLEASE!
Wish granted, I suppose
Yess! Kamigawa is an awesome set-
Splice onto Arcane is a sick awesome mechanic-
I can’t remember the card off the top of my head, but I was particularly fond of this card that gave target creature shroud (great for fizzling an opponent’s pump spell) and unblock-able, but the best part: you could splice onto arcane and the “cost” was returning a blue creature you control to it’s owner’s hand.
Before the spell even went on the stack, you could save a blue creature to play again later.
Magnificent!!
"Jitte wasn't busted"
...What?
Did you forget how broken (buh-roken) that thing was with damage still being on the stack?! you just deal your damage, triggering the counters, then used the counters to pump or drain, then let damage resolve. Nothing EVER died once you dropped a Jitte. That legend rule change was notable because Jitte warped standard so hard MonoU was playing a playset with a single Meloku. The primary reason to play Jitte, even with no creatures IN YOUR DECK was to nuke opposing Jittes.
^^This. Also, fuck Meloku. Stupid ass mirror boi.
Not to mention aether vial nightmare, but kamigawa was a really flavourful set and i wish they return to it someday, great atmosphere, slow gameplay, but interesting.
Masques and Kamigawa had players leaving in mass because of a larger issue.
Those years were when older players started leaving for college. Nobody had the extra time and money for Magic.
We were introduced during elementary school and college was more important than magic.
As a Mexican player who grew up in the mid-late nineties, I can say you are right sir.
Been playing since around 5th edition, I was like 8 when I started. I have always been a lore person as well, I have read most of the books for the released sets since they started doing it. Mirrodin was my favorite block (yes it was OP but not for that), artifacts are my favorite card type by far. My first tournament ever was a draft when I was like 15 or 16, it was kamigawa. It was then I noticed the massive power difference between blocks. But in draft I didn't care at all, from ARTWORK and LORE Kamigawa has been my favorite set since then. I don't care if the mechanics were unpopular, clunky, or weak.
I get that in rotation blocks need to be somewhat balanced, and maybe they dropped the ball there. But I hate the fact that Kamigawa, one of the coolest and most lore rich sets they have ever done suffered the brunt of that mistake. No revisits or anything, Tamiyo is the only word we have heard that Kamigawa still exists. No one at all hated Kamigawa for it's artwork or lore, they just wanted better mechanics. And instead we just get the whole fucking world abandoned.
I would like to see Kamigawa back again ...It deserves that. I've started playing MtG with Kamigawa, White-Red Samurai deck, Ghost Prison, Soulblast, Myojin ...Man, I loved it all ... I now have a complete block of 636 cards ...Champions, Betrayers, and Saviors ...all NM/M condition ...for me ...it is priceless!!!
1:00 And here we are in 2020, where a card was banned before the set was even released.
Kamigawa gave us a flavorful block and a more streamlined flavor.
Onslaught and Mirrodin block had some ideas but Kamigawa was more polished flavorwise. So what it lacked in power it got in flavor.
It also showed that you can go a completely different plane for those tired of the Dominaria-ties.
Kamigawa was a total flavor win but competitive fail. We need a return but just power up the cards this time.
I think the best standard in recent memory was Theros/Khans. I know Elspeth and Seige Rhino were great at the time, but the games were interesting, fun, and there was many viable strategies. Abzan, Jeskai, constellation enchantments, UB control, heroic, etc
Respectfully I have to disagree because innistrad Return to Ravnica we're pretty good considering the fact that you wouldn't have had abzan and all those other decks without Ravnica block in as good as it was without a Return to Ravnica simply because the fact that you had cards like grisly Salvage and all those other cards and you actually had reanimation to...like I was trying to build standard at the time and I remember building abzan reanimator basically having unburial rites llanowar elves Grizzly salvages and then you had Armada Wurm and I think there's a couple other cards but I can't remember off the top of my head and then the deck kind of morphed after Ravnica rotated out it turned into abzan and Siege Rhino with whip of erebos and all those other cards and then you had thoughtseize over and above that too
Alara was good
Except the barrier to entry to Theros/Khans was a $1000 standard environment, with Jeskai Black and Abzan Blue being the forefront. Not exactly the greatest.
Uhh... Wrong standard my dude. You're thinking Kahns/Battle.
You are right Theros /Abzan was amazing. You had more diversity than any other format I remember. You had Abzan and Jeskai as Tier 1 decks but also had black devotion, blue devotion, mono green stompy/devotion, heroic decks, Sidisi sultai/whip of erebos, UB control decks as Tier
1.5 but very competitive at the same time. Standard has never had so many competitive decks as that period again.
Thank you very much for defending my favorite block, and the block that really got me into magic.
i hope we go back someday... my modern deck thirsts for new samurai cards...
I personally would love to know more about Kamigawa/Ravnica standard, those are two of my favorite planes.
I find it funny the Eldrazi you showed is the one that can't work with that instant, since it shuffles the graveyard (with itself) back into your library, so there's nothing to revive from the graveyard once it dies, rendering the instant useless.
It's a triggered ability.. So you can revive the eldrazi in response to its shuffle back trigger.. Has to be an instant thou.. Like goryo's vengeance.. I think you are thinking about replacement effects.. Like the one in progenitus
Why do you claim that Ravnica Kamigawa Standard is the best standard ever and then proceed to not talk about it? Seems unfitting
MysticIbra the topic of the video was that Kamigawa wasn’t the worst set ever. His opinion on why kamigawa OG ravnica standard was the best standard is a different video all together.
Ninjutsu is probably my favorite mechanic in all of Magic. It will be my commander deck's primary theme
I made Cube for Kamigawa Remastered. I select only the most efficient cards in each color, reduce the impact of the spirits in the block and use only arcan spells. The draft was awesome, you have tons of archetypes to deal with. Ninjutsu was a really good mechanic and samourai are cool when you want play aggro. Honestly, one of my favorite block. It will be great to go back to Kamigawa.
The best standard, in my opinion, was Invasion Block + Odyssey Block. Sure, Psychatog run rampant through a lot of it, but there was a wide variety of playable decks that challenged it, it had a fundamental rock + paper + scissors relationship between deck types, and nothing was too overpowered or underpowered. In addition, it had fantastic flavor of having both the pre-Apocolypse world and post-Apocolypse world in the same standard era. The decks weren't just handed to you through the design team either, save for U/G Madness, which even itself was pretty fair. The only blackspot on this entire block was Flametongue Kavu.
The format was so fair and reasonably balanced that decks like Battle of Wits, Squirrel-Opposition, and Goblin-Bidding were all extremely viable, as people didn't typically have to worry about either dying before turn 5 or facing some inevitable game-winning engine.
Invasion-Odyssey standard has to be it for me.
Another factor no one takes into account: Legend of the Five Rings was a year into its revival when Kamigawa came out. Yu-Gi-Oh! also dropped it's first ban list the same month as Kamigawa came out.
If you were younger and into "Japanese culture", you had Yu-Gi-Oh! at it's highest point of popularity. If you were into Shinto mythology, you were probably already playing L5R, which had a ton of players circa Kamigawa.
i came in with gatecrash, and never got all that far. dropped it for a while and came back with eldraine. finding out that my cards from like 6 years ago were now not only legal in standard but also going for a decent amount was what really brought me back.
Great vid, I love that standard environment and would love to see an actual vid on it from here :)
Daaaamn, I came into taking competitive magic seriously at the end of Kamigawa block, having only flailed in tournaments through Mirrodin. I don't know what compelled me to build Tooth and Nail, being that I had a fully built Raffinity (everyone could build it, it was so cheap to make aside from ravagers/skullclamps), and everyone said Tooth and Nail was dead. I tooled it, shadowboxed it at work, and focused on learning my meta to build the right sideboard. In only 2 months of standard tournaments, using my version of the deck everyone thought was dead, I went from 1300th in my city to 30th, placing 1st and 2nd in 13 consecutive tournaments.
Don't ever count out a creative take on a "dead" combo, and don't underestimate an opponent on matchups. I to this day remember unseating a "shop king" running mono red land destruction.dec using a deck that was supposed to be utterly crippled by it. No one saw a splash for white/sacred grounds coming in from the side. :P
Also, all that nostalgia aside, agreed that kamigawa/time spiral was my favorite time to be a magic player!
Inns/RtR standard was mini modern. I’ll never forget the insane mana base and how many three colour decks got roasted on the burning earth.
Even if wizards doesn't want a return, we should petition them to make a Kamigawa supplementary set like battlebond has. Make it a side story about how the Spirt and physical world were split and how it settled into a world not unlike our own Japan, where the mortals called upon their various Kami to aid in their lives, going to shrines (they should make a cycle of lands, a cycle of new enchantments [hallowed grounds] and artifacts (the little shrines dedicated to various spirits, make one of them generate tokens, some boost, maybe make all of them rocks in addition, it'd be cool)), make a tribe of clerics that represent shrine maidens and either make them Bant enchantresses or Jeskai spell slingers. Make the story about Feudal wars and the different tribes teaming up under certain color combos, like Mardu Samurai featuring Humans and Kitsune, make some of the monstrous races form an alliance (either goblins and rats, rats and snakes, or snakes and goblins, or all 3) and play it out over supplemental sets and some Commander decks/cycles. Make the spirits align themselves with the factions based on color, with Blue going to the Bant Shrine maidens for a mortal representative, as I'm pretty sure the Kami were the main blue creatures in the set if memory serves.
Doing so would allow them to expand on Bushido with effects that trigger off it or spells that interact with it, making it supplemental allows them to not fear standard or modern (and honestly, Vintage and Legacy don't have to worry about new cards being completely broken, the old stuff suffices). They can fully expand on arcane cards while really only having to worry about commander, or maybe make a small expansion to splice, or put arcane on permanents and have them interact with splice differently by expanding the ruling of the ability. Maybe do something with the spirit ability and the shrine maidens.
This is the era when I stopped playing Magic. It wasn't due to the standard meta, it was because all my friends stopped playing... so I stopped playing. I didn't want to, but the whole group I used to play with quit and I didn't want to find a new group. I basically took 2004 - 2019 off.... I just got back into it a couple months ago.
Kamigawa was one of my favorites flavor wise. The mechanics were also great, but the power level was just completely overshadowed by the Mirrodin block. I also agree that Kamigawa/Ravnica was a pretty great standard environment. If only Kamigawa's power level had been pushed a bit and some seriously busted artifact hate had been printed things could have been so very different.
And now we're gonna go back in 2022! Except now it's neonpunk, which is sick. I'm a bit worried that Rosewater is the lead designer of the return to Kamigawa, but I'm still really excited.
Can someone please elaborate on what was so great about Ravnica - Kamigawa Standard? That was the time I started playing, but I didn't play much Standard ever. All I can remember is some grindy Abzan Reanimator deck saccing Yosei and Kokusho to Greater Good over and over again.
This is a good video, but I think it's misleadingly titled: it's much more about (rightfully) directing the blame for Affinity Standard towards Mirrodin than it is about assessing Kamigawa on its own merits. Besides mentioning that Limited and Kamigawa-Ravnica Standard were awesome, there's not much detail about what makes Kamigawa good - and I would have liked a bit more of that.
Kamigawa also had some great lore, remember back when the game had stories about people in the game? and not planeswalkers squabbling with each other while the people of the actual plane look from the side, hoping to not get accidentally incinerated?
If kamigawa was made today you can bet Takeshi Konda would be mind-controlled by Bolas that is trying to summon the serpent god to steal its power, while Toshiro Umezawa would be just replaced by Jace with amnesia or some shit.
You left out the most relevant point: Kamigawa Block Constructed was a really fun format. At the time, it was the only format I played on Magic Online, and it wasn't at all hard to find opponents, which leads me to believe it was quite popular.
I stopped playing in Ice Age, and Kamigawa is the block that brought me back into Magic.
I was a huge fan of Time Spiral/Tenth Edition/Lorwyn standard. Although, I was an old player by that point (I started with Tempest), and a lot of the mechanics and philosophy of those sets were aimed at older players. So, I probably have a bit of bias on that one.
It had the biggest standard cardpool ever! Coldsnap, time spiral block,10 Ed, lorwyn and eventide.. Funtimes
I was gonna say that or Rav/Time Spiral. I just miss Time Spiral lol
Yeah.. Time spiral was the most creative set they printed so far.. I like the concept of the past, alternate present, future in the set
It's a shame that WotC view Time Spiral negatively. It really was a fun standard environment to go through, and was fun to draft, too. But, it's their go-to example of what not to do because it confuses newer or less enfranchised players, and they cited as a time when they lost a lot of potential long-term players.
I learned to play magic back in Alara Reborn, but the reason I play magic is because I love faeries so much (the deck and the creature type. I wouldn't have gotten back into magic at all if that weren't a thing). I'm still upset that I missed out on standard during that time... the card pool looked like a blast. Meanwhile, my only standard experience so far was during kaladesh with emrakul. And when I finally got my playset on Christmas she was banned, and I haven't touched standard since. I wish I could go back in time and experience what I missed... oh well.
Mirrodin-Kamigawa was my favorite block ever. I played Tooth and Nail... Clamp Elves. And then in Kamigawa Block I played Gifts! It was great. The themes were great.
Ah Kamigawa - Ravnica standard, I get giddy just thinking about the ole paladin en-vec okiba gang shinobi tricks I used to pull.
Kamigawa's my favourite plane. Granted, I only started playing a couple of years ago so I didn't witness kamigawa standard, but as a weeb-commander-player, Kamigawa's just perfect for me.
you should definitely get the Japanese Jace and Chandra with anime-style art, who cares if you can't read them, Mono weeb demands it.
You really think I don't have them yet? :P
Uh, Jitte... The card that made our kitchen table casual games heated :D What I remember the most from that block was actually building a deck from an Article by Wizards. Rat-Reanimator. Since we were beginners from 8th edition and Mirrodin it was all just casual level and hell was it fun.
I hear what you're saying about Thoughtseize standards, but I really enjoyed Theros block, the flavour was off the charts, gods and enchantment creatures. I played RUG monsters and had a blast, lost only to our locals 1 mono black devotion every now and again. I can't speak for everyone else, but I loved it.
Just found you, so I'm very late. But I believe the Wizards logic at the time was "Players get enough Standard at FNM so let's focus high profile on other stuff." So you're right, no accident that Standard was excluded from the Pro circuit list.
Kamigawa-Ravnica Standard was crazy. I'd play against UR control that bounced your land on turn 2 and Stone Rained it on turn 3, zoo decks, RG Wildfire, and Owling Mine, among others.
It's a very flavourful block, and despite the parasitic nature of most of the cards, ironically, this makes the perfect candidate for a commander deck as you can basically go top down flavour-wise on the Kami side of things with O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami as your commander and basically play 5c Spirits, and most of your cards can come from Kamigawa. I think in most of the deck lists I've seen online for O-Kagachi Kamigawa spirits, the only spirits not from Kamigawa in the deck tend to be like, Rattlechains and any lords the deck happens to run.
Somewhat unfortunately, on the human side of the Kami war, you basically have to pick a job creature type (so like, samurai or ninjas) and run that as your tribal deck, instead of a Kamigawa Humans deck with all the humans working together.
Isn't there a 1 mana green thing in that block/set thats "draw a card every time you play a creature for the turn". I'd like more of them than I have :)
Kamigawa is my absolute favorite block. I joined during Onslaught, but after the ultra oppressed Ravager Affinity meta in Mirrodin block, Kamigawa was a nice change that smoothly slid into Ravnica after. I still think I joined MTG at one of the best times.
The change to the legendary rule, worked in favor of anyone abusing Kokusho. Or any of those glorious dragons!
That block has so many fun cards for casual play. It’s not the most competitive. But it’s an amazing set, great flavor and fun cards. It’s aged better than what it was in standard.
I said yes to everything you said about the Innistrad+RTR block. Who _wouldn't_ want to win through mill with a Thragtusk smacking people at the same time.
Kamigawa did at least try to end affinity's iron grip on standard. Cards like "Kataki, War's Wage" and "Splinter" both showed that WoTC was aware of the standard environment that they had created and were trying to create effective counters to it.
I’ve been waiting for this validation.
Ah man I remember that block, I had a black/blue ninja deck that was all about becoming unblockable, equiping my 1/1 fodder with shuriken and different effects going off whenever I dealt damage to a player or creature, one of the first decks I ever made (along with a green elf deck) and something I must have sunk a regretful amount of money into lol
INNISTRAD + RTR STANDARD WAS AMAZING THANK YOU VERY MUCH
I started playing in Onslaught block so I was kind of oblivious to how fucked up standard was when Mirrodin block came out, but I can attest that I was one of those players who kept playing through Kamigawa (because I didn't play standard) and I loved Kamigawa draft and sealed. Champions - Champions - Betrayers was definitely one of my favorite draft formats of all time.
There was one Standard GP in Rimini, Italy, actually.
primetime was rotated out of standard when rtr was printed in. m12 left with scars block
As crazy as it sounds, Kamigawa is the block that made me get back into Magic since Weatherlight. When I looked into the block, I thought to myself, ok going for a Japanese theme and really overhaul the Legends mechanic.
I agree, Kamigawa/ Ravnica was probably the perfect standard. Diverse deck archetypes, games just slow enough to enjoy but not so slow as to hate your life.
I want a return to Kamigawa so bad! The setting is gorgeous and if any mechanics return from at least main set or Betrayers they have a lot of potential for growth with the right development team.
One of the most flavorful, fun blocks ever
I've only been playing since RTR/Innistrad standard, but my favorite has been Khans/Theros. Abzan Midrange was a super fun deck for me, and I played against and with a lot of variety. Thoughtseize + siege rhino + elspeth in one deck.
And not to mention... The artwork. O - M - G that artwork though. Just had to put this here.
I was around during Kamigawa-Ravnica standard, I top16'd a regional with Ghost Dad (Orzhov Midrange) and it was the best time of my life! The meta was pretty fun too :)
I started playing magic at kamigawa but didn't know where to go to play against other people, so to me it's one of my favorite sets ever. I'm still trying to get my green black iname spirit deck to work, even if I know it's impossible to make it work well
It's eerie how similarly mirrodin and kaladesh block played out. Both had cards emergency banned, both times wotc tried to hide standard by shifting to limited and eternal formats, and both printed linear synergy decks (affinity and energy respectively).
2 words "Rat Ninjas" bouncing rats back into your hands big value. Also gave a lock that is a bit to setup but is not expected. Marrow Gnawer, Chittering Rats, and the graveyard hero rat. You'll never draw another card.
I love Kamigawa for mostly nostalgic reasons, my first deck was the premade Spiritcraft from betrayers, and Loam Dweller remains my favorite card in mtg
Considering my first commander was a mono-white Samurai tribal with Takeno, I know the feeling.
When you were talking about the standard gp's, actually, the one in Rimini, Italy is standard.
INNISTRAD-RTR Standard was amazing. You could play literally whatever you wanted and it was great.
I have to disagree with a lot of what you said about RtR and innistrad standard and the following claim that any standard environment with thoughtseize is a bad one, innistrad and RtR had a lot of answer cards with thragtusk being the only real exception, Pro tour Gatecrash is still my favorite recent pro tour i've seen, and the amount of decks that were viable was amazing compared to what we have today. Shocklands without fetchlands made the perfect incentive to play two color decks that had a theme and weren't trying to do everything like the overwhelming amount of mid range that standard often sees.
I loved this video and kamigawa was my favorite block! And the kami / rav block was my favorite standard
So I just watched this video and I have to say that while the Kamigawa block was not that great, I built a good W/R Samurai deck. It had 4 Etheral Haze and 4 Holy Day. I usually had Godo out before I cast Fumiko. This was my group game deck.
So when a player would attack, if their creatures weren't powerful, I would cast a Call to Glory and block. If someone attacked with big creatures, I would cast Holy Day or Ethereal Haze. Players were always tapped out so I would attack twice. It was actually a fun deck that I am looking at rebuilding.
Kamigawa Rav standard was the BEST STANDARD EVER.
Reading comments from a video made almost 4 years ago about sets we're wanting to return to!! We've done Ravnica and now Kami again!!
Kamigawa still had the massive disconnect between flavour and recognisability.
My first deck was from SOM-INN standard, it was blue red counterburn. I had Ponders, Mana leaks, Bolts, Wurmcoil engines. it was great.
I also had mono black suicide with soulcage fiend.
Good times.
I play a green blue Moonfolk deck and it is pretty good. The art is amazing, theme and everything. My friends always complain some cards are too powerful compared to todays sets. 1U 1/2 flying with a cool ability isn’t something you see often these days. I was 4-5 years old kid who had no idea of what magic is when it got out so it might’ve done bad. But I think it is a good addition to Magic.
Kami/Rav/9th was insane, truly a wonderful time for the game. My area saw an LGS come back from the brink of collapse via that standard format bringing in tons of players... There was a period in that era (before Guildpact came out I think) when I piloted a ridiculous 5 color "Magnivore" monstrosity... The gameplan? Cast Cranial Extraction enough times to strip my opponent of literally anything their deck contained that could stand between one angry boi and victory... basically surgical memes, but long before surgical was a magic the gathering card. By the time I cast one of the two copies of my deck's only threat, they either literally had no outs or at best a single topdeck that could possibly save them, assuming the often gigantic red monster didn't just end it in one swing. It's rainbow manabase functioned entirely on basics, with Rampant Growth, Farseek and Kodama's Reach consistently finding the only two plains in the deck in order to cast Final Judgement (I was too poor to afford wraths, also judgement happened to be really good against dragons) two Islands for Tidings, and finally two mountains for the finish. Between it's four maindeck copies of Cranial, Diabolic tutor and Recollect, the deck was quite consistent at either ramping into a turn 3 cranial or a tutor for cranial/something to address the board. Hilarious tutor bullets included Flowstone Slide (an extra sweeper that could clear blockers while simultaneously pumping Magnivore to instant lethal) and literally the cycle of exile cards from Betrayers minus the blue one. Sowing Salt kept pesky lands like Vitu-Ghazi off the table while Scour and Splinter would handle any troublesome non-creature permanents that managed to be cast before cranial could deal with them. The only hole in the strategy was that it rarely ever got off the ground against anything resembling a decent aggro curve, but dying to Isamaru and Boros Swiftblade was in my mind a small price to pay for just about never losing to anything else. The deck was truly a nightmare to face, and I was a stupid teenager having entirely too much fun literally pulling all the toys out of my opponent's hand, deck and graveyard so my own could smash them with no fear of being countered, putrefied or fettered.
everytime i remember that cranial plating existed in standard at a time i feel that it is the reason we dont have good equipment in standard resently, but i have only been truly playing magic since oath of the gate watch so maybe im wrong
Scars had a bunch of good equipment, like the swords and batterskull, Godsend was a beast in it's time, and some recent equipment saw some competitive play in their time, like stoneforge masterwork, Ghostfire blade, Prying Blade, and Blackblade Reforged! (also Helm of the Host is OP in commander)
Cranial was busted but it isn't the case of few equipments, equipments are like boosted aura, check the aura that can go into your hand : they are near all unbalanced (often underpowered). Equipments are like that but you have to add the fact that they are not colored, which puts even more weight on the design. And you can't make them underpowered because of their reusability or colorlessness because it's their core design.
@@clad95150 ahhh i get it, its like smugglers copter, make it to good and it just goes everywhere
It's funny you mentioned commander, one of the reasons I started getting interested in commander was when I finally gave up on trying to make a decent samurai deck (after literally years of trying)... it would just run much better in a singleton format with a go-to legend. And it did.
Kamigawa / Ravnica standard was really awesome, I don't know if is the nostalgia talking (because it was the standard the I played the most in my entire life) but the format was really a jungle: lots and lots of viable decks, who doesn't like that? And all of them were fun! I can't believe me and my partner had like 5 full decks. I wish I were a better player back then, I basically had just entered competitive Magic (in fact I was playing for 2 years tops). Anyway, it was an awesome time to be a Magic player, even after the big wave of quitters that Mirrodin caused.
Kah. Mee. Gah. Wah.
Kah. May. Ha. May...
Oh, wait. We're not doing that. My bad.