Tabletop Standard: A Q&A with Huey Jenkins and Andrew Brown (WeeklyMTG)

Lots of nuts and bolts announcements, but little in the way of specifics — which makes sense, because those specifics are all tied to future plans.

Long story short: in addition to a longer Standard rotation window (3 years), ban windows are also now regimented to one a year, with the only exception of emergency windows in the three weeks after a set release. A one-off Standard-only ban day will be on 5/29, followed by the first of these regular ban days end-of-summer before Wilds of Eldraine previews start.

The rest seems all targeted at giving more runway for development to focus on Standard, plus making it more palatable and a little more predictable, budget-wise, as a LGS-run or local-play format. This is on top of promoting it as the format for RCQs/RCs next year. One announcement is that a panel at Gen Con will look forward three years (!) and expound on what exactly the design philosophy changes in the wake of this shift.