WotC future vision of Aggro vs. Control

[Lemnear]

Shh... do you hear that? That's the sound of innovation and player interaction.

[btm10]

I'd break out my Fluctuators, but that wouldn't be interactive.

[sjmcc13]

Shh... do you hear that? That's the sound of innovation and player interaction.

I have had more interactive games with low creature combo v.s. control matchups. then I have had in Std in the last 2 years.

Yes creatures running into each other is a form of interaction, but a creature standoff because neither side can afford to attack is horribly boring and non-interactive, the number of times this happens to me in limited is part of why I do not enjoy limited play (that and needing luck to get the right bombs, and draw them when you have 1 copy in the deck. I hate losing to a singleton bomb when I either did not get any answers in my pool, or have several and did not see 1 the entire game, and winning because I drew a card my opponent could not handle is not rewarding either).

[Tylert]

I have had more interactive games with low creature combo v.s. control matchups. then I have had in Std in the last 2 years.

Yes creatures running into each other is a form of interaction, but a creature standoff because neither side can afford to attack is horribly boring and non-interactive, the number of times this happens to me in limited is part of why I do not enjoy limited play (that and needing luck to get the right bombs, and draw them when you have 1 copy in the deck. I hate losing to a singleton bomb when I either did not get any answers in my pool, or have several and did not see 1 the entire game, and winning because I drew a card my opponent could not handle is not rewarding either).

Being able to mitigate the fact that your opponent has bombs by building a good deck is what it takes to be a good limited player... it's not possible for everyone :) (Note: I'm not a good limited player, just passable).

[sjmcc13]

Being able to mitigate the fact that your opponent has bombs by building a good deck is what it takes to be a good limited player... it's not possible for everyone :)

Even if you build a good deck, you still need to draw those answers. Plus building as good a deck as you can only goes so far, and does not help you against someone as skilled as you who got better pulls due to opening better packs.

Limited is Skill and Luck. but the luck factor is too large for my taste.

[Teveshszat]

Hello,

I don´t think so. I know some Limited players who can tell you which cards all of the other players drafted
and than evaluate this and build their deck to out manover this. So from all formats Limited is the most
skill intensive because you must make the best out of very limited recources and quality. The luck
component seems to be higher but it is not an excuse if you lose.

Best Regards Teveshszat

[Zombie]

I have had more interactive games with low creature combo v.s. control matchups. then I have had in Std in the last 2 years.

Yes creatures running into each other is a form of interaction, but a creature standoff because neither side can afford to attack is horribly boring and non-interactive, the number of times this happens to me in limited is part of why I do not enjoy limited play (that and needing luck to get the right bombs, and draw them when you have 1 copy in the deck. I hate losing to a singleton bomb when I either did not get any answers in my pool, or have several and did not see 1 the entire game, and winning because I drew a card my opponent could not handle is not rewarding either).

This is one of the big flaws of a Magic played mostly on the board, IMO. The game only has a single battlefield or lane or whatever you want to call it. That one field of play getting cramped is why we need Wraths (an effect that'd be insanely silly in a game like Starcraft, Go, Age of Empires or, interestingly, Netrunner).

You simply can't be in the wrong place in the way you can in an RTS, nor can you overextend yourself in the same way. Overextension is just committing too much stuff to the field, instead of playing your stuff on the field wrong as you could in an RTS (take too many bases spreading your defenses thin, leave the opponent control of the map by turtling a lot and such). That everything is in one big, amorphous blob that is just kind of everywhere at once is a large design flaw considering where R&D is pushing the game.

[FieryBalrog]

I've been playing for 17 years and the idea that we should shed tears for the death of engine combo decks is hilarious. And dumb.

Good riddance.

[btm10]

I've been playing for 17 years and the idea that we should shed tears for the death of engine combo decks is hilarious. And dumb.

Good riddance.

Are you going to make an argument, or just troll?

[thecrav]

Looking at stuff like Teferi Control and Sonic Boom during Lorwyn-centric Type2, we even had pretty cool controlish decks in the not too-distant past.

Lorwyn-centric standard ended in 2010. Even if that's the not too-distant past in terms of history, 20% of the game's history has happened since then.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I'm just disappointed that all WotC explored at rare occasions were cost-reduction and P/T increase. I feel that there is a lot of stuff possible

______________________
On combo:

As a long-time casual and low-level player, I got a strange feeling towards combo. Mostly I'm not exactly annoyed by it, but I remeber pretty well how my old casual group acted when they were exposed to anything even a bit pestering, be it Winter Orb, discard, counters, sweepers, LD whatever. Casuals simply dislike everything which isn't "who will slam bigger creature with more tough name" and that!s about it.
Hey, I don't even think that I'll be able to "play normal Magic" after my decade of decandence in competitive MtG subculture. Not that I'm so bad person to ToA friends out of the game on Saturday night, but simply put, where everything but Terror and Craw Wurms is forbidden, one starts to wonder why on earth he ever came to this place. If I'd love to play with little fluffy bunnies, I wouldn't start this whole session of "mighty mage versus wise warlock" duel. You know, it's like moan nad bitch every time the opposing guy tries to checkmate you... so if you really want to pet the knights, oh well why not, just don't expect I'll come next time.

Imho there are far many levels on which the ppl play the game (it has something to do with "players' typology" and those legendary Melvins, Spikes and whomsoever else), and as long as the major buyers bracket are those who like 7/7 for seven, the game will look like that.

Btw, I'd love to play some good old fair MtG. Except that it doesn't even exist, only in the memories of people that don't remember much. It wasn't exactly fair when one commanded his lions, sprites and elves against the Necro-fed Firestorm deck.

[Nekrataal]

to force Control into running creatures to block attacks.

Oh that's great! So Control doesn't want to play sweepers anymore. Destroying one's own creatures sounds pretty daft. Uh well, I think it is a brilliant idea to create formats with yet more midrange decks that lack any rock-scissors-paper principle. Then WotC can call that "stale" again because they made it so. Lately "stale" seems to be the best that WotC is able to achieve with certain formats. Read about the staleness of Modern when they announced to cancel the 2015 Modern PTQs and now when the introduce the new rotation cycle for T2. So maybe "stale" is the new "good"?

WotC really has a knack for ironing out all the littel caveats which could make a format vivid and interesting (or others according to marketing find unfun like LD, Counters, Sweepers, Combo, <add your own hate here>). When all the unfun is gone let staleness rule. This is where the fun begins.

[lyracian]

Btw, I'd love to play some good old fair MtG. Except that it doesn't even exist, only in the memories of people that don't remember much. It wasn't exactly fair when one commanded his lions, sprites and elves against the Necro-fed Firestorm deck.

The complete lack of interaction against Pros-Bloom was one of the reasons I stopped playing. I cast creatures and attacked nad either dealt 20 damage before he got the engine on line or I died. There was nothing else happening in the game. However most of my MTG time was spent playing on the Kitchen table with friends often in multi-player games. Those were fun and are plenty of memories of fair magic.

[FieryBalrog]

Are you going to make an argument, or just troll?

I think it's fairly obvious myself.

Keep in mind I've always been a Johnny and, for my very first competitive decks, I played solitare decks like Turboland and extended UG enchantress combo. I still remember in high school in 2002, scraping together the cash to build UG Enchantress with Explorations and Argothians and Cloud of Faeries and thinking the deck was the coolest thing ever. Zvi's Oath Turboland blew my mind when I built it. When I first entered Legacy I built Dredge. Problem is, these decks are terrible for playing fun, interactive games and are all about masturbating to your own combo chains while you take long-ass turns and your opponent twiddles his thumbs. Even in EDH I couldn't resist putting together some solitaire combo decks, but I almost never end up playing them because I know I'll have a huge (and legitimate) target on my head, and the wins are often anticlimactic.

Playing in Legacy vs. stupid shit like Belcher is just never fun, and stuff like ANT is only tolerable if you're playing Ux tempo or CB. And that leads to a lot of terrible, uninteractive games. Nowadays I Johnny it up with wacky EDH decks and if I play any 1v1 format I pick less obnoxious decks. Remember before Storm, when combo decks actually had to... play permanents? (usually, anyway). That's a better way to do combo, except whiny combo players complain because- shock, horror - opponent can now interact with them instead of sitting there like a goldfish.

[Lemnear]

Playing in Legacy vs. stupid shit like Belcher is just never fun, and stuff like ANT is only tolerable if you're playing Ux tempo. And that leads to a lot of terrible, uninteractive games. Nowadays I Johnny it up with wacky EDH decks and if I play any 1v1 format I pick less obnoxious decks. Remember before Storm, when combo decks actually had to... play permanents? (usually, anyway). That's a better way to do combo, except whiny combo players complain because- shock, horror - opponent can now interact with them instead of sitting there like a goldfish.

You mean permaments like Memory Jar, Necropotence, Yawmoths Bargain and Oath? ;P

To be honest, the S&T archetypes are also permanent-based and just laugh at aggro-decks. The issues of aggro has nothing to do with permanents, but with having to run answers which add nothing to your gameplan and unlike Storm, most aggro-decks cannot embrace the cantrips to shuffle unneeded Protection/answers like Discard/bounce away.

[FieryBalrog]

You mean permaments like Memory Jar, Necropotence, Yawmoths Bargain and Oath? ;P

To be honest, the S&T archetypes are also permanent-based and just laugh at aggro-decks.

The S&T decks are based on S&T (duh) a spell, to cheat out a permanent that can't be interacted with (Griselbrand, Emrakul). But fair enough there are some super-broken permanents out there, keep those banned obviously though, I do miss ye olde days when Necro was used for "fairer" decks with Drain Life and Order of Ebon Hand.

I was hoping for more things like Painter's Servant combo or Leyline/Helm combo.

[iamajellydonut]

The S&T decks are based on S&T (duh) a spell, to put out a permanent that can't be interacted with (Griselbrand, Emrakul).

I was hoping for more things like Painter's Servant combo or Leyline/Helm combo.

I think the joke was that you can't, don't, or couldn't interact with any of the combo pieces in the "good ol' days" either. Let's face it, if your combo can be stopped hard by a well placed Lightning Bolt, it's a pretty fucking shitty combo made out of a house of cards and you shouldn't be running it.

Another part of the joke is that your claim of non-interaction in terms of what remains for combo today constitutes petulant whining. Even outside of blue, from Thalia to Thoughtseize to Surgical Extraction to Mindbreak Trap to whatever, there is plenty of interaction if you so choose to use it.

[Lemnear]

I think the joke was that you can't, don't, or couldn't interact with any of the combo pieces in the "good ol' days" either.

Exactly

The S&T decks are based on S&T (duh) a spell, to cheat out a permanent that can't be interacted with (Griselbrand, Emrakul). But fair enough there are some super-broken permanents out there, keep those banned obviously though, I do miss ye olde days when Necro was used for "fairer" decks with Drain Life and Order of Ebon Hand.

I was hoping for more things like Painter's Servant combo or Leyline/Helm combo.

Well, you can beat Griselbrand and Emrakul with stuff like Needle, Councils Judgement, Oblivion Ring, Liliana, Chainer's Edict or the like. Honestly, Griselbrand & S&T is the same level of combine-2-cards-to-win like Painter & Grinstone or Leyline & Helm which is a plain idiot-proof concept which you can even find in Modern, being pretty successful with Exarch & Splitter Twin. Admitting that you have the cream of the Crop of that stupid linearity in Legacy's SneakShow, it doesn't change the fact that most, if not all of those combo decks, are permanent based. I'm not sorry for any Zoo player not running MB Pridemages & REB's and SB Needles in this meta full of S&T, Counterbalance and Cantrips.

[FieryBalrog]

If playing sideboard silver bullets is supposed to make a matchup "interactive", then Dredge is an interactive deck.

Dredge is not an interactive deck.

Even mainboard stuff like Thalia does not make for an interactive matchup. I've played Maverick quite a bit back in the day and "do I have turn 2 Thalia && does he have turn 1/2 kill" doesn't make for much of a game. It auto-blanks 90% of your deck, BY DESIGN. Not to mention, a couple of slow mainboard semi-relevant answers doesn't even do much for the matchup, as evidenced by the reality of Goblins vs. Storm or Maverick vs. Storm or Zoo vs. Storm or pick one.

I think the joke was that you can't, don't, or couldn't interact with any of the combo pieces in the "good ol' days" either.

Well, I guess that's often (but not always) been true, but it doesn't make engine combo decks (which are even worse) any better. I may have overstated the idea of combo decks "playing fair" in ye olde days, because dumb Urza's combo decks weren't any better. I don't mind decks like Fruity Pebbles as much.

Storm is definitely the bottom of the barrel though. Storm even managed to ruin Pauper ffs.

[Lord Seth]

Well, I guess that's often (but not always) been true, but it doesn't make engine combo decks (which are even worse) any better. I may have overstated the idea of combo decks "playing fair" in ye olde days, because dumb Urza's combo decks weren't any better. I don't mind decks like Fruity Pebbles as much.

See, I actually prefer engine combo decks. Those are decks that require a reasonable number of decisions trees and thus you have to really know how to play it in order to not simply lose to yourself. I find losing to that better than "hey, look! I have the right two cards together, so I instantly win the game."