The reign of terror is finally over. Much like its animation on Arena, Uro has loomed his ominous dread over the entire Standard format. Now that Uro is gone hopefully other decks can escape his grasp and rise up in the new meta.
With Uro gone Four Color Omnath decks will see a reduction in power and other ramp strategies get significantly weaker as well. Ramping becomes fairer with Growth Spiral already out of the format and now with Uro gone ramp becomes fairer. Cultivate and Azusa, Lost But Seeking are much more fair ramp cards with them having the drawbacks of either needing lands in hand or being terrible late game draws. Hopefully, Standard design doesn’t bring back these unfair land accelerating cards like Growth Spiral. Lotus Cobra is expected to be the top ramp option which is completely reasonable. The format has plenty of interaction and efficient ways to remove a Cobra like Bloodchief’s Thirst and Spikefield Hazard. It is much easier to interact with a one-toughness two-drop than it is a cantripping instant that puts and extra land into play.
The Banning of Uro has an abundance of exciting implications for Standard as a whole. Aggro decks such as the Mono Green, Gruul, Mono Red, and the Selsnya counters decks all have more breathing room with Uro gone. Uro did too many things for these decks to keep up with. It gained life, drew cards, and ramped extra lands into play for you to cast your big plays later; all while putting a 6/6 into play to dominate the board. The Aggro deck that I think benefits the most from this ban is Dimir rogues. It is a new deck from Zendikar Rising that had an undeniable power level but was kept in check by Uro. Milling the opponent turbocharged the opposing Uros and warped the deck in a way that required them to play main deck graveyard hate like Cling to Dust. Dimir Rogues are exciting and unique because Standard has never had an aggressive mill deck be meta relevant before.
Overall, Uro leaving Standard opens up a lot of possibilities. Aggro decks have a better chance against these ramp and value decks and the ramp aspect of Uro is a big loss for Ugin, the Spirit Dragon decks. Ramp will play more fair cards like Cultivate and cards that are weak to interaction like Lotus Cobra. Dimir Rogues are the biggest winners for the aggressive decks and control decks are much more viable. Temur Adventures should see a resurgence as one of the top value decks but will probably still fall short to the Omnath decks. Sultai Ramp was basically just the Dimir Control deck running Uro to ramp into Ugin and to have a fighting chance against the other Uro decks. That should have been a red flag for Wizards if we’re being honest. Even something like those Four Color Yorion decks seems interesting and is just as fun as Temur Adventures or Omnath decks. Having fair mana ramp back in Standard is refreshing and I’m optimistic in it resulting in a healthy format. Here is the link to the official announcement made by WOTC where they make some interesting points. An important note for me was regarding Uro decks: “Our goal is to bring these decks down to a level where they are still appealing and competitive, but where natural metagame forcers are enough to keep them in check”. The part I highlighted sums up Uro as a card perfectly. Its raw power made it difficult for any deck to attack it in a meaningful way other than other Uro decks.
Those were my thoughts on the banning of Uro and on Standard moving forward. I’m personally very excited to play all the new decks from Zendikar Rising without being in fear of a certain simic colored titan. Let us know your thoughts on the banning of Uro and if you’re excited about Standard again. Later this week we’ll be discussing Standard more deeply and its struggle with power creep over the past couple of years. Make sure to follow us on social media to get notified when that article drops and so you can join the Fellowship. Thanks for reading and go enjoy this new Standard!
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