Standard top 16 more diverse than legacy...?

[Hanni]

I was going to say roughly the same thing Whit3 Ghost, but you beat me to it. I'm still going to reply anyway.

To be blunt, neither of those sound really off the radar. I've seen and I'm sure everyone else has seen iterations of the decks you describe, and they don't stock up well against the field as a whole. I assumed you meant something like board control or at least old u/w Landstill with a million counters/kill spells.

As it is you're basically describing a deck that has as many counters and card advantage elemnts as BladeControl or NO Rug and a much slower clock.

(Actually your u/w deck just sounds like BladeControl only for some reason you added CounterTop to it.)

But both of the decks are a bit off the radar, because they aren't "the norm."

Also, why don't they stack up well against the field? People have been assuming that Control is bad in Legacy for so long now, and it makes no sense. The format is diverse, I get that. Control is a deck of answers, I get that. There are no wrong threats, only wrong answers, I get that. The fact is, though, that Control decks run answers that are general answers. Creature removal is creature removal, Counterspell answers nearly everything, so on and so forth. There's a good reason why UBg Landstill was a DTB for a little while, and U/W Landstill was a DTB back in its heyday.

Also, I did mean something like board control. Both of those decks are board control decks. Just because the card pool has gotten deeper since U/W Landstill was the premier control deck in Legacy, doesn't mean the fundamentals have changed.

The U/W deck only runs 7 creature kills spells, but it runs 14 countermagic-y spells, the maindeck 4/2 SFM/Batterskull split is a form of creature control, and both Jace TMS and Elspeth both are capable of dealing with creatures.

The U/B/g deck runs 8 countermagic + 1 Raven's Crime, with 3 flex spots which can be 3 Missteps, 3 additional discard spells, etc. The deck also runs a 12-piece removal package which includes 4 Deeds.

Not sure why those decks wouldn't be considered board control decks.

The decks are also not comparable to either NO RUG or the many variations of U/W/x Stoneblade. NO RUG and U/W/x Stoneblade are aggro/control decks, that run conditional "tempo" countermagic like Daze and Spell Snare, and they run more than 4 creatures. It's like comparing oldschool Threshold to oldschool U/W Landstill. They both run a bunch of the same cards, but the actual gameplans are much different.

Also, my U/W Control deck is most definitely not a Blade Control deck that I plugged Counterbalance into. I've been developing my U/W Control deck since 2008, which started off as Counterbalance Landstill, evolved into Counterbalance Superfriends, and has now evolved into what I call "The Justice League." Rather than being a Stoneblade deck that I plugged Counterbalance into, it's my Superfriends deck that I plugged SFM into. Why? Because SFM improves the decks weakest matchups, namely Merfolk and Goblins*.

*I realize SFM is alot better against Merfolk than Goblins, but it still helps to drop two bodies (SFM and Batterskull) that can block/kill incoming attackers and gain me life, and an attacking Batterskull also kills Goblins if they block, or puts the Goblins player on a clock if they don't. SFM itself also nets the same overall card advantage as Predict (+1 CA), and gives me the time to set up my other card advantage engines like Shackles, Elspeth, Jace, etc. Postboard, bringing in Mages for Counterbalances and subbing out a Batterskull for a Jitte gives me even more tools (plus I also bring in WoG's and Needles).

tl;dr Both decks are in fact good against the rest of the field, despite popular misbelief, both decks are board control decks, both decks are not really comparable to NO RUG and U/W/x Stoneblade in functionality, and my U/W Control deck is not just a Stoneblade deck w/ Counterbalances.

I actually don't see how what you're thinking of wouldn't be competitive. You might have a pretty terrible game one against Hivemind, but it's not like you can't pack sideboard hate for it. If you're beating NORUG and UW Mystic, you're probably beating Maverick and Zoo as well, and that's an overwhelmingly positive matchup against at least 60% of the meta.

Both decks that I'm talking about don't have a terrible game one against Hive Mind, though.

Anyway, I'm done discussing those decks in a thread about the last SCG's Top 16. Sorry to derail the thread, everyone.

[Bruticus]

Phyrexian Metamorph is my favorite card in recent history, mostly because it helps shore up the NO/SnT matchups in a manner that is accessible to almost any deck. The problem is that Metamorph doesn't just win you games if it goes unanswered. Playing your own NO is a much better answer to opposing NOs because if you don't need it to kill opposing Progenitus you can just cast it and win...

Metamorph fills a different role than NO or Progenitus. It provides answers, flexibility and deck redundancy. People should consider building with that in mind if at all possible.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I'm not going to get into a discussion about a theoretical decklist without more specifics. If you think you've cracked the metagame, go for it. The Hatfields' numbers apparently indicate that NO Rug legitimately beats most of the field, so I'm skeptical. I can think of decks that beat NO Rug, of course, but the problem with control is people playing too many different decks in large numbers. And no, what beats Rug or Zoo doesn't necessarily beat Merfolk or Stoneblade.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I mean there is a conservative group that wants to always defend the status quo, no matter what, and there is a libertarian group that wants to always get rid of as many rules as possible, and these people come out of the woodworks any time there's a serious question raised of whether the format is healthy or not and attack any suggestions of banning anything as "whining." Which is a term used to try and bury the issue, nothing else.

I don't think either of these is an ideal approach to managing the banned list, but I think if anything they have too much sway. Modern has been trashed a lot in this thread because it has a very deeply managed ban list, where the intent was just to foster new deck development, not simply preserve a balanced metagame.

The thing is that a lot of people are really, really excited about Modern, and for a good reason; it's a wide open, five color format with a lot of cards that are playable. It's in fact a lot like Legacy used to be; in fact, it's probably far closer to 2004-2005 era Legacy in terms of diversity and power level than modern Legacy is.

Legacy, by contrast, is looking more like Vintage; blue gets more dominant with every passing year, regardless of whatever else is going on. The functional cardpool outside of a few highly synergy dependent decks like Tribal or Affinity or Dredge continues to shrink. If I know what colors someone is playing I can predict their deck within a few cards accuracy a very large percentage of the time.

I mean that's not an entirely bad thing; people want to play with the most powerful cards ever printed, too. But it does point to the fact that Legacy has multiple conflicting identities. Modern might relieve a bit of that pressure, which would be good, but it doesn't obviate all need to watch Legacy's power level. Some people think that it's fine as long as there are multiple playable decks, but that's a fairly narrow interpretation of format health.

[Antonius]

^^

I agree with you on Modern looking like 5-color Rainbow land. Wasteland needs to be reprinted so the real thugs can step on that wuss shit and regulate.

I won't be touching the format until that happens.

[keys]

^^

i agree with you on modern looking like 5-color rainbow land. Wasteland needs to be reprinted so the real thugs can step on that wuss shit and regulate.

I won't be touching the format until that happens.

ilu

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

^^

I agree with you on Modern looking like 5-color Rainbow land. Wasteland needs to be reprinted so the real thugs can step on that wuss shit and regulate.

I won't be touching the format until that happens.

I don't even know what you just said.

I meant all colors get played. Very few decks are actually five colors because you have to choose between a slow manabase or one that deals you eight damage every game.

[Whit3 Ghost]

I'm not going to get into a discussion about a theoretical decklist without more specifics. If you think you've cracked the metagame, go for it. The Hatfields' numbers apparently indicate that NO Rug legitimately beats most of the field, so I'm skeptical. I can think of decks that beat NO Rug, of course, but the problem with control is people playing too many different decks in large numbers. And no, what beats Rug or Zoo doesn't necessarily beat Merfolk or Stoneblade.

I read too much into your quote about the autoloss to Show and Tell, and figured you had a board control list in mind that had a positive matchup against both NoRug and Stoneblade, but was being kept out of contention by the Hivemind matchup.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I read too much into your quote about the autoloss to Show and Tell, and figured you had a board control list in mind that had a positive matchup against both NoRug and Stoneblade, but was being kept out of contention by the Hivemind matchup.

Not one specific list, but that's been my experience testing board control variants generally. There are other problems on a case-by-case basis, but yeah.

I guess the closest would be a Coffers-Control type list that has discard to bring to bear against SnT. But those decks tend to have serious problems with Zoo and even Merfolk.

[RexFTW]

Welcome to legacy. This is how it balances out:
Control > Combo > Aggro > Control

MM now removes Aether Vial from the picture leaving us with:
Control > Combo

Therefore everyone plays control.

Until someone comes up with a new aggro deck that can beat blue decks or wizards reprints aether vial for 2 mana this is the way it will be.

[Admiral_Arzar]

MM now removes Aether Vial from the picture leaving us with:
Control > Hive Mind

Therefore everyone plays control.

Fixed that for you. There isn't enough fast combo in the format to actually call "combo" an archetype right now.

[Zilla]

It's also kind of incorrect to call it control, since NO RUG is as much an aggro deck as it is a control deck. Which is to say that it's an aggro control deck.

[swoop]

there is a meta archetype in legacy as well.

we call it:

aggrocombocontrol

works well most of the times

Capitalization and punctuation are required on these boards. Please use them. Thanks. -zilla

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Welcome to legacy. This is how it balances out:
Control > Combo > Aggro > Control

MM now removes Aether Vial from the picture leaving us with:
Control > Combo

Therefore everyone plays control.

Until someone comes up with a new aggro deck that can beat blue decks or wizards reprints aether vial for 2 mana this is the way it will be.

This is dumb. It's the most heavily repeated meme in Magic strategy but it never gets any less dumb.

The format comes down to answers and threats, with decks running different numbers of each and different ways to calibrate them. Answers tend to be good against the things they answer and bad against the things they don't. That's really about all the generalization you can do without getting bogged down in detail or being wrong.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Welcome to legacy. This is how it balances out:
Control > Combo > Aggro > Control

MM now removes Aether Vial from the picture leaving us with:
Control > Combo

Therefore everyone plays control.

Until someone comes up with a new aggro deck that can beat blue decks or wizards reprints aether vial for 2 mana this is the way it will be.

This is dumb. It's the most heavily repeated meme in Magic strategy but it never gets any less dumb.

The format comes down to answers and threats, with decks running different numbers of each and different ways to calibrate them. Answers tend to be good against the things they answer and bad against the things they don't. That's really about all the generalization you can do without getting bogged down in detail or being wrong.

[Amon Amarth]

This is dumb. It's the most heavily repeated meme in Magic strategy but it never gets any less dumb.

The format comes down to answers and threats, with decks running different numbers of each and different ways to calibrate them. Answers tend to be good against the things they answer and bad against the things they don't. That's really about all the generalization you can do without getting bogged down in detail or being wrong.

QFT. I wonder if people even play Legacy, or MTG in general, when they parrot that shit over and over. There is more than 1 style of each of those deck types e.g. hyper aggressive Zoo lists or much slower G/W aggro decks. They don't really play the same way at all except superficially.

[Admiral_Arzar]

QFT. I wonder if people even play Legacy, or MTG in general, when they parrot that shit over and over. There is more than 1 style of each of those deck types e.g. hyper aggressive Zoo lists or much slower G/W aggro decks. They don't really play the same way at all except superficially.

I'm not entirely sure what the point of this post was, other than further brainless parroting. I'm pretty sure "aggro, control, combo" is supposed to be a superficial way of comparing play styles anyway.

[Deady]

To my opinion Legacy has become more of a serious format, where playing skills and card/deck knowledge count more than ever. A proper use of Brainstorm requires a lot of skills, the same with FoW, Clique and lot's of other blue cards. In the right hands these cards are able to do some badass magic, but in the wrong hands they aren't nearly as powerful as they're meant to be. Whether some like it or not; it's the reason why blue has always been dominant in Magic; in order to be succesful with it, you'll need a lot of skill and knowledge about the format and unfortunately this means 'more money'. You need to pay for skills and knowledge and if you're doing well, it will ultimately pay off.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Oh bullshit. The amount that skill matters in playing a deck is a simple function of how many decisions you have to make and the level of forgiveness for each mistake. Brainstorm doesn't require making more decisions inherently than with Stoneforge Mystic, or Green Sun's Zenith, or Goblin Matron, or Thoughtseize. Brainstorm isn't so omnipresent because it's more skilled, it's omnipresent because it's more powerful; what it does in turn creates more room to make mistakes (including fixing flawed mulliganing decisions).

Just the opposite, then, Brainstorm is easier to play with than a lot of other common cards because it lets you retread on previous decisions. Even Wasteland is much more of a skilltest, albeit, one that most people fail on a regular basis.

[Digital Devil]

it's the reason why blue has always been dominant in Magic.

Blue has always been dominant because bad players need to compensate their poor proficiency with better card quality, and good players don't want to lose to bad players due to variance.