The best deck philosophies

[Citrus-God]

Just taking shit off vintage... I was thinking of hybrid decks. Grim Long loses to Gifts, just because of the only ways to play Long is the play the hand perfectly and capitalize off mistakes made by the opponent. Gifts can Combo, and interact. It basically comboes once you're in he state of exhaust.

Goyf has created lot's of hybrid decks. I recently got to see the joy in seeing the slowest variant of Hatfield Thresh shift-gears into a faster game if needed. Goblins tends to control the game by being the Aggressor. Did I just say that aggression translate into Control? Yes, I just did. You're spending so much card advantage just to stay alive, and by the time you're slightly exhausted, an SCG or Ringleader comes to to finish the work of the other dead Goblins. This is control because it is forcing you to answer them in that fashion, in which that fashion is to apply pressure so that it would force you into a mistake or just being overwhelmed.
Oddly enough, Threshold has been forcing Ringleaders and SCGs to trade with Goyfs. It's like Threshold is controlling the roles. The point is, Threshold was was playing Control, instead of Aggro early game. This time, Threshold is forcing Goblins into making mistakes.

I really want this discussion to be a community discussion on what elements a good hybrid deck should present in Legacy.

[BreathWeapon]

The ability to "just win" is one of the most important, if not the most important, aspects of hybrid decks we've seen over the past five years. I think the theory first appeared with Psychatog and then it was coined with Gifts Ungiven, at least in Vintage, but regardless both of those decks taught me that the key to hybrid decks was the ability to be both flexible and aggressive all at the same time.

Edit: You can throw in Food Chain Goblins and Affinity here also.

You could make a strong argument for TnT and GAT to, but not enough people were playing Eternal back then, nor was the theory established. They're still good reference points, especially TnT since it superficially resembles modern Survival. Speaking of which, "tool boxing" is another important aspect of hybrid decks, because it lets them adopt Keeper's bullet plan. You still see this in Survival today, any form of control that uses Cunning Wish (pretty much Tog or Scepter) and anything running Trinket Mage.

Arguably the only other hybrid deck that exists outside of the original aggro-control, combo-control frame work that most people pass over is Dragon. Dragon was more or less a combo deck, but it could switch into a "2 card combo that doesn't win the game but creates a substantial advantage" deck by reanimating fatties. This really hasn't been re-approached, with the exception of The Polar Express and Stifled Dreadnoughts.

You even have one deck that can go three different ways with Bomberman, where you play control, aggro and combo all at the same time. Bomberman is really the pinnacle of a hybrid deck, altho' it's a little slow and suffers from the jack of all trades problem.

In Legacy, all we've really had are some funky hybrid decks like Gamekeeper and 3cSlide/Confinement that mixed up board control with combo and aggro-control. Dredge is really just a bastardization of Magic altogether, so I don't really know what you'd qualify it as.

[Citrus-God]

The ability to "just win" is one of the most important, if not the most important, aspects of hybrid decks we've seen over the past five years. I think the theory first appeared with Psychatog and then it was coined with Gifts Ungiven, at least in Vintage, but regardless both of those decks taught me that the key to hybrid decks was the ability to be both flexible and aggressive all at the same time.

This is true. This is why I love Yawgmoth's Will-based Drain decks back then. Control Slaver was probably one of my favorite decks from that era, then I shifted towards Gifts.


Edit: You can throw in Food Chain Goblins and Affinity here also.

I think I should Cephalid Breakfast in now. Being able to Go Goyfers is just kinda cool.


You could make a strong argument for TnT and GAT to, but not enough people were playing Eternal back then, nor was the theory established. They're still good reference points, especially TnT since it superficially resembles modern Survival. Speaking of which, "tool boxing" is another important aspect of hybrid decks, because it lets them adopt Keeper's bullet plan. You still see this in Survival today, any form of control that uses Cunning Wish (pretty much Tog or Scepter) and anything running Trinket Mage.

And the tutoring has been more proactive then ever.


Arguably the only other hybrid deck that exists outside of the original aggro-control, combo-control frame work that most people pass over is Dragon. Dragon was more or less a combo deck, but it could switch into a "2 card combo that doesn't win the game but creates a substantial advantage" deck by reanimating fatties. This really hasn't been re-approached, with the exception of The Polar Express and Stifled Dreadnoughts.

It could be a slow-rolling combo deck. I know TPS does a very good job at slow-rolling. The same applies to Salvage Game and TES.


You even have one deck that can go three different ways with Bomberman, where you play control, aggro and combo all at the same time. Bomberman is really the pinnacle of a hybrid deck, altho' it's a little slow and suffers from the jack of all trades problem.

But the great thing about that deck is that it's hard to get hated while playing Bomberman. Sadly, the downside is that it's just plain fair.


In Legacy, all we've really had are some funky hybrid decks like Gamekeeper and 3cSlide/Confinement that mixed up board control with combo and aggro-control. Dredge is really just a bastardization of Magic altogether, so I don't really know what you'd qualify it as.


I think the best thing Legacy came up with are Goblins, Affinity, Solidarity, Threshold, LftL, TES, and more crap...

[MattH]

Aggro Loam in extended was an important development. Prior to that most (all?) non-Tog Loam decks were very slow, very controlling decks, running decidedly non-JustWinning cards like Wall of Blossoms.

Tog was really where it came together though. Why Drain into an Abyss when you can Drain into a draw spell and Just Win? Tog was the first deck to really use that plan and it was triggered by the creation of aggro decks that didn't Just Lose. Time was, aggro decks were just trying to see if they could kill the opponent before they lost the game. They had little "staying power" and virtually zero "comeback power". But then we started seeing decks like Madness, which had huge guys and a powerful draw engine - Careful Study, the draw7s, Deep Analysis, and Bazaar of Baghdad. You couldn't just batter back their first wave and call the game over. This got worse with Goblins and Affinity. It used to be the case that aggro could hit you for about 16-25 damage by turn 4-5, so if you could keep that from happening, you were set. But if Affinity falls a few points short of killing you, so what? They just equip their Plating to something and hit for another 10. And the next turn, 10 more. And then 10 more. And 10 more. You can't just turtle yourself against that stuff, you have to kick them while they're down and get that W in the bag, or else you let them come back and you have to fight them all over again.

Against that kind of relentless attack, "classic" control decks started finding ways to kill faster, to not let the opponent come back.