[Article]Eternal Europe: The Complexity Climb

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Waxing a little philosophical this time:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27736_The-Complexity-Climb.html

Let me know what you think (though the disclaimer at the end of the article applies)!

[Echelon]

I thought it to be a little bit presumptuous and felt you were just stating the obvious for the most part. In the end it boils down to "I wish standard was a bit more like Legacy/Vintage but I do support the gradation in relative difficulty the different formats provide" and that's it.

Too bad, I normally rather enjoy reading your articles.

I'm sorry I'm being this negative, please try not to take it as an attack on your person, it isn't meant as such - I just didn't really like the article, that's all.

[Zombie]

The most important part of Standard being the main format is probably the speed of the format. Legacy tends to play out in a pretty compressed time window, Standard less so. You have more time, more opportunities to adjust. Which is not to say that Standard shouldn't actually have complex stuff in it.

I love the current Standard because for what feels like a first time in a long, long while it's not defined by plain ol' good stuff - decks are actually built around interactions of cards. It may not be Legacy Elves or a 100-card Survival-Hulk-Reveillark Highlander concoction, but somewhat unassuming cards working together to provide extra value is an amazing feeling, one I've been hooked to for the last half a dozen years. It was exactly Standard - UB Mannequin just post-Lorwyn and Lark-Blink after Morningtide that taught be that joy.

As to Carsten's point #2, I wouldn't say being forgiving means it's less skill based, really. I mean, piloting Maverick correctly? Hard. There's a crapton of ways to put yourself behind. It's still suboptimal play, it just doesn't kill you then and there.

The big important thing about a format being creature centric is that it reduces the chance of two decks playing past each other, like Zoo vs. Storm matches of old, which was just seeing who can goldfish better. Legacy itself could honestly use less of that. It's one reason why I think creature or otherwise permanent based combo decks should be promoted - they have the key component of squeezing more value out of cards and complex decision trees and broken outcomes that make combo so much fun, but they exceedingly rarely leave the opponent out of the game just by their nature. Also, more colors have answers to permanents than to spells on the stack, which is also a desirable trait IMO. The trick is figuring out how to get the deck to end up being something like Elves or Pod, and a tad less like play two cards, win. But moving most combo to the board would in the end be beneficial for the game IMO. The graveyard might be another great avenue, but it's hated so strongly it's hard for any more fine-grained graveyard decks to make it. Reanimator's absurd cast spell, win by Griseltard type of power is basically the remaining way, and it makes me a bit sad.

The severity of interactions is one reason I find playing hatecards vs. combo matchups a bit depressing - the interactions are so absolute compared to the fine song and dance of trying to combo out vs. Delver the game ends up feeling like a farce.