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Goblins isn't Aggro? It plays 30+ creatures and goldfishes on turn 3.
I wouldn't say Aggro has been dead but it certainly has been on the decline for awhile. Pure Aggro may not be a driving force in Legacy ever again. Hybridized Aggro, like Elves, decks or ones that allow it to adopt the appropriate roles in a match are going to be much more successful.
Maverick is far from dead. This deck as other strong non-linear decks like UW blade or Canadian have the ability to adapt and only die if something really drastic happens. Also if you look at tcdecks you will find a lot of therock which is the dark brother of maverick and another good midrande deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by FieryBalrog
Concerning aggro: one could say affinity and burn fall into this category.
Turn 3??? With their god-draw, definitely not their average goldfish speed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Amon Amarth
I wouldn't say aggro is dead...I would say SLIGH is dead...for now. It just doesn't pay anymore to sleave up the cheapest beatsticks and burn. You need to be able to interact, because the best cards in the format allow for a broad approach with broad answers. Playing dumb beats and burn spells just doesn't cut it anymore unless the meta-game becomes ripe for that strategy. I think the downfall of Zoo from being a DTB to a meta-game deck has really gotten under people's skin. It's like your tennis buddy just gained 50 pounds.
And this is not a bad thing. This format should not be rewarding people with mindless creatures being turned sideways and throwing burn.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Safety
Keep that stuff in Standard and Casual magic.
Slight derail here, but I really don't understand this sentiment. Have none of you ever tried to play an aggro deck against anything but Storm combo or something? A deck like Zoo is not just "herf derf swing wif my menz Bolt you." As a sometimes aggro player, having Brainstorm and Force in your deck does not automatically make you the gentleman intellectual of the tournament. Your deck is not any harder to play because you have a bunch of counterspells and cantrips and Tarmogoyfs. Your deck is simply different to play because your paths to victory are different and therefore you are trying to optimize different things.Quote:
Originally Posted by DragoFireheart
Brainstorm and Force of Will alone are infinitely more complex and more fun than any Zoo deck or burn deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies
And yes, having those does require a higher skill level than your typical burn spells with creatures being turned sideways. It's not a coincidence that most of the decks that are DTB require a certain degree of skill while burn/zoo decks require a great deal less and are also far less complex. Thus, they get to be Tier 1.5/2 decks because their lack of complexity also means they can't interact as well.
Brainlessly countering spells won't win you a tournament: people will just bait them. Brainlessly burning creatures or the player could actually win.
Uh...Quote:
Originally Posted by DragoFireheart
Brainstorm and Ponder are huge crutches for people with low skill. If you fuck up with your blue deck, don't worry, Brainstorm's got your back: you can draw yourself into something that helps you recover. If you fuck up with Zoo or Sligh or some other fast aggro deck, though, you can be punished for it very easily because all of your cards are constantly losing value. Every extra turn the game lasts, the less your individual cards are worth; a Nacatl may be really good on turn one but it is not very good on turn five and pretty awful on turn ten because your opponent's ability to trump it has grown accordingly. Remember, as the fast aggro deck, you do not have inevitability: you are trying to optimize damage dealing while leaving yourself the least exposed to trump cards because you lose the game if your opponent stabilizes, and there are any number of ways for them to do that. It's especially apparent in Limited, where the overall power level of the cards is lower so there are fewer ways to accidentally come back from behind, but the same rules apply to Constructed formats as well.
Yes, you can steal wins from people who draw poorly or don't know what they're doing, but you can also just randomly autolose if you draw poorly or hit a bad matchup. The variance is higher but the rewards for playing your aggro deck perfectly can be difficult to distinguish from simply lucksacking, which is one reason why blue decks appear to have higher skill requirements.
- Only for people using them to just get lands because they kept a one land hand.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies
- Or I could draw jank. Or the wrong answers. And it might be too late anyways because I didn't counter that critical spell because they baited me with something else.Quote:
If you fuck up with your blue deck, don't worry, Brainstorm's got your back: you can draw yourself into something that helps you recover.
If you screw up Zoo or Sligh (ignoring bad luck), you should probably stop playing magic.Quote:
If you fuck up with Zoo or Sligh or some other fast aggro deck, though, you can be punished for it very easily because all of your cards are constantly losing value.
Congratz, you described why fast aggro decks lose late game. As they should. No problems with what you described.Quote:
Every extra turn the game lasts, the less your individual cards are worth; a Nacatl may be really good on turn one but it is not very good on turn five and pretty awful on turn ten because your opponent's ability to trump it has grown accordingly. Remember, as the fast aggro deck, you do not have inevitability: you are trying to optimize damage dealing while leaving yourself the least exposed to trump cards because you lose the game if your opponent stabilizes, and there are any number of ways for them to do that. It's especially apparent in Limited, where the overall power level of the cards is lower so there are fewer ways to accidentally come back from behind, but the same rules apply to Constructed formats as well.
Or you can get slightly lucky and overwhelm the blue player with dudes and burn and just go at him and hope he gets unlucky. You can't get "unlucky" because 60% of your deck is the same thing. And even if you get mana screw/flood, you won't be losing because of your lack of skill.Quote:
Yes, you can steal wins from people who draw poorly or don't know what they're doing, but you can also just randomly autolose if you draw poorly or hit a bad matchup. The variance is higher but the rewards for playing your aggro deck perfectly can be difficult to distinguish from simply lucksacking, which is one reason why blue decks appear to have higher skill requirements.
But you keep telling yourself that the skill level for Zoo or Burn is higher than something like Miracle Control or even a combo deck like ANT.
Which is why I didn't use the word average. I was merely making a point about the speed of the deck since it is quite a bit faster/explosive than a midrange deck. You are correct in assuming that is certainly not their average goldfish. About the only matchups where this happens is against non-interactive Combo decks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Doomsday
Brainstorm isn't really a skill crutch. Sure, it can cover bad players' mistakes, but the complexity of the card also opens up Pandora's box of potential for misplays. So, yes, it can help a bad player, but that bad player highly likely to screw it up anyway. In Magic, a lot of decisions are easy anyway. I would say there's 4 categories of skill in Magic: choosing a deck, building the deck (which cards to put in your 75), sideboarding, and playing the deck. Most of the decisions in playing the deck are pretty straightforward whether you're playing Maverick, Miracles or Show and Tell. It's just there'll be a few key choices here and there that will decide whether you lose or win.
Anyone think we will get Earthcraft off of the list?
Squirrels are not broken and they have already printer and Elf that gives all elves the a similar ability.
Draw three, send worst 2 cards on top isn't really the most complex decision possible. Especially when you can do that at the end step of your opponent, instead of being forced of doing it in the mainphase like Ponder, so you can always play it with the most information available possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Greenpoe
90% of the time eot brainstorms are plain misplays. You should play BS the last possible moment if you need an answer NOW not just because you have mana open eot. The pure use of BS to adjust your bad keeps is the first major mistake in LegacyQuote:
Originally Posted by Gheizen64
THANK YOU! I've been telling folks for years that just because you CAN play Brainstorm, doesn't mean you SHOULD. Last possible moment is best, and it gets better the later in the game you play it. If you already have a 2-3 turns worth of plays, and they are valid given the game state, why blow your best card-quality tool simply because you can? Especially if you might actually just put the cards drawn back on top...now you're really going backwards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Times that I feel are optimal for Brainstorm:
1) During a counterspell battle where you're trying to win the stack with a Daze, Force, or Spell Pierce.
2) Looking for a 4th land to get your Jace onto the battlefield. (note that I mention your 4TH LAND)
3) You need threats and your opponent is tapped down. If all you have is answers it's time to pull the trigger so you can put your own pressure into the game.
But I digress...and someone mentioned Earthcraft. I want to see it in the format. We now have plenty of good mass removal options for tokens (Pernicious Deed, Engineered Explosives, Zealous Persecution, Golgari Charm, Maelstrom Pulse, and Detention Sphere to name a few.) Let's see what pooping-squirrel deck can do!
Vexing Devil begs to differQuote:
Originally Posted by DragoFireheart
http://www.black-lotus.nl/mtg/lg/Ava..._Devil_TMP.jpg
The fact that the design team for gatecrash took months to finally make M.Rosewater step away from his precious dimir-mill-ability towards something more synergetic within the block-mechanics while leaving a shitload of already spoilered dimir-cards STILL unaltered but handcrafted for the mill-mechanic, should give a clue about how this company handles descisions within timeframes.Quote:
Originally Posted by DragoFireheart
The latest B&R-updates chimed in, focusing on modern, leaving Vintage and Legacy behind due to time issues. They mentioned that they need time to evaluate impacts though bannings/unbannings which is completely consumed by their New PET-format.
So basically WotC is pulling a U.S GOP House methodology?
AKA, take forever to do anything.
It doesn't surprise they would forget about Legacy/Vintage with all the attention they have been giving Modern. I don't think it's a bad thing that they are giving Modern a lot of attention (in fact, I am glad they are) but they really should have some staff focus attention on Legacy and Vintage.
I would say, they delay all minor issues endlessly and focus on popular-mainstream-decisions like the banning of Jace "right before" rotation just to bath in the light of justice brought by them to Standard (after ignoring the issue for half a year).Quote:
Originally Posted by DragoFireheart
Their "care" for vintage in the last 6 Years put the format into a stale stanglehold between Workshop-Decks and Dredge, 2 archetypes which are much less interactive than Flash.dec or Long.dec ever were. Vintage players called for action for years. I gave up and sold my beta power.
I Traded my power for duals. I'd love to get power again so i can play eternal weekends at BoM though.