Former Magic designer Bill Stark's thoughts on Standard's problems
Aaron Forsythe asked a great question on Twitter recently: why has Standard play fallen off? There was a great conversation that followed (check out this fantastic data breakdown of responses from Magic Data Science). Here are my thoughts as someone who has worked on these types of problems and watc...
TL;DR:
Standard has gotten less fun as players [via Arena] create solved formats at a breakneck pace unseen before in Magic history. Combine that with a shuttering of play due to a pandemic that led to players finding non-rotating formats they could invest in due to uncertainty for when Magic play would return and you get all-time lows in Standard play.