How to best beat Aggro-control

[Iamfishman]

Hi everyone,

As someone who has typically played unfair decks in legacy like High Tide and Belcher, I know all about the feeling of "well, do you have that random sideboard card or not?" that determines most games.

By contrast, however, the "fair" decks (which I think of as primarily the aggro-control grindy decks like Esper Stoneblade, Jund, Shardless Bug, Delver, etc) have one element going for them that makes them seem a little less fair. Specifically, because they hit you from a number of different angles with cards of different colors and casting costs, there seems to be no single card, deck, or strategy that just destroys them.

"Seems" is the operative word there, and so I turn to you, the MTGSource community full of brilliant minds who know this format better than I. So my question is this:

What single cards, specific decks, or certain strategies are best at attacking these fair aggro-control decks? What absolutely crushes them? How do you just dominate those types of decks?

Discuss.

[prateta]

I usually Krenko the shit outta them with billion goblin tokens.

Seriously now. If you just want to shut down any kind of deck, go for t1 trinisphere. That should help.

[danyul]

There is no way to "absolutely crush" these types of decks. That's why they are such popular deck choices. When played correctly, they have about a 50/50 matchup against the entire field. These decks run a variety of cards that give their pilots room to outplay their opponents. And they have answers to almost everything. You beat these decks the same way you beat any deck - know your 75, know who's the beatdown, and see the correct line of play.

[twndomn]

"Seems" is the operative word there, and so I turn to you, the MTGSource community full of brilliant minds who know this format better than I. So my question is this:

What single cards, specific decks, or certain strategies are best at attacking these fair aggro-control decks? What absolutely crushes them? How do you just dominate those types of decks?

Discuss.

1. Play Blue based combo that would allow you to run more counters.
2. Play artifact hate such as chalice of the void, Trinisphere, defense grid to protect your combo.
3. Play combo that also screws with non-basic land, such as painter stone (imperial painter). In this demonstration, the combo player destroyed Shardless BUG in 20 seconds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhfszFhjyuE

[Megadeus]

Vs Tempo, you basically just try to get to phase two of the game. Dont walk into Stifles on your fetch lands, fetch basics if possible, get an on board presence. Thats what that matchup is all about. On board presence. Vs BGx, and Blade variants, you need a sort of card advantage to beat them. This is why Jace and Liliana excel in mid range mirrors. Planeswalkers, +1 or more card draw (Stoneforge is +1 technically), recurring threats (Bloodghast, punishing Fire, Life From the Loam) all are good ways to gain an advantage in a mid range mirror. Also Deed. That card rocks. Like has been said, generally there is no single card that just hoses them like Force of Will vs Belcher. It is all about being a good player and making the correct lines of play.

[Jitse]

If you want to beat these "fair" aggro-control decks, the best way to do that is to play one of time, that is the best in the late game, like Jund and remove all the combo hate in the deck to have the best edges in the mirror. playing esper deathblade without FOW and with additional removal could be good for example:

4 BBE
4 Dark confidant
4 tarmogoyf
4 deathrite shaman

4 liliana of the veil

4 punishing fire
4 abrupt decay
3 lightning bolt
2 diabolic edict
2 hymm to tourarch
1 maelstrom pulse
1 sylvan library

4 grove of the burnwillos
4 verdant catacombs
3 wasteland
1 forest
2 swamp
2 bayou
3 badlands
2 bloodstane mire
1 wooded foothills

This deck is clearly terrible against any form of combo, and once you hedge against that you end up with one of the list, but better then this you probably can't do against these kind of decks.

So, the way to beat these fair deck is to play 1 of them and to scale a little bit better in the late game with more 2-for 1 trades and spot removal, which will always make your combo matchup worse but you can't make both better. At the same time, you can make your combo matchup better but then these decks willl become less good matchups.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Tempo players LOVE to play against atrittion based decks like e.g. Pox.
RUG: twelve creatures, set of Stifles and Wastelands.
Pox: seven gorillion removal, twenty Swamps. (I own some.)

[dreinal13]

Pox and Dredge comes to mind against these decks. In addition, Legacy Merfolks might also come in handy. Basically either go YOLO or just plainly ignore their plays, and making sure you get yours to stick better. Do not be too careful, but at the same time do not be too careless as well.

[Nonex]

4 Veteran Explorer and 4 SB Leyline of Sanctity + X SB Carpet of Flowers are your best friends.

[Purgatory]

Tempo players LOVE to play against atrittion based decks like e.g. Pox.
RUG: twelve creatures, set of Stifles and Wastelands.
Pox: seven gorillion removal, twenty Swamps. (I own some.)

Haha, very funny and very true! :D

I hate it when my thousand dollar-"best deck of the format" loses against a pile of Swamps, Smallpox and Liliana.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Haha, very funny and very true! :D

I hate it when my thousand dollar-"best deck of the format" loses against a pile of Swamps, Smallpox and Liliana.

To add insult to an injury, they either kill with Nether Spirit so you suffer for nine turns, or they put in play 5/5 flying dude that is out of Bolt's reach and delves your Goyfs so you may just stare helplessly.

[Koby]

http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/rc/rc188_fireball.jpg

Tagging Vidi for #value.

[FTW]

Fair decks' weakness is that they are fair. Their cards are pretty much all 1-for-1 even-powered cards. Nothing weak, but nothing OP either. Weather their disruption, kill their few threats and survive long enough to get unfair cards/card advantage engines online and they lose. Or play Chalice @ 1.

[Finn]

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

Seriously, just about everything.

[TsumiBand]

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

Seriously, just about everything.

Gempalm Incinerator

/troll

[Purgatory]

Gempalm Incinerator

/troll

Implying Goblins is a fair deck.


On a more serious note:



By contrast, however, the "fair" decks (which I think of as primarily the aggro-control grindy decks like Esper Stoneblade, Jund, Shardless Bug, Delver, etc) have one element going for them that makes them seem a little less fair. Specifically, because they hit you from a number of different angles with cards of different colors and casting costs, there seems to be no single card, deck, or strategy that just destroys them.

The local definition of "fair" is often quoted as "fair decks pay for their spells, unfair decks do not", and while I like to subscribe to that definition, it would put decks like Death and Taxes on the unfair side, since it plays Aether Vial. My own personal definition of fairness has to do with interactivity, and generally, unfair decks tend to not want any interactivity at all (combo decks mainly), while fair decks have elements in them that are inherently interactive, specifically creatures that do combat.

The decks you mention are fair according to my personal definition, but they are slightly unfair when looking at the "pay for your shit"-definition, since Stoneblade plays Stoneforge Mystic into Batterskull, Jund and Shardless BUG has Cascade and Delver plays with "free" countermagic. That said, none of the decks are trying to do anything really broken by Legacy standards.

My point with all the rambling is simply that "fair" and "unfair" are undefined and arbitrary in most cases, and not a good stepping stone for a discussion.



What single cards, specific decks, or certain strategies are best at attacking these fair aggro-control decks? What absolutely crushes them? How do you just dominate those types of decks?

Like in most cases, it's hard to nail all of these offenders with a single answer. Most of the decks in question have a hard time handling a resolved Blood Moon, or a Chalice on 1, the graveyard-dependent Delver tempo decks can in some games roll over to a resolved Rest in Peace, most of the decks will just die to Nic Fit, Pox and other otherwise tier 2-decks that are in some ways even more grindy than themselves. Play with Veteran Explorers if you really want to beat Canadian Threshold et al, but be prepared to lose to combo then.

That, or just come over to the dark side and sleeve up some Delvers of your own :) We have pretty intense mirror matches, you know!

[TsumiBand]

Wait, so Goblins can be Tier not-1 and still be unfair? Because it has 'free spells'?

This is why I hate the fair/unfair thing so hard in Magic. Fairness scales to the format. Is Affinity 'unfair'? How about Madness?

I feel like this is a misappropriation of the word 'fair'. I now understand how conservatives feel about the marriage argue.

[Megadeus]

Wait, so Goblins can be Tier not-1 and still be unfair? Because it has 'free spells'?

This is why I hate the fair/unfair thing so hard in Magic. Fairness scales to the format. Is Affinity 'unfair'? How about Madness?

I feel like this is a misappropriation of the word 'fair'. I now understand how conservatives feel about the marriage argue.

I think the generally accepted thing is that an unfair deck is a fast combo deck, winning with extremely powerful spells like Derping in a T2-3 griselbrand or emrakul, or Tendrilsing your opponent on T2 or 3. A fair deck is a deck that is trying to play a longer game, where they are just casting their spells or using engines of some kind to gain an advantage. I would say that Playing a T1 Vial so you can cheat in a 2 drop for free on turn 3 is pretty fucking fair.

[Megadeus]

If by any definition, non food chain recruiter goblins is considered an unfair deck, then that definition is probably wrong.

[Plague Sliver]

Fair is all in the mind. It's only about how one feels. To apply an objective (list-based?) criteria on fairness is tough indeed.

There can be fair games that end in a few turns. Or unfair games that go to time.

[Zombie]

Fair is all in the mind. It's only about how one feels. To apply an objective (list-based?) criteria on fairness is tough indeed.

There can be fair games that end in a few turns. Or unfair games that go to time.

PT Berlin. Extended. Combo mirror. G1 went to time. 116/116 Predator Dragon on the board, no one cared. Essence Wardens and Hivemasters are fun, I hear.

[Worldslayer]

Tinker.

Not the actual card, but the strategy of. Sort of. Well...

More accurately, if you're on an Unfair deck - executing your gameplan is the best hate card ever.

Fair decks (sort of misleading since there's actually two distinct types of Fair: Attrition (Jund/BUG, Blade, Goblins/Tribal long) and Tempo (X Delver, Merfolk/Tribal Aggressive)) only operate against unfair decks when their opponent...well...doesn't. That's the whole gameplan, and why all their hate pieces exist. They get to run the "hate" cards because Unfair decks are typically strategically linear - they do one thing, but they do it really, REALLY well. They have one real axis of operating, and when they do they usually win the game and when they don't they usually don't. The whole dynamic is that Unfair Linear decks are going to do their one thing, and it's the "fair" deck's job to not let that happen or they're dead, because Eternal Unfair decks are so beyond the scope of fair decks in terms of power that as soon as the gameplan gets executed successfully the bad guy is dead. There's gradients in the fair spectrum where they get a leg up on each other (like RIP UW, which kind of straddles the line between fair control deck and unfair engine deck, has a natural "hate"ish card versus the Deathrite/Tarmogoyf midrange decks), but that's a battle of inches. You don't GET a single card that hoses a fair deck because they don't operate on a single axis of execution - they play in multiple zones from multiple angles and typically get by in terms of efficiency and redundancy, so your options are either:

A) Hate each of these angles with a different piece - something like how old Enchantress used to lock out targetted spells, and the attack step, and counter spells with different enchantments
B) Leverage the fact that all of your unfair cards are simply more powerful than theirs, and that typically resolving and/or protecting one is better than anything they can do, and will win the game.


In Vintage years ago, when I started playing "for real", one of the more common Tier 1 decks was Big Blue (still is, actually), and one of Big Blue's primary weapons, thanks to the newly printed Mirrodin Block, was Tinker-> Darksteel (or really, Tinker -> Robot, as there were several more "techy" but less immediately gameending targets, like Sundering Titan or Mindslaver/Pentavus/Goblin Welder). "Fish" decks, or what you guys would call Tempo (Pre-Delver), was a fairly common Tier 1.5/2ish deck that got by on Hate Bears and countermagic, so somewhere between Maverick and Blade in terms of operation. A lot of newer Big Blue players would wind up succumbing to the matchup pretty often by keeping their Duress/Force of Will/Mana Drain/etc.. hands, and they'd eventually run out of interaction because the Fish decks were nothing but 20 dudes, 20 spells, 20 lands, and they'd die to the last bear standing. It was a pretty common error in matchup to see, and a lot of them would constantly be looking for "the card that hoses them".

What you'd see a lot of the more adept Big Blue players do every time they came across the matchup was resolve Tinker. That's it. Every counterspell was just aimed at protecting Tinker and the robot. Every Duress was to resolve it by stripping Force, or keep it alive by stripping StP. Every card draw spell and tutor was aimed at specifically resolving Tinker. No sideboarded wraths or hate cards or strange silver bullets. Just resolve Tinker. Tinker, as an incredibly unfair card, was just so far beyond what anything the fish decks could handle or replicate that there was just nearly no way for them to beat the card. Oath had a similar gameplan postKamigawa, though they got "Resolve tinker or Oath" as options. Trying to stoop to the fair decks level (interacting. Ew.) was just a losing proposition - they were better at it, because they were made for it, and we weren't. Resolving your better cards, though, was pretty ace in terms of murdering their fishy little faces. The games you resolved and protected Tinkerbot, you won. The games you didn't, you typically didn't.

So in terms of finding a "hate" card for fair decks, there usually isn't one that will just completely shut them off. There's some that work angles (Engineered Plague vs. DnT/MAverick, for example, isn't awful - but they're still going to cast cards and be annoying and interact), but since they have multiple angles, you typically need multiple cards. If you're on an unfair deck, your best angle is usually just working that whatever you do is much better than the things they do when you get to do it, and the whole game is basically "getting to do it". That's the only way you typically win the game. You usually don't get to any other way (though sometimes Blood Moon is close these days if your deck can survive it.)



Further breakdown -

All the "unfair" decks are typically "linear" decks, also sometimes "gimmick" decks. They play one way, at absurdly discounted or otherwise mechanically different rates, usually breaking fundamental rules of the game wide open. Dredge draws six cards a turn and barely actually casts anything, Storm can end a game in a single turn, Sneak pays 3 mana for a Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc... They operate on Namesakes/Engines, and are clearly defined by these - Show and Tell wants to resolve Show and Tell, Dredge wants to Dredge, Storm wants to storm, Reanimator wants to reanimate, etc...

There's also "engine" decks, typically classified as "unfair" because again, they begin to break basic parameters of the game and do things outside your basic actions at basic rates. Enchantress lock, Counterbalance Top (and UW RIP Miracles is actually several Engines crammed into one shell), and the like match up two and two and make it equal a hundred, and the advantage builds up for the rest of the game because an engine begins violating the rule of a single card being worth a single card, or a few cards. Engine cards are worth an undefined number of cards, and an abritrarily large number if the opponent lacks a method of interacting or ignoring it. I suppose you could also make a case for Punishing Fire + Grove here, as really that's an unfair interaction engine - just much slower and more narrow in scope than most.

In either case, when one of these Unfair decks (linear, engine, or both being possibilities) comes across a fair deck, you enter into a subgame. Unlike fair vs. fair, where almost the entirely of your cards matter, fair vs. unfair reduces the game to "there are exactly [x] cards in your deck that can interact with or stop me. I do not care about the other [y] cards, where [y] is the remaining cards of your deck that are not [x]". [x] is almost exclusively disruption (discard/counterspells/relevant "hate"). Clocks typically aren't relevant, except in that the compress the game to allow less time for the Unfair player to navigate the relevant [x] cards presented. When you minimize, ignore, counter, or otherwise "beat" the [x], the Unfair deck wins. If they can't, they don't.

"But that's really general. Every deck wins when it beats the other guy's cards. That's how you win Magic games."

Well, yes. The difference here is more one of quantity, though - the number of cards an unfair deck "cares about" from a fair deck is typically exceedingly small in comparison to what fair decks care about from other fair decks.

To wit: In Underground Sea combo (Reanimator, Storm, whatever) vs. Blade, they have anywhere from 7 - 12 cards, on average, that you give one lick about. Counterspells and Discard, with occasional Meddling Mage or Thalia or some such. The rest of the cards in that deck DO NOT MATTER ONE SINGLE, SOLITARY BIT if you can beat those 7 - 12 cards, or if they don't draw them. In say, Blade vs. Jund, though, suddenly now everything matters, because almost every card interacts with you in some way. Tarmogoyf doesn't do jack to stop the offensive power or something like Tendrils, or Sneak. Your Geist of St. Traft, in comparison, cares very much about the 4/5 Tarmogoyf you don't have a removal spell for.

The trade off for that is that Unfair decks typically care about those much smaller numbers of cards significantly more - Tarmogoyf can be beaten by Blade, even if you can't remove it, by establishing and maintaining a larger or more powerful board presence. Meanwhile, in Roulette "Do You Have It" unfair vs. fair land, a Reanimator pilot without SnT is staring down a resolved Rest in Peace, and their win percentage is rapidly approaching zero. The rest of the game quite nearly is irrelevant - it's almost entirely "can I do something about Rest in Peace?". We're more powerful than fair decks, and care about much less, so functionally we have to care about those fewer things more because if we didn't, the balance of the game is out of whack and something's probably getting banned soon.



I rambled a lot here, so I guess
tl;dr - Resolve Tinker vs. The Fish decks. Unfair decks don't get hate cards vs. fair decks because hate cards are for plebs and you're better than that, damnit.

[Finn]

Iirc, "unfair" as a deck descriptor was coined by players talking about their strategy. To further feel it in the proper context, imagine the player cackling as he mouths the word. It is heavily subjective.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Tinker.

Not the actual card, but the strategy of. Sort of. Well...

...


I rambled a lot here, so I guess
tl;dr - Resolve Tinker vs. The Fish decks. Unfair decks don't get hate cards vs. fair decks because hate cards are for plebs and you're better than that, damnit.

Wow, what a... brilliant post! :eek:
I really love this minianalysis!

[MGB]

The best way to crush aggro-control decks is to target their main weakness: a low threat density.

Think about decks like RUG Delver: what they try to do is ride 8-12 threats in the main deck to victory, backed by counter-spells and disruption.

IF you play a deck heavy on cheap removal, you can remove their few threats and then thwart their game plan.

If you want to destroy decks like Delver, or Merfolk, play a BG removal-heavy deck like Train Wreck or a mono black removal heavy deck like The Gate. These decks almost never lose to aggro-control strategies with a low threat density.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?16885-Deck-The-Gate

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?3231-Deck-Train-Wreck-v-1-4-%28Helldozer-Returns-This-Time-It-s-Personal%29

[FTW]

If you want to destroy decks like Delver, or Merfolk, play a BG removal-heavy deck like Train Wreck or a mono black removal heavy deck like The Gate. These decks almost never lose to aggro-control strategies with a low threat density.


See: Pox

[thecrav]

Gushbond is fair, anything less broken is failing to try hard enough.

[Zombie]

Tinker.

How I win most of my games against fair decks in Legacy.
Also a goddamn brilliant post.

[Final Fortune]

Any dedicated board control deck should fit the bill, I think I could beat any aggro-control deck in the format with WGR Astral Slide no joke - basically it comes down to playing the card advantage and board removal game vs them and ironically blue isn't the best at doing that any more.

[MD.Ghost]

Add Punishing Fit(see Primer) against Tempo Decks:
Maindeck Lilianas and Deeds vs TNN (and only a few creatures) and a mana ramp plan with value creatures like huntmaster, titan or good old thrun. Normally Tempo can't beat it, because besides removal, enough lands, ramp with explorer you have also creatures to gain life back and turn the game after the first beats.

With Sideboard, you can also play 7-8 Discard Spells, Red Blast and Slaughter Games, so the Combo Matchups are hard but beatable.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Tinker.

[insert rest of godlike post]

Well done and well said ^_^

Anyhow, not sure if anyone has said this or not, but the best way to beat tempo with attrition decks is to outrace them in terms of value. Terminus, Deed, a well-played Cabal Therapy, Life from the Loam, planeswalkers, CounterTop, etc. give you positive value compared to tempo's typical one-for-one or in the case of Force, two-for-one spells.

[Zupponn]

I'm wondering if some kind of white control will come back that features Humility. That card seems great against many of the top decks right now.

[Barook]

I'm wondering if some kind of white control will come back that features Humility. That card seems great against many of the top decks right now.
Humility + all those -1/-1 sweepers seem great in general. However, if you opponent plays a Batterskull after you landed your Humility, you're facing a 5/5 vigilance lifelinker. And SFM + Batterskull is everywhere now thanks to TNN.

[Megadeus]

Humility + Night of Lolz Betrayal

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Humility + all those -1/-1 sweepers seem great in general. However, if you opponent plays a Batterskull after you landed your Humility, you're facing a 5/5 vigilance lifelinker. And SFM + Batterskull is everywhere now thanks to TNN.

That's why you play StP and such, I'd even maindeck Disenchant if I found myself in troubles with BSK.

[twndomn]

After Jund Depths took a trophy, as it turned out, Small Pox is pretty good! Even better in conjunction with Liliana.