[Article] Eternal on the other Side of the Ocean: Combo-Control Rising

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

This time I'm talking about the advantages of playing combo-control instead of other archetypes and present you with my version of the only deck I've played in Legacy so far that feels like true combo-control. Take a look!

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...ol_Rising.html

Criticism, comments, questions? Any other reactions? Let me know about it in detail!

[GGoober]

Interesting take, but it depends on the definition of control-combo obviously. In your article, you viewed +4 Pact + 4 FoW to not be a combo-control deck but rather a combo deck, which I feel is not true.

In Vintage, control-combo only really exists because their combo is fundamentally a turn or half slower than the pure combo decks, but by playing with 8 counterspells e.g. Bob Tendrils/drain Tendrils, you get to sacrifice your speed by completely nullifying faster opposing combo decks, while at the same time have tools to fight control.

I personally think that the perfect example of combo-control in Legacy is still Solidarity. It's the only deck that truly "Draw, go!". Doing everything on an opponent's turn is a big element of control simply because you want to have the best option after your opponents made a decision. Obviously control decks in legacy have drifted away from drawgo since there are not enough good spells to support that playstyle, and more powerful engines e.g. countertop exist towards a more proactive form of control. In Vintage, the draw,go style for pure-control decks can be seen and is largely shaped by the meta. You can't really afford to tap out unless you're intending to win, and if you're tapping out to win, you better win.

Solidarity IMO is the true control-combo deck, because it really weighs out the deck's option, and really doesn't need to counter anything except the things that really matter. It is counting its resources to go off, yet not going off waiting for the prime time, and using counters to back up the critical turn, and all this is happening at instant speed, where the control player is mastering the stack while powering out a combo win.

All in all, it's an interesting list, and there is one big thing that I agree with you: With Time Spiral unbanned, the control-combo list you propose is much more viable. This is because without Time Spiral, you can run all the counters you want, but you won't get any gas. Time Spiral allows high tide player to now go off without any cards in hand given Time Spiral resolves. This is the biggest strength of the deck/list post Time Spiral. However, I feel that no matter what, if Time Spiral is popular or becomes a strong deck, Solidarity will simply come in to take the picture up (going off on your high tide, going off in response to your time spiral/FoW etc).

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

I disagree on either deck being combo-control. Let's break this down into Solidarity and other High Tide lists - Solidarity is quite a different animal imo.
The Pact-versions of Spiral-Tide aren't combo-control for me because your only actual control-element is Force of Will. Pact only protects your own threats, meaning it's useful only when you're offensive and with a deck like this that means playing as combo. Pact doesn't stop actual threats - Counterbalance first and foremost - from coming down before you're ready to go off and even if it does, it makes the combo take more pieces because you need to Tide during your upkeep and have an untap-effect to still be able to go off. Not to mention that line of play often forces you to go off before you're sure you can punch through or makes you waste a Tide if you don't feel you can go off yet. Basically, while good, four Forces aren't enough to actually keep other control-decks "under control" - if you try to play the control-role, you're going to run out of cards in hand by two-for-oneing yourself repeatedly and will still have trouble finding enough countermagic to keep their threats off the table because they, too, have FoW. As such you remain stuck playing combo against control, trying to create an opening for you to go off as early as possible (before they have their own threats you need to counter, pretty much) to keep your Pacts truely life cards. While this has merit, it is weak against the premiere control-deck in the format (CB) as evidenced by the fact that ANT, in my opinion a more powerful combo-deck than High Tide for the reasons mentioned in the article, is like 20% to win that matchup. The Pact-Tide lists are probably better due to being able to actually fight CB at least with FoW, but I doubt they're as good against it as NBS with its Counterspells.

Solidarity on the other hand seems like it should be control, all it does is draw, go and play Instants after all. Playing draw, go doesn't make you a control-deck any more than playing a Lightning Bolt on the opponents turn one play makes Zoo a control-deck, though. Looking at the actual control-elements in Solidarity we again see FoW, this time supported by Remand. If used as a defensive card, Remand only stalls the inevitable for a turn, though, which is nice if you plan on comboing early but pretty much useless if the card you want to stop is as lethal a turn later (again Counterbalance being the prime example) and you want more time to sculpt the perfect hand.
The way Solidarity actually controls the game is to kill the opponent in response to any threat that is perceived as lethal (or dangerous enough). Its instant-speed nature makes it extremely resilent to disruption aimed at this combo-out process but that doesn't make Solidarity combo-control. It only makes it a combo-deck that can slow-roll its kill to the last possible second instead of always trying to go off as fast as possible like other combo-decks are forced to do because they can't go off in response to a gamebreaking threat. The timing is different ("normal" combo has to preemptively race hate, Solidarity can do so "retroactively") but the strategy remains to combo-kill whenever something comes up your minor disruption can't handle. As such I'd qualify Solidarity as combo (though a unique form of it).

NBS on the other hand doesn't try to kill the (control-)opponent before he can stick something gamebreaking. Instead what you try to do is to actually take control of the game first, stopping everything truly relevant the opponent wants to do and use your combo-kill to end the game once you've established a dominant position already. Going off early before the opponent's threats come online is what you do against aggro but against control this is only the fallback-plan in case plan A (outcontrol them) fails.
In a way I treat the control-matchups the same way I treat playing against combo. I mean I usually don't go off against Counterbalance before I have like six lands in play - before that, all I usually do is dig for more defensive cards to make sure their "combo-kill" (CB-Top) doesn't come online. And because the deck is so good at finding whatever cards you want while having efficient regular countermagic to dig for, this usually works out quite well.
My list may look similar to more typical High Tide lists but it takes a completely different approach as to how matchups against interactive decks are going to play out. This change in strategy is what makes High Tide a good deck in my opinion because it is a combo-deck against aggro that doesn't have an atrocious matchup against Counterbalance, the deck that ostensibly keeps combo in check in Legacy, because you aren't a combo-deck in that matchup - they are the ones trying to resolve a threat (Counterbalance) through your countermagic, you're the control-deck. This is exactly what Vintage combo-control decks aim to do and why I drew the parallel.

You're perfectly right, though, that this kind of approach wouldn't have the slightest chance to work if Time Spiral was still banned. If you need to stock four or five engine-pieces in hand to be ready to go off, you don't have the opportunity to use your library-manipulation to dig up more and more control-cards. Incidentially, this changed focus also means you're far less hurt by having to Force once or even twice early in the game because all you need are a Tide and a Spiral

As to Solidarity keeping decks like NBS in check, if the metagame gets warped to the point that we need to resort to Solidarity because it beats NBS-style decks, I think the format would be in big trouble anyway. Not to mention you can Turnabout them during their endstep, a point where they'll be hard-pressed to go off in response, fighting the first counter-war there, than go off on your turn while they don't have mana available to go off in response. That allows you to take the hard-control role with NBS in the matchup because your library manipulation is a lot better than theirs and probably makes the matchup far better than one would expect on first sight.

[rogue.nine]

NBS on the other hand doesn't try to kill the (control-)opponent before he can stick something gamebreaking. Instead what you try to do is to actually take control of the game first, stopping everything truly relevant the opponent wants to do and use your combo-kill to end the game once you've established a dominant position already.

Isn't that what ThopterBalance does, at least in my opinion, and what you went out of your way to define as NOT a combo-control deck?


Interesting read though, if nothing else it makes me want to work on CBGrindstone again :)

[GGoober]

Once again, Mon, I don't have anything to disagree but the whole concept of control-combo seems ill-defined. You voiced your definitions on what you think control-combo should be. You presented arguments that 4 Pact + 4 FoW in Spiral Tide or 4 Remand + 4 FoW in Solidarity is not control-combo enough because they are used pro-actively to protect their combo while your deck is assuming the control role before attempting to win by making sure the board is stable before you go off.

However, your definition of control-combo is just a smaller subset of what "I" feel to be control-combo. I'll tell you what I think defines control-combo.

1) It needs a combo win that usually wins over 1-2 turns. let's agree on this first. The reason to have such a win is to capitalize on the right moment to win, and guarantee that win.
2) It controls the game so that it can force out a combo win. This is where you and I disagree to the definition of control-combo. You feel that control-combo archetype requires the board to be under control to go off. But what does under control really mean? If it's countering a Counterbalance with counterspell to ride your combo to victory then your definition works, but what about proactively duressing a Counterbalance turn 1 and going off next turn knowing it's safe? How about going off while counterbalance and your opponent's FoW is both on the stack?

In some sense, control in control-combo is only really there for one purpose: to force yourself to win by either countering things that stop you or protecting your spells. In either case, the goal is clear: using counterspells to win the game. I think you are focusing on the 'countering spells that stop you' element of control-combo more than protecting your win-conditions.

I'm not here to disagree or to argue semantics what's control-combo, but I want to point out because you took the definition in your light, your choice of strategy/cards is influenced by that perspective. for example, the fundamental speed of your deck is slower than spiral Tide/Solidarity/Tendrils etc, but this is offset by the fact that you believe that playing a little more controllish gameplay earlier game will secure you better wins. This is the difference in your approach to control-combo, compared to the Spiral Tide players who are seeking to win a little faster and just needing to protect Time spiral and ignore everything else. There's strengths in both approaches IMO, but obviously it will influence the type of cards you will be playing and how you will be winning etc.

Regardless, the one thing that is clear is that with Time spiral's unbanning, it is much more natural for High Tide decks to assume a control-combo role than a pure combo row simply due to the fact that you no longer need 4-5 cards in hand to go off. And you taking that deck in that direction is a good thing to do, at least in terms of exploring new concepts/strategies/options. Enjoyed the article regardless :)

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Isn't that what ThopterBalance does, at least in my opinion, and what you went out of your way to define as NOT a combo-control deck?


Interesting read though, if nothing else it makes me want to work on CBGrindstone again :)

Note that this was a comment about playing against control-decks. The beauty of playing true combo-control is that you're control in the matchups where that is better (aka other control and combo) and you're true combo aka "you're too slow sucker" against aggro. To be able to play control against aggro in Legacy you have to fill your deck with situational cards (like StP or Moat) and that hurts you when playing against control or combo, by being (what I define as) an actual combo-control deck you get around this problem quite handily.

Anyway, I'm happy you enjoyed the article :)

/edit: Metalwalker answered while I was posting this, so to avoid the double-post here comes the answer:

1) It needs a combo win that usually wins over 1-2 turns. let's agree on this first. The reason to have such a win is to capitalize on the right moment to win, and guarantee that win.
2) It controls the game so that it can force out a combo win. This is where you and I disagree to the definition of control-combo. You feel that control-combo archetype requires the board to be under control to go off. But what does under control really mean? If it's countering a Counterbalance with counterspell to ride your combo to victory then your definition works, but what about proactively duressing a Counterbalance turn 1 and going off next turn knowing it's safe? How about going off while counterbalance and your opponent's FoW is both on the stack?

I completely agree with 1) but I disagree with 2), which is probably what causes our difference of opinion.

To my mind a true combo-control deck is one that can win before aggro-decks goldfish you but that doesn't try to push through a combo-win first and foremost in those matchups where being a control-deck is advantageous. Instead the deck has to have the ability to play a true control-role if the opponent is trying to take control of the game/win faster than you do. You're not aiming to take control of the board, you're trying to take control of the game itself, in the same way a regular control-deck would. Essentially imagine playing the Landstill-mirror and you get a good impression of what control vs combo-control looks like, with the only difference being that the combo-control-player simply kills the opponent instead of sticking a Jace when he gets an opening.

And yes, this is obviously dependant on using my definition of combo-control, which is why I (tried to) define it that way in the article. If killing the opponent as soon as he does something threatening was combo-control, Belcher could be defined as combo-control because that's essentially all it does - it kills the opponent before he makes any threatening plays ;) As such just trying to win before the opposing hate/defense comes online is a sign that a deck is combo, not combo-control in my book.

Also, I disagree with NBS being slower than Solidarity (I definitely agree on Tendrils and I suspect Spring Tide is also a bit faster, though less than you seem to think). Solidarity can win on three lands but is far more comfortable winning on four. I actually think the turn 3 (goldfish) win-percentage of NBS is noticably higher than Solidarity's (and I goldfished Solidarity quite a lot because it's still the most fun goldfishing-deck I've ever seen).

Also, while I might sound all defensive, I'm happy we're having this discussion. It means you're at least interested enough in what I have to say that you find weak points in my argumentation - how could I not be happy :) Thanks for the constructive feedback!

[SMR0079]

While not groundbreaking, the inclusion of counterspells over Snaps and extra wishes does change the matchups quite a bit. We were playing a spring tide list with 2 Trops for Grips and Moments Peace. However, Moments Peace just opened us up to getting wasted against Folk/Gobbos. With that in mind, why not just run straight mono blue with Wipe Away instead of Grips? I also found Preordain to be better then Ponder, but with less fetches in a mon blue list Ponder may get the edge. I think you can cut a cantrip as wel.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Splash for KGrip: You really don't want to have to bounce Counterbalance, you want to destroy at the first opportunity to make your draw-engine life again. Remember NBS plays as the control-deck in that matchup and sitting around locked out by Counterbalance makes that pretty difficult. You really don't want to have to Bounce CB and directly go off, that way you get beaten by their other disruption in the same way all the other combo-decks do, so KGrip does the job much better than Wipe ever could - and with only a single Tropical, the cost to the manabase is neglegible enough to make it worth it, imo.
As to running Preordain over Ponder, I would do so in exactly the opposite situation you describe - Ponder is much better than Preordain as long as you have a shuffle-effect to use afterwards. As such Ponder gets better the more Fetches you run while Preordain is superior if you run few fetches (like in the mono-u list you suggest).