That's an oversimplification. Temporally, counters have less flexibility since they can't answer what's already resolved. The StP on top of your deck is a lifesaver, the Force often mocking.Originally Posted by Koby
Aggro_Zombies hit the nail on the head. Even when counters cost(but in reality
for Fow and Daze), you are trading 2 mana and 1 (2) cards to nullify your opponents card + mana + time. In every situation, counterspell will be superior to every reactive answer possible due to their flexibility. Swords to Plowshares might be a close runner up due to the efficiency it can answer creature threats, but that's limited to a sub-set of cards.
The greatest advantage that counters have is that a range of them are free. If there were a pitch-Vindicate it'd see play.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
You misread. Good in other decks != "good cards". My point is that Junk/Rock decks are not going for the type of synergy you find in Dredge or Goblins. Bob has nothing to do with Goyf or Knight or Vindicate, they're all just objectively good cards. Maverick is really in the same vein, it's just a lot more focused on a strategy of playing threats and protecting them.
The numbers speak pretty clearly here.I think that's most definitely a mistake. You're asking the Junk players to change to a different deck all together. More to the point, it's a deck that has a negative win overall percentage against similar Junk builds. I've got nothing against Maverick. I just say it's in a similar situation with less of an ability to maintain against the same things (Library and Zenith does not equal Library, Zenith, Bob, and Top).
I understand Mom is annoying but most decks have adapted at this point and new players are learning how to adapt to her or have adapted decks that don't care about her.
There must not be too many planets in that system you're checking against. The Junk decks have 2 on camera wins (that I know of within the last 6 months) with top 16 placements across multiple not so heavily covered events. By no means are we not doing it correctly.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...531#post673531
I'm sure there are the usual excuses of "underplayed", "not reported", "european meta", and so on, but I'm of the opinion that change is good and necessary. Sometimes you get a couple gifts from a new set, sometimes you need to go in another direction entirely. If the deck is working great for you, stay the course. That just doesn't look to be the case for most people, based on tournament results.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Statistics are an interesting thing. While they may say one thing, they omit more. I'll leave it alone for now and take the chart with a grain of salt because that's another thread.
I will say however that the design philosophy behind Junk/Rock is pretty far. There's more underlying themes than just smashy with "good cards" but, I said I'd leave it alone.
I need to apologize to Hanni as I may gone astray with your thread original intentions. Junk vs Canadian Thresh and why they're not sharing more of a percentage. While I feel my original statements were in deed correct (basically, because we're not blue).
I think the purpose of this thread would be better served by analyzing match-ups of the two (Rock and Canadian Thresh) vs the format. than comparing discard to counterspells (that's like arguing faith). Objections?
Tinkering with some crafting theory. Here
Wow, so much to address. Since I'll probably be at this all night anyway, I'm going to try and address everything 1 by 1.
The point is that your opponent doesn't deal with your opening hand, you deal with theirs. You discard several spells, and then blow up what resolved. You land a threat, and both decks go into topdeck mode. They need to find an answer within a limited timeframe or they die. Even if they find an answer, you have more threats, and the permanent removal can deal with stuff off the topdeck.The only problem I have with Rock is the problem I have with a lot of the non-blue decks: Once your opponent deals with your opening hand plus the 2-3 relevant impactful cards you drew over the first handful of turns, how can you find threats faster than the blue deck can find answers with all its filtering effects?
This is why I feel we haven't consistently seen Junk/Rock/Eva green at the tables beyond the lack of people playing the deck. In order to go the disruptive 'tempo' strategy, you potentially make your topdecks terrible. RUG at least can brainstorm them away or pitch them to Force. Or hell, maybe that turn 6 daze will be useful anyway, much more so than similarly late thoughtseize.
So how to make it work? Instead of running spells that have these effects, try what maverick has done and run creatures that have utility and you are rarely disappointed to have drawn later on in the game. Punish them for their filtering with your consistency, as maverick does now and Zoo/merfolk did before it.
Blue may have better card quality to recover while in topdeck mode better, but blue decks aren't usually comfortable with an empty hand. This still doesn't change the fact that they are on a quick clock and do not have unlimited amounts of time to find an answer.
A few cantrips in RUG can help aleviate dead spells, but it doesn't change the fact that alot of their spells are not really any better than discard later on in the game. Discard is also alot better in the mid or even late game against some decks, where everyone seems to automatically assume that discard is always a dead card at that point.
Mavericks hatebear disruption is an interesting approach, but it doesn't impact the gamestate as fast as efficient discard spells. 2/2's and 2/1's are fairly bad clocks unless you equip them or get multiples down, which is a fairly mana consuming process either way.
The fact that mass removal is a major factor in the format right now also makes dropping 1 big cost effecient beater a better strategy than a bunch of small inefficient beaters (in regards to cost for p/t).
Tier 3? lol... I normally stay away from troll posts, but I'll bite.feel that this argument is flawed from the very beginning. The "suicide/dead guy/eva" lists have been tier three for a while now. The mana curve of the average legacy deck is just too low. maverick has noble, rug has ways to protect the one land it needs and miracles runs basics and counters. Going after someones lands all out is a good way to just lose games when you are just drawing the wrong cards in the wrong situations.
In a format where the early game is turn zero-1, the mid game is turns 2-4 and the late game is anything after that keeping someone off of 1-2 mana is extremely difficult. All most players have to do is untap, play a land and play a scavenging ooze/SFM/goyf/delver that you can not answer because your hand is full of mana disruption and discard.
RUG is the best deck because its disruption package is relevant from turn 0 and it can get a nut draw and just win games at a fairly consistent rate. Some draws, no deck can keep up with RUG.
Without blue filtering, Rock/Junk players have been experimenting with tops, libraries, zeniths, mystics and planeswalkers to ensure we have options no matter what deck we are playing. The problem is that not enough people are willing to test a BGW deck when the decks players cannot even decide what awesome cards it should be playing.
We know we should be playing discard but can't agree on what cards to play, removal cannot be decided on after swords to plowshares(decay might fix that), mox vs no mox, zenith vs SFM, goyf vs SFM, what sweeper is the best(EE vs Deed), planeswalkers at all?, until these questions are answered we will never know what deck we should even be playing past personal preferences.
p.s. I would compare the current junk lists to Esperblade and not to RUG. RUG is a monster.
The mana curves are too low? Have you looked at Legacy lately? The curves keep getting higher and higher.
Junk doesn't specifically go after a persons lands. Wasteland is general utility, whether its destroying manlands, utility lands, colorscrewing someone, or taking advantage if someone happens to stumble on mana. Plus, it taps for mana, so theres little downside. Vindicate hits any permanent, not just lands, so that entire point is moot. The only spell that is narrow is Sinkhole, which I've already stated can be something else. RUG also needs more than 1 land to operate if it wants to have access to all 3 colors, and it's not improbable that they keep a 1-2 land hand and don't see any more lands in a relevant timeframe, where the LD plan actually would be devastating (provided that Junk has answers to the cards that get played before the landscrew). That's still besides the point, as the mana denial attack is much worse against RUG and much better against the mana hungry decks out there.
It seems that you also failed to notice that the list I posted runs 12 permanent removal spells (only 4 being specific to creatures only).
I'm assuming you've played some Rock type decks before, but never Junk. The fundamental strategy of RUG and Junk is alot similar than you think. Esperblade is in absolutely no way a tempo deck... it's a slow grindy aggro/control deck. Comparing this deck to RUG is a good parallel... comparing this deck to Esperblade is like comparing Sligh to Big Zoo.
Very expensive curve, as in what, exactly? The 4 Vindicates and 4 Knights at 3cc? Looking strictly at the mana costs of the spells is wrong anyway. Emptying an opponents hand and board with resource denial, with the opponent going into topdeck mode with an empty board, can often be the same as casting Time Walk over and over. Ramping up to 3 lands is a pretty easy endeavor when the discard and resource denial slow the state of the game down drastically.The list you posted Hanni is bad for several reasons and cannot be compared to RUG at all.
You have a very expensive curve and you just basically play 1 spell per turn until you might play 2 spells per turn. you have no way to gain Tempo advantage like RUG which does it by operatione on 1-2 lands while disrupting the opponents mana development and playing free counterspells. Discard has its advantages versus combo (& control without SD.top) but it is a negative tempo play (you trade and spend mana and the opponent does not), whereas free/cheap counterspells are a positive tempo play since the opponent has to usually invest more mana than you do to answer.
Also I don't see any card advantage. Except for Hymn to Tourach you trade 1:1 and you draw a bunch of very bad topdecks/situational cards like discard and sinkhole with no way to card filter. Compare that to the inherent card advantage of RUG filtering a lot to only draw gas and putting all lands/bad spells back because they can operate on 2-3 lands.
I think the reason why 11 discard spells and 4 Sinkhole are not good card choices has been pointed out.
But I don't think I read somewhere that you just so dead to UWx conrol decks. They play more removal than you threats 6-7 swords effects + 4 snapcaster mage or less of those but 4 Terminus. You can't beat SD.top and even without they just draw their spells to handle your threats.
Decks winning with creatures today have certain tools that you have not:
-RUG: shroud, tons of cheap/free counterspells, burn/vortex
-maverick: mother, teeg, tons of creatures beating
-goblins: come into play effects with card advantage, vial, cavern, tons of threats
-merfolk: islandwalk, fast goldfish, counterspells
If you want to be successful with the Junk colors I think it is basically Maverick splashing black or Nic Fit. Both are very grindy decks in nature and beat RUG.
Both of these decks have a much better RUG matchups than your list. Altough you have the right "tools" to win against RUG, your Strategy is a lot weaker to Stifle, Daze, Waste compared to Nic Fit or Maverick.
Tempo advantage... a strategy that everyone seems to know the name of, but so many people fail to understand the widespread applications of. Tempo exists in every game of Magic, even in a Control mirror. Casting spells for free is an easily identifiable form of tempo, as is casting spells for very low mana costs. Casting more spells in a turn than an opponent can cast in a turn doesn't automatically equate to a tempo advantage though.
Looking at a discard spell solely based on the fact that it costs 1 mana and 1 card to remove 1 card (i.e the discard player is down 1 mana in tempo) is not the whole story. What if you rip the opponents only turn 1 play away from them? Now your both down 1 mana. What if after a few discard spells, you gas the opponent, and they topdeck dead spells/lands a few turns in a row? Is gaining virtual card advantage not essentially gaining tempo? Simply put, Junk is a resource denial deck, and if you empty your opponent's resources and then drop a big creature, every turn they are unable to do something relevant is a big tempo gain. Sure, RUG Delver gains tempo faster (by faster, I mean sooner), but if both decks are playing against an opponent with nothing on the board, a 5/5 flier will provide more tempo per turn than a 3/2 flier.
People seem to be unfamiliar with the way Junk works. I posted a list for those unfamiliar with it, but maybe I should have posted a 10+ paragraph detailed explanation of how the deck works? Or better yet, and article of the similarities and differences of tempo between RUG and Junk? Ooo wait, better yet, a 10+ page article on tempo itself! =/
By the way, the deck doesn't need actual card advantage, because it creates enough virtual card advantage to carry it. I'm sorry, but cantrips aren't actual card advantage either. The quality of a spell in and of itself can be a means of card advantage (I'm talking about actual spells themselves, and not spells that increase card quality like cantrips)... for example, two 2/1 Jackal Pups may be two cards, but those 2 cards are worth less than a 7/7 Knight of the Reliquary in a card for card basis (obviously Sligh decks make it work by exploiting life totals, an often unconsidered resource in relation to tempo).
By the way, this deck can filter through lands by having Knight munch on excess to fetch up Wastelands (or the lone Canopy)... it doesn't need cantrips to do that.
11 discard spells and 4 Sinkholes not being good is you providing me with fluff as opposed to some actual proof as to why its bad. In some randomly grindy slow midrange Rock deck, sure. In a deck built to take advantage of the tempo gains... yea, I haven't seen anyone explain why it's bad.
Fore reference, I've played U/W CounterTop Control for years, well before Miracles was printed. I've played the deck plenty after Miracles was printed.
At this point, it's pretty obvious that you do not understand how Junk works. It doesn't matter if Miracles has as many or more removal spells than what Junk has creatures, if the Junk player is able to discard the removal out of the opponent's hand and clock them before they draw another removal (or in most cases, follow up with another guy, and so on depending on how frequently the Miracles player can topdeck removal). If Miracles stumbles on land and cannot assemble UUW at whatever point in the early to midgame, they lose the ability to use alot of their control options. Snapcaster flashing back StP costs 1UW, and if they topdeck Snapcaster a turn before they can assemble 1UW, Snapcaster is liable to be lost to discard. This isn't going to happen in every situation obviously, but your post neglects all of these small interactions that add up and make a big difference.
Top is a strong defense against discard, but it doesn't instantly pull a 180 and make discard bad vs the deck. Miracles isn't a deck that wants to have an empty hand and rely on Top the whole game, especially if it has to tap Top to draw reactive spells like Counterspell. I've played Miracles enough to know that you won't always hit a fetchland to look at a fresh 3 every turn, and sometimes the top will get clogged by dead spells... so even if you can see the top 3, you're still only seeing 1 new/fresh spell a turn till you hit a shuffle effect.
Junk doesn't need to overcommit its threats to kill a Miracles player. 1 threat at a time is more than sufficient to kill the opponent while still providing a dangerously fast clock.
In regards to your statement about other aggro decks having tools that I don't... first of all, this is an aggro/control deck not an aggro deck. Second of all, this deck has tools that those decks don't. I have no idea what you were trying to get at there, other than trying to say that Junk is bad because it doesn't have X/Y/Z.
I also don't understand where you are basing your assumptions that decks played in a BGW color combination have to play Maverick/b or Nic Fit to work, since it seems to me that based on the majority of stuff you've already said, that you don't fully understand how Junk actually works.
Anyway, I didn't intend that post to be as flamey as it is, and I'm going to apologize up front because I'm not trying to attack you personally. You started off your post with calling Junk a bad deck, and maintained that position throughout your argument, so my response is a bit aggressive, sorry.
----
As an aside, I'm not even done responding to stuff on page 2 yet, and this post is already super mega long, so I'm going to respond to the other stuff in a seperate post.
Last edited by Hanni; 09-26-2012 at 12:18 AM.
No, this thread is about the difference between Junk and RUG, and which one is the better positioned "tempo aggro/control" deck for the current metagame.You could essentially call this thread: why do people not play non blue decks?
Sarcasm aside, bwg has awesome internal synergy and stupid powerful cards and is really just one to two cards out of being super competitive and in the spotlight. Black has not received its share of broken cards and is due for something overpowered.
Grisly salvage might be that card, allowing abuse of the graveyard and a way to filter through your library. Abrupt decay could also be the card that pushes junk to super competitive, I'm on the train that deathrite shaman is the card to break the deck but that is for another thread.
Once junk can do something better than another deck it will take off in popularity and placements.
Also, Junk DID just get the card it needed to be competitive and in the spotlight in Abrupt Decay. Is this card already being overlooked when it hasn't even been printed yet?
Aggro/control decks aren't about overpowered and broken cards. If you want overpowered and broken, go play Show and Tell or some other combo deck. The strength of aggro/control decks lie in their strategy and synergy; the strength lies in the ability to control the gamestate sufficiently enough to overwhelm to the opponent. Some decks do this through card advantage like Esperblade, while others do this through fast clocks like Candian Threshold, Team America, New Horizons, Junk, so on and so forth.
In regards to Grisly Salvage... a 2 mana cantrip to draw a creature (or land) and put some possibly useful stuff in the yard has the potential to be a great card in the right deck, but its place is not in Junk.
In regards to Deathrite Shaman... if it would have been a 2/1, the card would be seeing play in alot more decks. As a 1/2, the cards is pretty much limited to midrange decks. Shaman is not appropriate for Junk.
Junk already can do some stuff better than some other decks. This format is full of reactive blue spells, and wanting to have specific cards in hand for the situation (or to combo off, in the case of SNT decks). Proactive disruption (discard) trumps the reactive control (countermagic) by virtue of the way the mechanics work. Countermagic itself may be a better "answer" to stuff than discard because it is reactive, but it loses alot of value against discard itself. Junk also has access to some of the best permanent removal in the game with Vindicate, and now Abrupt Decay.
Very few decks in the format are capable of dealing with resolved permanents the way that Junk can; the versatility of Junks removal is something that way too many posters in this thread are ignoring for some reason. Free countermagic is awesome and all that, I know that, I've played my fair share of blue-based aggro/control decks in Legacy, from 2006 to now. Red removal can be very flexible, and Lightning Bolt is a fantastic spell... but the options that red has available to it are far more limiting than the removal options BGW has to it, especially for dealing with large creatures and noncreature permanents.
I consider Junk good against Miracles because Miracles is a deck that values the cards it has in its hand, regardless if it has a Top or not. Counterspell, Snapcaster, Spell Pierce, etc... these are cards it wants to have in hand to react to a play made on its opponents turn. Some reactive spells are also good for specific situations, and not so good in others. For example, having a Spell Pierce instead of StP when your opponent resolves a Tombstalker. I'll quote a popular... quote: There is no such thing as wrong threats, only wrong answers.Why do you consider Junk good against Miracles?
Sensei's Divining Top is one of the best cards you can have against discard. To add insult to injury, whatever discard you have left goes from bad to dead when Counterbalance eventually hits.
Junk will try to trade 1-for-1, perhaps getting ahead with a Hymn or Confidant, but that seems terrible against a deck that can out-attrition you with Snapcaster and Terminus, eventually pulling ahead with Jace.
Certainly, any deck can be tuned to improve a particular matchup, but what is the strategic advantage Junk has against Miracles? Discard for your removal + early Confidant is a start, but is there anything else?
Tapping Top to draw into reactive spells works, but it's not want Miracles wants to be doing. Also, Top doesn't change what the intention of the discard is being used for in Junk anyway... which is to reduce an opponent's resources, and then land a fatty.
Miracles can only run 4 Top's (sadly), so it's not guaranteed to come down on turn 1. On the draw, it's likely that Junk will proactively discard a Top out of the Miracles players opening hand.
Outside of Top, this deck has big cost efficient fatties. It only needs to resolve 1 to put the Miracles player on a dangerous clock. Compare this to other aggro decks that need to put multiple smaller guys into play to apply the same clock (Maverick is turning more and more into a fishy G/W deck, for example). This deck is capable of mitigating the power of Terminus in this way.
The deck also has 8 maindeck answers to Counterbalance (and Detention Sphere/O Ring/EE/Shackles), 4 of which are uncounterable, and 4 of which can destroy an opponents Jace (if they are capable of resolving one in the first place).
It's not just one apsect that makes Miracles a good matchup. Running only discard, only land destruction, only whatever, isn't going to automatically make the Miracles matchup a good matchup. What makes Junk a good matchup against Miracles is that it is able to attack multiple different resources which are all essential to their gameplan, and then drop a big fat clock while they are trying to recover. Miracles wants alot of cards in hand, alot of lands in play, and it wants to have a few high value permanents in play. Miracles can't cast Jace without 4 mana, it can't cast a Jace that gets discarded, and it has to gain incrimental card advantage throughout the game to keep up with its demand for a relatively high land count. If you're atacking all of these resources, instead of them digging for the next lock piece or what have you, it's digging for another white or blue source, etc.
Also, to address the card advantage question... Junk is not about card advantage. It's no different than any of the other blue-based "tempo" aggro/control decks in the format in that regard. Threshold -> Thrash -> Canadian Threshold -> RUG Delver... the evolution of this deck has always been about 1:1 trades. Junk eschews card advantage for a faster clock. Junk doesn't want to grind the matchup out whatsoever. Junk wants to play the resource denial game, disrupting its opponent as sufficiently as possible so that it can resolve a "finisher," and kill the opponent before they are able to recover. It's the same fundamental gameplan as Threshold, it just uses different disruption elements and creatures to achieve a similar result (i.e with the opponent at 0 life before they are able to get back into the game).
I'm also not claiming that this is some crazy autowin matchup for Junk, either. Junk doesn't destroy Miracles 95/5. The only thing I'm claiming is that A) Junk is the favored matchup here, and B) it has a much better matchup against Miracles than RUG Delver does, for numerous reasons.
Junk is not a midrange aggro deck. For starters, it's not even an aggro deck, it's an aggro/control deck. It's creatures are midrangey in comparison to RUG Delver's creatures, sure. New Horizon's creatures are more midrangey than Canadian Thresholds creatures too. Back when Zoo was the most played deck in the format, NH saw alot of play... and people still called NH a tempo deck...?There's nothing inherently wrong with G/w/b mid-range aggro other than calling it a tempo deck, because it's definitely not a tempo deck, but it's a viable metagame deck regardless of whether or not people recognize it en masse or not. Eva Green or Deadguy Ale are definitely not the roads to go down tho', but there are a lot of PT Junk style decks that have game vs. most of the field and can take advantage of anti U specific SB hate like Choke etc.
I think the main problem with Junk based decks is that they have to risk losing to the strategies that RUG doesn't risk losing to, which are bacially the Storm, Dredge and Reanimator match ups where you get rolled too quickly without Force of Will.
RUG isn't that good of a deck, it's just that the archetypes that punish it aren't really popular in the metagame right now and the worst it has to deal with is Miracles and Esperblade in terms of strategies that challenge it for supremecy. I personally think playing that deck in this metagame is suicide frankly, because Miracles and Esper have the advantage and it isn't particularly good at dealing with Show&Tell, which is the last combo deck standing at the moment.
Junk is a tempo deck. I don't understand why people assume tempo has to be blue, and has to include Daze and Stifle. Free and 1cc spells are definitely a way to generate alot of tempo. Threshold is proof of this, Sligh decks are proof of this. It's easy to classify these strategies as tempo strategies. That doesn't mean that decks without free or boatloads of 1cc spells don't utilize tempo. I classify Junk as a tempo deck because it is relying on tempo gains in order to win just as much Threshold does. It just gains tempo in a different way, and since the peak of its total accumulated tempo gains start at around turns 2-4 instead of turns 0-2, it is able to drop more expensive creatures (2cc and 3cc instead of 1cc).
Junk compensates for gaining the tempo a turn or two later by running bigger guys. The p/t effiencies in relation to the total clock are not drastically different... a 3/2 Delver is a 7 turn clock that can start swinging on turn 2, whereas a 5/5 Tombstalker is a 4 turn clock that can start swinging on turn 4, for example. I mean, if you're holding U open for Stifle, or you need to Ponder on turn 1, you're not dropping Delver until turn 2 anyway. Instead of trying to drop cheaper cc creatures into play while it disrupts on turns 1-3 like RUG does, Junk focuses on just disrupting on turns 1-3 and then drops a larger creature afterwards. Junk is definitely the slower of the two decks, without a doubt. That doesn't make it any less of a tempo deck, though.
Again, like I mentioned in another reply, using resource denial against an opponent to put them into topdeck mode & have nothing relevant in play, while you have a single creature on the board, can oftentimes have the same effect as casting a Time Walk over and over, especially if they draw nothing but lands and/or dead spells for several turns (dead spells in this situation can easily be things like Daze, Force of Will, Counterspell, Spell Pierce, etc... it's not just limited to blue spells, either. Drawing Jitte when you have no creatures on the board, Vial when you have no creatures to cheat into play... there's tons of ways to achieve this result, and it happens all the time). If that's not tempo, then I don't know what is.
I will agree with you 100% that this deck does have some pretty bad matchups, whereas RUG has game against everything... I can't think of a single deck that RUG rolls over to. This thread is not a RUG bashing thread. RUG is an amazing deck, and clearly the tournament results speak for themselves. This is a thread about the current metagame, and to discuss opinions on both sides about RUG vs Junk as the better positioned tempo deck right now. Junks bad matchups are non-existant in the current metagame, while some of its best matchups are "Tier 1, and everyone and their mothers are playing them right now."
---
As an aside, I'm going to take a break again from replies. I will continue with the replies after this brief commercial break.
Last edited by Hanni; 09-26-2012 at 12:30 AM.
Don't misunderstand the point of this thread. I'm not trying to blue bash, I'm not trying to permanently end the ban brainstorm threads (good luck with that), and I'm not trying to discuss blue vs non-blue in the format. I want to specifically discuss why so many players are running RUG Delver in the current metagame, and why few to no players are running Junk instead.Actually a thread about this would be more to the point imo. I don't ever play non-blue decks even though I get the itch from time to time, I just can't bring myself to take one for a couple of months as my primary deck. The first casual deck I brewed in Tempest block was blue (with 4 Brainstorms) because I figured that color was obviously the best color and it had the best spells. Since then every deck I played with was (or contained) blue, contained counterspells and card filter and I just don't have the incentinve to give up all that luxury.
I'm a blue player at heart myself. The deck that I was first known for on these forums, was U/W/b Fish... an aggro/control deck setup similar to Threshold that dropped the green (and thus Threshold) aspect to play a more controlling shell with Confidants, Meddling Mages, etc.
One of the decks I've spent the most time working on, which happens to still be my favorite pet deck, was U/W CounterTop Planeswalkers. I spent years working on that deck despite massive criticisms from the U/W Control (i.e Landstill) community. The deck has always been a good deck, but trying to get people to play it when the format was dominated by Merfolk and when it had a much slower clock than it does now, was pointless at best. All of a sudden, Terminus gets printed to push the deck from Tier 1.5 to Tier 1 DTB top king shit, the thread gets renamed "Miracle Control," and people seem to think its some totally different deck now, when it's not.
/end rant
Anyway, my point was that I feel you on the blue. I love blue, I definitely agree that it's the best color in the format, and I also believe that Brainstorm is the best card in the format.
However, I've built, playtested, tuned, and played with alot of non-blue decks too. Just because blue is the best color in a vacuum, doesn't mean that non-blue decks cannot be metacrushers. Have we all forgotten the SCG event that put 7 Maverick players into the Top 8?
People keep saying this, but never explain the context. If I'm playing some sort of midrange slow controlly aggro deck like Nic Fit, obviously too much discard is going to be bad. That deck only wants a light amount of discard to allow it to either stabilize early to get to the mid-late, to strip a bomb away, or to ensure one of its own bombs resolve. Nic Fit does not have the aggressive clock to capitalize on the sort of tempo gain that a massive amount of discard creates... i.e until the opponent hits that "topdeck" that you "lose" to.The problem that I have with a deck like the OP's over a traditional Rock or Junk style deck is that its disruption never works out. Discard is fine, but it has the age-old problem wherein you lose to a topdeck. Additionally, once you declare a discard spell, such as a Thoughtseize, you have no choice but to take something. This seems blatantly obvious, but think about it. A counterspell can be held for something you actually care about. A discard spell can't. The best you can do is hold your discard spell until they've drawn a few cards that you don't have information on (from your first discard spell), and hope that they've drawn something relevant.
The other dimension here that has been neglected by every single person that I have responded to so far, is what that "topdeck" that I "lose" to is. With 12 spells that nuke permanents (4 being creature only), most of those "savage" topdecks are going to eat some removal. Esperblade opponent resolves SFM and grabs a Jitte? Great, I'll go ahead and nuke the Jitte, you can keep the 1/2 Squire. Sure, they are up +1 CA, but if they are in topdeck mode and I have a 4/5 Tarmogoyf while they have a 1/2 Squire, I'm cool with that.
If you're talking about Swords to Plowshares or Terminus as "I lose" instead, the beauty of Junk is that it does not need to overcommit against sweepers, and that it only needs single creature to put on alot of pressure. Because of this, it can easily recover by dropping another (single) creature. Thanks to all of the discard, chances are pretty good that it's going resolve through all of the blue countermagic that's prevalent in the format right now.
10-12 creatures may seem light, but when you only ever need 1 in play at time (with more obviously being good against aggro strategies, of course), 10-12 is actually plenty. Against blue-based aggro/control strategies specifically, the quality of Junks threats (due to them being more midrangey than RUG's, and larger than Esperblade's), combined with the 12 removal spells, help ensure red zone dominance. With the black disruption package giving Junk yet another edge vs the blue disruption package in the blue-based aggro/control decks, these should be some of Junks better matchups.
I got off tangent, sorry. I agree that discard is a worse "answer" than countermagic against spells in general. There is a reason countermagic has always been favored over discard. I also agree that what I am advocating is a metagame deck. That's exactly what I'm doing... I assessed the metagame, and came to the conclusion that Junk is better positioned than RUG right now, and wanted to have a discussion about it...
... and in regards to the discussion of discard vs countermagic in relation to the metagame, I think discard is the better option. Discard loves it when every single deck runs a boatload of reactive blue spells. Discard eats that stuff up.
I didn't present a deck with 10 creatures and a bunch of durdly things like Life from the Loam. Again, you need to look at the context. 11 discard spells clear the way of removal, and each creature is a threat on its own that is an absolute "must" deal with. Each one is a stand alone finisher on its own. A single topdecked Swords to Plowshares doesn't bend the deck over backwards with a wooden stick, as it simply drops another threat that must be dealt with. The opponent has a limited time frame to find an answer or they die.Also, you have 10 wincons, none of which are 1-drops that become flying wild nacatls on t2, or 3/3s with shroud. It's no secret that Goyf dies to literally everything anymore. KotR and Tombstalker are a bit better in the threat department, but it's not like the format doesn't have commonly played answers to them (Perish, Submerge, Terminus, etc).
3/2 fliers are just as vulnerable as Goyf, and RUG runs Goyf too, right? Shroud or no shroud, a 3/3 is still small and easily ignored by decks with larger creatures. It doesn't dodge Terminus any differently either.
Honestly, I'm not sure how these arguments are any different against Junk than they are against RUG. The only difference, albeit a big one, are the cantrips, which increase the chances of drawing one of its creatures.
RUG's reactive countermagic as an answer to topdecked spells have little weight when 1cc Wrath of God's and Swords to Plowshares dodge Daze (and even Spell Pierce) all day long. Junk doesn't come out of the gates swinging as fast, but each of it's threats have more value per card (more expensive but more powerful) to compensate.
Again, not sure where you were going with that exactly, but 10-12 creatures is more than enough in Junk because of its disruption to get rid of removal. Against other aggro strategies, Goyf might get chumpblocked all day while a Delver can swing in the air, but Junk doesn't run conditional removal like Lightning Bolts either. Delver is nice because it can pass by a big Knight or whatever that Lightning Bolt can't kill. Junk runs 12 removal spells that can deal with pretty much everything, which makes it alot easier to swing with a Goyf. It even has answers postboard to deal with constant chumblocking annoyances like Mother of Runes with Virtues Ruin, Deed, EE, etc... and this deck can just as easily run 4 Tombstalkers, or some sort of Tombstalker/Terravore split, if "evasion" is the issue.
This happens to any deck due to variance, and less so to blue decks because of cantrips, I understand that. That fact in and of itself is the biggest reason for blues constant and continued dominance in Legacy. Non-blue decks compensate for that by using redundancy. Plenty of non-blue decks have been successful over the years through redundancy. An easy to cite example is Zoo.Obviously there are games where all the nuts and bolts come together and it works fine. You get just the right amount of discard, LD, and threat to close the game out quickly and efficiently in true tempo style. But for every game where that happens, there'll likely be at least two more where you don't draw a threat before they dig out, or you draw all dudes and no disruption, or whatever. The strength of these kinds of Eva Green-esque decks is that they slaughter certain decks, which is why I call it a meta-deck. In the right meta, I have nothing but respect for them. I'm not convinced, however, that we are in the right meta for them.
Redundancy is exactly why this deck is running 11 discard, 12 removal spells, and 10 creatures. The deck also has access to 12 LD spells, virtually 16 if it uses Knight to tutor up Wastelands. Besides, those numbers can be tweaked, the deck I posted was a rough list for discussion purposes. The list I posted is not some heavily fine-tuned list, it's just a general shell of what a Junk deck looks like. Sinkholes can be cut for more threats, if you feel that 10 is too few, for example.
There was no dichotomy. I wasn't addressing whether Nic Fit could be a metacrusher too. I was comparing Junk (a black-based aggro/control deck utilizing tempo elements) to RUG Delver (a blue-based aggro/control deck utilizing tempo elements), and why so many players are playing RUG Delver while so few are playing Junk when Junk seems like the better aggro/control deck utilizing tempo elements, for the current metagame.I think that what Hanni wants to get at, as others have noted before me, is that it's possible for a non-blue control/tempo deck to be a serious contender in the meta. And I think that, same as it's ever been, the way to go about this is split between Control (Nic Fit) and Aggro (Junk). Nic Fit plays better (bigger/stronger) creatures than any other fair deck in the entire format. It can be built to have a positive matchup vs damn near anything, even Belcher, although each version has its own problems. Unlike most legacy decks, which function on 2 fields at a time (in play, on stack, in hand, in graveyard, in deck), Nic Fit functions on 4, with blue versions capable of functioning on all five. By contrast, Junk is much more effective at actually closing games, and it's a hell of a lot easier to play (although not "easy"). Junk strikes quick and hard with disruption into efficient dudes.
Nic Fit is power, Junk is efficiency.
I believe that this dichotomy is what Hanni is looking for. Either option is an effective way to attack the meta, but both are also solid decks that are good beyond this specific meta. Both have intrinsically favorable matchups against RUG -- Junk mirrors its efficiency, but can attack their manabase and has a slightly bigger threat (KotR vs Goyf); while Nic Fit ignores their tempo, sweeps the board, and drops huge bombs (Baneslayer/Grave Titan vs Goyf).
Nic Fit may or may not be an even better metacrusher than Junk, but I'm not trying to widen this discussion that far, although the discussion seems to be rediculously wide open right now to the point of many people talking about blue vs non-blue decks.
/Le sigh
I understand the statement and where you are coming from, but you didn't explain why a 10 threat Junk list doesn't solve any of RUG's problems. RUG has some pretty big problems right now. It's soft counters don't do enough to stop Show and Tell from resolving, it gets completely locked out by Counterbalance, a couple of Lightning Bolts and Stifles are not enough stop Maverick from getting enough mana and outclassing its threats, and a resolved Batterskull is a big problem.I don't have much to add to this discussion since most of the relevant information about Junk has been said. Maverick was so successful at beating RUG because of the high threat density. Goblins has the same advantage. Moving into a 10 threat Junk list does not solve the problem inherent with RUG, especially with 0 acceleration. In general, Black is currently sitting as the weakest color with it's strongest card as Cabal Therapy. The successful black decks abuse Therapy. As far as Price of Progress decks not being present, that's only partially true. They will show up as soon as the format gets too fair.
Junk fixes alot of those problems.
That's looking at countermagic vs discard in a vacuum. Yes, there are many benefits to countermagic that outweigh the benefits of discard. What you failed to mention is how powerful discard is against countermagic. The last time I checked, nearly every single deck in the format is running countermagic. That would make discard really good in the current metagame, no?-Matt
Part of the attraction of counterspells over discard is that one random counter does more than one random discard spell. For starters, you force the opponent to commit resources with counters, usually more than you have to commit to counter the spell. Counters are also better against topdecks, as has been stated, but I want to add that this means counters are also better topdecks late in the game than discard spells are since your opponent will be more likely to have the resources to immediately play or protect his best draws. Finally, counters are good with and against the best card advantage spells in the format - Brainstorm and Ponder - while discard is neatly trumped by decks that can work off the top of their libraries.
So yeah, that's part of the reason why RUG's counterspell suite is more attractive than Junk's discard. Junk also has the problem of being one of those decks that seems really good on paper yet never quite lives up to that in tournaments.
Maybe I'm calling the deck by the wrong name or something? The Junk I'm familiar with doesn't shoehorn in SFM's, GSZ's, Deeds, and durdly stuff like Loam. Junk is structured just like any other "tempo" deck, with alot of disruption and a smaller threat density composed of aggressive creatures (8-12 for blue-based ones and 10-12 for black-based ones, usually).A lot of Junk builds are still heavy on disruption and light on threats, which I just don't think is a feasible Aggro strategy anymore. RUG gets away with it because they combine shroud and free counters to keep their threats around. Maverick has mom and GSZ to keep the threatmobile rolling, and plays almost nothing but creatures.
Then you have junk trying to shoehorn every strategy into one "pile of good cards" with 3 Diamonds, 2 SFM + 1 Batterskull, 2 GSZ, Deed, Hymn, Pulse/Vindicate, Liliana, Loam, SDT. It's just all over the place.
Personally I think Junk (and probably all green-based aggro decks) need to take inspiration from Maverick if they want to succeed in a meta with StP, Snapcaster, Jace, and Terminus. Run 4x GSZ, protect your dudes, interact with combo via hatebears. Off the top of my head, maybe something like this:
I can see obvious benefits towards going the Maverick route, which most of The Rock decks have been doing for quite a while now. I'm not hating on that style of deck at all. I do think Junk is better positioned for the current metagame though. The large amount of smaller creatures plan has lost alot of strength because of Terminus, and discard is alot more effective against SNT than hatebears are. I'd say the Esperblade and RUG Delver matchups are favorable for both Junk and Maverick, despite the different gameplans. I'd much rather be playing Junk than Maverick or Maverick/b right now. Junks bad matchups are currently not being played right now, and all I'm seeing are good matchups for the deck at the moment.
---
Gonna take another commercial break.
Last edited by Hanni; 09-26-2012 at 12:41 AM.
Although I lack the resources to read most of your last post atm, there's a reason I consider Hanni to be one of the best strategic analysts on here. Keep going.
The seven cardinal sins of Legacy:
1. Discuss the unbanning ofLand TaxEarthcraft.
2. Argue that banning Force of Will would make the format healthier.
3. Play Brainstorm without Fetchlands.
4. Stifle Standstill.
5. Think that Gaea's Blessing will make you Solidarity-proof.
6. Pass priority after playing Infernal Tutor.
7. Fail to playtest against Nourishing Lich (coZ iT wIlL gEt U!).
Oops, missed this one:
Well, the option to go 4 colors to splash for Brainstorm is definitely a possibility, and entirely dependant on the hostility of the format in regards to non-basic hate. So many strategies right now seem to be using multi-colored manabases with more and more larger cc spells, so I think sticking to 3 colors makes the most sense at the moment. The format is usually pretty quick at adapting to nonbasic hate when manabases start getting greedy.The point remains, Why not run Brainstorm? The deck does not lack shuffle effects. The deck runs sometimes situational cards that could be cycled away. The worst case is that the mana base is skewed, but the deck already runs numerous fetchlands. If mana consistency is a big factor, there are ways to adapt the deck to reduce or minimize that impact. Noble Hierarch and BoP can help to ramp/fix much like Maverick. You would lose the sweepers, however.
Does Junk/Rock want to be playing a Trump, Board-control, or Tempo strategy? Each will dictate how the deck will be built.
The second question is a very good question, but it's not the purpose of this thread. This thread is about Junk vs RUG and which one is the better positioned aggro/control "tempo" strategy right now.
Huh? That's exactly what Junk is doing. It's using discard to clear a path for finishers. Except, in this case, late game finishers is replaced with "finishers that are big aggressive creatures with efficient p/t to cost ratio, and can actually kill the opponent before the late game." Junk's philosophy seems alot better, since discard typically gets progressively worse over time.It's important to note that the discard is not only early disruption, but can also be means of clearing the path for late game finishers...something that Junk doesn't quite do as far as I can tell, where Scape Fit for example can at least clear out counters to kill with Scapeshift. Trying to use a proactive class of cards in a reactive style all game won't quite get the job done until they print a playable, instant-speed Duress.
---
That looks to be the last thing I wanted to address. Phew, that was alot of typing.
Aside from the sidetracks about the different types of BGW decks, and the blue vs non-blue and other unrelated discussions, I see alot of good discussion going on here for both sides of the fence. At this point, I think finding someone with a similar schedule to my own and running both RUG and Junk through the same gauntlet (enough times to be relevant) would be the best course of action. Hopefully the results turn out in my favor, but it seems like a valuable endeavor either way.
I'm usually available from 6PM to 12PM Mon-Fri, with weekends open. I'm in the Eastern Time Zone EST (East Coast, United States). I think it's GMT -5:00, but I'm not 100% on that. I've never used Cockatrice, and I've only ever used MWS Workstation and Apprentice (lol), but I'm willing to use either MWS or Cockatrice (I'll have to download Cockatrice, etc).
Send me a PM if you'd like to help me playtest and record the results of this "experiment" at some point in time.
Sorry I didn't address that well. The issue is that RUG's low threat density means it has to actively use its cantrips to dig for the right configuration of cards. Switching to Junk has the benefit of stronger removal but a 10 creature list that can't protect it's threats well seems like a dangerous plan. At some point, if you cannot keep a threat down, you can get overpowered. Maybe it is that your particular list is rough but one advantage of RUG is that free counter spells allow you to be the aggressor at many stages of the game, even if you tap out for a threat. You do not have that luxury in a Junk deck. If you are unable to capitalize on a disruption heavy hand with a powerful threat, you can quickly lose control. 10 threats just does not seem like enough in a deck that can only get ahead on cards (either advantage or quality) with Hymn.
Another issue to a lesser extent is your curve. For a tempo oriented deck, your game will start on turn 2 a lot, which is a pain especially without cantrips since it's hard to count StP as a 1-drop. You want a lot of lands in the early part of the game but you want to stop drawing lands past 4 or 5, which of course won't necessarily happen and is also out of your control without manipulation.
Reading again, I may have partially misunderstood your goal; however, the lack of cantrips seriously hurts the tempo plan. You have powerful spells, but you may not be able to cast them in the way RUG does to generate tempo.
A thought occurs: what prevents you from playing Nimble Mongoose?
Nothing, except playing better creatures.
Also, I like what Hanni's saying, and I'm pretty sure I've written all of that on the Rock thread, but having it condensed and aggregated into several posts where people will read it is great. Thanks for doing that.
-Matt
Those are very valid questions. That's actually one of the best responses I've seen, thanks.Sorry I didn't address that well. The issue is that RUG's low threat density means it has to actively use its cantrips to dig for the right configuration of cards. Switching to Junk has the benefit of stronger removal but a 10 creature list that can't protect it's threats well seems like a dangerous plan. At some point, if you cannot keep a threat down, you can get overpowered. Maybe it is that your particular list is rough but one advantage of RUG is that free counter spells allow you to be the aggressor at many stages of the game, even if you tap out for a threat. You do not have that luxury in a Junk deck. If you are unable to capitalize on a disruption heavy hand with a powerful threat, you can quickly lose control. 10 threats just does not seem like enough in a deck that can only get ahead on cards (either advantage or quality) with Hymn.
Another issue to a lesser extent is your curve. For a tempo oriented deck, your game will start on turn 2 a lot, which is a pain especially without cantrips since it's hard to count StP as a 1-drop. You want a lot of lands in the early part of the game but you want to stop drawing lands past 4 or 5, which of course won't necessarily happen and is also out of your control without manipulation.
Reading again, I may have partially misunderstood your goal; however, the lack of cantrips seriously hurts the tempo plan. You have powerful spells, but you may not be able to cast them in the way RUG does to generate tempo.
A thought occurs: what prevents you from playing Nimble Mongoose?
I agree that the deck doesn't always get to execute its gameplan perfectly every game. Sometimes, it will only see 1 creature in the early and midgame. Other times, it might get an aggro heavy hand that is light on disruption. Variance is always a factor, even for blue decks, albeit less so.
I'm glad that you acknowledged that the list I posted is just a rough draft. The numbers are definitely up for debate, to small extents. Cutting the Sinkholes for 1 Tombstalker and 3 Terravore could be the right call, for example. I'd need to playtest the deck a bunch to really figure out the nitty gritty though.
The free counterspells do allow RUG to be more aggressive early game, I agree. At the same time though, there are different ways to define aggression. Who's the control and who's the beatdown isn't as simple as being the one who's doing damage, etc.
Junk is still aggressive early (albeit less so); it's just aggressive in a different way. Hitting the opponent with several discard spells at the beginning of the game is aggressively attacking the opponents resources. Slip a Swords to Plowshares in with a discard spell on turn 2 to deal with the Mother of Runes that resolved as additional resource denial, and you are being very aggressive, despite doing so with control. I'd still define Junks role at this point as the beatdown, where Maverick would be the control. Maverick wants to play defensively at this point, and try to stabilize against the resource denial attack. It becomes more noticeable that Junk is the beatdown once they let off the resource denial and drop a fatty and push the red zone, but the deck is still the aggressor in the early game (in this example, anyway).
I agree that Junk can lose control when it is not capable of capitalizing on the tempo gains, but I disagree that it is worse in this regard than RUG. RUG does have cantrips to help them have cards more relevant to the situation, and reactive countermagic to answer spells off the topdeck. However, their countermagic is still just as bad (or worse) than discard once the opponent can pay the extra 1 or 2 mana to play around it, and a 3/3 Shroud has less value at that point than a 5/5 flier or a 7/7 that can chain tutor Wastelands if the situation calls for it.
Junks larger, more midrangey creature base combined with its versatile removal gives it better lasting power in the midgame. RUG's burn can just go to the dome instead to close the game out, which is why it's such a great combination with the free countermagic and cheaper threats... but they can just as easily crap out in the midgame if they cannot get the opponent low enough in life early.
Basically what I'm saying is, the ability to lose the game because it could not sufficiently disrupt the opponent and then kill them during the window of opportunity, is something that affects both decks.
The lack of cantrips is not a major issue for Junk because of its redundancy. If for whatever reason it does not have enough redundancy to be consistent, the numbers can be tweaked to fix that problem. Most Zoo decks (back in its heyday) ran 10-12 1cc removal spells, which was more than enough for Zoo to consistently get rid of the opponent's creatures. That deck ran no cantrips, but was highly successful for a long time.
Also, after this deck passes a certain amount of lands drops, it does have the option to convert those excess lands into Wastelands or the lone Canopy with Knight of the Reliquary, if need be. Not as universally effective as Brainstorm obviously, but it does have that option. The deck could include a Maze of Ith to get more mileage out of Knights ability; whether that is necessary or not, I'm not sure yet.
The curve is a bit higher, but not enough so to make the strategy ineffective. Like I said in a different response, Junk doesn't start amassing tempo gains as soon as turn 0, but it has the ability to gain a ton of tempo by turn 4 through resource denial. The resource denial isn't free, and some of it is expensive, but emptying the opponents hand and then destroying the permanents that they resolve is still effective at slowing down the gamestate drastically. Destroying lands against mana hungry decks also has the same effect. If you drop a 7/7 Knight during this downtime, the opponent has 3 turns to topdeck an answer or its game over. Tempo generated, tempo capitalized on. If the opponent topdecks an answer, Junk needs to either have a replacement, or it has a limited amount of time to find a replacement. If Junk has a replacement, there's a good chance that Junk wins. If not, or if the opponent finds another answer, it goes back to back and forth power struggle. Junk loses when its opponent is able to recover sufficiently enough, and Junk wins whey they cannot find an answer in time. (Answers do not necessarily have to be creature removal).
The back and forth power struggle is constantly ongoing... and it's a similar sort of back and forth struggle that RUG Delver has. That's the nature of these sorts of tempo stratgies; that's how they work.
It seems you overlooked my post, so I'll re-summarize: the point being that the advantage of Blue is that a) cantrips minimize variance and allow you to "play out of" some bad situations, and b) playing Blue acts as a safety net, with FoW giving you an out to degenerate combo that non-blue doesn't have.
Yes, if the metagame you posted in your OP was the list of all decks you could see at a tournament, Junk-type rock decks would see more play. But that isn't the ENTIRE metagame, that's just the top decks at the moment. And the fact that THOSE decks are even there is partly influenced by the tier-2 decks you DON'T see, because those decks battle the lower tier decks well while also having game against other top-tier decks. Junk seems to have the edge vs. the "fair" decks listed in the OP, but that's not the whole picture.
Sorry about that. There was alot of content to reply to, so I'm sure I missed some stuff.It seems you overlooked my post, so I'll re-summarize: the point being that the advantage of Blue is that a) cantrips minimize variance and allow you to "play out of" some bad situations, and b) playing Blue acts as a safety net, with FoW giving you an out to degenerate combo that non-blue doesn't have.
Yes, if the metagame you posted in your OP was the list of all decks you could see at a tournament, Junk-type rock decks would see more play. But that isn't the ENTIRE metagame, that's just the top decks at the moment. And the fact that THOSE decks are even there is partly influenced by the tier-2 decks you DON'T see, because those decks battle the lower tier decks well while also having game against other top-tier decks. Junk seems to have the edge vs. the "fair" decks listed in the OP, but that's not the whole picture.
I probably skipped past it because I was trying to avoid responding to stuff unrelated to the topic. In your case, you were discussing blue vs non blue.
I've already listed most of the bad matchups Junk has, and why they have little to no presence in the current metagame. What other Tier 2 strategies does Junk have horrible matchups against that the Tier 1 decks have great matchups against? It's alot easier for me to evaluate those sorts of questions when there are more specific examples as opposed to general/vague statements.
I'm also not sure that I would call the Tier 1 decks "fair" right now. Nearly all of them seem to be doing some pretty busted shit, minus a few.
When exactly did Junk and The Rock become different decks? Maybe that's the source of a lot of confusion here.
Also, just to be devil's advocate, here are some "you lose" topdecks:
Entreat the Angels
Infernal Tutor
Burning Wish
Price of Progress
Time Spiral
Emrakul (Sneak Attack in play)
Reanimate/Exhume/etc.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Added my comments in the quote.Entreat the Angels - Requires alot of mana to actually be "I-lose"
Infernal Tutor - Depends on what else is going on, but I already said Storm is a bad MU
Burning Wish - See Infernal Tutor
Price of Progress - Dependant on the gamestate, not always going to be "I-lose"
Time Spiral - See Infernal Tutor, except discard and LD are savage against Tide
Emrakul (Sneak Attack in play) - Costs 4 mana, can be destroyed, Karakas...
Reanimate/Exhume/etc. - Could go either way after 3 games with sideboard hate
In all fairness, I did post a decklist in the OP for reference on what I meant. There's also more than enough description of what I meant in my various posts.When exactly did Junk and The Rock become different decks? Maybe that's the source of a lot of confusion here.
But there are plenty of "you lose if you kept this hand and get 1 card removed from it" situations as well. Hand hate can flat out win the game on turn 1 if someone kept a fragile hand and you take the one thing that fixes it (Noble Hierarch, brainstorm, ponder, their 1 threat, their 1 removal, etc.)
And it isn't purely from people keeping hands they shouldn't (although that ratio is also pretty high), mulligans can affect this as well.
EDIT: I should say this before people make the argument. Yes, you could counter the spell that you just discarded, screwing them over by the same amount, but without the perfect information that you get from seeing their hand, you wouldn't know to Daze their 1st turn Ponder.
"Fair" decks refer to decks that interact on a known axis of tempo-cards-"philosophy of fire"/whatever you want to call it that progresses the game towards a win. They're the decks that you can beat through attrition, the ones where card and board advantage matter, etc. Decks in this category are Junk, Maverick, RUG Delver, Miracles, Stoneblade, Tribal aggro, Team America, etc. "Unfair" decks are those that operate on a different axis and are hard or impossible to meaningfully interact with without specific hate. Storm, High Tide, Dredge, Belcher, etc. What I meant was that those decks DO show up, even if infrequently, and by playing this Rock-styled list you're giving away huge percentage in those matchups. Storm is not a good matchup for RUG by any means, but at least RUG can possibly have enough counters and a quick threat to win. Your gameplan pretty much revolves around discard, which is worse than counters right now for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the topdeck variance.
I understand the gameplan that you want to discard their hand and then ride 1-2 threats to vitory. I have an unhealthy love for dicard (and this gameplan) and can safely say that now more than ever this plan won't work out against todays UWx control. Discard hurts them but brainstorm, sd.top, pierce & snapcaster mage (for plow) just makes your plan fail more often than not.
So let's talk about tempo, since the understanding if Junk can be a tempo deck and therefore be compared to RUG is what we disagree on.
I think the term comes from chess. According to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempo_(...aining_a_tempo
When a player achieves a desired result in one fewer move, one "gains a tempo" and conversely when one takes one more move than necessary one "loses a tempo".
Converted to magic I would say: When a player achieves a desired result with fewer resources (cards, mana, turns,...) one gains tempo.
As I said in my last post. RUG can play multiple spells per turn: Play a threat and protect it with pierce. "Card select and counter". "Kill a creature and play a threat". This is gaining tempo advantage - Doing multiple things in one turn. Just imagine RUG would play Serendib Efreet & counterspell instead of Delver & Spell Pierce. The effect of the spells are more powerful, but since they are more expensive you cannot do multiple a turn and you cant gain tempo advantage.
So when I said you have an expensive curve that does not mean you have 6cc spells like nic fit. It means you are usually limited to 1 spell a turn and it will be very hard to gain tempo advantage.
Therefore your evaluation of discard as a positive tempo play is wrong. It is a negative tempo play (you invest more resources than your opponent to trade 1 for 1) but it can be very effective in preemtively protecting your threat or stopping the opponents gameplan.
I disagree that your deck creates virtual card advantage. RUG does by playing 18 lands and card selecting with Ponder and Brainstorms. And I think it is so obvious that 11 discard and 4 sinkholes is bad that I did not want to point it out. Look at the successful discard based control decks like BUG variants & Pox... 8-9 discard is the maximum played and even these decks suffer from bad late game decks. 4 Sinkhole and 4 Vindicate surely wrecks the opponent at times, but we have again the 1 spell per turn problem. You also want to discard and play threats to kill... can't do everything at once..
So my explation why its bad is related to the fact that you cannot gain tempo advantage.
I think your win% against UWx is quite low, but I don't think there is more point in speculating here. We judge the strengh of Miracles/Esper (or of the tools this decks use) differently. 1 comment to not overcommiting. I certainly think that is an important concept. It is much better though if you can stop the opponent from playing Jace with Teeg or Spell Pierce. Imagine you have 2 threats in hand and 1 out there. They remove or bounce it with jace and you'll likely won't revocer even if you play 2 threats next turn.
The other "aggro decks" I listed are also aggro/control decks, so I don't know why you are pointing out that Junk is an aggro/control deck
RUG - obv.
Maverick - control with hatebears
Goblins - used to disrupt manabase more - nowadays not control altogh adopting Thalia, but just very resilient with combo potential (lackey) and lategame stuff like ringleader, krenko, SCG - all stuff that you are missing.
Merfolk - also obvl. aggro/control
The reason I think this color combination is best off in a Maverick or Nic Fit shell is because this decks are proven tiers and solve all of the problems that your approach has.
No offense with your arguments of "junk being a tempo deck" I don't think you understand how junk works. Looking at recent successful Junk deckslist you can see that the gamplan is a lot more grindy and has the tools for the lategame and not a hopeless "dicard based all-in on some threats aggro plan"
For reference:
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...7&iddeck=66015
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...3&iddeck=66892
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...6&iddeck=64686
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...7&iddeck=63935
Please don't explain me now that Rock and Junk are different decks and things are labeled wrong. The point I am making it that this kind of deck is what the color combination is successful in and its surely not a tempo deck.
Btw:
Thanks for the apologiy. I also try to talk to the subject and not to sound like a douchebag, but if we so fundamentaly disagree on something it can get personal because one of us is arguing intensively and completely wrong and that can hurt so I understand emotional postings.
Currently playing: Elves
Richard- Hanni refers to Eva-green/Deadguy/tarmogoyf+tombstalker aggro decks as junk. The rock is still the midrange aggro control deck you know and love.
Hanni- in your examples with RUG you mention the junk players and RUG players reaching a point where their disruption is no longer affective. At that point the RUG player can switch to the burn him out plan of attack and just start cantriping into burn instead of disruption. The BWG player then still gets to look at cards it draws off of the top of its library.
I think this is why dark confidant was played in Deadguy, Eva green and dark horizons, they couldn't be as efficient as the tempo decks so they dropped a 2cc beater that wins the game for the player. I feel that you could make a better BWG tempo deck with mongoose, confidant and goyf, while playing sinkhole-vindicate-wasteland with discard instead of counters.
You can drop a goose without fear of removal, bob wins if unanswered and the goyf brings the beats. Either goose/confidant or drop white and add red for lavamancer and lightning bolt! I still feel the goose fits in the deck along with goyf/confidant and lavamancer. Tombstalker is good but bob is a better card, by switching to goose you can drop him on turn one and disrupt the game away.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
Hanni -- my apologies. I thought you meant this to be a wider-reaching topic more based in theory than in the actual decks themselves. Judging from the number of significant non-Brainstorm-playing-players that have been posting in this thread thusfar, I'm guessing that I was not alone in that assumption.
The problem with running Mongoose in Junk is that the deck lacks the true disruption to protect him, he gets hit by gy hate (which people may bring in anyway because KotR and Goyf), and he's small. I think that one of the greatest strengths that the theoretical concept of a Junk-as-Tempo deck has, is that its threats are enormous. Goyf and KotR grow large in a Junk shell very quickly, and Junk has the removal to "win" Goyf wars so the board doesn't stall.
My question to you, Hanni, is not RUG vs Junk. My question to you is why Junk vs New Horizons? New Horizons got replaced in the meta by Maverick and RUG, to the best of my understanding, but it seems as that some sort of New Horizons + discard is what you're looking for (I hesitate to say Dark Horizons, since that was only ever SCG's horrible naming conventions...DH was just Junk in the first place).
You're overlooking something when you note that you don't lose to topdecks, by the way: you're assuming that you're topdecking as well as they are. Sure, if you opponent rips a Jace and then you rip a Vindicate, obviously you don't care. But if your opponent lands Jace and you flood out, then what? Or you draw more meaningless discard spells while Jace pushes all of your business to the bottom. This is just one example. You can't assume that you'll be sitting there with a full grip and a Cheshire grin plastered on your face while your opponents don't have anything. Your deck is based around resource denial and 1-for-1s. RUG can get away with that because their entire deck is sheer efficiency, distilled and boiled down into its truest form. They run 18 lands + 8 cantrips, which helps them make the land drops that they need, while also pushing useless Dazes and drawing Delvers, burn, Pierces, or whatever else they need. Even if you go 4-color and add Brainstorm, you're not going to keep up with them. You can't just make a 4-color RUG in GBWU with 18 lands, 8 cantrips, 12 creatures, and 22 disruption spells. It isn't that easy. Junk's strengths come in other places, in other forms. If you just 1-for-1 your opponent, you're probably going to lose. And don't cite Hymn because ermagerd 2-for-1. Hymn's really, really good, but it's not enough by itself.
Also, /barn Catmint. The best discard is either in Esperblade, which runs like 4-6 on average, but has Snap to get value later, or in Nic Fit/Zombies, because you only have 4 discard spells in your deck, but those 4 are actually 8 (Therapy).
Also, Leyline of Sanctity IS a card. If they have Leyline, how do you interact with your opponent meaningfully?
Note, I'm really not trying to come down on you for wanting to play Junk. I just think that your thought process is flawed here, especially with regards to the specific variety of Junk that you desire to play. It just won't work the way you want it to. By all means, try it anyway if you want. But I'm not hopeful.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote
/r 