[Discussion] Do Control decks REALLY suck in Legacy? [Archive]

URABAHN

06-05-2007, 07:35 AM

Basically, "open" formats favor decks with proactive strategies by a huge margin, which makes sense. True control decks are necessarily metagame decks, and therefore are impossible to build without an extremely well-defined environment. Only once a format reaches a state with fewer decks being played (a clear best deck is probably necessary, as well) can a control deck be built to prey on those decks. This is why reactive strategies seem to fare better in PTQ formats than at the Pro Tours preceding them.

However, Flores postulates that this evolution is not terminal, but rather, cyclical. He points to Friggorid appearing in Extended and usurping Psychatog, which had previously pushed out Boros (which had replaced Affinity before it).

The point is that there is no reason to see anything wrong with control sucking. In fact, with Legacy being as wide open as it is right now, I would find it quite worrying if there was a control deck that was any good. The answer cards that deck would need would have to be absurdly powerful.

Until Legacy gets to a point that the gauntlet of played decks shrinks to something you can effectively metagame against, control decks will (and should) continue to be poor.

Is the Legacy metagame well-defined? Enough that Control is viable? What gives people the impression that Control decks are poor? Does History tell a different tale (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3996)? If the Historical Top 8 does tell us something positive about Control, then what does that say about Flores' article?

True control decks are necessarily metagame decks, and therefore are impossible to build without an extremely well-defined environment.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-05-2007, 07:45 AM

I dunno. Most of Legacy can be divvied up into Goblins, decks running lots of cheap mana and Empty the Warrens, aggro-control decks with weak creatures, a few of the latter with Chalice of the Void and shitty manabases, and decks that break Dredge (LftL, Ichorid). Creature removal hits most of those decks pretty hard, and a lot of the others are fairly easy to hose with cards like Leyline of the Void or Chalice of the Void (anything with Void in it. Except Void, of course).

Citrus-God

06-05-2007, 10:18 AM

Based on what Alix said, I'm sure he's saying that Control decks will only be viable if they're more aggressive and switches gears much faster. Threshold is good at this, and that is why it is good.

I'm sure any Combo-Control deck (as well as Aggro-Control) applies here as well.

Machinus

06-05-2007, 12:13 PM

Yes. Control is at a significant disadvantage in Legacy.

This is because the DCI banned all of the good control win conditions. Replenish is the first concession on this issue.

Happy Gilmore

06-05-2007, 01:12 PM

aggro-control decks with weak creatures

??? I assume you are referring to Fish, but even then what do you define as weak? Dark Confidant draws cards, Meddling mage provides some utility, Serra Avenger is a 3 power vigilant flyer for two, and Jhotun Grunt is a 4 power two mana creature with a relevant ability.

As for thresh....

You really need to clarify this, because it makes absolutely no sense without context.

SpatulaOfTheAges

06-05-2007, 01:46 PM

I think he meant "weak" in terms of pressure. Mage and Confidant don't beat for much, and Avenger and Grunt need time before you can play them.

AnwarA101

06-05-2007, 01:56 PM

Is the Legacy metagame well-defined? Enough that Control is viable? What gives people the impression that Control decks are poor? Does History tell a different tale (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3996)? If the Historical Top 8 does tell us something positive about Control, then what does that say about Flores' article?

The real problem with control is that it has to use the same answers for different strategies. This is essentially the biggest problem with control. The better anti-aggro cards are not typically good against combo strategies (Empty the Warrens is an exception here). The better anti-combo cards are not very useful against aggro strategies. I'm not sure how you bridge this gap.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-05-2007, 08:19 PM

??? I assume you are referring to Fish, but even then what do you define as weak?

Size. That's about it.

From control's perspective, everything this side of Mystic Enforcer is a weak kill condition in aggro decks. Tog, Morphling, Gigapede, Grave-Shell, Eternal Dragon, Helldozer (cough), pretty much every creature in control loves to go toe to toe with Mages and Avengers and Mongeese. Not to mention a dozen instant-speed 1/1 Soldiers.

Although the problem with going to time is an inherent problem with control, it's possible to play around it. I think it's fallacious to say that control has to become aggro-control to compete; Landstill and Truffle Shuffle, despite being very little played, have done well for themselves without this. Rifter and White-based control have also done decently and are very under-rated at the moment, as they have far more game against non-Solidarity combo than they're given credit for.

Tacosnape

06-05-2007, 09:00 PM

No.

kirdape3

06-05-2007, 09:24 PM

dre4m

06-05-2007, 09:25 PM

Yes. Control is at a significant disadvantage in Legacy.

This is because the DCI banned all of the good control win conditions. Replenish is the first concession on this issue.

This is quite a statement, so let's take a closer look.

These are all the banned/restricted cards that could see play in control decks:

Ancestral Recall
Balance
Bazaar of Baghdad
Black Lotus
Black Vise
Channel
Demonic Consultation
Demonic Tutor
Dream Halls
Earthcraft
Entomb
Fastbond
Flash
Frantic Search
Grim Monolith
Gush
Hermit Druid
Illusionary Mask
Imperial Seal
Land Tax
Library of Alexandria
Mana Crypt
Mana Drain
Mana Vault
Memory Jar
Metalworker
Mind Twist
Mind's Desire
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Necropotence
Oath of Druids
Skullclamp
Sol Ring
Strip Mine
Time Spiral
Time Walk
Timetwister
Tinker
Tolarian Academy
Vampiric Tutor
Wheel of Fortune
Windfall
Worldgorger Dragon
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Yawgmoth's Will

This is quite a list of cards, but how many of them are really "good control win conditions?" Assuming that you're playing a control deck with a combo finish, you're down to this:

Channel
Demonic Consultation
Demonic Tutor
Dream Halls
Earthcraft
Entomb
Flash
Grim Monolith
Hermit Druid
Illusionary Mask
Imperial Seal
Mana Crypt
Mana Drain
Mana Vault
Memory Jar
Mind's Desire
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Necropotence
Oath of Druids
Sol Ring
Tinker
Tolarian Academy
Vampiric Tutor
Worldgorger Dragon
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Yawgmoth's Will

Mana accel is included to acknowledge Storm as a combo finisher. Bargain included because drawing 15 cards usually wins, and the other cards either find whatever you want [which is iffy as a 'win condition'] or do something obscene. It is these totally obscene cards which really concern us, as the banning of the win conditions usually focuses on these kinds of cards. So, let's take a look:

Channel
Dream Halls
Earthcraft
Flash
Hermit Druid
Illusionary Mask
Mind's Desire
Oath of Druids
Tinker
Worldgorger Dragon
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Yawgmoth's Will

Dream Halls and Earthcraft are debatable, and Flash and Dragon have seen their days, but the rest of these cards are just stupidly broken. Are they really broken as control win conditions though? I think the best qualifiers in this regard are Yawgmoth's Will, Mind's Desire, and Tinker. I'm sure that those three cards, or even any number of the cards above, do not constitute "all the good control win conditions."

Tacosnape

06-05-2007, 09:46 PM

Here's what a control deck has to realistically be able to stop in Legacy:

1. Goblins, specifically Goblin Lackey on turn 1, Goblin Ringleader anytime, and AEther Vial

2. Goblin Charbelcher and Empty the Warrens as soon as turn 1

3. Ill-Gotten Gains fueling either a Mind Twist with Leyline of the Void or a straight Tendrils of Agony win

4. High Tide's degenerate mana engine and superior library manipulation

5. Threshold's cheap offensive options and minimal countermagic - classic Fish strategy

6. Any deck that attempts to establish superior card advantage (both Survival of the Fittest and Life from the Loam try to do this) to be able to exhaust the answers of the opponent

That's not even the totality of it, but that's what you're liable to face on a given day. Building a deck that can reliably do all six has proven quite difficult.

I think you're wrong. No control deck has to be able to stop all six of those. Because none of those decks are able to stop all five of the others. I think it's reasonable to ask a control deck be able to stop between four to five of those six, however.

4C Landstill, with the right build, does five.

I play in an environment with almost every top tier deck imaginable present in quantities of 1, from Goblins to Threshold to Fish to Loam to Sui-Black variants to Affinity to Survival to CRET Belcher to Epic Storm to Iggy Pop to Solidarity to the now defunct-Flash. My Landstill deck has been piloted to a tournament win by two different people and a top 4 by three.

1. Goblins. My 4C Landstill is 4-1 in tournament matches against Goblins. Swords and Force stop Lackey, Counters stop Ringleader, Deeds sweep Vial. Stifle stops both Wastelands and Lackey triggers. Blue Elemental Blast and Plague perform cleanup duty post board.

2. Empty the Warrens / Belcher. My 4C Landstill is 2-1 here. Stifle and Force are gold mines, and if ETW comes slower than turn one, Counterspell becomes a factor and Deed can perform cleanup. Meddling Mage occasionally sneaks out in time to be relevant.

3. Don't know the exact record here, but I know I'm unbeaten against Iggy Pop and have one loss and at least one win against Epic Storm. Stifle, Force, sideboarded Leylines, same ETW answers. Meddling Mage comes in handy too.

4. Solidarity's the one it can't deal with. Even Mages backed up with Countermagic aren't enough with the complete lack of a clock. Winnable, but hard. I think it's like 2-3, but both wins were when I piloted Landstill and Solidarity was being piloted by someone who's bad with the deck (IE, anyone in the center half of Alabama other than me)

5. Threshold. My Landstill's 9-0 in tournaments here. I pack the full four Diabolic Edicts and enough sweepers to make this a walkover. The only close game 3 came with Needles on Factory, Monestary, and Deed, when a Punishment for 1 swung the game.

6. Survival isn't terribly hard. I can keep the Survivals off the board more often than not, and Crime Genesis if it gets going. Don't know the record, but I know my Landstill hasn't lost to Survival in a tournament, and as I own both decks, I've played it enough to know I'd pick Landstill any day of the week. Life from the Loam is much tougher, and requires the Leylines from the board as well as Mages and sometimes Blue ELemental Blasts to be manageable, but my Landstill's 1-1 here.

Some Loam builds, as well as a lot of Black-based Control decks, can do 4 pretty well.

I don't think it's necessarily fair to expect a control deck to do all six. I've seen Landstill, Train Wreck, Loam Control, and Rifter all win tournaments around here without doing so.

URABAHN

06-05-2007, 09:49 PM

The real problem with control is that it has to use the same answers for different strategies. This is essentially the biggest problem with control. The better anti-aggro cards are not typically good against combo strategies (Empty the Warrens is an exception here). The better anti-combo cards are not very useful against aggro strategies. I'm not sure how you bridge this gap.

But Control seems to thrive just fine in Legacy regardless of the gap. Could it be because of the extremely powerful, yet expensive cards? Stall the game long enough to resolve a Standstill, FoF, Echoes, WoG, Damnation?

Here's what a control deck has to realistically be able to stop in Legacy:

1. Goblins, specifically Goblin Lackey on turn 1, Goblin Ringleader anytime, and AEther Vial

2. Goblin Charbelcher and Empty the Warrens as soon as turn 1

3. Ill-Gotten Gains fueling either a Mind Twist with Leyline of the Void or a straight Tendrils of Agony win

4. High Tide's degenerate mana engine and superior library manipulation

5. Threshold's cheap offensive options and minimal countermagic - classic Fish strategy

6. Any deck that attempts to establish superior card advantage (both Survival of the Fittest and Life from the Loam try to do this) to be able to exhaust the answers of the opponent

That's not even the totality of it, but that's what you're liable to face on a given day. Building a deck that can reliably do all six has proven quite difficult.

That's an excellent analysis of what Control needs to do to succeed. It seems like a daunting task. But do control decks make Top 8 nearly every single time at large tournaments?

I'd like add another element to this discussion, I think we've thoroughly discussed what Control needs to do in this meta. I want to know what makes Control successful at nearly every single tournament in the HT8 (Historical Top 8).

If Control has a litany of problems too numerous to list, why is it seeing modest success at large tournaments?

insertnamehere

06-05-2007, 10:18 PM

In my opinion control decks are made to go off within the first few turns. If they hit a speed bump they suffer. Her are some for instances:

> turn 2 choke shuts down most solidarity decks until they can find an answer if any

> add one black mana, dark ritual, engineered plague. goodbye goblins

> play Tormod's Crypt goodbye and deck relying on having a graveyard.

Control decks do not have answers to most jank decks because they focus too much on the combo at hand. In order for a control deck to win it has to either have a backup win condition or ways to stop the random cards to beat them.

This doesn't include aggro control decks though which sometimes can get around what beats them ...jank

Machinus

06-05-2007, 10:34 PM

I'm sure that those three cards, or even any number of the cards above, do not constitute "all the good control win conditions."

That depends on what game you think you're playing. If you think like a Standard or new Extended player, then maybe not. If you play Eternal formats, it is pretty clear that winning the game is better than jacking off to Life from the Loam or Accumulated Knowledge. In this game, the good control win conditions are banned because they give control a way to win the game with few cards and little mana, which is exactly the state they are in after answering all the amazing threats available in this card pool.

Without a finisher that meets the standards of Eternal card pools, control is going to always be at a disadvantage.

Tacosnape

06-05-2007, 10:46 PM

If Control has a litany of problems too numerous to list, why is it seeing modest success at large tournaments?

Two easy reasons.

1. It doesn't always face these problems.
2. Sometimes it can solve them.

Let's look at it like this.

Modern 4C Landstill (which doesn't run Engineered Explosives), on the draw and opponent on the play, needs a Force of Will to survive a turn one 10-token Empty the Warrens. Granted, it's hypothetically possible for Landstill to survive this with a combination of Swords and not having a Fetchland and dropping a Deed to sweep while at 1, but for all intents and purposes let's assume 10 turn one Goblins on the play kills 4C Landstill.

Therefore, the following is a list of ways Landstill can avoid losing to those scenarios.

1. It can not be playing a deck that runs Empty the Warrens. Some Landstill decks can do this for an entire tournament.
2. It can win the die roll, adding Stifle to that list of outs, as well as Brainstorm into Force, and as well as Pernicious Deed.
3. It can have the Force of Will.
4. The deck with Empty the Warrens can fail to produce 10 Goblin tokens on turn one, giving Landstill even more room to breathe.

So in order for that on-the-play turn one Empty the Warrens to kill a control deck like Landstill, it has to do the following:

1. Get matched up against Landstill.
2. Go first.
3. Manage to draw a hand that produces the Goblin tokens.
4. Have Landstill not have a Force of Will for the mana producing spells, or have so incredibly much mana it can go off through the Force.

AnwarA101

06-05-2007, 10:56 PM

But Control seems to thrive just fine in Legacy regardless of the gap. Could it be because of the extremely powerful, yet expensive cards? Stall the game long enough to resolve a Standstill, FoF, Echoes, WoG, Damnation?

While Control has access to many expensive yet powerful cards these cards rarely win the game for the control player. Often they delay the opponent from winning. Control also has access to many good draw spells, but you have to draw into something that wins you the game. It doesn't matter how many cards you draw, if none of them ever win you the game.

Here's a game I had with a Psychatog player that I found almost mind-boggling. I was playing Red Death. I had played a disruption spell or two and then I got a Shade down that was swing for massive amounts of damage. My opponent at the end of one of my turns played Intuition for 3 Accumulated Knowledges. The next turn involved him casting AK for 3 cards. The following turn I had him dead with a Lightning Bolt, he responded with AK for 4 , didn't find a counterspell and lost. I'm not saying every game will be like this, but isn't it suprising that my opponent drew at least 7 more cards than me in that game and still lost. I was shocked by the result and I realized that drawing cards is not in it of itself a way to win the game. You have to draw into something that actually wins you the game.

Citrus-God

06-05-2007, 11:27 PM

Here's a game I had with a Psychatog player that I found almost mind-boggling. I was playing Red Death. I had played a disruption spell or two and then I got a Shade down that was swing for massive amounts of damage. My opponent at the end of one of my turns played Intuition for 3 Accumulated Knowledges. The next turn involved him casting AK for 3 cards. The following turn I had him dead with a Lightning Bolt, he responded with AK for 4 , didn't find a counterspell and lost. I'm not saying every game will be like this, but isn't it suprising that my opponent drew at least 7 more cards than me in that game and still lost. I was shocked by the result and I realized that drawing cards is not in it of itself a way to win the game. You have to draw into something that actually wins you the game.

Reasons why Ringleader in Goblins works. It draws intro threats that work together so well, it can just Tutor for more draw, chain into more draw, and play tons of threats. Since this is a Goblin deck, they are threats when they work with each other and are in play.

I only see Control decks successful when they can sift gears quickly, and just win the game. Of course, I described Threshold and Fish, I mean a pure control deck with a decent kill condition that doesnt suck. BHWC Landstill is slow, but Monastery is now the reason why it's good (it's a threat, dominates the board, and uncounterable). Sadly, Goyf is printed....

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-06-2007, 01:09 AM

Here's what a control deck has to realistically be able to stop in Legacy:

1. Goblins, specifically Goblin Lackey on turn 1, Goblin Ringleader anytime, and AEther Vial

5. Threshold's cheap offensive options and minimal countermagic - classic Fish strategy

Others have already pointed out the fallacy with saying that a control deck has to be good against everything in order to do this. I'm now going to point out that a deck that can beat these two reliably already has good game against most of the field at any tournament, including variants on Threshold like Fish or Counterslivers.

Tacosnape

06-06-2007, 01:23 AM

Others have already pointed out the fallacy with saying that a control deck has to be good against everything in order to do this. I'm now going to point out that a deck that can beat these two reliably already has good game against most of the field at any tournament, including variants on Threshold like Fish or Counterslivers.

He's right. 2, 3, and 4 all cover combo decks that when combined will generally account for a small portion of the field.

Anarky87

06-06-2007, 01:56 AM

Yeah, I don't see the what's so absurd about control. Goblins plans to win by creatures. Threshold plans to win by creatures. Control decks have numerable answers to creatures, making that route to victory extremely difficult. If you're beating Goblins and Threshold with Deeds, Wraths, Explosives, etc, then you should be beating all other jank decks that are playing creatures.

I pretty much plowed through Day 1 of the GP with 4c Landstill. Point being that if the deck I was playing against was creature oriented, I was in a good position to win, whether they were playing Thresh/Fish or Goblins. Control has the right tools to handle just about everything. Combo might be a little trickier, but if they don't win right away (Solidarity aside), the chances for control get even better.

I think control is a fine choice right now in a meta of tempo aggro-control decks, Goblins, some combo, and jank. In fact, I have played nothing but Landstill since I got back from Ohio, and recently went 6-1 through a local tournament to win it with a 3 color Landstill deck. I honestly don't know where all this negativity is coming from. I think Control works just fine in Legacy. Getting people to actually understand that, that's what I think will be hard.

Mad Zur

06-06-2007, 02:24 AM

Others have already pointed out the fallacy with saying that a control deck has to be good against everything in order to do this. I'm now going to point out that a deck that can beat these two reliably already has good game against most of the field at any tournament, including variants on Threshold like Fish or Counterslivers.If by "most" you mean "about a third", you've got a point. Does any such deck actually exist?

Alfred

06-06-2007, 02:42 AM

If by "most" you mean "about a third", you've got a point. Does any such deck actually exist?

Rifter?

Tacosnape

06-06-2007, 03:02 AM

Rifter's Threshold match was always questionable. I think back when I ran Rifter that I won more than I lost, but not by much. And I wasn't exactly playing masters at Threshold either.

IBA's comments have actually made me decide to post a deck I swore I'd never post. So I'll be posting a control deck in a few days that has exactly that; A favored Goblins, Threshold, and Fish matchup. And it rolls Empty the Warrens and doesn't even auto-lose to combo. It usually kills between turns six and ten, which should be acceptable for you dedicated control deck people.

I've had it for years, and most people who have tested with me on Workstation know what it is, but I didn't really revisit it much until a certain sexy little card in Planar Chaos got printed. I just need to do some more testing first to make sure my recent changes aren't going to cause any major problems.

Citrus-God

06-06-2007, 09:36 AM

IBA's comments have actually made me decide to post a deck I swore I'd never post. So I'll be posting a control deck in a few days that has exactly that; A favored Goblins, Threshold, and Fish matchup. And it rolls Empty the Warrens and doesn't even auto-lose to combo. It usually kills between turns six and ten, which should be acceptable for you dedicated control deck people.

I built a deck like that.... a Tog deck swapping Togs for Fledgling Dragon. It kills around turn 7-8 if needed be against aggro decks. I guess you should be doing the same versus Combo as well.

Goblin Snowman

06-06-2007, 11:59 AM

Or just Angel Stax. I've been bashing Goblins and Threshold with that deck forever, and it happens to not die to ETW/Solidarity.

FoolofaTook

06-06-2007, 12:21 PM

So in order for that on-the-play turn one Empty the Warrens to kill a control deck like Landstill, it has to do the following:

1. Get matched up against Landstill.
2. Go first.
3. Manage to draw a hand that produces the Goblin tokens.
4. Have Landstill not have a Force of Will for the mana producing spells, or have so incredibly much mana it can go off through the Force.

Just pointing out that for a player actually playing Landstill your condition 1 means nothing because they've fulfilled it for the Empty the Warrens player.

I've now put together a couple of control decks from the old perspective (deny with counters early and get a fast permanent in play to handle at least creatures in play OR imminent combo) and it's safe to say that the old days are dead. As the grinning 11 year old with goblins showed me yesterday afternoon. :smile:

dre4m

06-06-2007, 02:00 PM

In this game, the good control win conditions are banned because they give control a way to win the game with few cards and little mana, which is exactly the state they are in after answering all the amazing threats available in this card pool.

I will be at little mana after answering threats for 10 turns, huh?
There are plenty of ways to win the game in legacy with 1 card, not necessarily even an expensive one. Loxodon Heiarch and Gigapede win games. So can a Demonfire, though it is expensive, and Honden of Infinate Rage, though it takes a while. Few cards I can understand, but not little mana, and there are plenty of single unbanned cards that can win the game, and many of the ones that can win it right then are considered suboptimal, like Demonfire, or don't really win the game flat-out, like Haunting Echoes.

Without a finisher that meets the standards of Eternal card pools, control is going to always be at a disadvantage.

I really want to know which finisher you're talking about that we're lacking, because it really seems like the only one that would meet your standards is Tinker => Colossus, which dies to Swords anyways.

In short, which good control win conditions did they ban?

Tacosnape

06-06-2007, 02:21 PM

Just pointing out that for a player actually playing Landstill your condition 1 means nothing because they've fulfilled it for the Empty the Warrens player.

I'm not sure I follow what you mean.

The point I was illustrating was simply that Landstill can't lose to a turn one Empty the Warrens without getting paired against a deck that has it, first. And even then there's hope.

Xero

06-06-2007, 02:47 PM

If by "most" you mean "about a third", you've got a point. Does any such deck actually exist?

Only a third of the meta-game is Goblins and agro-control? That seems like an underestimate to me, especially if you realize that a deck that can beat Goblins can beat other agro decks as well. Wombat does this pretty nicely.

emidln

06-06-2007, 02:51 PM

If by "most" you mean "about a third", you've got a point. Does any such deck actually exist?

AT1

Iranon

06-06-2007, 03:06 PM

dre4m

06-06-2007, 03:14 PM

It's quite possible to build a control deck that meets most of the requirements; from my testing the most efficient way is an Enlightened Tutor toolbox that includes both silver bullets and generally gamebreaking cards (Counterbalance, Scepter).

I definitely appreciate the variety of tutor targets at different mana costs - from Porphyry Nodes to have a far-reaching effect through rampant mana denial to Moat to stabilise from ridiculous board positions. The Counterbalance engine makes it very hard to wrest control from you again once you stabilise.

While I do like how the Mirage tutors and Counterbalance work together, I think that the inherant card disadvantage in this deck which must be able to play a double-blue card will make it good in theory but too slow on paper, especially if your opponent has a way to deal with the enchantments that you spent a spell and a turn to get.

Iranon

06-06-2007, 03:49 PM

It can burn its hand quickly, and often does. The deck features an immense amount of virtual card advantage though; relinquishing control is fairly rare even if an opposing control deck outdraws you 2-to-1... and against non-control decks you usually lock them out before the actual card disadvantage starts to take its toll.

Citrus-God

06-06-2007, 05:26 PM

Or just Angel Stax. I've been bashing Goblins and Threshold with that deck forever, and it happens to not die to ETW/Solidarity.

Angel Stax is a bomb in the metagame right now. I may build it again...

Adan

06-07-2007, 05:27 AM

Maverick676

06-07-2007, 05:52 AM

UR landstill has trouble with high tide decks though.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-07-2007, 05:55 AM

If by "most" you mean "about a third", you've got a point.

Not everyone plays at the Frog.

Does any such deck actually exist?

Landstill.

Maverick676

06-07-2007, 08:08 AM

Landstill is a fine deck that can answer almost anything, but the main problem I always have with it is it's tendency to go to time often. If you lose game one it can be a serious challenge to win two games in what time is left in the round.

Adan

06-07-2007, 08:58 AM

UR landstill has trouble with high tide decks though.

But actually i never lost against one because I was the first person that ran Chalice in the Sideboard. Red Elemental Blasts also help against Hightide Deck AND you got a fast clock with burn.

And I usually side in REB AND Chalice together, because he will try to bounce them, so REB will work again.

Tricky, isn't it?

Citrus-God

06-07-2007, 10:21 AM

But actually i never lost against one because I was the first person that ran Chalice in the Sideboard. Red Elemental Blasts also help against Hightide Deck AND you got a fast clock with burn.

And I usually side in REB AND Chalice together, because he will try to bounce them, so REB will work again.

Tricky, isn't it?

Tim's (Kimberly's) Ur Build with Chalice would be boss. Consistenty coming out on Turn 2 with free counters.

Cait_Sith

06-07-2007, 10:25 AM

And I usually side in REB AND Chalice together, because he will try to bounce them, so REB will work again.

Ahem "Lol Wipe Away." Okay, enough of that.

Landstill is probably one of the best control decks out there right now because it is the only one that can beat Goblins without suffering under combo. The fact that it is a decent archetype and can consistently put up numbers shows that Control decks do not suck in Legacy (ironically most Landstill builds share more with MUC than any other control deck)

emidln

06-07-2007, 11:08 AM

Ahem "Lol Wipe Away." Okay, enough of that.

Landstill is probably one of the best control decks out there right now because it is the only one that can beat Goblins without suffering under combo. The fact that it is a decent archetype and can consistently put up numbers shows that Control decks do not suck in Legacy (ironically most Landstill builds share more with MUC than any other control deck)

Not true. Stax builds featuring Wildfire or Aether Flash can have extremely positive Goblins matchups while still giving combo nightmares.

Adan

06-07-2007, 11:39 AM

Ahem "Lol Wipe Away." Okay, enough of that.

It better is, I'm trying not to freak out because of that.
But this "argument" is as bad as the other ones, which were:

- "UR Landstill variants suck, what you wrote is COMPLETE JANK" (I even remember the poster -.-)

and

- "UW landstill is better because it has StoP and Lightning Bolt sucks"

Anyways, if Chalice gets bounced, Stifle and REB will work fine again. And Wipe Away needs to be wished with Cunning Wish (which can be countered).

edit:

And there's also the possibility to include the Counterbalance engine into UR Landstill.

edit2:

UR Landstill matches the criterias because it's nearly the only controldeck which can change it's role into an aggro-control decks. It's the flexibility which burn provides. Depending on the matchups, burn provides fast and cheap removal or can be a pain in the ass for every controldeck or combo as it accelerates your clock to race them.

Mad Zur

06-07-2007, 01:38 PM

Not everyone plays at the Frog.
. D4D 2 DLD 2 D4D 3A D4D 3B DLD 3 TML 1 D4D 4A D4D 4B TML 2A TML 2B DLD 4 2006 2007 Average
Vial Goblins 19.40% 10.34% 18.67% 12.50% 10.53% 11.69% 16.67% 20.00% 16.67% 13.46% 17.86% 14.97% 16.00% 15.25%
Threshold 11.94% 12.07% 12.00% 07.81% 14.04% 11.69% 11.11% 10.91% 05.00% 09.62% 14.29% 11.45% 09.63% 10.95%
Fish 01.49% 00.00% 01.33% 00.00% 00.00% 03.90% 02.78% 05.45% 05.00% 05.77% 00.00% 01.87% 03.59% 02.34%
Faerie Stompy 00.00% 01.72% 00.00% 01.56% 00.00% 03.90% 02.78% 01.82% 01.67% 01.92% 00.00% 01.47% 01.20% 01.40%
UG Madness 00.00% 00.00% 00.00% 00.00% 00.00% 05.19% 02.78% 01.82% 03.33% 00.00% 00.00% 01.22% 01.11% 01.19%
Gro 00.00% 00.00% 00.00% 00.00% 00.00% 00.00% 01.39% 03.64% 03.33% 03.85% 00.00% 00.63% 02.39% 01.11%
Blue Skies 00.00% 00.00% 00.00% 00.00% 01.75% 00.00% 00.00% 00.00% 00.00% 00.00% 01.79% 00.22% 00.60% 00.32%

Total 32.84% 24.14% 32.00% 21.88% 26.32% 36.36% 37.50% 43.64% 35.00% 34.62% 33.93% 31.83% 34.51% 32.56%So where exactly did you get your estimate?

Tacosnape

06-07-2007, 01:45 PM

Not true. Stax builds featuring Wildfire or Aether Flash can have extremely positive Goblins matchups while still giving combo nightmares.

Stax just beats itself like once every four games, kind of like me if all my opponents were Emma Watson. Which is why very few venture to play it.

BreathWeapon

06-07-2007, 02:30 PM

Not true. Stax builds featuring Wildfire or Aether Flash can have extremely positive Goblins matchups while still giving combo nightmares.

I agree, I've also scene Scepter in 1.5 and it has a positive match up against Goblins, Aggro-Control and Combo for the most part. I'm not certain Scepter qualifies as control with so much spot removal, cantrips, Jotun Grunt, Meddling Mage and Mishra's Factory, but it's certainly strong right now in our environment. I also think Intuition/Loam Control with Solitary Confinement has the highest game one win percentages of any deck I have ever seen in this format short of combo.

I think control being at a disadvantage is a myth, Goblins and combo are affected by nearly the same set of hate cards in control's MD and SB; spot removal for Xantid Swarm, sweepers for Empty the Warrens and Stifle for activated and triggered abilities etc. You also get to have an edge on aggro-control by virtue of being more controlling, and Chalice of the Void affects them just as much as it affects combo.

I prefer using Condescend, Daze and Merchant Scroll over the crap that it is Counterspell, but as a whole, I feel that control is one of the most resilient strategies in the format right now.

Cait_Sith

06-07-2007, 09:26 PM

Not true. Stax builds featuring Wildfire or Aether Flash can have extremely positive Goblins matchups while still giving combo nightmares.

The self same decks can also have absolutely crap Goblins matchups. They too often rely on an extremely specific hand to do anything and can roll to Wasteland or Port.

Even then, I said one of. For my statement to be untrue you have to show Landstill is a bad control deck. Good luck.

@ BW: The only good Scepter decks, like the only good Counterbalance decks, are aggro-control. People will eventually mess you up anyway with either of those cards in play, but they buy enough time for an efficient creature suite to break through.

Also, while Warrens has made certain anti-combo measures extant (like Pyroclasm) 'Clasm is the only one that really stands a chance. 8-10 1/1s turn one or two are hard to stop before death occurs.

Also, you seem to be sticking mostly to Black and Blue. Okay, so what does White based, Green based, and Red based control do? Roll, like they always did?

Loaming Confinement is pretty bad and is forced to win game one because games two and three are almost always auto losses.

emidln

06-08-2007, 02:33 AM

The self same decks can also have absolutely crap Goblins matchups. They too often rely on an extremely specific hand to do anything and can roll to Wasteland or Port.

All red stax variants that I've come across (and they've been rather limited as access to the extremely important Rolling Earthquake is limited) run 4-7 2-3cc board sweepers in Rolling Earthquake/Pyroclasm/Earthquake/Rough//Tumble as well as the Aether Flash or Wildfire. Additionally, such decks employ these fabled lands called basic mountain, fetches, and moxen, allowing them to easily cast said cards. Since I added Aether Flash to AT1, I've yet to see a red stax list (to my knowledge, there are Wildfire Stax lists and Sun Tower/AT1 lists floating around) with a bad goblins matchup.

Tacosnape

06-08-2007, 02:44 AM

It's still a bad deck.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-08-2007, 03:14 AM

So where exactly did you get your estimate?

Here (http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=leg&start_date=2006-06-25&end_date=2007-06-10&event_type=DFD&start_num=25&limit=25).

You failed to include decks like Red Death, White Weenie, Angel Stompy, RGBSA Survival, Deadguy Ale, Counterslivers, Dredge-a-Tog, 9-land Stompy, RG Dryad-Sligh, Affinity, and... ummm... Aggro Rock and Pirates, apparently.

Aggro control is the strategy of choice for Legacy players, for whatever reason. An appreciable majority of the decks actually played are dorks trying to go lethal in bunches with some control elements, or dorks just trying to go lethal (Raffinity and Stompy). There are very few decks against which cards like StP and Wrath of God are actually dead. Hell, Wrath and Deed aren't even dead against combo these days.

Adan

06-08-2007, 04:50 AM

Tim's (Kimberly's) Ur Build with Chalice would be boss. Consistenty coming out on Turn 2 with free counters.

Not exactley his build since it's a littlebit outdated (he ended up in fron of his computer, playing World of Warcraft, abandoning Magic).

But if you mean his build with Slice and Dice, yes. I play engineeres Explosives over Slice and Dice because I use TfK as a fast draw.

Maybe I'll open up a new thread since the old ones got spammed everytime I tried to discuss about it.

Mad Zur

06-08-2007, 12:07 PM

Here (http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=leg&start_date=2006-06-25&end_date=2007-06-10&event_type=DFD&start_num=25&limit=25).

You failed to include decks like Red Death, White Weenie, Angel Stompy, RGBSA Survival, Deadguy Ale, Counterslivers, Dredge-a-Tog, 9-land Stompy, RG Dryad-Sligh, Affinity, and... ummm... Aggro Rock and Pirates, apparently.
I "failed" to include decks that your statement didn't cover at all.

Here's what a control deck has to realistically be able to stop in Legacy:

1. Goblins, specifically Goblin Lackey on turn 1, Goblin Ringleader anytime, and AEther Vial

5. Threshold's cheap offensive options and minimal countermagic - classic Fish strategy
Others have already pointed out the fallacy with saying that a control deck has to be good against everything in order to do this. I'm now going to point out that a deck that can beat these two reliably already has good game against most of the field at any tournament, including variants on Threshold like Fish or Counterslivers.
So is RGSA Goblins, Threshold, or a Threshold variant? How about 9-land Stompy? Red Death? (You are correct, however, that I missed the one-of Slivers, because I only have data for decks that have either made a top eight anywhere or been played in significant numbers. Fortunately, that would barely affect the percentages.)

Aggro control is the strategy of choice for Legacy players, for whatever reason. An appreciable majority of the decks actually played are dorks trying to go lethal in bunches with some control elements, or dorks just trying to go lethal (Raffinity and Stompy). There are very few decks against which cards like StP and Wrath of God are actually dead. Hell, Wrath and Deed aren't even dead against combo these days.
Do you actually think that a good matchup against Goblins and Threshold implies a good matchup against anything with creatures in it?

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-08-2007, 12:31 PM

dre4m

06-08-2007, 12:34 PM

The discussion is about whether or not control is good. It has been proposed that control is not good because there is too wide a variety of decks right now, with too many threats, for a control deck to know what to answer. This is wrong. The largest majority of decks all rely heavily upon a creature base that can be picked apart with the same cards you use against Goblins and Threshold. This leaves only other control decks, LftL, some combo, and burn to worry about.

Assuming that this is true, which I believe it is, control can play adequate countermeasures against other control, such as Haunting Echoes or other cards to disable its win conditions, and build an exclusive anti-combo sideboard. Burn, however, is a totally different story that I am still at a loss to solve outside of ROP: Red.

Mad Zur

06-08-2007, 12:44 PM

The discussion is about whether or not control is good. It has been proposed that control is not good because there is too wide a variety of decks right now, with too many threats, for a control deck to know what to answer. This is wrong. The largest majority of decks all rely heavily upon a creature base that can be picked apart with the same cards you use against Goblins and Threshold. This leaves only other control decks, LftL, some combo, and burn to worry about.That is not what you originally said. You said that a good matchup against those two decks is a good matchup against most of the field. That is false. A favorable matchup against one deck with creatures in it does not imply a favorable matchup against other decks with creatures in it. For example, you say that Landstill is favored against Goblins and Threshold. That does not mean it is favored against Red Death.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-08-2007, 12:55 PM

This is what I originally said:

I dunno. Most of Legacy can be divvied up into Goblins, decks running lots of cheap mana and Empty the Warrens, aggro-control decks with weak creatures, a few of the latter with Chalice of the Void and shitty manabases, and decks that break Dredge (LftL, Ichorid). Creature removal hits most of those decks pretty hard, and a lot of the others are fairly easy to hose with cards like Leyline of the Void or Chalice of the Void (anything with Void in it. Except Void, of course).

Then I said that a control deck having a good matchup against Goblins and Threshold already has a good matchup against most of the field, including Threshold variants. I should specify that that means any aggro-control deck.

Whether or not Red Death is a good matchup depends largely on the build in question.

Mad Zur

06-08-2007, 01:48 PM

I will grant you that a good Threshold matchup implies good matchups against similar decks like Fish and Slivers, but I don't think it's reasonable to consider any vaguely controlling deck with creatures part of the same category. RGSA is not a Threshold variant.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-08-2007, 01:57 PM

jamest

06-08-2007, 02:00 PM

dre4m

06-08-2007, 02:07 PM

RGBSA is not, no. Recursion elements make it quite a different creature. However, if I beat Threshold, I'm usually pretty comfortable against decks like Angel Stompy and Deadguy Ale, and against decks like Zoo, R/G Sligh, Red Death, I'll be inclined to feel at least slightly favored, if a bit more worried about being burned out.

I really don't know about a positive Threshold matchup indicating a solid Deadguy matchup... Arn't these decks very different? LD and hand disruption make Deadguy a very different deck.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-08-2007, 02:43 PM

Deadguy is mostly a strictly worse Threshold, in that their counterspells are sorcery speed and thus dead off the top, and their creatures are much weaker. The LD elements could be sometimes scary, if they actually had the speed to capitalize on it.

Here's a Landstill list that beats Goblins:

6 Island
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Plains
4 Tundra
1 Maze of Ith

2 Eternal Dragon
3 Decree of Justice

2 Akroma's Vengeance
3 Wrath of God
1 Condemn
4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Standstill
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
3 Stifle
4 Force of Will
2 Fact or Fiction

Anarky87

06-08-2007, 02:48 PM

People are claiming that Landstill beats Goblins. In my own testing, this hasn't been the case. I'm interested in seeing a Landstill decklist with a positive Goblin matchup (without being GoblinHate.dec). IBA?

I beat Goblins 3 out of the 4 times I played against it at the GP with 4c Landstill that had an atrocious manabase. Since then I've been playing a UWb list that also has a pretty good game against Goblins pre and post board, as does Taco's list. All of those lists are in the Landstill thread, so if you want lists, I'd go there.

Mad Zur

06-08-2007, 02:49 PM

RGBSA is not, no. Recursion elements make it quite a different creature. However, if I beat Threshold, I'm usually pretty comfortable against decks like Angel Stompy and Deadguy Ale, and against decks like Zoo, R/G Sligh, Red Death, I'll be inclined to feel at least slightly favored, if a bit more worried about being burned out.I don't think you'd be justified in making those assumptions. Do you know of any decks that are favored in all those matchups?

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-08-2007, 03:02 PM

I'd feel comfortable saying that both UW Landstill and Truffle Shuffle (aka, Glittering Beach Dirt) were favored against all the decks in question. Excepting possibly R/G Sligh and Red Death, depending on the build of Landstill.

Guy I Don't Know

06-08-2007, 03:12 PM

The best control decks right now are discard... not counterspells... they are too slow and dont rlly do anything...

Mad Zur

06-08-2007, 03:16 PM

Okay. Here are the relevant numbers (Zoo includes pretty much any multicolored aggro):

. D4D 2 DLD 2 D4D 3A D4D 3B DLD 3 TML 1* D4D 4A D4D 4B TML 2A TML 2B DLD 4 Average 2006 2007
Deadguy Ale 7.46% 5.17% 9.33% 7.81% 5.26% 2.60% 2.78% 5.45% 0.00% 1.92% 1.79% 4.51% 5.73% 1.24%
Angel Stompy 5.97% 5.17% 2.67% 4.69% 3.51% 2.60% 2.78% 3.64% 3.33% 3.85% 0.00% 3.47% 3.88% 2.39%
Zoo 1.49% 5.17% 0.00% 1.56% 3.51% 2.60% 1.39% 0.00% 1.67% 3.85% 8.93% 2.74% 1.97% 4.81%
Red Death 0.00% 0.00% 1.33% 4.69% 1.75% 1.30% 2.78% 1.82% 3.33% 3.85% 3.57% 2.22% 1.71% 3.58%
Still under half, but more than a third. I'm not going to argue with you about Deadguy and Angel Stompy, but I'll bet fans of those decks, particularly the former, would disagree with you.

Anarky87

06-08-2007, 03:17 PM

The best control decks right now are discard... not counterspells... they are too slow and dont rlly do anything...

That's not entirely accurate. Unless backed by Confidant, discard/disruption based decks (Deadguy and Red Death) run out of steam and require heavily on their creatures to pull them through before the opponent recovers. If that doesn't happen, control can recover through their card advantage and blow discard out of the game.

Machinus

06-08-2007, 05:07 PM

There are plenty of Landstill decks that beat Goblins. They just suck at winning Legacy tournaments.

And that's the whole point. It doesn't matter if you can beat Goblins in testing. It matters if you can even make it to the top 8 in the first place to have the privelege of losing to it.

URABAHN

06-08-2007, 05:44 PM

I don't think you'd be justified in making those assumptions. Do you know of any decks that are favored in all those matchups?

What in the hell are you and IBA arguing about? Mad Zur, do you have anything to add about the perception of Control decks in Legacy sucking OR why, against all odds, they're winning?

There are plenty of Landstill decks that beat Goblins. They just suck at winning Legacy tournaments.

And that's the whole point. It doesn't matter if you can beat Goblins in testing. It matters if you can even make it to the top 8 in the first place to have the privelege of losing to it.

Are you suggesting that Control decks in Legacy aren't any good because they don't make 1st Place?

Mad Zur

06-08-2007, 06:21 PM

What in the hell are you and IBA arguing about? Mad Zur, do you have anything to add about the perception of Control decks in Legacy sucking OR why, against all odds, they're winning?Yes. Metagaming against a small number of decks is a poor strategy in Legacy, because it will usually leave you unprepared against a majority of the field. The best control decks right now are aggro-control and combo-control, because they have a strong plan even when up against something they aren't specifically prepared for. Landstill is probably the best out of all the pure control decks because it has counterspells to answer almost anything.

On the subject of winning against all odds, it may be interesting to note that only one control deck has placed in the finals of an American Legacy tournament, and none have ever won.

Tacosnape

06-09-2007, 04:41 AM

On the subject of winning against all odds, it may be interesting to note that only one control deck has placed in the finals of an American Legacy tournament, and none have ever won.

In the finals, perhaps, but this is interesting to analyze.

Let's glance at top eights for just a second.

Big Arse 2
3. UWR Landstilll
7. UW Landstill

2005 Legacy Championship
3. UW Landstill
5. UR Landstill
6. UW Landstill

StarCityGames Duel for Duals I
7. Rabid Wombat

Grand Prix Philadelphia
3. Rifter

StarCityGames Duel for Duals II
3. Rifter
7. GW Enchantress (Can you call this control?)

Kadilak's Dual Land Draft
6. Train Wreck
8. Rifter

StarCityGames Duel for Duals III
7. Dredge-a-Tog

2006 Legacy Championship
4. UWBG Landstill (Possibly negated, if this was Trudeau)

StarCityGames Duel for Duals IV
8. UWBG Landstill (Likewise)

StarCityGames Duel for Duals IV
6. 43 Land (Again, if this can be called Control)

Second Annual Running GAGG Legacy Tournament
2. Enchantress
7. UB Landstill

The Mana Leak Open 2
2. UBG Psychatog
6. Enchantress

The Mana Leak Open 2
3. Enchantress

Kadilak's Dual Land Draft III
3. UWB Landstill
8. 43 Land

What we show here is a trend of several strong finishes in the early stages of Legacy only for control to kind of drift apart in the later stages. The closest thing to control decks that repeatedly top 8 in recent times are 43 Land and Enchantress, most of which were by the same people.

So it's easy to draw the conclusion that control sucks in Legacy because it doesn't top eight and doesn't win.

However, this might not necessarily be correct. Control might fail to top eight and win because it's percieved as being weak. Rifter, for crying out loud, made top four in a Grand Prix. Nothing happened to make Rifter cease to exist short of a few people learning to play against it better. What happened to Rifter was that everyone quit piloting it because on paper, it couldn't compete in Legacy. Yet it clearly posted numbers to defy this perception at some point or another. 43 Land and Enchantress are supposed to lose to combo also, but they make top eight.

Yet the number of people piloting these three decks at major tournaments is astronomically low.

So maybe, just maybe, control decks don't win tournaments because people don't play them. Therefore, because people don't play them, other people assume they aren't played for a reason: namely, because they're not viable. Which in turn makes more people not play them.

I'm willing to bet quite a lot that Landstill has a far higher ratio of top 8 appearances per tournament appearances than Goblins or Threshold does. I wouldn't be surprised at all if 43 Land, Enchantress, and Rifter all fell under this category as well. I'd love to see some numbers on this.

AnwarA101

06-09-2007, 11:17 AM

Yet the number of people piloting these three decks at major tournaments is astronomically low.

So maybe, just maybe, control decks don't win tournaments because people don't play them. Therefore, because people don't play them, other people assume they aren't played for a reason: namely, because they're not viable. Which in turn makes more people not play them.

I'm willing to bet quite a lot that Landstill has a far higher ratio of top 8 appearances per tournament appearances than Goblins or Threshold does. I wouldn't be surprised at all if 43 Land, Enchantress, and Rifter all fell under this category as well. I'd love to see some numbers on this.

The number of people playing Enchantress, Aluren, Red Death, CRET Belcher, and TES are pretty low in most tournaments as well. This has not prevented those players from doing very well. I suspect the reason is that those decks are good in Legacy and that is why they are doing well. I don't doubt the ability of the players either, but you still need a good deck to work with. We are sometimes talking about 1-2 players in any given tournament and those decks are putting people into Top8. I don't know if Control decks are played that infrequently, but if they are their success would still be modest compared to these decks.

Xero

06-09-2007, 02:07 PM

The number of people playing Enchantress, Aluren, Red Death, CRET Belcher, and TES are pretty low in most tournaments as well.

Enchantress is a control deck. It locks down the game until it resolves a win condition, so I'm not sure what else you could classify it as.

AnwarA101

06-09-2007, 02:27 PM

Enchantress is a control deck. It locks down the game until it resolves a win condition, so I'm not sure what else you could classify it as.

If Enchantress is a control deck then sure control is doing okay. But I think to some degree the deck has a combo element as it needs to resolve a Enchantress to really have a good game against most decks. I'm not exactly sure what Enchantress is, but if its control maybe people should try building more control decks like it.

MattH

06-09-2007, 04:16 PM

Zilla

06-10-2007, 01:54 AM

I hear "deck XXX is rarely played" tossed around soooo often, it makes me ask: what ARE people playing, then? Goblins is almost literally the only deck I have NOT heard this about.

You'd think every 50-man tournament was 10 goblin players and 40 single-pilot decks.
While that's a gross overexaggeration, it's not that far from the truth. Goblins and Threshold are the only decks constituting a larger than 10% portion of most metagames. Even other decks which are considered popular (such as Landstill and Fish) rarely break 5%. And often, the decks which do comprise more than 5% of the metagame are really just disparate decklists lumped into a single archetype for convenience (e.g., Survival and Loam).

The bottom line is that outside of Goblins and Thresh, no single deck gets played very often. Legacy as a format is really defined by its almost total lack of definition. This will likely change if combo continues to become more and more popular.

To be fair though, the statement you're refuting wasn't "XXX deck is rarely played", it was "XXX archetype is rarely played". When referring to an entire class of deck, I'm not sure that the "it doesn't do well because it doesn't get played" argument is unsound.

MattH

06-10-2007, 11:08 AM

To be fair though, the statement you're refuting wasn't "XXX deck is rarely played", it was "XXX archetype is rarely played". When referring to an entire class of deck, I'm not sure that the "it doesn't do well because it doesn't get played" argument is unsound.
I wouldn't say I was refuting it. It was just a side comment I found perplexing. Thanks for the answer.

Mad Zur

06-10-2007, 07:01 PM

So maybe, just maybe, control decks don't win tournaments because people don't play them. Therefore, because people don't play them, other people assume they aren't played for a reason: namely, because they're not viable. Which in turn makes more people not play them.

I'm willing to bet quite a lot that Landstill has a far higher ratio of top 8 appearances per tournament appearances than Goblins or Threshold does. I wouldn't be surprised at all if 43 Land, Enchantress, and Rifter all fell under this category as well. I'd love to see some numbers on this.
I happen to have those numbers. For now, I'll just look at the control decks, not Goblins or Threshold. First, though, I'd like to point out that Enchantress is almost certainly a combo deck. It's vulnerable to the same disruption as combo decks, it has matchups that one would expect from a combo deck, and it's based on abusing combinations of powerful spells to end the game quickly (compared to a control deck). Its general plan is to find a specific card, draw cards, establish a Confinement lock, draw more cards, and deal 20 damage in one turn, usually ending the game by turn 5-8 if not disrupted.

Again, I'll be looking at American tournaments only, because I haven't organized all the Iserlohn data yet. Control does much better and seems to be much more popular in Germany. Also note that there are some control decks not listed here. I only keep track of decks that have made top eight at least once, so the occasional Scepter Chant or something similar will get put in the "Other" category. I don't have Landstill broken up by color, because I don't think we have enough data for precise distinctions to be meaningful. There is a lot of variation within some of these decks, most notably Loam Control, but we don't always have enough information to draw finer lines. One could argue that the distinction between 43 Land and Loam Control is not terribly relevant.

To start with, this is the popularity of control decks in the eleven tournaments I have field breakdowns for (though I only have the top 77 decks from The Mana Leak Open 1). The first eight are from 2006, the last three are from 2007 (so we have very little data from 2007).

. D4D 2 DLD 2 D4D 3A D4D 3B DLD 3 TML 1* D4D 4A D4D 4B TML 2A TML 2B DLD 4 2006 2007 Average
Landstill 2.99% 1.72% 0.00% 1.56% 1.75% 2.60% 2.78% 3.64% 8.33% 7.69% 10.71% 2.13% 8.91% 3.98%
Psychatog 0.00% 0.00% 1.33% 0.00% 5.26% 2.60% 1.39% 0.00% 1.67% 5.77% 1.79% 1.32% 3.07% 1.80%
Rifter 1.49% 6.90% 2.67% 3.13% 1.75% 0.00% 1.39% 1.82% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 2.39% 0.00% 1.74%
Loam Control 2.99% 3.45% 1.33% 0.00% 3.51% 0.00% 0.00% 1.82% 0.00% 0.00% 3.57% 1.64% 1.19% 1.52%
Train Wreck 0.00% 1.72% 1.33% 1.56% 5.26% 1.30% 0.00% 0.00% 1.67% 1.92% 1.79% 1.40% 1.79% 1.51%
Truffle Shuffle 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.56% 3.51% 3.90% 1.39% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.29% 0.00% 0.94%
Rabid Wombat 4.48% 1.72% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.67% 1.92% 0.00% 0.78% 1.20% 0.89%
43 Land 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.30% 1.39% 1.82% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.56% 0.00% 0.41%
BBS 0.00% 0.00% 1.33% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 2.78% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.51% 0.00% 0.37%

Total 11.94% 15.52% 8.00% 7.81% 21.05% 11.69% 11.11% 9.09% 13.33% 17.31% 17.86% 12.03% 16.17% 13.16%
There are multiple ways to compare this to top eight finishes. First, we'll look at performance in those same eleven tournaments:

. D4D 2 DLD 2 D4D 3A D4D 3B DLD 3 TML 1* D4D 4A D4D 4B TML 2A TML 2B DLD 4 2006 2007 Average
Landstill 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 12.50% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 12.50% 1.56% 4.17% 2.27%
Psychatog 0.00% 0.00% 12.50% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 12.50% 0.00% 0.00% 1.56% 4.17% 2.27%
Rifter 12.50% 12.50% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 3.13% 0.00% 2.27%
Loam Control 12.50% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.56% 0.00% 1.14%
Train Wreck 0.00% 12.50% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.56% 0.00% 1.14%
Truffle Shuffle 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
Rabid Wombat 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
43 Land 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 12.50% 0.00% 0.00% 12.50% 1.56% 4.17% 2.27%
BBS 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 12.50% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.56% 0.00% 1.14%

Total 25.00% 25.00% 12.50% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 25.00% 12.50% 12.50% 0.00% 25.00% 12.50% 12.50% 12.50%
This may not be meaningful, however, because of the small amount of data. Alternatively, we can assume the field breakdowns are representative of the format and look at all the top eights we have (all from the Historical Top 8 thread). Note that these breakdowns start in early 2006, so top eights from before that may not be relevant. Here we have the totals by year, the complete totals, and the totals from 2006-2007, the period for which we have field breakdowns.

. 2005 2006 2007 Total 2006-2007
Landstill 12.50% 2.78% 6.25% 6.58% 3.85%
Psychatog 0.00% 1.39% 3.13% 1.32% 1.92%
Rifter 4.17% 2.78% 0.00% 2.63% 1.92%
Loam Control 0.00% 1.39% 0.00% 0.66% 0.96%
Train Wreck 0.00% 1.39% 0.00% 0.66% 0.96%
Truffle Shuffle 0.00% 1.39% 0.00% 0.66% 0.96%
Rabid Wombat 2.08% 0.00% 0.00% 0.66% 0.00%
43 Land 0.00% 1.39% 3.13% 1.32% 1.92%
BBS 0.00% 1.39% 0.00% 0.66% 0.96%

Total 18.75% 13.89% 12.50% 15.13% 13.46%

So in regards to Landstill:
-In 2006, it was 2.13% of the field in those eight tournaments, 1.56% of the T8s in those tournaments, and 2.78% of the T8s overall.
-In 2007, it was 8.91% of the field in those three tournaments, 4.17% of the T8s in those tournaments, and 6.25% of the T8s overall.
-Over the full eleven tournaments, it was 3.98% of the field and 2.27% of T8s.
-Over all tournaments within that time, it was 3.85% of T8s.
-Over all tournaments, it has been 6.58% of T8s.

We are working with small numbers and limited data, so I don't think we can draw many conclusions from this. Landstill was considered a big (if not the best) deck for much of Legacy's early history, and while we don't have the numbers, it was probably significantly more popular, which helps account for its better showing in 2005.

I can get those other numbers for you later, but I'm not sure which method of comparison is best. If you want to compare Landstill's field presence in those eleven tournaments to its total T8s, it will probably have a better ratio than Goblins. If you exclude '05, I'm pretty sure you'd lose your bet.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-10-2007, 07:11 PM

However, unlike decks like Goblins and Threshold, that are mostly optimized and running on the same list, lists for Landstill are wildly disparate, with development generally occuring in private teams. Part of this is, I think, due to a popular belief that amounts to a meme repeated enough by trolls on other Legacy forums that Landstill is simply terrible, a dreck deck, so there's a sense of either embarrassment or apathy about the public persona of the deck, which is already terrible.

I will point out that of the past three Legacy tournaments to push over the 200 man mark, being GenCon'06, Lille, and Philly, Landstill top 8'd at two of these, and Solidarity top 8'd at none (David Gearhart's tiebreakers= Solidarity between franktwo times worse than Landstill).

If Enchantress is a control deck then sure control is doing okay. But I think to some degree the deck has a combo element as it needs to resolve a Enchantress to really have a good game against most decks. I'm not exactly sure what Enchantress is, but if its control maybe people should try building more control decks like it.

It's control with a somewhat unreliable draw engine, although it has a lot of resiliency if it sticks one. The thing about control that people still don't seem to understand in Legacy is that it takes many forms beyond Landstill and occasionally the Rock. Most Life from the Loam decks are built as control decks, for instance.

Xero

06-10-2007, 09:34 PM

First, though, I'd like to point out that Enchantress is almost certainly a combo deck.

Yep. When I think "combo," Moat and Ghostly Prison immediately spring to mind.

it has matchups that one would expect from a combo deck

Combo decks have good matchups against Fish and Thresh?

and it's based on abusing combinations of powerful spells to end the game quickly (compared to a control deck). Its general plan is to find a specific card, draw cards, establish a Confinement lock, draw more cards, and deal 20 damage in one turn, usually ending the game by turn 5-8 if not disrupted.

First off, Enchantress almost never wins in one turn. You'd need 42 mana to win with Sacred Mesa in one turn, and nearly as much for Words of War, considering you have to play more enchantments for it to work. Furthermore, your argument can be used for other control decks. Loam decks find specific cards (Loam, Seismic Assault), draw cards (cycle lands), and deal lots of damage over a few turns (Assault). Loam-control decks often can end the game on about the same turn as Enchantress can. Does that make them Combo decks too? Both Enchantress and Loam decks have elements of combo, but they are foremost control decks.

outsideangel

06-10-2007, 10:23 PM

First off, Enchantress almost never wins in one turn. You'd need 42 mana to win with Sacred Mesa in one turn, and nearly as much for Words of War, considering you have to play more enchantments for it to work. Furthermore, your argument can be used for other control decks. Loam decks find specific cards (Loam, Seismic Assault), draw cards (cycle lands), and deal lots of damage over a few turns (Assault). Loam-control decks often can end the game on about the same turn as Enchantress can. Does that make them Combo decks too? Both Enchantress and Loam decks have elements of combo, but they are foremost control decks.

Everytime I can ever remember losing to Enchantress, it's been on one turn. Sometimes it's they turn they drop Confinement with the means to keep it up (Wish for Squee) but usually it's the turn they draw 20 cards and bounce everything I have in play.

SpatulaOfTheAges

06-11-2007, 12:15 AM

Words of War requires 12 mana to win in one turn.

I don't think traditional arche-types fit Enchantress. Mentally, I group it with Life from the Loam and Survival as "engine decks", that revolve around exploiting a specific card(s) for card advantage and as a practical kill condition. It's kind of complicated, if anyone cares to get into it.

Xero

06-11-2007, 01:47 AM

Everytime I can ever remember losing to Enchantress, it's been on one turn. Sometimes it's they turn they drop Confinement with the means to keep it up (Wish for Squee) but usually it's the turn they draw 20 cards and bounce everything I have in play.

You were playing against the U splash version, while I was talking about R-splash, which has been the more successful of the two. Also, you don't actually loose in the above scenarios. You're just very sad.

Words of War requires 12 mana to win in one turn.

That's not including the mana needed to cast more enchantments in order to activate WoW. Its certainly possible for Enchantress to win in one turn, but it's been my experience that the win is stretched between 2-3 turns.

For the purposes of this thread, I think Enchantress can be classified as a control deck. It has the same sort of creature halting and card advantage aspects that more traditional control decks do.

outsideangel

06-11-2007, 03:31 AM

You were playing against the U splash version, while I was talking about R-splash, which has been the more successful of the two. Also, you don't actually loose in the above scenarios. You're just very sad.

Depending on what you're playing, you actually do lose then. If your deck can't answer Confinement (many can't, game 1) and they drop a Confinement and Living Wish for Squee, you just lost. Maybe you haven't technically lost yet, but you still lost.

And anyway, what control cards does Enchantress play? It can't really affect anything on the other side of the board or stack, so I don't think calling it a control deck is fair. Maybe prison?

SpatulaOfTheAges

06-11-2007, 08:01 AM

Also, you don't actually loose in the above scenarios. You're just very sad.

Against aggro you need to have the mindset that you're the beat-down, but instead of fatties or lots of creatures, you beat down with Confinement and Grass and Prison and Moat. So against a lot of decks, Confinement really is your kill condition.

That's not including the mana needed to cast more enchantments in order to activate WoW. Its certainly possible for Enchantress to win in one turn, but it's been my experience that the win is stretched between 2-3 turns.

10 mana to activate WoWar for 20 damage + 2 mana for 2x 1 mana enchantments.

For the purposes of this thread, I think Enchantress can be classified as a control deck. It has the same sort of creature halting and card advantage aspects that more traditional control decks do.

I don't think it's the same thing. Control decks play control early to stall to the late game, where they finally pursue their own plan. Enchantress goes after its own plan from the beginning, and it tries to win in the mid-game.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-11-2007, 08:45 AM

Against aggro you need to have the mindset that you're the beat-down, but instead of fatties or lots of creatures, you beat down with Confinement and Grass and Prison and Moat. So against a lot of decks, Confinement really is your kill condition.

So, instead of trying to get threats down fast, you try to get answers down fast? Yeah, how is that not control?

Bahamuth

06-11-2007, 09:29 AM

Enchantress is a control deck with a really good draw engine. I think the deck also contains elements of lockdown (maybe that's a form of control?). It's kinda like stax, but with fewer lock pieces and more draw. Also both deck try to accelerate to get down their lock as soon as possible. Stax does that with land that gives 2 mana and moxes, Enchantress does that with dropping more lands and enchanting them.

Happy Gilmore

06-11-2007, 11:48 AM

I was looking over the thresh threads and it occured to me why dedicated control decks are inefficient in legacy. Control decks are centered around the idea that in every matchup there is a control deck and an agro (or agressive) deck. But in legacy there are a number of matchups that require them to be both. And in this regard Control decks have trouble multi-tasking, primarily because they are extremely reliant on their mana base.

This is what I propose dedicated control needs in order to compete effectively:

1. A threat that does not put a strain on the mana base
2. A card advantage Engine
3. Relavent answers in a variety of matchups

We see landstill more than other control decks because the threats and draw engine work together. But landstill needs an incredibly large amount of mana to be efficient as a control and agro deck at the same time. Thresh and Goblins are the two best decks in the format because they can effectively juggle both roles. I would go so far as to clasify both decks as agro control, and the most effective control decks in legacy.

dre4m

06-11-2007, 12:21 PM

Thresh and Goblins are the two best decks in the format because they can effectively juggle both roles. I would go so far as to clasify both decks as agro control, and the most effective control decks in legacy.

I would have to say that this is the first time I've seen Goblins called aggro-control. I really think that the only form of real control in Goblins is a minute ability to kill creatures using Gempalm Incinerator and, to a lesser extent, Sharpshooter and Seige-Gang Commander. Threshold can certainly juggle Aggro-Control and Aggro roles well, but I don't see where it can become a true control deck for any length of time, as Threshold is far better at pressing its advantage than defending its threats in the long game.

Goaswerfraiejen

06-11-2007, 12:53 PM

SpikeyMikey

06-11-2007, 01:27 PM

If Control has a litany of problems too numerous to list, why is it seeing modest success at large tournaments?

It's not very difficult to figure out. There are a lot of control freaks out there that play control no matter how bad it is. Now there are a lot of decks out there that a traditional counter control can beat, but the problem is, any way you build it, there will be a lot of decks out there that you can't crack. Remember the old Flores maxim, "There are no wrong threats, only wrong answers"? Control lost Drain, it lost it's balls. This is not to say that you can't play control or win with it, but it's weak, and if you want to do well with it, you're going to need to play well and catch a strong dose of luck.

I will agree that it's cyclical, however. With all the aggro and aggro control decks gunning for each other and storm, control might be able to make a comeback, but it won't last long, because it only takes a little tweaking for your average Legacy aggro deck to dogstomp your average Legacy control deck.

SpatulaOfTheAges

06-11-2007, 01:51 PM

So, instead of trying to get threats down fast, you try to get answers down fast? Yeah, how is that not control?

Answers are Wrath of God, StP and Counterspell. The Goblins player isn't forced to answer any of those; they just keep pursuing their original game-plan. They're set back, but they're not forced into the position of having to answer any of those cards. Confinement HAS to be answered. Strategically it's not an answer, it's a threat. The other Enchantress defense are the same thing to a lesser degree.

AnwarA101

06-11-2007, 01:53 PM

I would have to say that this is the first time I've seen Goblins called aggro-control. I really think that the only form of real control in Goblins is a minute ability to kill creatures using Gempalm Incinerator and, to a lesser extent, Sharpshooter and Seige-Gang Commander. Threshold can certainly juggle Aggro-Control and Aggro roles well, but I don't see where it can become a true control deck for any length of time, as Threshold is far better at pressing its advantage than defending its threats in the long game.

I would take it one step further. Goblins is a control deck. By control deck I mean a board control deck like Rifter or Wombat. Think about how Goblins plays against most aggro and aggro-control decks. If Lackey doesn't hit or isn't drawn, then the deck reverts into controlling the board whether that is with Gempalm Incincerator, Mogg Fanatic, Rishadan Port, Wasteland, Tin-Street Hooligan, and others. It uses those measures to get to its more mid-game card advantange engine (Goblin Ringleader). The main difference is that unlike Wombat and Rifter it doesn't take a million years to kill because of the synergy between the Goblins - a Warchief, Piledriver, and X goblins means you are dead. The other main difference is that when Goblins has to play against a non-creature deck most of its deck isn't dead. While Goblins isn't very good against combo its still better than other board control decks because these decks have dead cards against non-creature decks. Goblins is the best board-control deck in my opinion.

I was going to write a whole article on this subject, but I haven't gotten around to it and this seemed like a perfect time to throw my theory out there.

So do control decks suck in Legacy? The answer would be no if you include Vial Goblins as a control deck.

SpatulaOfTheAges

06-11-2007, 02:05 PM

Goblins is an aggro-control-combo decks. It can pursue an aggro plan(Warchief + Piledrive + Dudes, helped by Lackey), a control plan w/ land disruption, creature removal, and card draw, or a combo plan with Warchief that goes off in a single turn.

Tacosnape

06-11-2007, 03:06 PM

We see landstill more than other control decks because the threats and draw engine work together. But landstill needs an incredibly large amount of mana to be efficient as a control and agro deck at the same time. Thresh and Goblins are the two best decks in the format because they can effectively juggle both roles. I would go so far as to clasify both decks as agro control, and the most effective control decks in legacy.

What in the blue hell do you classify as an aggro deck if Goblins isn't? To me, anything that runs between 29 and 33 creatures and can swing for the win with creatures as early as turn three is more of an aggro deck than anything that will ever exist in the format.

Also, I'd make the argument that Landstill's threats put less of a strain on the manabase than most control decks, for two reasons.

1. You never have to tap your lands to cast a threat, ever. You only have to tap lands to swing when you're ready to do so. This is in my opinion the greatest strength of Landstill. This means you can constantly be ready to react to anything while simultaneously developing your threats.

2. You're running (Or should be running) the manland threats in addition to your normal aggro-control manabase. My Landstill deck runs 17-18 color lands; 11-12 Duals, 5-6 fetches. This isn't terribly far off the mark from what Threshold runs. With Brainstorm and Standstill backing it up, and with Stifle being able to guard against Wasteland, and Loam or Crucible playing backup, it's almost as stable as Threshold's manabase.

I would take it one step further. Goblins is a control deck.

This is absolutely ridiculous. Seriously. Goblins is the beatdown deck in almost every matchup it faces. By this estimate, no aggro deck has ever made top 8 at a Legacy tournament, because they don't exist.

Seriously. Name an aggro deck.

Goblins is an aggro-control-combo decks. It can pursue an aggro plan(Warchief + Piledrive + Dudes, helped by Lackey), a control plan w/ land disruption, creature removal, and card draw, or a combo plan with Warchief that goes off in a single turn.

This is significantly less ridiculous and has a lot more valid points, but Goblins is still an aggro deck first and foremost.

Maverick676

06-11-2007, 04:26 PM

Maximus04

06-11-2007, 05:01 PM

Undoubtedly decks take different roles at different times.

Control doesn't "suck" in legacy, yes we all know that it doesn't have Mana Drain and other pivotal cards that Vintage control decks have, but Control as an archetype is still very viable. No one is going to deny there are different ways for Control deck to play the game and win.

Some of you still think Control is a complete pile, anything I say here will not change your mind. The only way to to show that Control is viable is to have consistent Top 8 performances at big Legacy tournaments. There is no denying that the "Top 3" decks are very good and will always be seen at the top tables and there are other decks right behind those decks, but instead of asking a biased question like "Do Control decks really suck in legacy"

ask something more of

"Why do you think the Control archetype in legacy is under preforming compared to other archetypes?"

The lack of consistent performance of this archetype could be the lack of players playing control. We could look at the BHWC Landstill deck or MUC as proof that control can top 8, but when Goblins makes up 1/3 of the field and control makes up as a 1/60 of the field, what are the odds of Control consistently Top 8ing with such odds compared to Goblins.

There are viable control decks, it just takes a skilled player with the endurance to play it for 6 to 8 rounds and the dedication to get familiar with the deck, not just pick it up the night before. Maybe players like myself should just stick to the "best" deck, but isn't this the format of constant potential and growth?

In truth, I'd take MUC against any deck in the format, I'll be more than glad to meet the challenge on MWS or in real life.

Just my thoughts....

SpatulaOfTheAges

06-11-2007, 05:27 PM

If we all use such broad defenitions of combo, aggro, and control then any deck would be combo, aggro, and control. The role a deck takes in a game will depend largely on how a person pilots the deck. Good decks generally can take any of the three roles when the occasion calls for it, but most decks have one strategy that by far defines them. For example goblins is first and foremost an aggro deck, it exists to throw hordes of little green men into the red zone. Or take solidarity, when it is paired against a faster combo deck it acts more like a control deck than anything else, it will use its countermagic to keep the faster combo at bay then win at its leisure.

I don't think those are broad definitions of the arche-types being used, I think the arche-types themselves are broad and almost practically obsolete terms. Most decks in a format with a huge card pool are naturally going to be "hybridized" to some degree, because if you had the option of being able to pursue different game-plans, there's no reason not to.

The terms, like the RPS meta-game they were used to describe, are antiquated and of very little use.

Mad Zur

06-11-2007, 06:50 PM

Goblins is the beatdown deck in almost every matchup it faces.Many other aggressive decks are the beatdown against Goblins, such as Stompy, Zoo, and Red Death. An easy way for Goblins to lose those matchups is to try to be the beatdown deck. When Goblins wins, it's usually because it successfully played control.

Still, though, I think Goblins is best described as an aggro deck.

Anyway, here's some tournament data regarding the success of Goblins, Threshold, and Solidarity. This will be in the same format as before.

"Big Three" in field:

. D4D 2 DLD 2 D4D 3A D4D 3B DLD 3 TML 1* D4D 4A D4D 4B TML 2A TML 2B DLD 4 2006 2007 Average
Vial Goblins 19.40% 10.34% 18.67% 12.50% 10.53% 11.69% 16.67% 20.00% 16.67% 13.46% 17.86% 14.97% 16.00% 15.25%
Threshold 11.94% 12.07% 12.00% 7.81% 14.04% 11.69% 11.11% 10.91% 5.00% 9.62% 14.29% 11.45% 9.63% 10.95%
Solidarity 4.48% 10.34% 9.33% 17.19% 12.28% 9.09% 11.11% 10.91% 5.00% 7.69% 5.36% 10.59% 6.02% 9.34%

Total 35.82% 32.76% 40.00% 37.50% 36.84% 32.47% 38.89% 41.82% 26.67% 30.77% 37.50% 37.01% 31.65% 35.55%

"Big Three" in those T8s:

. D4D 2 DLD 2 D4D 3A D4D 3B DLD 3 TML 1* D4D 4A D4D 4B TML 2A TML 2B DLD 4 2006 2007 Average
Vial Goblins 25.00% 0.00% 12.50% 50.00% 0.00% 12.50% 25.00% 37.50% 0.00% 37.50% 12.50% 20.31% 16.67% 19.32%
Threshold 0.00% 25.00% 12.50% 0.00% 25.00% 25.00% 25.00% 0.00% 12.50% 12.50% 25.00% 14.06% 16.67% 14.77%
Solidarity 12.50% 12.50% 25.00% 25.00% 37.50% 0.00% 12.50% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 15.63% 0.00% 11.36%

Total 37.50% 37.50% 50.00% 75.00% 62.50% 37.50% 62.50% 37.50% 12.50% 50.00% 37.50% 50.00% 33.33% 45.45%
"Big Three" in all T8s:

. 2005 2006 2007 Total 2006-2007
Vial Goblins 18.75% 19.44% 18.75% 19.08% 19.23%
Threshold 14.58% 13.89% 12.50% 13.82% 13.46%
Solidarity 6.25% 13.89% 0.00% 8.55% 9.62%

Total 39.58% 47.22% 31.25% 41.45% 42.31%
For example, we can see the following about Goblins:

-In 2006, was 14.97% of the field in those eight tournaments, 20.31% of the T8s in those tournaments, and 19.44% of the T8s overall.
-In 2007, it was 14.97%% of the field in those three tournaments, 16.67% of the T8s in those tournaments, and 18.75%% of the T8s overall.
-Over the full eleven tournaments, it was 16.00% of the field and 19.32% of T8s.
-Over all tournaments within that time, it was 19.23% of T8s.
-Over all tournaments, it has been 19.08% of T8s.

While some of these ratios are slightly worse for Goblins than they were for Landstill, Goblins seems to consistently be better represented in the top eight than in the field. This is not always the case with Landstill or control in general, which, on average, puts about as much into the top eight as is present in the field.

In conclusion, these tournament results suggest that Goblins and Threshold are good. The results from last year suggest that Solidarity was good, but there have been no such results for the deck this year.

The results I posted earlier do not imply that control is good in Legacy. They also do not imply that all control is bad, though it seems that, on average, the control decks played in Legacy are only able to represent about as much of the top eight as they represent of the field. In comparison to Goblins, Threshold, and Solidarity, the average control deck does not seem good. However, there are explanations for this that allow for good control decks to exist. We cannot make meaningful conclusions regarding specific control decks because the sample size is too small (not enough tournaments or enough players of those decks).

URABAHN asked earlier in the thread, how have control decks done well if they are not good? The answer is that they have not done particularly well at all. In comparison to decks widely regarded as good, they have done poorly.

MattH

06-11-2007, 07:29 PM

'Control' Enchantress (as opposed to Auratog decks which also ran enchantress effects, or truly combo decks that used Cloud of Faeries to go infinite) has always reminded me of prison decks, only instead of setting up "you can't play any spells" like artifact prison decks do, enchantress sets up "your spells do nothing."

Moat -> your nonflying creatures do nothing
triple ghostly prison -> your attackers do nothing
ivory mask -> your discard and burn do nothing
confinement -> nothing you do does anything
Sterling grove -> your enchantment removal does nothing
Words of Wind lock -> your permanents do nothing

etc.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-11-2007, 07:51 PM

Answers are Wrath of God, StP and Counterspell. The Goblins player isn't forced to answer any of those; they just keep pursuing their original game-plan. They're set back, but they're not forced into the position of having to answer any of those cards. Confinement HAS to be answered. Strategically it's not an answer, it's a threat. The other Enchantress defense are the same thing to a lesser degree.

No, an answer is a card that answers other cards. Like Wrath of God or Solitary Confinement. It may have variable traits, such as being a one-time shot or being Disenchantable or having a sheep in the illustration, but it remains an answer. Just like a threat is a card that threatens to win the game, no matter if it's a creature that goes all the way or a Flames of the Blood Hand that needs other cards in your deck to have dealt 16 damage before it's lethal.

Obfuscate Freely

06-11-2007, 09:57 PM

Enchantress is a combo deck. It is most definitely not a control deck.

The deck is built around a proactive gameplan that involves winning the game reasonably quickly. It seeks to interact with the opponent as little as possible while achieving this.

An important thing to realize is that Solitary Confinement is a win condition, not an "answer" card. Resolving Confinement in combination with multiple Enchantress effects (or a Squee) actually beats most decks, and it allows the deck to outrace aggro decks, at least in a practical sense.

Enchantress does run Elephant Grass, which is a kind of control element. This is similar to Remand in Solidarity, or Moment's Peace in Extended Heartbeat. Notice that these cards are only stall tactics, not true answers. That is why they aren't nearly as good in actual control decks as they are in combo decks.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-11-2007, 10:09 PM

Hey, I have an idea. Let's continually mangle terms until they become utterly meaningless.

Solitary Confinement is most definitely not a win condition. How can I tell? BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WIN THE GAME. What does it do? It seeks to stall the game long enough to get your actual win online. You know what other card does that? Counterspell.

When a deck runs many cards that seek to stop the opponent's gameplan from working, seeking to stall them long enough to gain control of the game and win themselves, and only a few cards are part of the actual win, that deck must be said to be a control deck. The fact that the cards are highly synergistic with one another and have little use without this synergy doesn't change that.

Obfuscate Freely

06-11-2007, 10:18 PM

So does that make Life a control deck?

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-11-2007, 10:32 PM

Obfuscate Freely

06-11-2007, 11:10 PM

Yes. The combo doesn't actually win, it just prevents the vast majority of kill conditons from working against it. Life is another combo-control deck. It might be qualified aggro-combo-control, as it was in Extended, but in Legacy (and even really in Extended) it's "beatdown" was just too inefficient to count that way.
If you aren't going to consider infinite life to be a win condition (hint: that's absurd), I fail to see how the word 'combo' fits into your description of Life at all. You have to simply call it a control deck.

I mean, gaining infinite life serves the same purpose as playing Counterspell, right? No, it doesn't, dumbass.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-11-2007, 11:52 PM

If you aren't going to consider infinite life to be a win condition (hint: that's absurd), I fail to see how the word 'combo' fits into your description of Life at all. You have to simply call it a control deck.

Because the cards combo. Just like Sensei's Divining Top and Counterbalance, or Smokestack and Crucible of Worlds. It doesn't have to directly win you the game. In this case it's so powerful a control element that your opponent is unable to win, hopefully. That's the crucial distinction. Threats win you the game. Answers make your opponent not win. Infinite life, hopefully, makes your opponent not win.

However, if gaining infinite life actually was a win condition, once you had done it, you wouldn't be able to be brutally man-handled by Solidarity.

I mean, gaining infinite life serves the same purpose as playing Counterspell, right? No, it doesn't, dumbass.

You're right. The fact that Counterspells and infinite life are different in function makes it absurd that they would be put into the same category. Instead, we should put Daru Spiritualist, Shaman en-Kor and Worthy Cause together in cards which do do exactly the same thing, such as Goblin Lackey. Because those cards are exactly the same. Not like answers, which are only allowed to be blue and to say "counter target blank". That's the first test: if a card doesn't say that, you can tell it's not an answer. Cards that merely prevent their win conditions from winning? That's not what I call an answer.

Scathing sarcasm aside, seriously. Yeah, Isochron Scepter + Orim's Chant is a combo, and if you get it online, you'll win against most decks. But it doesn't win you the game; it merely stops the opponent from winning. Now, once your opponent was knocked out of contention of winning that game, there weren't a lot of options left, but it's not actually the win, which is why you can go to time in the round for failing to draw your whatever that actually wins, or when they topdeck an Ancient Grudge or Gilded Light or something.

Yeah, Scepter-Chant is much more powerful and much more fragile than a card like Counterspell, which simply stops one spell once and then goes away. But it's still in the nature of cards that prevent someone else from winning. Tendrils of Agony is a potentially much more powerful card than, say, Savannah Lions, although it's also much more fragile and dependent upon other cards. But Savannah Lions and Tendrils of Agony are both threats.

AnwarA101

06-12-2007, 12:34 AM

This is absolutely ridiculous. Seriously. Goblins is the beatdown deck in almost every matchup it faces. By this estimate, no aggro deck has ever made top 8 at a Legacy tournament, because they don't exist.

Seriously. Name an aggro deck.

Is Goblins always the beatdown deck? I don't think its the beatdown against Threshold. Or against Zoo (a real beatdown deck, if you wanted an example). Against aggro and aggro-control, goblins is rarely the beatdown deck. Now we might have different definitions of Beatdown decks so I pulled a definition from
Will Rieffer and Mike Mason's article The Metagame Clock Revisited: (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/694.html). Here's the definition they give for Beatdown decks -

Beatdown: Beatdown relies on overwhelming the opponent with damage before they have a chance to react. Though typically associated with creatures, burn decks also fit into this category. Beatdown decks tend to peak early and fade late, and rely upon dropping consistent early threats to generate victories. These decks have the greatest propensity to flame out after the first few turns; if the deck hasn't won by then, it typically does not have the strength to withstand the long haul. The later the clock position, the higher this"flame out" potential. Beatdown loses to Combo, which is faster than it, and Midgame, which possesses the stall tactics and global resets necessary to cause Beatdown to overcommit or suffer large disadvantages.

Goblins doesn't really seem to fit this description at all. Goblins rarely has the tendency to "flame out" because its good late game spells like Ringleader and Siege-Gang Commander. Its also rarely peaks early (only Lackey) and doesn't fade late. Goblins seems more like it builds momentum and doesn't really reach full-throttle until about turn 5-6 where its Vial is crazy good and its Warchiefs, Ringleaders, and Siege-Gangs come online.

I'm not saying this definition is perfect, but it provides some guide as to why Goblins isn't really a beatdown deck. I looked at some of the other definitions in the same article and while the control one doesn't seem to fit Goblins really well either. But maybe this one is best -

Midgame: These decks mostly inch toward their win condition. They are characterized by"reset buttons": early-game stall and control mechanisms, and a rather steady mana curve. Midgame decks allow permanents to reach the board, but are focused on creating advantages - small advantages in the early game, and then massive advantage in the late game when they are trading single cards for multiple threats. Decks with a high mana curve are positioned earlier than those with a low mana curve, as cheaper Midgame decks can more easily cope if both of the decks are throwing reset buttons and stalls at one another. Midgame loses to Combo, because it doesn't generate threats until the combo has long since killed them, and to Control, against whom much of Midgame's tactics and resets are rendered useless.

While this definiton is far from perfect for Goblins it seems to fit better. Goblins does stall in the early game (Port, Waste, Fanatic). While it has no "reset buttons", it has plenty of removal in terms of Gempalm, Fanatic, and even Siege-Gang or Sharpshooter. It creates massive advantage in the late game with Ringleader and Siege-Gang.

SpatulaOfTheAges

06-12-2007, 07:57 AM

Solitary Confinement is most definitely not a win condition. How can I tell? BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WIN THE GAME. What does it do? It seeks to stall the game long enough to get your actual win online. You know what other card does that? Counterspell.

People don't very often scoop to counterspell. When there's an obvious way to support Confinement, many, many people will scoop, because they realize that strategically it's a win condition.

When a deck runs many cards that seek to stop the opponent's gameplan from working, seeking to stall them long enough to gain control of the game and win themselves, and only a few cards are part of the actual win,

Don't be a jack ass. Only a few cards are part of the "win" because the majority of the deck is an engine.

that deck must be said to be a control deck. The fact that the cards are highly synergistic with one another and have little use without this synergy doesn't change that.

You're completely wrong.

Do you know why? Because in almost every match-up that Enchantress hopes to win, it plays the beat-down. Against every aggro deck, you play the beat down because you can get Confinement out before they can kill you, and then they can't win. Against every control deck you play the beat-down by trying to overwhelm them with threats.

Only against fast combo are you forced into being the control role. The fact that Enchantress can't do that well is suspicious to me.

I really don't think either combo or control are entirely accurate, because the terms are kind of antiquated, but it's a lot more combo than control. You're always pro-actively pursuing your own game-plan.

For an example, with Landstill, would you keep a hand of 3xland, StP, FoW, and 2xCSpell? That's perfectly keepable, because your plan involves stalling their plan. With Enchantress, you couldn't keep 3xland, Confinement, Grass, Seal of Cleansing and Moat. Without the engine, the stall cards are of little use.

However, if gaining infinite life actually was a win condition, once you had done it, you wouldn't be able to be brutally man-handled by Solidarity.

That's stupid. We're saying that strategically, infinite life/invulnerability are the same as win conditions against most decks. That there are a few anomalies that are different doesn't change that, unless you conveniently ignore the qualifies for the sake of dramatics and sarcasm.

Goblin Snowman

06-12-2007, 02:54 PM

People don't very often scoop to counterspell. When there's an obvious way to support Confinement, many, many people will scoop, because they realize that strategically it's a win condition.

Yet a good deal of decks won't scoop to simply Confinment + Squee, as they have all the time in the world to draw into any kind of answer in their deck. It's not a win condition, seeing as how they can likely draw the game if they've already taken game one. It's a stall condition that lets you ignore their development while you try to win. It's a win condition in the same way a Counterspell lock would be, only massively more efficient. If I had no uncounterable things in my deck, and the other player had, say, the ability to cast several Forbids with buyback every turn, it's the exact same situation, only they're still not winning.

Don't be a jack ass. Only a few cards are part of the "win" because the majority of the deck is an engine.

Let us look at Angel Stax; The majority of the deck is an "engine" that generates a favorable board position, yet that doesn't mean they win until they hit a "win" card. Smokestack isn't going to beat face very well.

You're completely wrong.

Do you know why? Because in almost every match-up that Enchantress hopes to win, it plays the beat-down. Against every aggro deck, you play the beat down because you can get Confinement out before they can kill you, and then they can't win. Against every control deck you play the beat-down by trying to overwhelm them with threats.

Only against fast combo are you forced into being the control role. The fact that Enchantress can't do that well is suspicious to me.

So Enchantress plays proactive disruption/lock pieces makes it combo? Is Angel Stax also Combo because it drops Ghostly Prison and Moat before it has to sometimes? I see three different styles of control cards; Cards that proactively stop people from playing spells/hitting you, such as Moat or Trinisphere, cards that stop spells as they are cast, such as Counterspell, and cards that deal with cards already in play, like Wrath or Deed. Just because you're playing spells doesn't make you aggro.

I really don't think either combo or control are entirely accurate, because the terms are kind of antiquated, but it's a lot more combo than control. You're always pro-actively pursuing your own game-plan.

You could always look at it that there is no such thing as Combo; Solidarity is MUC with a decent clock and TES is the best aggro deck. Solidarity is incredibly reactive, does that mean it's not combo?

For an example, with Landstill, would you keep a hand of 3xland, StP, FoW, and 2xCSpell? That's perfectly keepable, because your plan involves stalling their plan. With Enchantress, you couldn't keep 3xland, Confinement, Grass, Seal of Cleansing and Moat. Without the engine, the stall cards are of little use.

I might actully keep that hand with Enchantress depending on the matchup. You can easily stall them for a long time with Grass/Moat, allowing you to draw into whatever you need. Dropping a turn one Grass, hoping to draw into a 4th land in 3 turns seems decent to me. I'm not sure what you are hoping to accomplish with this example, as the Enchantress hand is far better against several decks, and you could argue that without a draw spell (engine) the Landstill hand is unkeepable.

That's stupid. We're saying that strategically, infinite life/invulnerability are the same as win conditions against most decks. That there are a few anomalies that are different doesn't change that, unless you conveniently ignore the qualifies for the sake of dramatics and sarcasm.

If they can't deal with it, yes, it funtions as a win condition. However, if they are able to stop themselves from losing the rest of the game, you will become decked. This has come up many times when I play against Threshold, as Goblins without MD Disenchant has no out to Mongoose/Worship lock, but is easily capable of sitting and burning down Mystic Enforcers with SCG/Incinerator and blocking the rest of the team. Hence while you have stopped me from winning, you can't win and it comes down to who fetched the most.

URABAHN

06-12-2007, 04:13 PM

While some of these ratios are slightly worse for Goblins than they were for Landstill, Goblins seems to consistently be better represented in the top eight than in the field. This is not always the case with Landstill or control in general, which, on average, puts about as much into the top eight as is present in the field.

In conclusion, these tournament results suggest that Goblins and Threshold are good. The results from last year suggest that Solidarity was good, but there have been no such results for the deck this year.

The results I posted earlier do not imply that control is good in Legacy. They also do not imply that all control is bad, though it seems that, on average, the control decks played in Legacy are only able to represent about as much of the top eight as they represent of the field. In comparison to Goblins, Threshold, and Solidarity, the average control deck does not seem good. However, there are explanations for this that allow for good control decks to exist. We cannot make meaningful conclusions regarding specific control decks because the sample size is too small (not enough tournaments or enough players of those decks).

URABAHN asked earlier in the thread, how have control decks done well if they are not good? The answer is that they have not done particularly well at all. In comparison to decks widely regarded as good, they have done poorly.

I'm not sure I follow Mad Zur's statistics and explanation. If Control makes up 10% of the field and makes Top 8 10% of the time, does that make Control poor? Would another way of looking at it be that "good" decks make up 40% of the field and make Top 8 40% of the time? I always thought that if a deck was played in small numbers and it made Top 8, that was a positive result for that deck. Is this line of thought incorrect?

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-12-2007, 05:56 PM

I'm a raging jackass.

Let's try this again:

Infinite life and Solitary Confinement are not win conditions, and they are not beatdown, by the very definitions of those terms, the same way that Smokestack and Crucible aren't beatdown, or Stasis, Root maze and Forsaken City aren't beatdown.

Perhaps you didn't pay attention to anything I posted, so I'll explain what defines the two terms here:

Offense: Wins you the game.
Defense: Stops your opponent from winning.

Yes, a good Defense that goes as planned makes it more likely that you'll win. That doesn't switch it to offense- that just means it's viable. If stopping an opponent's plans didn't increase your own chances of winning, there'd be no reason to even play Defensive spells. The locks described above create a high chance of you winning against random deck X, because they probably can't win, which leaves you as the only contender. But the function remains a control element. This is why you need another actual kill condition. What you are describing is nothing new. For all of Magic's history it has been the case that control has generally "won" in that it has dismantled an opposing game plan before it actually killed the opponent- a full hand and an empty board with a grip of counters and a Stanstill in play isn't quite as good against many decks as Confinement-Sterling Grove lock, but it's still pretty close to inevitability. However, you know when the opponent doesn't just scoop to this? When it's game 2 and they won game 1 and the clock is ticking, because you still have to find your fucking kill condition.

Mad Zur

06-12-2007, 07:15 PM

IBA, do you consider anything a combo deck?

I'm not sure I follow Mad Zur's statistics and explanation. If Control makes up 10% of the field and makes Top 8 10% of the time, does that make Control poor? Would another way of looking at it be that "good" decks make up 40% of the field and make Top 8 40% of the time? I always thought that if a deck was played in small numbers and it made Top 8, that was a positive result for that deck. Is this line of thought incorrect?If a deck is played in small numbers and makes top eight in bigger numbers, that is very good. Solidarity, for example, enjoyed this sort of success last year. However, if a deck is played in small numbers and makes top eight in numbers just as small, that's not particularly impressive.

Control's finishes over the past two years have not been positive. They have been average; they suggest that control's expected win percentage is close to 50%. This means that in comparison to the decks that have done well, control looks poor. Results show Goblins and Threshold to be consistently above average. Failing to place as highly as accepted good decks is not evidence that control is good.

But like I said, that does not mean there is no good control deck. Obviously, some control decks have performed above average, some have performed below average, and some have not had the chance to perform well at all. It is possible that there is a good control deck in any of these categories, but the tournament results do not imply that there is. All it means is that "How can control decks be bad if they have done so well?" is not a successful argument.

Derklord

06-12-2007, 07:20 PM

Let's try this again:

Infinite life and Solitary Confinement are not win conditions, and they are not beatdown, by the very definitions of those terms, the same way that Smokestack and Crucible aren't beatdown, or Stasis, Root maze and Forsaken City aren't beatdown.
I don't get this... if your opponent has no way to remove a Confinement and you've got a Squee, then Confinement is still not a win condition?
Confinement can be the only permanent you have and still wins the game.
When a card that ensures you win the game even if it's your only permanent the surely qualifies a card as being marked as a win condition...
Confinement WILL win you the game because you don't deck yourself.
If a lock makes sure you don't lose (e.g. prevents you from decking) it is the win condition!

Offense: Wins you the game.
Defense: Stops your opponent from winning.
Isn't that the same (at least sometimes)? If a card makes it impossible to lose, you either win the game or make a draw.
Assuming you can make sure the game won't end in a draw, the cards that makes it impossible to lose wins the game! It's both offense and defense then.

Xero

06-12-2007, 07:49 PM

I don't get this... if your opponent has no way to remove a Confinement and you've got a Squee, then Confinement is still not a win condition?
Confinement can be the only permanent you have and still wins the game.
When a card that ensures you win the game even if it's your only permanent the surely qualifies a card as being marked as a win condition...
Confinement WILL win you the game because you don't deck yourself.
If a lock makes sure you don't lose (e.g. prevents you from decking) it is the win condition!

No. Not loosing does not equal winning. Solitary Confinement does not reduce your opponents life to zero, nor does it mill all of your opponents cards. You need another card (or cards) to do this. Those cards are your actual win condition.

Goblin Snowman

06-12-2007, 07:59 PM

No. Not loosing does not equal winning. Solitary Confinement does not reduce your opponents life to zero, nor does it mill all of your opponents cards. You need another card (or cards) to do this. Those cards are your actual win condition.

QTF. Just because you've stopped yourself from losing right then and there, doesn't mean that they're not going to 1-0 you. In fact, that's fairly likely, and a great deal of decks run answers to locks. You're giving them all the time in the world to draw a singleton Engineered Explosives that they're going to pop at 3 and kill you with, or a Burning Wish, or really anything.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-12-2007, 08:39 PM

IBA, do you consider anything a combo deck?

Maybe you should follow the conversation. I consider Enchantress and Life and Stax to be combo decks, defining combo as "A very high emphasis/dependency on synergy". Hell, I defined Goblins as a combo deck. The point is that not all combo is offensive; some, like Scepter-Chant or Confinement lock or even Counterbalance-Top are defensive.

Isn't that the same (at least sometimes)? If a card makes it impossible to lose, you either win the game or make a draw.
Assuming you can make sure the game won't end in a draw, the cards that makes it impossible to lose wins the game! It's both offense and defense then.

No, it's not.

Look, every deck is trying to win the game. That's a constant. Wasteland is part of Goblins' plan to win the game; that plan involves crippling the opponent's strategy when opportunity presents itself.

That being said, the function of every single card you play is going to be, "Helps me to win the game."

However, in order to develop a further understanding of the strategy behind the game, we also divide cards up depending on the way in which they do this. There are resources, cards like Dark Ritual or Brainstorm or such that enable other cards. There are threats, cards like Tendrils of Agony or Goblin Lackey that are going to attempt to attempt to kill your opponent; on the other end of the scale, there are answers, cards like Force of Will or Wrath of God that are going to attempt to neuter your opponent's threats.

As in most things, as either end moves to an extreme, it starts to resemble it's opposite. Some Goblins players might say that a great answer to a turn 1/2 Akroma is to kill the opponent that controls her, for instance, and pre-emptively answering any card an opponent might play with a lock like Scepter-Chant is a great way to "win". But in actuality, these cards are still threats and answers respectively. Now, Goblins can be an actual answer when they're holding down the fort against attacking Negators or Rogue Elephants or whatever, and Isochron Scepter can be an actual threat with Fire/Ice on it, but we can't start glibly misassigning terms, or we're never going to make any actual progress.

If it does not kill the opponent, it is not a threat. It does not matter how good an answer it is- it is not an offensive spell. Yeah, in the general English language, you might find hard locks threatening, but in the way we actually use these terms in Magic strategy, any answer can be really good, ridiculously good, even impossibly good without becoming a threat. Legendary Golems can turn Smokestack and Trinisphere and Crucible into threats, and Confinement can trigger a Words of War, and you could, after getting Sensei's Divining Top and Counterbalance down, find a Future Sight, Helm of Awakening, and Brain Freeze and go crazy go nuts, but then the combo becomes the threat.

Artowis

06-12-2007, 08:39 PM

QTF. Just because you've stopped yourself from losing right then and there, doesn't mean that they're not going to 1-0 you. In fact, that's fairly likely, and a great deal of decks run answers to locks. You're giving them all the time in the world to draw a singleton Engineered Explosives that they're going to pop at 3 and kill you with, or a Burning Wish, or really anything.

Except of course against those decks which don't run answers to that sort of crap, especially in game 1.

No. Not loosing does not equal winning. Solitary Confinement does not reduce your opponents life to zero, nor does it mill all of your opponents cards. You need another card (or cards) to do this. Those cards are your actual win condition.

You're right in a sense, Solitary Confinement can't be counted as a win condition in the traditional general sense of 'it kills you'. However many people would count it as one in certain match-ups whereit just takes the opponent out of the game and will eventually lead to a win via normal game mechanics.

Mad Zur

06-12-2007, 08:59 PM

Maybe you should follow the conversation. I consider Enchantress and Life and Stax to be combo decks, defining combo as "A very high emphasis/dependency on synergy". Hell, I defined Goblins as a combo deck. The point is that not all combo is offensive; some, like Scepter-Chant or Confinement lock or even Counterbalance-Top are defensive.
You described all those decks as combo-control or aggro-combo-control. Is there anything you are comfortable simply calling a combo deck? If Enchantress is on this list, why did you take issue with people calling it exactly that?

QTF. Just because you've stopped yourself from losing right then and there, doesn't mean that they're not going to 1-0 you.If they're going to 1-0 you, it isn't a win condition. In that case, it's a stall tactic, which many other combo decks run.

In fact, that's fairly likely, and a great deal of decks run answers to locks.
Then it is not a win condition against those decks. It may be a win condition along with two Sterling Groves.

You're giving them all the time in the world to draw a singleton Engineered Explosives that they're going to pop at 3 and kill you with, or a Burning Wish, or really anything.
If they have those things, it's not a win condition. If they don't, it is. Most decks don't, particularly game one. If you have done something to make those things ineffective, it becomes a win condition again.

Brain Freeze is not a win condition with lethal damage on the stack or against Gaea's Blessing. However, we are comfortable calling it a win condition because in the large majority of cases, it wins the game. When exceptions exist, there is often a way to make it an effective win condition again. The same is true of a Confinement lock. In fact, the same is true for any win condition.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-12-2007, 09:13 PM

You described all those decks as combo-control or aggro-combo-control. Is there anything you are comfortable simply calling a combo deck? If Enchantress is on this list, why did you take issue with people calling it exactly that?

Oh, in that sense, no. Or not if I was trying to be accurate.

There are two relevant scales here;

The first is the level of offense versus defense in a deck. Although there are many variables and nuances here, you can simplify most decks to either being aggressive, defensive, or both in roughly equal measures; aka, aggro, control, and aggro-control.

The second is the level of internal synergy or dependence of the deck's strategies. There aren't the same kinds of terms on this scale; every deck wants some degree of synergy, but we're generally assuming synergy up to a certain point. The line here is kind of subjective, but I would describe decks like Meathooks, Vial-Goblins, Iggy Pop and Stax as being "soft combo", i.e., the cards depend upon one another for strength. Tendrils of Agony, Winged Sliver, Tangle Wire and Goblin Ringleader are all pretty weak by themselves; it's only when stacked with other similar or complimentary effects that they become good. I would describe a deck like Aluren or Life as being hard combo; they've moved beyond simply relying on internal synergy, to relying on specific card interactions for their strategy. At the furthest end of the spectrum you have decks like Flash-Hulk or Time Vault/Mizzium Transreliquat, which are entirely dependent upon two specific cards that suck independently of one another.

What's important to note is that a deck's place on one scale doesn't dictate it's place on another. In short hand, I would probably call a deck simply "combo" if it was aggressive combo, since that's the more generally accepted definition, and use "prison" as short-hand for control-combo like Solitaire. I'm not sure that there's a specific term accepted as indicating an aggro-control combo deck like Goblins or Survival, although "toolbox" comes close. However, accurately the decks would still be either "Not combination", "Soft combination", or "Hard combination", and "Aggressive", "Controlling", or "Aggressive-Controlling" respectively.

Brain Freeze is not a win condition with lethal damage on the stack or against Gaea's Blessing. However, we are comfortable calling it a win condition because in the large majority of cases, it wins the game. When exceptions exist, there is often a way to make it an effective win condition again. The same is true of a Confinement lock. In fact, the same is true for any win condition.

I call Brain Freeze a win condition because there is a rule in the game of Magic that states that if you have no cards left in your library, you lose the game. Goblin Piledriver does not stop being a win condition if they have a Silver Knight, and Counterspell does not become a win condition simply because you countered a Burning Wish after they dumped their hand to Lion's Eye Diamond, even though in the former scenario it's not a very relevant win condition, and in the latter it's a very, very good answer that will probably cause you to win the game in the long term assuming you can actually capitalize on it.

Tacosnape

06-12-2007, 09:19 PM

I propose for the sake of it being fun to say, we refer to decks with aggro, combo, and control elements as being "Controgbo."

No, seriously, say it out loud. It's a lot of fun.

Anyway.

I don't consider Solitary Confinement a win condition. It's a lock card. Lock cards aren't kill conditions. Lock cards are pieces of inevitable holds you put your opponent in until the win condition occurs. In Enchantress's case, Words of Wossname or Sacred Mesa. Or the opponent running out of cards in his or her library.

Granted, Solitary Confinement is often indirectly causing the win. But if you're going on indirect kills, Dark Ritual is a kill condition, because Anwar indirectly won an entire Swiss round using it.

Enchantress, as well as its artifact cousin Stax, are on the Archetype Triangle somewhere between control and combo, and pretty far away from aggro. This is because nothing in these decks' primary gameplans actually reduce your life total for a longass time (Excluding those occasions when Angel Stax morphs an Angel on turn 2.) They defend against threats either pre-emptively or after the fact and generate mass card or board advantage, like most control decks. Unlike typical Landstill-ish control decks, however, they rely on groups of cards to work their magic, much like a combo deck. The penalty of consistency here is offset by the incredible effectiveness of the decks when they work.

I'd call Enchantress and Stax Control-Combo decks, with the order of the words reflecting the intensity of these strategies. A Combo-Control deck, to me, would be Aluren.

Mad Zur

06-12-2007, 09:55 PM

I call Brain Freeze a win condition because there is a rule in the game of Magic that states that if you have no cards left in your library, you lose the game.No, there isn't.

As for your classification system, if you want to use terms differently than they are commonly understood without first explaining your definitions, you are free to do so. This will result in unnecessary confusion and arguments. If that is your goal, you have discovered a good method.

Enchantress, as well as its artifact cousin Stax, are on the Archetype Triangle somewhere between control and combo, and pretty far away from aggro. This is because nothing in these decks' primary gameplans actually reduce your life total for a longass time (Excluding those occasions when Angel Stax morphs an Angel on turn 2.)
I'm not sure why you think Enchantress should take so long to kill. The game should consistently end one to three turns after Confinement comes down. If this doesn't mean the opponent is reduced to zero life (which it almost always does in a red build), it means the opponent has exactly zero outs no matter what he is playing and there is a win condition on the board.

I'd call Enchantress and Stax Control-Combo decks, with the order of the words reflecting the intensity of these strategies. A Combo-Control deck, to me, would be Aluren.
If you think Aluren is more aggressive than Enchantress, you probably have a serious misunderstanding of both decks. Aluren is a control deck that wins with a combo finish (which we usually call combo-control). Enchantress is a combo deck with a few control elements to buy a few turns (which we usually just call combo, like Solidarity or Dragonstorm).

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-12-2007, 10:03 PM

No, there isn't.

...next time you would draw, fine.

The point is that Brain Freeze is actually part of a kill.

As for your classification system, if you want to use terms differently than they are commonly understood without first explaining your definitions, you are free to do so. This will result in unnecessary confusion and arguments. If that is your goal, you have discovered a good method.

The terms are not commonly understood. They are frequently misunderstood and mangled to mean almost anything. For instance, people claiming that they go "beatdown" with Solitary Confinement, which is an atrocious abuse of the language.

I am clarifying and reducing an existing system to it's essence and ignoring the chaff word games where we redefine anything to be anything because we don't believe in actual classifications. There exist powerful cards that are not win conditions, sorry.

Mad Zur

06-12-2007, 10:09 PM

...next time you would draw, fine.

The point is that Brain Freeze is actually part of a kill.
What does that even mean? How is it "part" of a kill in a way that Confinement isn't?

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-12-2007, 10:13 PM

What does that even mean? How is it "part" of a kill in a way that Confinement isn't?

Brain Freeze either kills them itself, or kills them with a Stroke of Genius if they have Blessing or lethal damage on the stack. Solitary Confinement makes it harder or impossible for them to win. Brain freeze is a threat that requires an answer. Solitary confinement is an answer that still requires you to find a real threat if you want to win off of it.

Mad Zur

06-12-2007, 11:06 PM

Brain Freeze never kills them itself. It sets up a situation where they are guaranteed to lose, but it doesn't win the game. Isn't that exactly why you don't call Confinement or infinite life a win condition?

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-12-2007, 11:51 PM

You could argue that Savannah Lions never kills anyone, the state based rule that says blah blah blah combat phase damage step blah blah blah zero life does, but it gets pretty semantical. The line is pretty clear. If Solitary Confinement won you the game by itself, it would be a win condition. Arguably, it is a win condition combo with Squee, in that in that scenario you can actually cause a deck with no answers to it to run out of cards. But Confinement-Enchantress effect is not a win condition, because it still requires you to go find an actual win condition. It is part of your strategy to win, which is

step 1) Shut them down with Confinement.

step 2) Kill them with Words of War.

But, then, so are lands. It is not itself the kill condition.

Mad Zur

06-13-2007, 12:18 AM

All of this applies to Brain Freeze. It doesn't kill by itself either. You need a lethal Storm count and the ability to either force the opponent to draw a card or survive until the game rules do. We call Brain Freeze the win condition, however, because it generally can be expected to result in a win, just like Confinement with a reusable draw engine. This is especially true because it can cause people to concede, which actually ends the game. Lands cannot, so we don't call them win conditions. Other cards can do this in certain situations, which makes them win conditions sometimes, but if these situations are rare, we generally don't call them that.

We're pretty far off topic, though. Even if Confinement is just a stall tactic (which it is in some matchups), the deck is still combo.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-13-2007, 12:43 AM

Solitary Confinement can't kill by itself; it can't kill at all. There are cards that make it a win condition, like Squee or Opalescence, but unless you're running those, it is not a win condition. If you run Opalescence, Confinement, like every other Enchantment in your deck, vecomes a potential win condition. It's primary function, what it does most of the time and in decks without Opalescence or Squee, is a control role- it is an answer, not a threat, in standard Enchantress lists.

Enchantress is soft combo. It's reliant upon internal synergies, but it doesn't rely on specific interactions to win. It's also far more control than aggro, as lots of it's cards control the game, but few actually win.

thefreakaccident

06-13-2007, 01:30 AM

I like control :smile: .

why are you guys arguing about confinement in the first place (last I looked, the card was only in decks either running an enchantress or a LftL)... there is not that many of either of those in my meta, o I really do not care about the card period... and it is not a control or combo card, it is simply a timewalk against most decks in the feild, and a 'ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!' for really bad players.

Mad Zur

06-13-2007, 01:51 AM

Enchantress is soft combo. It's reliant upon internal synergies, but it doesn't rely on specific interactions to win. It's also far more control than aggro, as lots of it's cards control the game, but few actually win.Words of War + Enchantresses is a fairly specific interaction, and wins the game as much as anything else does. Storm decks often run more control than cards that "actually" win the game. Solidarity, for example, runs eight maindeck control cards, two maindeck win conditions, and three Wishes that can turn into either. The reason it's a combo deck is that the rest of it is focused on getting to those two win conditions quickly, much like Enchantress.

URABAHN

06-13-2007, 07:02 AM

IBA, do you consider anything a combo deck?
If a deck is played in small numbers and makes top eight in bigger numbers, that is very good. Solidarity, for example, enjoyed this sort of success last year. However, if a deck is played in small numbers and makes top eight in numbers just as small, that's not particularly impressive.

Wait a tick, if the deck isn't being played in large numbers, how could anyone expect it to take multiple spots in that Tournament's Top 8? If 75/100 people show up with Goblins, it's expected to take up 2 or more spots, right?

Control's finishes over the past two years have not been positive. They have been average; they suggest that control's expected win percentage is close to 50%. This means that in comparison to the decks that have done well, control looks poor.

Average because of the number of Top 8 appearances, or average because of the ratio of people playing the deck making Top 8?

Results show Goblins and Threshold to be consistently above average. Failing to place as highly as accepted good decks is not evidence that control is good.

This reminds me of something Machinus said earlier, does a deck have to make Top 1, 2, or 4 to be considered successful?

But like I said, that does not mean there is no good control deck. Obviously, some control decks have performed above average, some have performed below average, and some have not had the chance to perform well at all. It is possible that there is a good control deck in any of these categories, but the tournament results do not imply that there is. All it means is that "How can control decks be bad if they have done so well?" is not a successful argument.

Just to clarify, I never said control has "done so well",

If Control has a litany of problems too numerous to list, why is it seeing modest success at large tournaments?

Let's get away from the pissing contest regarding Solitary Confinement, I'd like to know why Control gets away with making Top 8 at nearly every single large tournament. Compare Control's success to something like Friggorid, which is a fine deck, but I don't think has ever made Top 8. Taco's put in his 2cp, how about the rest of you?

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-13-2007, 07:12 AM

Words of War + Enchantresses is a fairly specific interaction, and wins the game as much as anything else does.

Hm. Somewhat specific, but not overly. The line is vague. You could define Enchantress as hard combo, I guess, but I don't think of it that way, partially because it can be just as successful playing Prison, as Matt pointed out, as actually going for the throat.

Storm decks often run more control than cards that "actually" win the game. Solidarity, for example, runs eight maindeck control cards, two maindeck win conditions, and three Wishes that can turn into either. The reason it's a combo deck is that the rest of it is focused on getting to those two win conditions quickly, much like Enchantress.

Everyone and their mother has called Solidarity combo-control for five million years. Where have you been? Your point here is duplicitous because "Storm decks" don't do this; only Solidarity does. Iggy Pop and TES have passing "control" cards, but they're pretty much going for the throat. CRET Belcher makes no bones about being pretty much pure offense.

Also,

No, it doesn't, dumbass.

Nice debating technique. This is why you're never invited to Unicorn Showers and your brother is.

Goblin Snowman

06-13-2007, 12:39 PM

Words of War + Enchantresses is a fairly specific interaction, and wins the game as much as anything else does. Storm decks often run more control than cards that "actually" win the game. Solidarity, for example, runs eight maindeck control cards, two maindeck win conditions, and three Wishes that can turn into either. The reason it's a combo deck is that the rest of it is focused on getting to those two win conditions quickly, much like Enchantress.

I'm going to point out that by this logic, you can make a case for every deck to be combo because of the fact that the cards in them work well together. Standstill demands a fairly specific card base, but Landstill is not Combo, Life from the Loam is pretty much focused on drawing cards into its win conditions, and it is not Combo and Lightning Rift and a Cycling Engine to dig for it doesn't make Rifter Combo. Enchantress, at least a good deal of it, is a massive stall tatic that happens to draw cards along the way so as to never run out of answers. This is not Combo, this is simply a Control deck with a good draw engine. I'm not sure why you care so much about calling a clear control deck Combo, but it doesn't matter I guess.

URABAHN - I think that one of the largest reasons Control doesn't do as well or show up in as large of numbers is because there is no Control deck that is on the level of Threshold or Goblins in how well known it is. As seen by random control finishes, it's clearly viable in some metagames, but when a person is unsure of what to play, they generally go for the commonly accepted "best deck". Also, Friggorid hasn't done well because its build to eat control (Stax in T1) for breakfast with uncounterable recurring threats. It's noticably worse when people are preparing for creatures that all share a creature type and decks build to abuse the graveyard, not to mention that quite a few decks have a faster clock with more disruption, and it generally scoops to TES/CRET Belcher unless it gets a 3 Therepy draw or something.

SpatulaOfTheAges

06-13-2007, 01:19 PM

Yet a good deal of decks won't scoop to simply Confinment + Squee, as they have all the time in the world to draw into any kind of answer in their deck.

The vast majority of decks do not have such an answer. Do you know what a "qualifier" is?

Also, mentioning Squee leads me to suspect that you may not be familiar with how Enchantress works.

It's not a win condition, seeing as how they can likely draw the game if they've already taken game one. It's a stall condition that lets you ignore their development while you try to win. It's a win condition in the same way a Counterspell lock would be, only massively more efficient. If I had no uncounterable things in my deck, and the other player had, say, the ability to cast several Forbids with buyback every turn, it's the exact same situation, only they're still not winning.

If a deck doesn't have a way to counter spells on the stack or a MD way to destroy enchantments, the "kill condition" after you've resolved Confinement is only a formality, the way that Stroke of Genius after Brain Freeze is a formality.

The terms "aggro", "control", and "combo" are supposed to be used to describe a deck's strategy. The strategy of Enchantress vs the majority of decks is to resolve a Confinement; after that happens, the game is won. Technically speaking you need to finish off the opponent, but that isn't relevant to the strategy of the deck.

This is like arguing that since resolved Flash doesn't win the game until you've actually gotten your Hulk and your Kiki/Disciples, Flash isn't your kill condition. The majority of the time, Flash will function as your kill condition. The majority of the time, Solitary Confinement functions as your kill condition.

Let us look at Angel Stax; The majority of the deck is an "engine" that generates a favorable board position, yet that doesn't mean they win until they hit a "win" card. Smokestack isn't going to beat face very well.

Angel Stax is slower than balls on acid. Enchantress wins in one turn by abusing the synergy of its cards.

And if we were going to actually address Stax strategy, there are lots of cards that are kill conditions that don't directly win the game. Mindslaver lock is a kill condition; the opponent hasn't technically died at the time the lock is achieved, but the game is functionally over none-the-less. The same is true of Chant-lock if the opponent doesn't have an answer. The same is true of Haunting Echoes if it removes all the opponents win conditions.

So Enchantress plays proactive disruption/lock pieces makes it combo? Is Angel Stax also Combo because it drops Ghostly Prison and Moat before it has to sometimes?

Ghostly Prison is never a hard-lock. Moat is very rarely a hard-lock. Confinement in Enchantress is very often a hard-lock. Once it is in play with the engine in place, it becomes impossible to lose. Thus, the game is over.

You could always look at it that there is no such thing as Combo; Solidarity is MUC with a decent clock and TES is the best aggro deck. Solidarity is incredibly reactive, does that mean it's not combo?

I don't know, why don't you give us what you think a good definition of combo is?

I might actully keep that hand with Enchantress depending on the matchup. You can easily stall them for a long time with Grass/Moat, allowing you to draw into whatever you need. Dropping a turn one Grass, hoping to draw into a 4th land in 3 turns seems decent to me. I'm not sure what you are hoping to accomplish with this example, as the Enchantress hand is far better against several decks, and you could argue that without a draw spell (engine) the Landstill hand is unkeepable.

Thank you for confirming that you don't know how to play the deck you're trying to define. That hand is terrible. You might stall them for a while, but without an Enchantress you're not going anywhere, and the deck will find an out.

If they can't deal with it, yes, it funtions as a win condition. However, if they are able to stop themselves from losing the rest of the game, you will become decked. This has come up many times when I play against Threshold, as Goblins without MD Disenchant has no out to Mongoose/Worship lock, but is easily capable of sitting and burning down Mystic Enforcers with SCG/Incinerator and blocking the rest of the team. Hence while you have stopped me from winning, you can't win and it comes down to who fetched the most.

Yeah, that's nice. How is Goblins going to stop Words of War?

I'm going to point out that by this logic, you can make a case for every deck to be combo because of the fact that the cards in them work well together. Standstill demands a fairly specific card base, but Landstill is not Combo, Life from the Loam is pretty much focused on drawing cards into its win conditions, and it is not Combo and Lightning Rift and a Cycling Engine to dig for it doesn't make Rifter Combo.

The line here is kind of subjective, but I would describe decks like Meathooks, Vial-Goblins, Iggy Pop and Stax as being "soft combo", i.e., the cards depend upon one another for strength. Tendrils of Agony, Winged Sliver, Tangle Wire and Goblin Ringleader are all pretty weak by themselves; it's only when stacked with other similar or complimentary effects that they become good.

According to Jack, everything seems to be combo. Threshold is, Slivers is, Goblins is, Burn is. I'm not sure what isn't. Maybe Zoo. But wait! Rancor is a combo card.

Enchantress, at least a good deal of it, is a massive stall tatic that happens to draw cards along the way so as to never run out of answers. This is not Combo, this is simply a Control deck with a good draw engine. I'm not sure why you care so much about calling a clear control deck Combo, but it doesn't matter I guess.

I'm going to again point out that you don't seem to understand the deck's strategy. Enchantress is a draw engine that happens to play cards that stall the opponent. If it was a stall tactic that happened to draw cards, you could be playing much stronger stall spells like WoG or StP. The fact that you're not is because the deck's main gameplan is to draw cards. That's it. Your main strategy is to draw cards because that way you'll set up for Solitary Confinement or WoWhatever.

Tacosnape

06-13-2007, 01:54 PM

Bizarrely enough I can see the argument of Burn being a combo deck. I've made it before myself. It just doesn't combo out all in one turn. It does take combo's route of pretty much ignoring everything in the game that happens that doesn't directly stop its road to victory.

SpatulaOfTheAges

06-13-2007, 02:05 PM

Yes and no. It kind of is a combo deck, but what good does calling it a combo deck mean? It beats Landstill and doesn't care about Meddling Mage, but it can be raced by aggro.

My point is that the terms themselves really aren't very useful in the Legacy meta-game.

Machinus

06-13-2007, 04:09 PM

My point is that the terms themselves really aren't very useful in the Legacy meta-game.

This should have been the second and last sentence on this topic.

How long is it going to take for everyone to give up the obsolete and useless terminology of classical magic? How about starting right now?

Also, my newest white stax lists aren't as slow as balls on acid. They are also a significant improvement over the old deck, thanks to Planar Chaos. Everybody jizzing about combo helps the deck out too.

Mad Zur

06-13-2007, 04:36 PM

Wait a tick, if the deck isn't being played in large numbers, how could anyone expect it to take multiple spots in that Tournament's Top 8? If 75/100 people show up with Goblins, it's expected to take up 2 or more spots, right?
If it's a good deck, it's expected to be a greater percentage of the decks that do well than it is of decks in the field. If Goblins is consistently 75% of the field, and Goblins is a good deck, then it should average slightly more than six Top 8 slots over a long period of time. If 6.25% of the field (over a long period of time) is a better deck than Goblins, I would expect it to average at more than half a Top 8 slot. That deck should outperform by a larger margin than Goblins does.

If a deck is played in small numbers, we can expect it to make multiple Top 8s if we think it's good. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't expect that.

Average because of the number of Top 8 appearances, or average because of the ratio of people playing the deck making Top 8?
The ratio is important. Top 8 appearances don't mean anything without considering how many are in the field.

This reminds me of something Machinus said earlier, does a deck have to make Top 1, 2, or 4 to be considered successful?
Looking at Top 8s is probably more meaningful since we don't have a whole lot of data. Looking at what advances from Top 8 to Top 4 might be useful, but we're looking at a pretty small sample if we want to analyze what advances from Top 4 to Top 2.

Let's get away from the pissing contest regarding Solitary Confinement, I'd like to know why Control gets away with making Top 8 at nearly every single large tournament. Compare Control's success to something like Friggorid, which is a fine deck, but I don't think has ever made Top 8. Taco's put in his 2cp, how about the rest of you?
People play control, but they don't play Friggorid.

Hm. Somewhat specific, but not overly. The line is vague. You could define Enchantress as hard combo, I guess, but I don't think of it that way, partially because it can be just as successful playing Prison, as Matt pointed out, as actually going for the throat.
It's more specific than Solidarity's combo, or TES's combo.

Everyone and their mother has called Solidarity combo-control for five million years. Where have you been? Your point here is duplicitous because "Storm decks" don't do this; only Solidarity does. Iggy Pop and TES have passing "control" cards, but they're pretty much going for the throat. CRET Belcher makes no bones about being pretty much pure offense.
Belcher is an exception, you're right. I didn't really consider it when I said "Storm decks" (though it boards REB). TES and Iggy Pop, however, always run at least four disruption spells in the maindeck, and often more. Iggy Pop also always runs at least one bounce spell, and TES uses Burning Wish as a defensive spell sometimes. I don't think I've ever seen a list of either deck with as many win conditions as disruption spells. Are these decks combo-control?

I'm going to point out that by this logic, you can make a case for every deck to be combo because of the fact that the cards in them work well together.
That's not what I said. Every card in Enchantress works toward actually reducing the opponent to zero life. Every single card either gives you mana to play your other spells, draws you into your win condition, or actually finishes the game. Many of them can do at least two of those, or do some number of other things as well (like stall an aggro deck). There is nothing in the deck that slows the opponent down without advancing your own proactive strategy.

Enchantress, at least a good deal of it, is a massive stall tatic that happens to draw cards along the way so as to never run out of answers.
Solidarity runs about the same number of stall tactics, but we don't call it a control deck because we realize that most of its cards are devoted to actually winning the game.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-13-2007, 06:34 PM

Also, mentioning Squee leads me to suspect that you may not be familiar with how Enchantress works.

Maybe he's familiar with the version that actually gets played in/wins tournaments.

osnapnoIdidn't

If a deck doesn't have a way to counter spells on the stack or a MD way to destroy enchantments, the "kill condition" after you've resolved Confinement is only a formality, the way that Stroke of Genius after Brain Freeze is a formality.

You're right. It's such a formality because Solitary Confinement has already done such a good job at making sure the opponent doesn't win. That's what powerful answers do. In this case, you answer their entire deck.

The terms "aggro", "control", and "combo" are supposed to be used to describe a deck's strategy. The strategy of Enchantress vs the majority of decks is to resolve a Confinement; after that happens, the game is won. Technically speaking you need to finish off the opponent, but [b]that isn't relevant to the strategy of the deck.

If the main strategy of the deck is to resolve a control element to lock the opponent out of the game, then it's probably a control deck.

This is like arguing that since resolved Flash doesn't win the game until you've actually gotten your Hulk and your Kiki/Disciples, Flash isn't your kill condition. The majority of the time, Flash will function as your kill condition. The majority of the time, Solitary Confinement functions as your kill condition.

Those two are entirely different. Flash isn't your kill condition. Flash-Hulk is your kill condition because it puts cards into play that win you the game immediately. Solitary Confinement doesn't do that; it's not even a link in the chain. It's a very big wall that you stand on top of while trying to find some arrows to shoot down at the impotent goblins below.

Angel Stax is slower than balls on acid.

...Wait, what?

Enchantress wins in one turn by abusing the synergy of its cards.

I've seen it win over several turns lots of times.

Ghostly Prison is never a hard-lock. Moat is very rarely a hard-lock. Confinement in Enchantress is very often a hard-lock. Once it is in play with the engine in place, it becomes impossible to lose. Thus, the game is over.

Ghostly Prison is very often a hard lock in Stax. Moat is a hard lock against most aggro decks.

According to Jack, everything seems to be combo. Threshold is, Slivers is, Goblins is, Burn is. I'm not sure what isn't. Maybe Zoo. But wait! Rancor is a combo card.

I already defined this. Every deck has some amount of internal synergy. When you are running cards that are functionally very weak, but become much, much stronger through that internal synergy, that is weak combo, such as Vial-Goblins, Solidarity, CRET Belcher, etc. When your game plan moves from relying on strong internal synergies to relying on specific card interactions, that is strong combo. But if you have a better definition of combo, perhaps you'd like to share it.

I'm going to again point out that you don't seem to understand the deck's strategy. Enchantress is a draw engine that happens to play cards that stall the opponent. If it was a stall tactic that happened to draw cards, you could be playing much stronger stall spells like WoG or StP. The fact that you're not is because the deck's main gameplan is to draw cards. That's it. Your main strategy is to draw cards because that way you'll set up for Solitary Confinement or WoWhatever.

It is not incidental that cards like Seal of Cleansing, Sterling Grove, Elephant Grass, Solitary Confinement, and even Ground Seal and Words of War play control roles. The deck could be stuffed with any number of enchantments, including cheaper enchantments, but it is stuffed with enchantments that answer different strategies. Occasionally it can be more aggressive by simply getting out an Enchantress early, developing mana quickly, and killing with Words of War on turn 4-5, but it is much more common for it to go after Confinement lock first, as you note.

It's more specific than Solidarity's combo, or TES's combo.

No it's not.

Enchantress: Blah blah blah blah blah, Words of War, activations.
Solidarity: Blah blah blah blah blah, Brain Freeze, possibly Cunning Wish for Stroke of Genius.
TES: Blah blah blah blah blah, Tendrils of Agony.

I would say that relying on one particular card to win when there are many strategies and forms getting to that win can take isn't enough to classify the deck as hard combo. If anything, Enchantress is less so than the other other two, as it usually has a secondary kill in Sacred Mesa or Words of Wilding or something.

Belcher is an exception, you're right. I didn't really consider it when I said "Storm decks" (though it boards REB). TES and Iggy Pop, however, always run at least four disruption spells in the maindeck, and often more. Iggy Pop also always runs at least one bounce spell, and TES uses Burning Wish as a defensive spell sometimes. I don't think I've ever seen a list of either deck with as many win conditions as disruption spells. Are these decks combo-control?

The majority of the game plan is to use the cards to find that kill. If Enchantress played such that it focused on getting Words of War out first, then it would be aggressive. As it is, it usually focuses on stalling with Elephant Grasses and getting a Confinement lock down first. The actual kill is, as Matt points out, a technicality. It's primary purpose is to set up a Prison-lock. This is why the deck is called Solitaire and not, say, Fighting Words.

Solidarity runs about the same number of stall tactics, but we don't call it a control deck because we realize that most of its cards are devoted to actually winning the game.

Again, I'm not sure who doesn't call Solidarity combo-control.

Mad Zur

06-13-2007, 07:11 PM

No it's not.

Enchantress: Blah blah blah blah blah, Words of War, activations.
Solidarity: Blah blah blah blah blah, Brain Freeze, possibly Cunning Wish for Stroke of Genius.
TES: Blah blah blah blah blah, Tendrils of Agony.

I would say that relying on one particular card to win when there are many strategies and forms getting to that win can take isn't enough to classify the deck as hard combo. If anything, Enchantress is less so than the other other two, as it usually has a secondary kill in Sacred Mesa or Words of Wilding or something.
So TES and Solidarity are not hard combo decks. That's fine. You do realize how different from the usual meaning of these terms your definitions have become, don't you? As to your oversimplification, you need multiple Enchantresses to kill with Words of War, but all you need to kill with Tendrils is a large Storm count. The former is clearly more specific.

The majority of the game plan is to use the cards to find that kill. If Enchantress played such that it focused on getting Words of War out first, then it would be aggressive. As it is, it usually focuses on stalling with Elephant Grasses and getting a Confinement lock down first. The actual kill is, as Matt points out, a technicality. It's primary purpose is to set up a Prison-lock. This is why the deck is called Solitaire and not, say, Fighting Words.
TES plays Xantid Swarm before Tendrils of Agony, but people call it a combo deck.

Again, I'm not sure who doesn't call Solidarity combo-control.
It is clearly more control-oriented than Belcher or TES, but not a control deck by any reasonable definition. Solidarity generally wants to play one control element to buy a turn, then win the game. That's not really combo-control. It's combo with disruption.

MattH

06-13-2007, 10:54 PM

It is clearly more control-oriented than Belcher or TES, but not a control deck by any reasonable definition. Solidarity generally wants to play one control element to buy a turn, then win the game. That's not really combo-control. It's combo with disruption.
It will use its control mechanisms only as much as it absolutely must, in order to keep the opponent from winning before it itself wins.

That sounds like the very definition of a combo-control deck!

Raider Bob

06-13-2007, 11:48 PM

I sorta looked at some of the random crap generated in this thread, then I went back and read the title to make sure it didn't say What is the definition of a control deck in Legacy.

Basically the major point I get from people who actually responded to the thread is if you can beat the random crap with your meta game hating control deck you can play control...the problem with that is Legacy has SOOOOOO much random crap in it that you can't get a well tuned all around control deck. Then it has about 7 pages of Enchantress blahMasterbatesomemoreBlah blah deck.

AnwarA101

06-14-2007, 04:03 PM

This should have been the second and last sentence on this topic.

My point is that the terms themselves really aren't very useful in the Legacy meta-game.

How long is it going to take for everyone to give up the obsolete and useless terminology of classical magic? How about starting right now?

Are you guys both saying that these terms aren't really useful at all? Looking at something like Goblins makes me think so. I mean you could argue that sometimes its control, sometimes its combo, and sometimes its aggro, but most of the time its usually do some or all of these things in any given game. Is it possible that things like Combo, Control, and Aggro don't help us much at all except for describing the obvious.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-14-2007, 04:12 PM

I would say that combo is a near-useless term, as it basically simply describes a level of synergy. Very few decks are actually combo decks in the original sense- they don't win through two or more card specifically interacting to win the game immediately.

I think it's useful to be able to classify elements as either offensive or defensive, although aggro, control, and aggro-control aren't really enough options to get a useful measure of a deck's level of offense. Ideally, I think we would want at least a five point scale, something like

1) Aggro- Decks with little to no defense. 9-Land Stompy, Cret Belcher.
2) Disruption- Decks with a bare minimum of disruption- just enough to win. Red Death, TES.
3) Aggro-Control- Decks with an almost equal balance of offense and defense. Threshold, Vial Goblins (the two best decks seem to fall about in the exact middle. Hrm...).
4) Midrange- Decks with a significant offensive presence, but more emphasis on control. Aluren, or RGBSA.
5) Control- Decks with little offense at all, almost entirely control. Landstill, probably Truffle Shuffle (although the latter might be 4.5)

I think understanding where different decks fall on the gauge of offense vs. defense is useful in determining how to play any given matchup. But that means understanding what a defense is versus what an offense is.

Zilla

06-14-2007, 04:59 PM

2) Disruption- Decks with a bare minimum of disruption- just enough to win. Red Death, TES.
So a deck with 4 Wasteland, 4 Sinkhole, 4 Duress, 4 Hymn, 4 Hyppie and 7 burn spells as disruption is comparable to a deck with 4 Xantid Swarm and 4 Burning Wish as disruption? Isn't TES more comparable to CRET Belcher than it is to Red Death? Belcher runs 4 less disruption cards than TES, but TES runs 23 less than Red Death.

TheInfamousBearAssassin

06-14-2007, 05:30 PM

Red Death doesn't actually play like a deck with 27 disruption spells. Eleven of those can go to the face, and four tap for mana. It plays a much more aggressive game.

TES you could argue for being pure aggro. Even with five rankings, you're still not being incredibly specific. I would say that TES actually is probably closer to 1 than 2, but it's still less so than CRET Belcher or 9-land Stompy. But Iggy Pop might've been a better analogy there, particularly builds running things like Orim's Chant.

Cabal-kun

06-14-2007, 05:39 PM

You would probably need more than just a five point scale. For me, aggro means a deck that wins through creatures and combat. Like Stompy or Goblins (it includes aspect of different categories, but it wins through turning creatures sideways).

Combo would be along the lines of TES or CRET Belcher. A combination of cards allows for you to win, or put you in a favorable position (like 10 goblin tokens on the board). ETW doesn't qualify it as aggro, because you use a combination to arrive at it. Infinite combos also come to mind.

Control: Draw go. MUC. Something like that.

Combo control would be along the lines of Solidarity. It included counterspells, thus controlling or limiting what the opponent could do, along with its combo kill, in this case generating a storm count for Brain Freeze.

Aggro combo would be your Extended Dirty Kitty: a combo included in an aggro package.

Aggro control would be along the lines of Threshold. Counterspells to stop the opponent's key cards as you turn creatures sideways.

Aggro disruption would be Suicide variants. You disrupt the opponent's game plan with discard as you turn creatures sideways.

And the list goes on. It would take more of an inverted tree diagram to classify a deck.

SpatulaOfTheAges

06-14-2007, 05:44 PM

Shouldn't you guys be posting this shit in the thread for it?

raharu

06-27-2007, 12:01 AM

Silverdragon

06-27-2007, 12:56 AM

this is why control decks are not as good as other deck types in any meta. reactive cards will always be weaker than proactive cards. the ability to press the opponent will always be greater than the ability to stop your opponents pressure. this is why a full on control deck will never survive to the T8. it's simply because reactive cards (control cards like counterspell) will always be less efective at actually winning the game than, lets say, serra avenger. by the way, i don't discount control. actually, i run B/U agro control (note: AGRO-control).

I'd say it depends. Cards like Pernicious Deed trump a lot of the so called threats and a control deck can even play threats itself that trump opposing threats (think of Morphling, Psychatog, Exalted Angel, Meloku etc). So even if the most dedicated control deck simply reacts almost the whole game it will still win if the answers are strong enough. It all depends on the available cards.

raharu

06-27-2007, 06:37 AM

true, but would you rather play morphling or counterspell?

dre4m

06-27-2007, 07:13 AM

true, but would you rather play morphling or counterspell?

1) Begin sentences with an upper-case letter.
2) Are you trying to ask if you would rather answer a threat or win the game? I think every deck eventually has to do both... I would have to say that any deck that plays Morphling is probably going to cast a counterspell in some incarnation before they play Morphling anyways, so what are you really trying to ask?

Don't back seat Mod.
~ Nightmare

SpikeyMikey

06-30-2007, 04:35 AM

I would say that combo is a near-useless term, as it basically simply describes a level of synergy. Very few decks are actually combo decks in the original sense- they don't win through two or more card specifically interacting to win the game immediately.

I'm going to have to disagree with you. I've always considered any storm deck to be combo. I suppose you could use the tomato/vegetable argument. In the strictest sense of the word, Storm is not a combination deck, because there is no specific combination of cards that wins, it's x random set up spells followed by the kill card, but most any combo deck can be broken into set up and kill cards, and if you don't want to call storm decks combo, we're going to have to remove Academy from that list too, since Academy/Stroke by itself would never have killed anyone.

Common sense tells us that it's ridiculous to hold a strict definition like that, you certainly wouldn't call Academy control or aggro.

The reason most any viable combo deck is going to be storm combo is because as the number of pieces involved drops, it exponentially gets quicker and easier it is to put the combo together, opens space for protection/disruption, and becomes harder to disrupt itself. Storm is a 1 card combo, for all intents and purposes, same as Academy was or NecroTrix. The only difference, and what makes storm stronger than either of those, in an objective sense, is that in those decks, Academy and Necropotence were the engines, with the deck as the kill, and in storm, Tendrils/EtW/BF is the kill, and the deck is the engine.

outsideangel

06-30-2007, 05:20 AM

I think the term "combo" no longer only means a deck that wins via the interaction between two or more specific cards. I think the tomato/vegetable anaolgy is highly relevant, because while (most) everyone is aware that a tomato is technically a fruit, they are served like a vegetable, and while, say, TES doesn't use a specific combination of cards to win, we still understand it as a combo deck based on the way the deck plays and the way it fits into our understanding of what combo is like.

You can get technical and argue that TES isn't "real" combo, or that the term combo is "meaningless", but when you discuss combo decks with the average Legacy player, they're going to understand what you mean. Like any term, "combo" has meaning so long as people are able to exchange information using it.

Arguing over what is and is not a combo deck is rather pointless because the decision is made by consensus and if a deck fits what most people think of as "combo" then it is, quite simply, a combo deck and that's that.

raharu

06-30-2007, 06:19 PM

The question a was putting forth was more of an indirect statement. Idealy you want to be playing threats and building what I guess you could call threat advantage. While answers do sevre an important purpose (they are my favorite type of card), idealy you don't want to play them because idealy you don't want to have to answer your opponent's threats. There are very powerful answers (as previously stated in the thread, Pernicious Deed, as well as the legacy banned Mana Drain, ect. ect.), but proactive cards i.e. threats, are more powerful than reactive cards, such as answers.

fractal7221

07-26-2007, 09:33 PM

There are several factors in my estimation that work against control decks in legacy.

First, there is a wide variety of decks played in legacy, and building a 75 stack to deal with the environment is a daunting task. There are so many viable (or nonviable yet played anyway) decks its sickening. To make matters worse, predicting the metagame for a legacy tournament is difficult at best. It varies highly on region and by what pet decks are popular with teams.

Second, traditional control decks have struggled against the top three decks. Thresh is an aggro-control deck that was nearly designed to crush control decks (though it has evolved to do more). Storm decks are difficult since there is no easy focal point to aim your control options. The storm decks are merely a collection of set-up spells followed by an uncounterable win condition. Goblins has 8 ways around counters, 8 ways to disrupt a control decks mana, and 4 tutors and 4 draw to recover from removal. Now it is possible to create a control deck to deal consistently with one or even two of these decks, but to have a solid match-up against all three along with all the other random decks is asking a lot.

Third, legacy has an incredibly deep card pool. The deep card pool allows players to built decks with only the cheapest, most powerful, and most versatile cards. It leads to questions such as why pay for counter magic when I can play 8 free counters? Or, may have big, expensive victory conditions when I can get 3/3s for 1, 4/5 or larger for 2, or disruptive cards that beatdown. Relatedly, in an environment with so many decks, it makes sense to build your deck so it can assume different roles in different matchups (i.e. who's the beatdown deck and who's the control deck?) Control decks by nature cannot do this, and if you tweak your control deck to by able to switch roles better people will start calling it an aggro-control deck.

Finally, control decks have historically been the most difficult decks to learn, requiring the most playtest time. The playskill needed to play control decks tends to be higher. Not to diss on legacy players, as its pretty much the only format I'm playing right now, but a player willing to put in the time and effort to master a control deck is more likely to gravitate to extended or standard since tournments are more common and prizes are typically higher.

FoolofaTook

07-27-2007, 02:27 PM

I thought I'd turn this around for a second and look at what arguments would support a Control deck in Legacy at the moment if the right one could be found. This is what I came up with.

First, the single best control card in the Legacy meta is Force of Will, as it allows for a likely turn 1 no to any problem. So the best single early control card is actually a card that is already in a substantial proportion of the decks in play.

Second, the single best draw card in the Legacy meta for a control deck, when all factors are taken into consideration, is Brainstorm. Brainstorm is also the best anti-Duress and anti-Cabal Therapy solution and it's playable from the first drop. So the best draw/hand protection card for control is also already in a substantial proportion of decks.

Third, the single best creature removal card in the Legacy meta is Swords to Plowshares, which removes any targettable non-Prot White critter regardless of it's toughness or ability to regenerate and it's playable turn 1. So the best fast creature removal card for control is also already in a substantial proportion of the decks in play.

Fourth, the single best permanent control card in the Legacy meta is Meddling Mage, which can block the play of any single spell from turn 1 on with appropriate acceleration. Meddling Mage is also a beater.

Fifth, the single best answer to a deadly activated ability is Pithing Needle which costs 1 to play and can come into play turn 1.

Sixth, the single best answer to most combo is Chalice of the Void, which can block zero casting cost spells from turn 1.

Seventh, one of the best answers to virtually any fast aggro deck is Engineered Explosives which can drop with 2 counters on turn 1 with appropriate acceleration and be triggered turn 2 to kill any of the nasty 2cc beaters in Threshold.

Eighth, one of the best tutors in the game is Trinket Mage which can pull up any of the artifact solutions above on turn 2 with appropriate acceleration. Trinket Mage is also a beater.

Assuming that you're only going to have 2 of each of the artifact solutions above, give or take 1, and plan to tutor for the one you need if you don't have it in hand, it would seem as though there's room for a really nasty control type deck in the 12-15 free slots not included in the suite.

I guess the only problem that I see is Goblins, which has 37 threats to counter or control and dedicated Discard. Everything else looks as though it should be manageable without a lot of variation in the main control set. The key would be finding permanent solutions to Goblins that did not block your own beaters from eventually winning for you and finding a solution for Discard that allowed you to turn the tables and control them.

AnwarA101

07-27-2007, 02:41 PM

emidln

07-27-2007, 02:41 PM

I guess the only problem that I see is Goblins, which has 37 threats to counter or control and dedicated Discard. Everything else looks as though it should be manageable without a lot of variation in the main control set. The key would be finding permanent solutions to Goblins that did not block your own beaters from eventually winning for you and finding a solution for Discard that allowed you to turn the tables and control them.

Aether Flash. I swear I've been championing this card for like 6 months now since it completely hoses several decks.

FoolofaTook

07-27-2007, 03:02 PM

Control decks in Legacy rarely have "beaters" which are acutally on the board. They have historically (in Legacy) needed to rely on sweepers (Wrath, Deed, etc) to maintain control against creature decks (mainly Goblins) to survive. Landstill is one of the few decks that has tried to mix board control elements with stack control (counters). Landstill is still poor against Goblins, in the end it sacrifices a matchup which its strategy of counter relevant threats and sweeper the board into obvilion just doesn't work. If you want to play actual creatures in your control deck, I know of a good deck its called Threshold.

Don't Meddling Mage and Trinket Mage actually fit into a control concept? They both do very controllish things for a relatively cheap cost and then have a secondary function as beaters once they've fulfilled their primary.

I figure they're both there to do something and then double as damage after the fact.

Are there any permanent solutions to 1 toughness critters in U/W or Artifact? Caltrops seems a little slow and it doesn't stop Dark Confidant or any of the threshold critters from killing you.

I'm thinking the deck would be light on actual counters, as the best control decks in the past were. Maybe 6 or 7 tops.

FoolofaTook

07-27-2007, 03:10 PM

Aether Flash. I swear I've been championing this card for like 6 months now since it completely hoses several decks.

I've been experimenting with Aether Flash in a storm deck without EtW. It's just a tad too slow against a good Goblin deck unless you have a bunch of other turn 1 removal turn 3 sweeper type cards with it. If you have the sweepers and it then you're dead against combo or other creatureless decks.

It would be great in a control deck if you could figure out how to stabilize long enough to get it into play without actually spending a lot of slots on other creature removal.

The deck I'm trying to build with it is a red direct damage deck that stabilizes off of the initial damage spells, gets Aether Flash into play and then uses damage and Storm Entities to finish. It's just a bit off at the moment. Catches some people by surprise and destroys them but also is short on draw against some.

emidln

07-27-2007, 03:20 PM

I've been experimenting with Aether Flash in a storm deck without EtW. It's just a tad too slow against a good Goblin deck unless you have a bunch of other turn 1 removal turn 3 sweeper type cards with it. If you have the sweepers and it then you're dead against combo or other creatureless decks.

It would be great in a control deck if you could figure out how to stabilize long enough to get it into play without actually spending a lot of slots on other creature removal.

The deck I'm trying to build with it is a red direct damage deck that stabilizes off of the initial damage spells, gets Aether Flash into play and then uses damage and Storm Entities to finish. It's just a bit off at the moment. Catches some people by surprise and destroys them but also is short on draw against some.

Generally when we play Aether Flash we run Pyroclasm, Rolling Earthquake, and sometimes even Earthquake or Burning Wish. Furthermore, we play double mana lands in some amount, Crucible, and Mox Diamond to make sure it comes down by turn 3.

P.S. Turn 1 removal is irrelevant when your deck is packed with 6-7 sweepers that are available on turn 2.

zulander

07-27-2007, 03:48 PM

Aether Flash seems good in an aggro metagame, it just seems to suck against combo. Especially against brainfreeze/tendrils of agony.

emidln

07-27-2007, 05:46 PM

Aether Flash seems good in an aggro metagame, it just seems to suck against combo. Especially against brainfreeze/tendrils of agony.

/claps

Now that you're done stating the obvious, you have other cards that aren't dedicated anti-aggro hate (incidentally, this does stop ETW if you can delay them a bit). Most control decks will have stuff like Force of Will, Counterspell, and Stifle. Most prison decks will have Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, and Smokestack (amongst other things). These do quite well against combo.

Anarky87

07-28-2007, 02:09 AM

Landstill is still poor against Goblins

It doesn't have to be. I've been playing Landstill since the GP, and while Goblins isn't your best matchup, I'd say, with a good build, it's far from poor.

If you want to play actual creatures in your control deck, I know of a good deck its called Threshold.Which just so happens to roll over to Landstill (Control). Thresh seems to do that against decks whose draw engine actual does something besides filter cards. Or decks that play more removal than you do creatures. I liked getting paired up against Aggro-Control at the GP, because it was usually a match I was heavily favored in.

I used to be a huge advocate of Threshold. But then I found out I could play all the good control pieces and my creatures trumped Thresh's, so there was little need to play Thresh.

FoolofaTook

03-14-2008, 11:12 AM

I'm going to bump this again with a simple question:

Why would a deck that was easily able to run 4 each of the most efficient and in some cases powerful cards in the Legacy meta (e.g. Brainstorm, Force of Will, Counterbalance, Sensei's Divining Top and Swords to Plowshares) not be the dominant deck in the meta?

It's clear that those 5 cards are not combining to form a heavily favored deck to WIN most tournaments. Top 8's for Threshold with a white splash are common but victories are not.

Other control decks with those 5 cards aren't even showing up at tourneys at this point.

So what gives with extraordinarily efficient draw, denial and removal? Is it just too reactive in combination to make it to the end of the day and win?

Hoojo

03-14-2008, 11:56 AM

Ch@os

03-14-2008, 12:27 PM

Those cards don't win the game. They keep your opponent from winning. The best you can hope for with those cards as a central strategy to win is a concession, and I don't see that happening.

You can play Dreadstill around these 5 cardset's, + incredible carddraw [standstill], nice Stifle interaction and some good support creatures like Trinket Mage and Meddling Mage in the SB.

FoolofaTook

03-14-2008, 12:33 PM

You can play Dreadstill around these 5 cardset's, + incredible carddraw [standstill], nice Stifle interaction and some good support creatures like Trinket Mage and Meddling Mage in the SB.

Is Dreadstill consistently winning tourneys or is it similar to Threshold in consistently making top 8's but rarely winning?

raharu

03-14-2008, 07:42 PM

Page one: switch gears faster- YESSSS!!!!!! Develop the archetype's deckbuilding philosophy and it may/ will be more sucessful.

#24: Tacosnape, show me that list, please and thank you.

#120: forcing exceptions to the rule is the same as forcing logical fallacy. If they have answers to your threats, then of course your threats won’t kill them. It’s like you don’t know the meaning of ANSWER!!! Damnit…

#131: Me too!!!11Twotwo!!

#136: Again, not losing and winning are on entirely different levels. Enchantress’s main goal IS NOT sticking a Confinement.

And if we were going to actually address Stax strategy, there are lots of cards that are kill conditions that don't directly win the game. Mindslaver lock is a kill condition; the opponent hasn't technically died at the time the lock is achieved, but the game is functionally over none-the-less. The same is true of Chant-lock if the opponent doesn't have an answer. The same is true of Haunting Echoes if it removes all the opponents win conditions.

Or, they simply “don’t loose”. That happens just as often with most/ if not all examples, the sole exceptions being the ones that inadvertantly deck them (read: inadverdently, meaning not Solidarity).

#147: in the timeframe that TES wins, I think that the amount of disruption is comparable.

The general discussion on Answers = threats: missing the point.

I think that IBA just has a different (and definitely more advanced) comprehension of metagame archetypes/ roles.

That's justa general reply to the thread itself, as well as proof that I read it all (on a sidenote, isn't it funny as hell to see that case studies in magic, upon being discussed by the presumed best players in the format, and possibly the game, become reduced to pissing contests and fickle bitching?).

Now to say something more... relevant: control simply has to adapt. The end. If a control deck could be developed well, it could dominate.

More discussion (kinda) on actualy doing this can be found Here (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=215623#post215623).

Dark_Cynic87

04-01-2008, 05:42 AM

What all you people are seeming to forget is skill. This isn't COMPLETELY about your build. It's also about knowledge. How well you know your deck and also theirs.

Whoever says stax varients are bad is an idiot. I've raped combo, the mirror, aggro, and aggro-control with it.

White stax is boring to play, but a play like turn 1 on the draw Tomb, Diamond, Prison against a combo player that just dropped 16 goblin tokens is usually game.

Likewise, a turn 1 3sphere is normally enough to drop a stax and a Crucible ftw.

a swinging angel on turn 2 normally is enough to beat any kind of non-Brain Freeze combo, and even then, if you get a smokestack down before they hit 4 Islands, you are ok. 3sphere is also a pretty decent stall, as they have to find bounce, and Chalice @ 1 on top of all this is enough for a concession.

EtW is a joke for almost every single stax build out there simply because of Prison/Propaganda/Quake effex, and then the Sphere/Void sets.

I have found that with my build (UGr), Thresh is an autowin. Loam is funny. 43 lands is actually the most threatening deck out there against it, and even then, if I can get a chalice down at 1 before they drop exploration/Manabond, I'm golden, especially if I have a crux lock on with wastes. Chalice @ 2 is funny, too.

Hell, g1 is 50/50 or better depending on my hand against Dredge and Bridge combo, and g2 I win via Intuition into a recurring Crypt, or SBing Propaganda.

CounterTop is the funniest thing in the world to see. Most people crap their pants. To me, it's like saying "land, go".

Countersliver is easy. They stop themselves with all the accumulated pumping right into my bridge.

Factories are great against thresh. I can chump block a goyf all damn day.

But go ahead and think that Dragon Stompy is playable but stax varients suck, taco.

Peter_Rotten

08-09-2008, 01:25 PM

This is an interesting thread, so I'll leave it open. However, what's with a "Necro-to-Brag"? Have you no shame?

Mental

08-09-2008, 01:49 PM