To that end, we considered several weird or off-the-wall options. We discussed something we called "pair banning," where two cards could not be played in the same deck but could be played separately, a tactic other TCGs have employed. We looked at making other cards legal for Standard that otherwise wouldn't be, like Pithing Needle and Duress. We looked at restricting and even functional errata. Ultimately, these created more problems than they solved for this particular issue, and while we might keep exploring newer options in the future, for now we're sticking with our tried-and-true solution, even though we, like you, would rather it not come to this again.

Making Duress legal seems very good idea to me - it's an all-around balanced spell that should be legal anyway, especially if they release combo-themed set.

I sure HOPE they wouldn't take it as a "lesson" that combo themes are bad.
Because the real lesson is that mythics are bad.

Making Duress legal seems very good idea to me - it's an all-around balanced spell that should be legal anyway, especially if they release combo-themed set.

I sure HOPE they wouldn't take it as a "lesson" that combo themes are bad.
Because the real lesson is that mythics are bad.

That hamstrings the next few sets as well though, Wizards likes to be able to print Ulamogs and whatnot, and as long as you have Marvel in Standard they wouldn't be able to do that.

Also getting to free-cast cards like Baral's Expertise and various 'Walkers is still pretty good. Ulamog may have been one of the best targets, but he wasn't the only one.

As long as there are only one or maybe two pair bannings, I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult then your normal legality check. Oh, this deck has Marvel, does it have Ulamog? No? Ok. That said, it would be awful for judges at FNMs.

The bans are getting ridiculous at this point. I feel like Wizards is trying to get around their bad development practices through this. A lot of people put the blame on the rapid availability of data, but things like Felidar Guardian really make me question that assumption.

Also, people hate Combo... with a passion.

Duress feels to me like a card that should be, effectively, evergreen. Print it at least once every two years so it seldom, if ever, leaves standard. Even if you gotta print it in a Planeswalker deck or a Deckbuilder's Toolkit / Welcome Deck to make it standard-legal despite not having it in a draftable environment. Like how Disperse and Borderland Marauder are presently standard-legal despite not having been draftable in any now-standard-legal set (because they were in the SoI welcome decks and toolkit).