Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether Standard is a good play format or not, what happens to all those old decks when rotation occurs? Are they packed off to a dark and musty box to be mocked by the chaff and bulk cards that never even made it into a standard deck? Are they unceremoniously unsleeved and shipped off to the local game store to be traded in for pennies on the dollar for the shiny and new top Standard cards? Did they do enough to earn a special spot next to other favourite decks and to trigger a happy memory every once in a while?

A happier fate could be looming on the horizon for at least some of those decks. A recent post on the MagicTCG subreddit proposes a new format specifically for those old Standard decks that are no longer so standard. Proposed by DefCat (aka Jay Natale), the format called Amber is described as a casual format meant “for people to take their favorite old standard deck and play it against other previously standard legal magic, the gathering decks.”

Looking up the best deck or finding the best possible block to play is discouraged. This is merely a way to play an old deck that rotated out and still have reasonable amounts of fun. Overtime, you will collect many of these decks and be able to have tons to play from with your group of friends.

While the idea of re-using old Standard decks is not new and has existed for a long time at many game tables across the world (many even called it Bring Your Own Standard), this is the first time that I think the format has been somewhat formalized with a basic set of rules.

There is nothing over the top but it does provide guidelines that are more than enough for a casual format. And there is nothing preventing individual groups from refining them further for their own purposes.

The rules:

• Deck construction:
  • A minimum of 60 cards with no more than 4 of each card besides basic lands
  • Card pool consists of a block of EIGHT standard legal sets that were once a full block. Examples:
    • Sets from Throne of Eldraine to Adventures in the Forgotten Realms (Standard before the September 2021 rotation)
    • Sets from Ixalan to Core Set 2020
    • Sets from Innistrad to Core Set 2014 (September 2013 rotation)
  • Optional sideboard of up to 15 cards with maximum of 4 of each card
• Ban List
  • Casual play – None
  • Competitive play – Any card that was once banned in standard (eg, Oko, Thief of Crowns, in 2019, Stoneforge Mystic in 2011 or Tolarian Academy all the way back in 1998)

Best of all, Standard rotations will ensure that there is a regular influx of new decks into the format.

As for me, I’m going to suggest this to the boys and to our LGS and see if perhaps Amber can find a spot on the event calendar, perhaps replacing the Standard events that have disappeared due to low turnouts.

And just maybe there will be fewer mournful looks every September now when rotation comes around!

Source: Reddit