This deck list will live in infamy. Back in 2011, somebody thought it would be a good idea to make what is possibly the most broken deck ever made. It used Squadron Hawk, Stoneforge Mystic, and the Swords to deal fast, consistent damage. It only got worse once Batterskull was thrown into the midst, which completely broke the format. I honestly cannot believe that this deck was ever standard legal. At the time of its legality, this deck alone reduced the attendance and participation numbers of standard Magic tournaments around the globe by up to 40% because of the pure invincible power of it. Of course, immediately following this massive fallout, Wizards of the Coast banned Stoneforge Mystic and the Swords so as to not run into this problem again. But it definitely left its scar on the Magic community, never to fade away.
With this deck, it wasn't the technical power, it was the tremendous synergy between the cards that caused such a disturbance.
(The proceeding dialogue is from an MTG Reddit page, not my words.)
"Jace is the biggest threat. He was a lot more flexible in his abusiveness when allowed in standard, as opposed to a more typecast role in Legacy. Aside from the normal, obvious interactions, Jace enabled the deck to make a play affectionately known as "Ancestral Birdcall". Basically, you cast a Squadron Hawk and fetched up the other hawks. You'd then brainstorm with jace, drawing three fresh cards and putting two hawks back on top. you'd then play the remaining hawk and "search" your library to take the two hawks back off the top, and now Jace can brainstorm into a fresh set of cards the next turn. You could also use Jace to bounce your own Stoneforge Mystic to tutor up an additional equipment when you replayed it. Jace also dealt with any "living weapons" your opponent might be playing (mainly Batterskull in the mirror). There was also a next-level synergy between Jace and Gideon, established even before Caw Blade, and naturally, Caw Blade got to play this interaction as well. Gideon was usually a 2x. This also marked the first instance of fetchlands being used for the purpose of generating shuffle effects after brainstorming with Jace. So there was that as well.
Stoneforge: You have to understand that Stoneforge is not just obviously busted, but worse than normal in Standard at that time. The equipment package that was accessible to Stoneforge was tremendous and allowed the deck to adapt to any threat with one of the most powerful toolboxes ever assembled. The default sword was Feast and Famine, but War and Peace was often the other mainboard choice in addition to a maindecked batterskull. These were the obvious offenders, sure, but the sideboard also contained Sylvok Lifestaff, which made Boros Landfall decks fight a nightmarish uphill battle. You also had Mortarpod, and with Squadron Hawks and Stoneforges generating bodies on a continual basis, Mortarpod gave the deck some extra reach to close out a game in a given turn, shoot down enemy birds before they could pick up their swords, and further defend against aggro decks playing dudes with small butts. Let's not forget that the Swords were often dropped onto Mirran Crusader, getting the caster double Sword triggers and massive damage. Crusader would have protection from 3 colors, be hitting for 8 on its own, with War and Peace triggering twice for massive damage, or maybe Feast and Famine making the controller discard twice while bringing Caw-Blade's mana back online to do something else.
Squadron Hawk, the "caw" in "caw blade" had proven merit in Naya Shaman lists before Caw Blade was around, generating massive card advantage on an evasive body. With the ever present Stoneforge Mystic, you simply couldn't NOT be afraid of a single Hawk on the board, at any time a Sword could come down and get picked up by the bird. Getting hit with a single Feast and Famine swing was usually a sign the game was over. You also had a "wall of bird" for several turns against aggro to buy time to develop a more permanent solution to your problem. Aggro just wasn't getting through a wall of birds carrying Sylvok Lifestaff. It wasn't happening. It offered defense against aggro, and offense against control and made Jace even better, if that was possible.
The deck featured a number of early game spells designed to give the deck consistency. It didn't get bad opening hands. I rarely, if ever, mulled while playing the deck. The manabase was extremely stable thanks to the options available at the time and because of Preordain. You could very comfortably keep a two land hand in a control deck if you had a Preordain. Preordain was the Brainstorm of Standard in that time, if you had blue mana, you played it, and you played 4 of it. From stabilizing bad draws, to finding answers, or threats, Preordain did it all for one mana. You also played some number of Spell Pierce (usually 3) to deal with enemy Walkers starting on turn 1, but if you were playing a mirror match, sometimes the correct play was to Spell Pierce the Preordain because it was just that good.
So now you have this behemoth combination of super dumb things the deck did beyond what they're used for in Legacy, a perfect storm of equipment, an endless supply of bodies to carry the equipment (with evasion!)a stable, solid manabase, one of the best soft countermagic spells ever printed...what else do you need? Oh yeah, removal. Back then we still got Wrath spells at 4CC, so Day of Judgment was the go-to for problem solving. Between hawks, wall of omens, and lifestaff, it was pretty easy to live long enough to cast one against aggro, even if they had a nut draw. Against decks packing larger creatures, some interesting tech was introduced in some lists, not sure if it ever caught on, but I loved playing a pair of Corrupted Conscience out of the sideboard. Neat Eldrazi. You're dead now.
So aggro folds over and dies. This leaves you with looking to another control deck or a combo deck to stand a chance. Of course, if you played control, there was no other choice but caw-blade. Some darkblade (u/b or u/w/b) decks were developed in an attempt to fight the usual u/w build, but were met with moderate success at best, and weren't as dominant against other matchups.
So no aggro decks. Control was exclusively Caw-Blade. That leaves....combo? Except the only combo is really Valkut/Primeval Titan decks.....at a time when Tectonic Edge was a 4x in Caw-Blade. Even primeval titan couldn't stop it, but it was the only deck that really put up any kind of a fight- maybe Eldrazi Ramp, but it never seemed that bad for me. So something new has to be developed, but what can you possibly build? Even if you build a deck that can handle all the squadron hawks, all the stoneforges, the mirran crusaders, the jaces and gideons, as well as the 1-of Batterskull, you STILL have to beat Celestial Collonade too!
The deck only got better with the pilot. In the hands of a novice, it was deadly. In the hands of an experienced pilot it was unbeatable. My local magic scene was pretty fledgling at that point, and I was one of the few people that had everything necessary to play the deck. In all my years of playing Magic, I have never had a deck that gave me the confidence I had when I sat down to play it. I feared literally nothing. Worst case scenario my opponent was playing it too, and that meant my worst matchup was 50/50.
I loaned the deck to a friend of mine that had never played it before and only kind of knew what he was doing for a local standard tournament I could not attend. I was furious with him when he split prize with first place, knowing his opponent was on Boros Landfall but not realizing that that matchup was actually insanely good for him. He was just afraid of it because of what he'd seen it do against non-caw-blade decks, got offered the draw, and accepted. I played Gameday with it right before the ban. I never dropped below 14 life. The deck rewarded player skill by making you unbeatable. No, really. It. Just. Won."