I think it's really depressing and unfair when R&D members just flat-out state "We don't like good control decks, good combo decks, or resource denial/lock strategies. The dynamic of the game should be about fast aggro decks with small creatures versus midrange aggro decks with medium creatures versus "control" decks with ridiculously powerful (Titan) creatures."
Some people like to think more when they play magic.
I think it's really depressing and unfair when R&D members just flat-out state "We don't like good control decks, good combo decks, or resource denial/lock strategies. The dynamic of the game should be about fast aggro decks with small creatures vers
I think it's really depressing and unfair when R&D members just flat-out state "We don't like good control decks, good combo decks, or resource denial/lock strategies. The dynamic of the game should be about fast aggro decks with small creatures versus midrange aggro decks with medium creatures versus "control" decks with ridiculously powerful (Titan) creatures."
Some people like to think more when they play magic.
That's not what he said.
I know there's no way to prevent seven to ten pages of comments like this; but I hope at least some fraction of this article's readers will pay attention to what the author actually wrote. He wrote it well and thoughtfully, explaining in very professional and polite terms how hard this team works to create the game we love.
That's not what he said.I know there's no way to prevent seven to ten pages of comments like this; but I hope at least some fraction of this article's readers will pay attention to what the author actually wrote. He wrote it well and thoughtfully, e
Would have been a good idea to not include duel lands in every freaking color combination so people don't play the same exact cards in every deck. Would also be a good idea to stop pre-determining decks in development and let people sort it out themselves. Walking up and down the rows of nerds at states it went something like this...
Solar Flare, Solar Flare,Solar Flare,Solar Flare,Wolf Run Ramp,Solar Flare,Solar Flare,Illusions,Solar Flare,Mono Red, Solar Flare,Solar Flare,Solar Flare, Wolf Run Ramp, Wolf Run Ramp, Solar Flare,Solar Flare, Wolf Run Ramp, Solar Flare,Mono Red, Mono Red, Solar Flare,Solar Flare,Solar Flare,Tempered Steel,Solar Flare,Solar Flare,Solar Flare,Solar Flare, Wolf Run Ramp, Solar Flare, Wolf Run Ramp, Solar Flare,Solar Flare,Wolf Run Ramp, Solar Flare, Wolf Run Ramp, Mono Red,Solar Flare,Solar Flare,Solar Flare
Fun!
Would have been a good idea to not include duel lands in every freaking color combination so people don't play the same exact cards in every deck. Would also be a good idea to stop pre-determining decks in development and let people sort it out them
The key passage for me was this (in regard to why decks like Draw-Go are no longer made viable):
All of these decks share a common root: they eliminate the dynamism and excitement that comes with constructive interaction between cards, largely because their goal is to ignore as much of the rules text on the opponent's cards as possible.
Two reasons for this jump out immediately: 1. Magic has always been cast as a battle between wizards, where the object is to defeat your foe(s). Given such a destructive metric for success, expecting cooperation between the players seems little more than a pipe dream. Could a cooperatively-metrized variant of Magic take off? Possibly, but due to the fundamental concepts that make Magic Magic, I doubt such a thing would even remain interesting for long. 2. With the idea of drawbacks becoming all but extinct in recent years, all the rules text on all the cards amounts to pretty much the same fundamental thing: "Add 5% to your win probability" or "Add 30% to your win probability" (the latter on cards deemed "swingy" enough to need a red expansion symbol). When you're pretty much assured that every one of your opponent's cards is strictly positive for them (and thus strictly negative value for you), preemptively shutting them down gives you a pretty good idea of what you're gaining. Granted, if a card has negative value, it probably isn't going to go in a deck to begin with, but the combination of competitively-costed cards with drawbacks can be crafted so that the value fluctuates, possibly including both negative value and a value high enough to earn a spot in the deck, which would help to create the environment of "using the opponent's cards against them" that R&D seemingly wants as an answer to the question "Why would I want my opponent to even be able to get their cards out, if each of those cards is just going to help me lose?"
The key passage for me was this (in regard to why decks like Draw-Go are no longer made viable):Two reasons for this jump out immediately:1. Magic has always been cast as a battle between wizards, where the object is to defeat your foe(s). Given such
The thing is, the game has elements that are designed to help adapt to any threat. Draw-go decks too big in the future league? Don't cut them because you have this idealized view of Magic as creatures smashing into each other. Simply make room for a more viable aggro deck with creatures at one and two mana to sneak under counterspells. Or make a creature like Thrun, the Last Troll . If land destruction is too viable, decent aggro decks will still be competitive vs. the land denial strategies. As will the draw-go decks. If combo is too good, the draw-go control builds will hate them out. It's a mark of a very good game when every strategy has a counter-strategy such that no one strategy becomes optimal. But artificially hamstringing that process because of some preconceived notion of "fun" is not what people want in a strategy game.
To clarify my thinking here: what's the point in making so diverse of a game engine if you're going to limit people artificially? Just like the article earlier about "bad cards" and how pretty much everyone hates them (and Mr. LaPille didn't give one substantial reason why these cards HAVE to exist, he merely gave his support for why current philosophy wants them to), by creating environments and altering design to fit this notion of "fun" you are in effect creating "bad cards" in context.
What exactly are players to do with their 20 copies of Melt Terrain or Into the Maw of Hell when R&D has specifically designed these cards to suck in standard? They could be amazing. If either or both of them cost 1 less, or there was simply a critical mass of these sorts of effects, or a Terravore or Knight of the Reliquary it might be more viable. But someone at Wizards decided it wasn't fun, so even people who DO find it fun can't succeed with it. (For the last few months of last rotation I played land destruction in Standard to some FNM success. So this is one instance where I can talk! :P)
It's one thing to weaken strategies you dislike to discourage their use. It's another entirely to shape a format such that there is literally no support for an archetype many players enjoy.
The thing is, the game has elements that are designed to help adapt to any threat. Draw-go decks too big in the future league? Don't cut them because you have this idealized view of Magic as creatures smashing into each other. Simply make room for a
The key passage for me was this (in regard to why decks like Draw-Go are no longer made viable):
All of these decks share a common root: they eliminate the dynamism and excitement that comes with constructive interaction between cards, largely because their goal is to ignore as much of the rules text on the opponent's cards as possible.
Two reasons for this jump out immediately: 1. Magic has always been cast as a battle between wizards, where the object is to defeat your foe(s). Given such a destructive metric for success, expecting cooperation between the players seems little more than a pipe dream. Could a cooperatively-metrized variant of Magic take off? Possibly, but due to the fundamental concepts that make Magic Magic, I doubt such a thing would even remain interesting for long. 2. With the idea of drawbacks becoming all but extinct in recent years, all the rules text on all the cards amounts to pretty much the same fundamental thing: "Add 5% to your win probability" or "Add 30% to your win probability" (the latter on cards deemed "swingy" enough to need a red expansion symbol). When you're pretty much assured that every one of your opponent's cards is strictly positive for them (and thus strictly negative value for you), preemptively shutting them down gives you a pretty good idea of what you're gaining. Granted, if a card has negative value, it probably isn't going to go in a deck to begin with, but the combination of competitively-costed cards with drawbacks can be crafted so that the value fluctuates, possibly including both negative value and a value high enough to earn a spot in the deck, which would help to create the environment of "using the opponent's cards against them" that R&D seemingly wants as an answer to the question "Why would I want my opponent to even be able to get their cards out, if each of those cards is just going to help me lose?"
"Dynamic and constructive interaction between cards" does not mean "cooperative" AT ALL. It means that the cards simply MATTER to each other, not that the two players are trying to make their cards be friends.
Think about the current crop of black removal. No single spell is Terminate, because Terminate is too good for monocolor. Terminate is boring. Instead each spell has its own weakness to their targets, so a deck playing different targets INTERACTS with the other causing interesting play situations, or in another word: Fun.
What I think is interesting is that while R&D has the goal of game balance and funness, competitive magic players/Spikes have the absolute opposite goals. They look for the most unbalanced, advantageous cards, fun be damnned. It is neither group's fault to have diametrically oppossing goals, and try to succeed at both.
As a thought experiment, I imagined what would happen if they printed a sorcery that said: "You tie the game." Not a very fun card I would hope, by anyone's metric. You simply stop playing Magic, when you sat down to play Magic. But it would totally see competitive play, because if you get ahead in a match there would be great incentive to tie out every other game. Of course you play less Magic this way, but that's not the point. The point is to win.
But WOTC's point is to PLAY not win. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you feel like they're being unfair to us by setting goals that we don't share, it's not their fault.
Two reasons for this jump out immediately:1. Magic has always been cast as a battle between wizards, where the object is to defeat your foe(s). Given such a destructive metric for success, expecting cooperation between the players seems little more t
I'm disappointed by the policy of putting cards that are vital to a set's archetypes in a previous set, just so they'll rotate 3 months faster, because it completely wrecks Block Constructed, which is what I tend to prefer. I don't like being forced to include an m11 card in what is intended to be an all-Mirrodin deck. 3 more months of the artifact-creature deck running on all cylinders might be a little less interesting than having that time be a window when you debate running the deck without Overseers, but ultimately it's not that long a time and not a very meaningful choice.
Also, on the subject of archetypes that they identify as unfun, I'm disappointed that they mentioned "Resoruce-advantage decks that aim to make Magic a contest of raw attrition", which I've never heard of anyone having a problem with, yet doesn't mention the painfully unfun and massively dominant strategy which constantly ruins my day - aggro. Wizards seems to think that it doesn't suck when you get steamrolled on turn 4 or 5, but it does. I shouldn't get flattened before I've even started to play my game. It takes less time than getting in a prison or LD lock and waiting until you deck, but it's not like you can't concede in those cases when you're sure that you're stuck. Aggro on the other hand is essentially a "time destruction" strategy, and I find it almost as horrible as LD or HD.
Whoa, what card is this?media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/fea...I'm disappointed by the policy of putting cards that are vital to a set's archetypes in a previous set, just so they'll rotate 3 months faster, because it completely wrecks Block Cons
AAARGH! No, it doesn't. It raises the question. Begging the question is something else entirely, and if you're doing it, you probably don't want to admit it. [/petpeeve]
"That does kind of beg a question, though."AAARGH! No, it doesn't. It raises the question. Begging the question is something else entirely, and if you're doing it, you probably don't want to admit it.[/petpeeve]
What exactly are players to do with their 20 copies of Melt Terrain or Into the Maw of Hell when R&D has specifically designed these cards to suck in standard? They could be amazing. If either or both of them cost 1 less, or there was simply a critical mass of these sorts of effects, or a Terravore or Knight of the Reliquary it might be more viable. But someone at Wizards decided it wasn't fun, so even people who DO find it fun can't succeed with it. (For the last few months of last rotation I played land destruction in Standard to some FNM success. So this is one instance where I can talk! :P)
You're missing the point entirely. It's not that Wizards considers such decks unfun to play, it's that such decks aren't fun to play against. I know not everyone agrees, but there are quite a few people who, when they sit down to play a game of Magic, want to actually play a game of Magic. Land destruction prevents you from playing because you can't cast any spells without lands. Draw-Go counterspelling prevents you from playing because you can't resolve a spell. Prison decks make sure you can't actually use any of your cards, even if they do let you cast them. All of the archetypes listed in this article had that one thing in common: they prevent the opponent from actually playing the game.
Also, on the subject of archetypes that they identify as unfun, I'm disappointed that they mentioned "Resoruce-advantage decks that aim to make Magic a contest of raw attrition", which I've never heard of anyone having a problem with, yet doesn't mention the painfully unfun and massively dominant strategy which constantly ruins my day - aggro. Wizards seems to think that it doesn't suck when you get steamrolled on turn 4 or 5, but it does. I shouldn't get flattened before I've even started to play my game. It takes less time than getting in a prison or LD lock and waiting until you deck, but it's not like you can't concede in those cases when you're sure that you're stuck. Aggro on the other hand is essentially a "time destruction" strategy, and I find it almost as horrible as LD or HD.
I'm sorry, willpell, that aggro ruins your day. However, there are quite a few ways to survive the first few turns of aggro until you stabilize, and after you've stabilized you can play however you want, rather than having terms dictated to you by your aggro opponent. It's not that the strategy is unbeatable, it's that you haven't yet found a way to beat it. You may counter-argue that you don't want to change the way you play to be able to handle aggro rush. That's a fair argument. However, what you're asking Wizards to do is change the way a lot of people enjoy playing by taking their favorite strategy - aggro - out of the picture entirely. If they slow down aggro at all, then the good control decks will absolutely mop the floor with it in every match. So I'm sorry, you may not like it, but aggro is the way it is because it's balanced with the other archetypes out there.
You're missing the point entirely. It's not that Wizards considers such decks unfun to play, it's that such decks aren't fun to play against. I know not everyone agrees, but there are quite a few people who, when they sit down to play a game of Magic
I'm sorry, willpell, that aggro ruins your day. However, there are quite a few ways to survive the first few turns of aggro until you stabilize, and after you've stabilized you can play however you want, rather than having terms dictated to you by your aggro opponent. It's not that the strategy is unbeatable, it's that you haven't yet found a way to beat it.
Also, on the subject of archetypes that they identify as unfun, I'm disappointed that they mentioned "Resoruce-advantage decks that aim to make Magic a contest of raw attrition", which I've never heard of anyone having a problem with, yet doesn't mention the painfully unfun and massively dominant strategy which constantly ruins my day - aggro. Wizards seems to think that it doesn't suck when you get steamrolled on turn 4 or 5, but it does.
I wouldn't worry about his opinion here. Aggro is generally considered the worst archetype as it relies on the shortest game, the opening hand and requires the most deck slots to execute the plan (leading to the smallest number of sideboard options as well).
Meanwhile, control simply seeks to extend the game as long as possible so it can win with what is, generally, a small portion of it's actual deck (using time to find it) leaving more slots for adaptation and thus wins. You actually highlighted part of Willpell's issue very well: He simply doesn't want to adapt nor believes he should have to do so.
I wouldn't worry about his opinion here. Aggro is generally considered the worst archetype as it relies on the shortest game, the opening hand and requires the most deck slots to execute the plan (leading to the smallest number of sideboard options
This thread is for discussion of this week's Feature Article by Zac Hill, which goes live Monday morning on magicthegathering.com.
Also, fan-freaking-tastic article. Despite my possibly cold/callous response to Willpell, this sort of thing is exactly what I find interesting about Magic and games in general.
Also, fan-freaking-tastic article. Despite my possibly cold/callous response to Willpell, this sort of thing is exactly what I find interesting about Magic and games in general.
Zac is a smart dude, and I generally like his viewpoints, so it pains me to call this how I see it.
Bunch of propaganda bs.
I've seen developers (Forsythe, LaPille, Hill) comment at length about not wanting to encourage degenerate strategies that lack interaction, but over the last three years I have seen nothing but a continual shift into those territories.
Landfall was completely non-interactive. Oh, you just hit me for how much? Just because you played a fetchland and sac'ed it? On turn 2/3? Awesome.
Infect is awful. Halve the required damage to win, give no way to "heal" that damage, put it in an environment via tons of cheap efficient creatures and couple it with a good amount of pump and proliferate. Oh, also, lets make it the worst kind of grindy attrition aggro as well, so if they do have blockers, you essentially 2 for 1 automatically, or at least profit on attrition.
Latest culprit? Hexproof. Lets keyword troll-shroud and put it on EVERYTHING. Now lets print insane enchantments and equipment that make it a degenerate, non-interactive strategy.
Next step, lets print less counters, and make the ones we do print more situational. So that when our opponents tap out to cast a titan on turn 4/5, they definetly get all that tasty degenerate value out of them. Let's also reprint Wrath without the regen clause, cuz being able to kill those hexproof guys with regenerate shouldn't be an option.
Lets print a "free mana" mechanic, and use it to print silver bullets for certain formats. Lets even make a super cheap removal spell that can be played in ANY color. Lets also make it good enough to dominate the early game at no real cost, but lets make sure it doesn't kill any of the truly busted bombs like titans, and praetors. While we're at it we can throw in a Survival variant that is "fixed". Maybe it will allow people to chain into land destruction, followed by ramp/recursion, followed by an insane legend.
Yeah...Magic is really interactive and FUN.
That being said, I love it. I'm not actually complaining, I'm just pointing out that like most corporations, WotC has it's goons out there saying one thing while doing the exact opposite. I enjoy the game the way it is, even the feel bad times. I'm pretty sure casuals don't like it though.
Zac is a smart dude, and I generally like his viewpoints, so it pains me to call this how I see it.Bunch of propaganda bs.I've seen developers (Forsythe, LaPille, Hill) comment at length about not wanting to encourage degenerate strategies that lack
I think it's really depressing and unfair when R&D members just flat-out state "We don't like good control decks, good combo decks, or resource denial/lock strategies. The dynamic of the game should be about fast aggro decks with small creatures versus midrange aggro decks with medium creatures versus "control" decks with ridiculously powerful (Titan) creatures."
Some people like to think more when they play magic.
That's the problem. Some people like that, but they're just a vocal minority.
The thing is, the game has elements that are designed to help adapt to any threat. Draw-go decks too big in the future league? Don't cut them because you have this idealized view of Magic as creatures smashing into each other. Simply make room for a more viable aggro deck with creatures at one and two mana to sneak under counterspells. Or make a creature like Thrun, the Last Troll . If land destruction is too viable, decent aggro decks will still be competitive vs. the land denial strategies. As will the draw-go decks. If combo is too good, the draw-go control builds will hate them out. It's a mark of a very good game when every strategy has a counter-strategy such that no one strategy becomes optimal. But artificially hamstringing that process because of some preconceived notion of "fun" is not what people want in a strategy game.
This is how it was, and I think the problem was there's no place for midrange there. They want creatures of all sizes to matter, not just the 1 and 2 mana ones.
Zac is a smart dude, and I generally like his viewpoints, so it pains me to call this how I see it.
Bunch of propaganda bs.
I've seen developers (Forsythe, LaPille, Hill) comment at length about not wanting to encourage degenerate strategies that lack interaction, but over the last three years I have seen nothing but a continual shift into those territories.
Landfall was completely non-interactive. Oh, you just hit me for how much? Just because you played a fetchland and sac'ed it? On turn 2/3? Awesome.
Infect is awful. Halve the required damage to win, give no way to "heal" that damage, put it in an environment via tons of cheap efficient creatures and couple it with a good amount of pump and proliferate. Oh, also, lets make it the worst kind of grindy attrition aggro as well, so if they do have blockers, you essentially 2 for 1 automatically, or at least profit on attrition.
Latest culprit? Hexproof. Lets keyword troll-shroud and put it on EVERYTHING. Now lets print insane enchantments and equipment that make it a degenerate, non-interactive strategy.
Next step, lets print less counters, and make the ones we do print more situational. So that when our opponents tap out to cast a titan on turn 4/5, they definetly get all that tasty degenerate value out of them. Let's also reprint Wrath without the regen clause, cuz being able to kill those hexproof guys with regenerate shouldn't be an option.
Lets print a "free mana" mechanic, and use it to print silver bullets for certain formats. Lets even make a super cheap removal spell that can be played in ANY color. Lets also make it good enough to dominate the early game at no real cost, but lets make sure it doesn't kill any of the truly busted bombs like titans, and praetors. While we're at it we can throw in a Survival variant that is "fixed". Maybe it will allow people to chain into land destruction, followed by ramp/recursion, followed by an insane legend.
Yeah...Magic is really interactive and FUN.
That being said, I love it. I'm not actually complaining, I'm just pointing out that like most corporations, WotC has it's goons out there saying one thing while doing the exact opposite. I enjoy the game the way it is, even the feel bad times. I'm pretty sure casuals don't like it though.
Most of those examples either aren't degenerate or don't lack interaction. Note that they have less problems with things that lack interaction or things that dominate, but they absolutely don't want those 2 to overlap.
That's the problem. Some people like that, but they're just a vocal minority. This is how it was, and I think the problem was there's no place for midrange there. They want creatures of all sizes to matter, not just the 1 and 2 mana ones. Most of tho
The maxim went something like, "Design's in charge of making Magic fun, and Development's in charge of making Magic balanced." We've learned a lot since then, though. Specifically, we learned that sacrificing fun in the name of balance misses the point entirely.
This implies that Development has released unbalanced yet fun mechanics/themes etc.
I call bs. I'd love for Zac Hill to name one thing that's been released that was both completely unbalanced and deemed fun by the majority of magic players. Cause I sure can't think of any.
Cawblade? Unbalanced and NOT fun Jund? Unbalanced and NOT fun Faeries during their height? Unbalanced and NOT fun Affinity? Unbalanced and NOT fun
Again I grant some people enjoyed these things but some people enjoyed Necro summer and Combo winter as well but they sure weren't majorities or even large enough chunks of people to overcome/balance the damage these things have done.
So please, if you're going to make a claim like you did there, back it up with something.
Zac Hill or anyone else who actually works in WotC Development.
Until then I'm just going to say Design is indeed in charge of making it fun and Development is indeed in charge of keeping it balanced (and fun too sure). It seems like that is as it should be anyway so I'm not sure why you made that ridiculous statement without any proof.
I have a slight suspicion that what you meant to say was that if you have the choice between unbalanced and fun or balanced and unfun you go with neither and look for a balanced AND fun solution, but then you certainly could have phrased it better as your current statement really doesn't imply just that. And if that is what you mean then the original statement of Design making fun and Dev making it balanced is still true.
The maxim went something like, "Design's in charge of making Magic fun, and Development's in charge of making Magic balanced." We've learned a lot since then, though. Specifically, we learned that sacrificing fun in the name of balance misses the p
What jumps out at me is a lack of appreciation for and understanding of answers.
What is it that made Draw-Go overpowered? The fact that its answers were pretty much 100% universal. I like what has been happening with counterspells recently, where they are pretty good against only some of your opponents.
In the same way, over-powered creatues and spells (like Planeswalkers) need answers. Without them, the cards take over the game by themselves, and "Wait for them to go away" is not a good idea. I know the point "Let them kill your darlings" touches on this, but I feel that overall the importance of answers was left out.
What jumps out at me is a lack of appreciation for and understanding of answers.What is it that made Draw-Go overpowered? The fact that its answers were pretty much 100% universal. I like what has been happening with counterspells recently, where t
You're missing the point entirely. It's not that Wizards considers such decks unfun to play, it's that such decks aren't fun to play against. I know not everyone agrees, but there are quite a few people who, when they sit down to play a game of Magic, want to actually play a game of Magic. Land destruction prevents you from playing because you can't cast any spells without lands. Draw-Go counterspelling prevents you from playing because you can't resolve a spell. Prison decks make sure you can't actually use any of your cards, even if they do let you cast them. All of the archetypes listed in this article had that one thing in common: they prevent the opponent from actually playing the game. html_removed
Fast combos were quite high on the list, not because they actually stop people from playing but because effectively it makes whatever is played irrelevant - they just win and possibly you slowed them down with some disruption. And the real point is that it doesn't really matter if you lose fast against a combo or against a fast aggro deck. If they just win on an early turn regardless then whatever you played early was mostly irrelevant, maybe you slowed them down with some disruption. The difference is just what the disruption was (the combo deck is often more fragile but requires specific disruption, whereas aggro's creatures are mostly replaceable by any other efficient creature). Burn decks are typically as interactive as "true combo" decks, and creature-based aggro decks aren't that much different either. It is even frequent that all of these decks - including creature-based aggro are play-tested initially against a goldfish to determine their raw speed - I think that is a clear sign they are basically the same deck. All these decks are effectively "clocks" (in Magic lingo, an X-turn clock).
Depending on semantics one could argue that when someone plays a game of Magic against any of those strategies (LD, fast combo, permission, attritrion) that allegedly don't let people play they are still playing a game of magic *by definition*. All of these strategies are part of the game and get cards explicitly designed for. Or I could instead argue that it is not really about playing your cards (which technically you are playing against permission, they just get countered): what is that different between getting a creature countered or having it resolve and dying? Technicalities for the most part (such as CIP triggers etc.)! The fact is that removal can be played even if the "control player" had tapped out previously (the major drawback with permission and a big part of what actually does make it balanced)... Whether countered or dismembered they end up in the graveyard anyway, often without dealing any damage or leaving anything behind.
What really matters in the end is the power level. If you get Zoo at a power level that it dominates it can easily be much more oppressive than whatever fast combo, LD or permission deck is in the format (Modern is probably in such a situation right now).
(...) there are quite a few ways to survive the first few turns of aggro until you stabilize, and after you've stabilized you can play however you want, rather than having terms dictated to you by your aggro opponent. It's not that the strategy is unbeatable, it's that you haven't yet found a way to beat it. You may counter-argue that you don't want to change the way you play to be able to handle aggro rush. That's a fair argument. However, what you're asking Wizards to do is change the way a lot of people enjoy playing by taking their favorite strategy - aggro - out of the picture entirely. If they slow down aggro at all, then the good control decks will absolutely mop the floor with it in every match. So I'm sorry, you may not like it, but aggro is the way it is because it's balanced with the other archetypes out there.
There are also quite a few ways to win against LD, permission and fast combos - provided they aren't actually unbalanced. It is false to say that after you stabilize against aggro you can play however you want. Very likely you are at low life total and so on, and those ways to survive are just as disruptive to the core strategy of the deck as the ways to win against LD, permission and fast combos can be. You need to dedicate a good part of your deck to not losing instead of winning. Except aggro decks and combo decks itself, which use "win quickly" as their main "disruption" plan! It seems to me that the ones that aren't willing to change the way they play are not at all the control players. In addition to what I presented above, control by definition needs to adapt to whatever threats are around. So the implicit claim that control players are the ones not wanting to change the way they play does not hold. The control players may very well have a valid complaint when there are not enough powerful permission tools to do it - and that isn't even that good for aggro as Aggro naturally tend to prey on permission decks. Look at Modern's debut for what happens when permission control gets weakened. Although now after further bans (of a high number of cards) we will see what happens in the PTQ (although legacy-level Zoo is quite obviously the gauntlet right now).
Ivo.
Fast combos were quite high on the list, not because they actually stop people from playing but because effectively it makes whatever is played irrelevant - they just win and possibly you slowed them down with some disruption. And the real point is t
Any deck can become overly dominant, but we've noticed that certain kinds of strategies really damage game play at any level. These tend to be, in descending order of frustration:
"Prison" control decks, which aim to lock players out of the resources to cast their spells, while grinding out a slow, gradual long game
Land destruction decks that never let the opponent get off the ground
Lightning-fast combination decks that end the game as quickly, and noninteractively, as possible
"Draw-Go" style counterspell decks that do nothing except counter the opponent's spells
Resource-advantage decks that aim to make Magic a contest of raw attrition
Here's my problem with this, as a *really* long-time player: All of the above strategies should, at least some of the time, be viable. You should be able to punish ridiculously greedy mana bases, you should be able to grind out games against excessively aggressive opponents, and you should be able to counter or combo someone out of the game. But at the same time, you should have the tools to defeat any or all of those strategies. The one thing the article doesn't mention is how quickly the game adapts to the latest "hot" strategy, unless it is something truly absurd, such as Ravager/Affinity or CawBlade.
I love this game, but it can't be a coincidence that I cannot go one night of Magic-playing without hearing a variation of "WotC just wants us to play 'their way' and just bash dudes against one another. I don't really find that all that interesting." I am not saying it's completely justified - and the truth is I love Limited best, and that's normally all that format is - but I hear this complaint often enough to at least suggest there's a grain of truth there.
Here's my problem with this, as a *really* long-time player: All of the above strategies should, at least some of the time, be viable. You should be able to punish ridiculously greedy mana bases, you should be able to grind out games against excessi
With the new shift in design to a top down approach, how does FFL step back from flavor and just look at the cards? I get what design was thinking on dismember for instance. However, it looks like FTK, and it plays like it. Did you draw that same link?
I'm not saying dismember is a horrible mistake. FTK was widely regarded as an unfun card at the time so if the job is to maximize fun, shouldn't cards that are strong reminders of past unfun cards send up red flags? Did you all just say 'it's been 10 years. We can have this effect again.'?
With the new shift in design to a top down approach, how does FFL step back from flavor and just look at the cards? I get what design was thinking on dismember for instance. However, it looks like FTK, and it plays like it. Did you draw that same lin
I call bs. I'd love for Zac Hill to name one thing that's been released that was both completely unbalanced and deemed fun by the majority of magic players. Cause I sure can't think of any.
[...]
I have a slight suspicion that what you meant to say was that if you have the choice between unbalanced and fun or balanced and unfun you go with neither and look for a balanced AND fun solution, but then you certainly could have phrased it better as your current statement really doesn't imply just that. And if that is what you mean then the original statement of Design making fun and Dev making it balanced is still true.
Aaron talked about this a few times. They rather make mistakes like Jace, the Mind Sculptor once in a while than play it safe all the time. Dev doesn't have perfect knowledge about a format. What he's talking about is releasing cards they weren't exactly sure were balanced. It might be they turn out just fine in the bigger world.
Depending on semantics one could argue that when someone plays a game of Magic against any of those strategies (LD, fast combo, permission, attritrion) that allegedly don't let people play they are still playing a game of magic *by definition*. All of these strategies are part of the game and get cards explicitly designed for.
[...]
There are also quite a few ways to win against LD, permission and fast combos - provided they aren't actually unbalanced.
The problem lies in where that interaction is. It's mostly on a whole different level. It ignores the battlefield, and that is where Wizards wants the interaction to be.
Or I could instead argue that it is not really about playing your cards (which technically you are playing against permission, they just get countered): what is that different between getting a creature countered or having it resolve and dying? Technicalities for the most part (such as CIP triggers etc.)! The fact is that removal can be played even if the "control player" had tapped out previously (the major drawback with permission and a big part of what actually does make it balanced)... Whether countered or dismembered they end up in the graveyard anyway, often without dealing any damage or leaving anything behind.
'Often'? Those technicalities add up to a huge list. Removal has to take into account this little technicality counterspells ignore: the textbox.
What really matters in the end is the power level. If you get Zoo at a power level that it dominates it can easily be much more oppressive than whatever fast combo, LD or permission deck is in the format (Modern is probably in such a situation right now).
You mean like how it was in such a situation after the previous bannings?
I love this game, but it can't be a coincidence that I cannot go one night of Magic-playing without hearing a variation of "WotC just wants us to play 'their way' and just bash dudes against one another. I don't really find that all that interesting." I am not saying it's completely justified - and the truth is I love Limited best, and that's normally all that format is - but I hear this complaint often enough to at least suggest there's a grain of truth there.
Problem is, those players are a minority.
Aaron talked about this a few times. They rather make mistakes like Jace, the Mind Sculptor once in a while than play it safe all the time. Dev doesn't have perfect knowledge about a format. What he's talking about
Great article. I found it to be very interesting. But it failed to answer my biggest question: has it ever surprised the FFL that players in a given Standard format didn't find a strategy or interaction that they did find and purposely leave in?
Great article. I found it to be very interesting. But it failed to answer my biggest question: has it ever surprised the FFL that players in a given Standard format didn't find a strategy or interaction that they did find and purposely leave in?
Great article. I found it to be very interesting. But it failed to answer my biggest question: has it ever surprised the FFL that players in a given Standard format didn't find a strategy or interaction that they did find and purposely leave in?
Somebody (can't remember who) said that they missed the Deciever Exarch/Splinter Twin combo.
And I am sadly in the boat of not liking the current way standard is. I started playing in Odessy, and I have never been a huge fan of creatures that just attack. I hate the Titans with the passion of a thousand suns, because it has boiled the format down very much to "have Titans or plan to win before turn 6." While I agree that counterspells can be somewhat degenerate, I am a fan of draw-go strategies, I am a fan of midrange creature decks, and my favorite decks are the attrition style decks. I don't like taking creatures and going "hurr-durr sideways to your face" constantly, and that is how I feel standard is now. And modern too.
I'd rant some more, but I have to get to class, and just wanted to point out that I'm another person who doesn't think the current standard is too fun. Titans and partially Praeators are killing the game for me.
Somebody (can't remember who) said that they missed the Deciever Exarch/Splinter Twin combo.And I am sadly in the boat of not liking the current way standard is. I started playing in Odessy, and I have never been a huge fan of creatures that just att
Great article. I found it to be very interesting. But it failed to answer my biggest question: has it ever surprised the FFL that players in a given Standard format didn't find a strategy or interaction that they did find and purposely leave in?
Based on Zac's previous article about making event decks and comments made by Tom in the Friday columns, it looks like they thought mono-green infect using Overgrown battlement was a good deck. It turned out to not be a player in reality.
Based on Zac's previous article about making event decks and comments made by Tom in the Friday columns, it looks like they thought mono-green infect using Overgrown battlement was a good deck. It turned out to not be a player in reality.
I thought that was a good article, and I agreed with almost all of it, but one thing jumped out at me as really strange. In the list of "unfun for many opponents" deck types, along with the expected LD and draw-go and too-fast combo, was:
"Resource-advantage decks that aim to make Magic a contest of raw attrition"
What the heck? What kind of decks is he talking about? Isn't the goal of many/most midrange decks or control decks to try to gain resource advantage so you end up on top of the war of attrition? Isn't that really just another description of how Magic is supposed to be? What am I misunderstanding here?
To fight against a standard fast beatdown deck, what choice is there but to win via "raw attrition"? You need to kill their creatures so you don't die, and eventually play larger threats of your own to win. The usual way to do this is to play a mix of spot removal and sweepers, backed up by card drawing. You shoot something, dig through a few extra cards, wrath the board, then win with threats which are more powerful than the small beatdown creatures.
I feel that there must be some deck archetypes or strategies he is referring to that I don't know about, but I've been playing for 13 years and I can't figure out what tournament decks in what format would qualify as "unfun war of attrition" decks. Can anyone point to any examples of what is being referred to with that phrase?
I thought that was a good article, and I agreed with almost all of it, but one thing jumped out at me as really strange. In the list of "unfun for many opponents" deck types, along with the expected LD and draw-go and too-fast combo, was:"Resource-ad
Some people like to think more when they play magic.
This gets said a lot, and I don't think that it's true. A more accurate comment would be:
"some players like to be safer when they play magic"
Draw-Go, Prison and LD are all very safe strategies. They're based around stopping the opponent from affecting the game in a dangerous way. The decisions to be made when playing them are simple: "is the thing that my opponent is trying to do right now a threat? If so, I stop it; if not, I ignore it." This is a very comforting and reassuring way to play Magic -- you feel in complete control, and can mock the opponent for playing something "stupid" and weak.
But it's not "smarter"; the decisions one makes when countering a spell aren't more intellectually intimidating than the choices one makes when planning a combat step. And the game in general is more fun when it's less safe, just simply in terms the variety of paths an individual game can take.
I feel that there must be some deck archetypes or strategies he is referring to that I don't know about, but I've been playing for 13 years and I can't figure out what tournament decks in what format would qualify as "unfun war of attrition" decks.
I _think_ that he's talking about Cascade, where it's less about individual card power, and more about each crappy card in the deck actually being 2+ crappy cards ... which is pretty useful for winning wars of attrition. :-)
~ Patch
This gets said a lot, and I don't think that it's true. A more accurate comment would be:"some players like to be safer when they play magic"Draw-Go, Prison and LD are all very safe strategies. They're based around stopping the opponent from affectin
i'll go and join the apparently "few" players and say i find any of those strategies fun. i will bet that anyone who plays one of those types of decks and wins will find it "fun". and we can also grant that losing to any of those decks is unfun. that doesn't mean there aren't ways to stop them.
why shouldn't fast aggro be there either.. i dont think turn 3 wins are fun or interactive. i bet the person playing them finds it fun though. and don't chime in with but you can stabalize against aggro thing, you sure can, aggro also can wipe the floor with ld or draw/go.. or many of those strategies up there.. the point is to have viable counter-strategies available.
on the person above me... your wrong.. there's much more to it than is that a threat or not/counter or ignore. much like you said theres more to a combat step.. this can be argued the same way as well. i can boil an aggro deck down to all it does is play dudes and swing for the fence but we both know there's more to it than that just like the above decks have more to them than what you said.
all that aside what really struck me was..
Why go out and create your own deck when it doesnt stand a chance against the elephant in the room? Whats the point of selecting between thousands of cool, unique cards when none of them really matter?
On the first question this happens all the time. I wont really blame wizards i think it's the internet in general that causes this. Why should one bother making a cool new deck when deck:A has proven results against every other deck. etc.. ramble ramble netdecking ramble.
On the 2nd question... seriously? they made tons of really cool creatures lately that won't see play because they dont measure up to the grand ol' titan test...
bottom line that whole article to me read like: our team doesn't think these things are fun so you shouldn't either.
i'll go and join the apparently "few" players and say i find any of those strategies fun. i will bet that anyone who plays one of those types of decks and wins will find it "fun". and we can also grant that losing to any of those decks is unfun. tha
bottom line that whole article to me read like: our team doesn't think these things are fun so you shouldn't either.
OK, back from class. I quoted this guy's tidbit because I feel that is what the article is about. But, at the same time, I notice that a lot of the cards printed lately are contradictory to the statements made here. Take Titans for example. I remember when thrun got spoiled the big sentement was "he isn't as good as a Titan, he won't see much play." The same thing is said for a lot of creatures. Then you have the "It dies to dismember" adage, which while is similar to the terrible "Dies to Doom Blade" argument, is at the same time different, because Titans pass this test. You are hard pressed to find a deck that doesn't run a Titan in it that will still be successful in the next coming months.
Here's a tip for R&D- stop printing free spells. Phyrexian mana is the only thing I would be okay with, and even then I feel some of the spells shouldn't have been printed. But Mental Misstep is another argument entirely. Affinity turned out being absurdly broken, and Cascade was borderline (the only reason I don't think BBE should have been banned is because it was the only reason JTMS took so long to get banned). You guys are sacrificing balance for fun, but when you create imbalance you create less fun. I would be fine if everything were a little weaker but balanced. We don't need super blowout spells that push the envelope every set like there has been. INN has very few blatantly powerful spells so far, so I have hope you guys are wising up.
Now, back to classes.
OK, back from class. I quoted this guy's tidbit because I feel that is what the article is about. But, at the same time, I notice that a lot of the cards printed lately are contradictory to the statements made here.Take Titans for example. I remember
And I am sadly in the boat of not liking the current way standard is. I started playing in Odessy, and I have never been a huge fan of creatures that just attack. I hate the Titans with the passion of a thousand suns, because it has boiled the format down very much to "have Titans or plan to win before turn 6." While I agree that counterspells can be somewhat degenerate, I am a fan of draw-go strategies, I am a fan of midrange creature decks, and my favorite decks are the attrition style decks. I don't like taking creatures and going "hurr-durr sideways to your face" constantly, and that is how I feel standard is now. And modern too.
I feel the same. The answer is pretty much always "You're the minority," though, so I wouldn't expect anything to change.
I still love this game, but I really miss exactly those strategies that the majority supposedly hates. Magic is a game about resources, at it's core -- it's really weird to me that resource denial is such a problem for so many. Maybe I'm unfair for feeling people are a bit intentionally dull if they don't want to learn how to play under it or counter it, but sometimes I really do wonder where all the stupid came from.
I feel the same. The answer is pretty much always "You're the minority," though, so I wouldn't expect anything to change.I still love this game, but I really miss exactly those strategies that the majority supposedly hates. Magic is a game about reso
I feel that there must be some deck archetypes or strategies he is referring to that I don't know about, but I've been playing for 13 years and I can't figure out what tournament decks in what format would qualify as "unfun war of attrition" decks.
I _think_ that he's talking about Cascade, where it's less about individual card power, and more about each crappy card in the deck actually being 2+ crappy cards ... which is pretty useful for winning wars of attrition. :-)
I'm pretty sure he's actually referring to Rock-style attrition that use hand disruption (like Duress or Cranial Extraction), 2-for-1 type creatures (Ravenous Rats, Mesmeric Fiend, Sakura Tribe Elder), and recursion (Eternal Witness, or Life from the Loam) to slowly grind out wins. Patch is right that these strategies aren't smart, or even necessarily overpowered. It's that they're safe to play, and boring and unfun to play against.
It's also wrong to assume that just because there's no Prison or Draw-Go top deck, that there aren't powerful control decks supported in Standard. The big difference is that current control decks need to tap mana during their turn midgame, which creates opportunities for the other player to interact.
I _think_ that he's talking about Cascade, where it's less about individual card power, and more about each crappy card in the deck actually being 2+ crappy cards ... which is pretty useful for winning wars of attrition. :-)[/quote]I'm pretty sure he
1.) Some people like to think more when playing Magic / All aggro is is casting dudes and turning them sideways.
All of the archetypes he listed in the article require very little actual thought to play. -Prison control aims to block or pacify every creature the opponent plays. You don't have to think much to go "He played a creature. Answer it." -Land destruction (by which he means decks that seek to destroy ALL of the opponent's lands) is by far the most mindless way to play. Blow up their lands until they stop drawing them, then win. You never, ever have to mix it up. -Fast combo decks completely ignore what the opponent is doing; all they have to do is get together two or three cards which, when assembled, win for you. -"Draw Go" counterspelling is not the same as control in general. What Zac means, I'm sure, is decks which seek to counter every spell the opponent casts, which doesn't require thought at all. "He's tapping mana for a spell, so I'll tap islands for a counter." Most control requires a lot of thinking and strategy, but this variant does not. -I think what he means by resource-advantage attrition decks are decks that aim to kill as many creatures as they can, typically in two-for-ones (or even more efficient than that). In this case, again, all you have to do is let your opponent get some creatures on the field, then kill them. When your goal is to kill everything there's no need to think "should I kill this?".
Wizards hasn't chosen to make land destruction, or counterspelling, or "prison" cards unplayable. They've just chosen not to give a critical mass which allows universal-answer decks to arise, as those are both thoughtless and not fun to play against.
As for aggro decks, they are not as thoughtless as people seem to think. A properly built aggro deck chooses which one-, two- and three-drops to play based on the opponent's strategy, and every single combat requires some thinking (properly analyzing opponent's tells to know what tricks he has; doing the combat math to figure out how much damage you can get through in various attacking scenarios; risk assessment on which creatures you can safely lose to a blocker; etc.) Saying that "all aggro is is playing dudes and turning them sideways" is like saying "all control is is tapping islands and playing counterspells". Well-built decks in both archetypes are so much more than that.
2.) Fast aggro is just as bad as fast combo.
In some ways, yes. Both decks put the opponent on a clock. The difference, of course, is that almost every deck by default includes ways to answer aggro: creatures. Combo frequently requires very specific cards to stop it, and you have to either maindeck those cards if the combo is common enough, or sideboard and hope you draw your sideboarded answers in games two and three both because you just lost game one when they comboed out unhindered.
Yes, aggro can have opening hands that are just as explosive as some of the most degenerate combos out there, but they're less consistent (you need the perfect one-, two-, three- and usually four- drops in your opening hand, and lands to play them all, versus the combos he means in the article, which only need two cards, and run many ways to find them if not drawn). Also, where a combo is one-sided once it gets started, aggro strategies require attacking, which is the most interactive part of the game: you choose what attacks, your opponent chooses what blocks, both play any tricks.
Again, this isn't Wizards saying they hate combo. It's Wizards saying they hate combos that are so consistent and fast that the opponent loses before they can even start to answer it.
3.) Of course it's not fun to lose to the listed archetypes; losing is never fun.
Not true. In most games, when you lose, it's not because you never had a chance from the start. You can usually pinpoint a bad decision you made, or in the worst case scenario, blame not drawing the card you needed to win/stabliize; the cards that would let you win, however, are at least in your deck so every time you flip a card from your deck into your hand, there's a chance you can gain a victory. That ever-present chance is enough to make the game tense and thus, for most people, fun. I'd rather lose in a close game than win in a blow-out, personally.
Against the listed archetypes, it never matters what you draw. Once your opponent has hit critical mass for his strategy, you're no longer playing the game at all. Anything you draw, with very few exceptions, will be immediately answered without having any impact on the game. You're not dueling, at that point, you're sitting there watching your opponent goldfish until he draws his bomb finisher and finally delivers the coup de grace. Some people may find this fun; they are in the vast minority.
4.) Kill spells are the same as counterspells.
No. A counterspell stops your card before you can even use it. A kill spell, though it can do the same if it is cast the very turn your creature is cast, typically offers a window of use for the card it answers before killing it. When kill spells are too good, and they are killing your every creature before you get to do anything, well, if I'm right then that's what he means by attrition decks on his list. Wizards no more wants universal kill-spell decks than they want universal counterspell decks. The difference is, they can print far more kill spells than counterspells, because kill spells are more conditional, and creatures in need of killing more commonplace.
A few points I didn't cover in my previous post:1.) Some people like to think more when playing Magic / All aggro is is casting dudes and turning them sideways.All of the archetypes he listed in the article require very little actual thought to play.
One question: after the list of 'unfun' archetypes what're we left with? Basically, aggro? Just.....aggro...... According to Zac not even the current 'control' or 'midrange' decks (which are increasingly becoming the same thing) qualify as fun since they're based on attritioning into 6 drops. And even the 6 drops are an attrition war unto themselves
How far are they going to take this philosophy? It feels like they're gradually taking more and more crayons out of the box until we're left with only the 'fun' colors. How fun of them!
One question: after the list of 'unfun' archetypes what're we left with? Basically, aggro? Just.....aggro......According to Zac not even the current 'control' or 'midrange' decks (which are increasingly becoming the same thing) qualify as fun since t
1.) Some people like to think more when playing Magic / All aggro is is casting dudes and turning them sideways.
All of the archetypes he listed in the article require very little actual thought to play. -Prison control aims to block or pacify every creature the opponent plays. You don't have to think much to go "He played a creature. Answer it." -Land destruction (by which he means decks that seek to destroy ALL of the opponent's lands) is by far the most mindless way to play. Blow up their lands until they stop drawing them, then win. You never, ever have to mix it up. -Fast combo decks completely ignore what the opponent is doing; all they have to do is get together two or three cards which, when assembled, win for you. -"Draw Go" counterspelling is not the same as control in general. What Zac means, I'm sure, is decks which seek to counter every spell the opponent casts, which doesn't require thought at all. "He's tapping mana for a spell, so I'll tap islands for a counter." Most control requires a lot of thinking and strategy, but this variant does not. -I think what he means by resource-advantage attrition decks are decks that aim to kill as many creatures as they can, typically in two-for-ones (or even more efficient than that). In this case, again, all you have to do is let your opponent get some creatures on the field, then kill them. When your goal is to kill everything there's no need to think "should I kill this?".
Wizards hasn't chosen to make land destruction, or counterspelling, or "prison" cards unplayable. They've just chosen not to give a critical mass which allows universal-answer decks to arise, as those are both thoughtless and not fun to play against.
As for aggro decks, they are not as thoughtless as people seem to think. A properly built aggro deck chooses which one-, two- and three-drops to play based on the opponent's strategy, and every single combat requires some thinking (properly analyzing opponent's tells to know what tricks he has; doing the combat math to figure out how much damage you can get through in various attacking scenarios; risk assessment on which creatures you can safely lose to a blocker; etc.) Saying that "all aggro is is playing dudes and turning them sideways" is like saying "all control is is tapping islands and playing counterspells". Well-built decks in both archetypes are so much more than that.
2.) Fast aggro is just as bad as fast combo.
In some ways, yes. Both decks put the opponent on a clock. The difference, of course, is that almost every deck by default includes ways to answer aggro: creatures. Combo frequently requires very specific cards to stop it, and you have to either maindeck those cards if the combo is common enough, or sideboard and hope you draw your sideboarded answers in games two and three both because you just lost game one when they comboed out unhindered.
Yes, aggro can have opening hands that are just as explosive as some of the most degenerate combos out there, but they're less consistent (you need the perfect one-, two-, three- and usually four- drops in your opening hand, and lands to play them all, versus the combos he means in the article, which only need two cards, and run many ways to find them if not drawn). Also, where a combo is one-sided once it gets started, aggro strategies require attacking, which is the most interactive part of the game: you choose what attacks, your opponent chooses what blocks, both play any tricks.
Again, this isn't Wizards saying they hate combo. It's Wizards saying they hate combos that are so consistent and fast that the opponent loses before they can even start to answer it.
3.) Of course it's not fun to lose to the listed archetypes; losing is never fun.
Not true. In most games, when you lose, it's not because you never had a chance from the start. You can usually pinpoint a bad decision you made, or in the worst case scenario, blame not drawing the card you needed to win/stabliize; the cards that would let you win, however, are at least in your deck so every time you flip a card from your deck into your hand, there's a chance you can gain a victory. That ever-present chance is enough to make the game tense and thus, for most people, fun. I'd rather lose in a close game than win in a blow-out, personally.
Against the listed archetypes, it never matters what you draw. Once your opponent has hit critical mass for his strategy, you're no longer playing the game at all. Anything you draw, with very few exceptions, will be immediately answered without having any impact on the game. You're not dueling, at that point, you're sitting there watching your opponent goldfish until he draws his bomb finisher and finally delivers the coup de grace. Some people may find this fun; they are in the vast minority.
4.) Kill spells are the same as counterspells.
No. A counterspell stops your card before you can even use it. A kill spell, though it can do the same if it is cast the very turn your creature is cast, typically offers a window of use for the card it answers before killing it. When kill spells are too good, and they are killing your every creature before you get to do anything, well, if I'm right then that's what he means by attrition decks on his list. Wizards no more wants universal kill-spell decks than they want universal counterspell decks. The difference is, they can print far more kill spells than counterspells, because kill spells are more conditional, and creatures in need of killing more commonplace.
Chronego -- I can't really answer all of your points right now, but please understand I think you argued very well.
That said, for me it's not so much that I think aggro is mindless and dumb (it's not -- I'd've figured out how to play it effectively a long time ago if it were) as that I think making the No-No Strategies he lists unplayable (and they are right now -- an LD deck, for example, would just fall over and die, unless I've missed something huge) means rewarding one kind of thinking and one kind of thinker over other kinds of thinking and thinkers.
That's what saddens me. This idea that whole ways of playing -- big ways of playing in the olden days, actually, and how exactly could Magic have survived if it was all a ball of un-fun? -- are automatically "meanie griefers being mean, so we don't like you."
Chronego -- I can't really answer all of your points right now, but please understand I think you argued very well.That said, for me it's not so much that I think aggro is mindless and dumb (it's not -- I'd've figured out how to play it effectively a
Between Beast Within and Acidic Slime, there are plenty of good cards that incidentally also hit lands. A lot of the green decks I've built lately run some of both, it's actually pretty easy to land destruction something like solar flare out of the game. All of their answers cost 3 or less mana, which means they still usually get to do some stuff, but all of their game winning threats cost 6, so there is a lot of wiggle room there. Plus, you could just colorscrew them out of one of their three colors pretty easily, especially since the best spells cost either WW or BB.
Their ARE solid land destruction spells and greedy mana bases in standard, you just can't rely ONLY on getting a hard lock on your opponent anymore.
Between Beast Within and Acidic Slime, there are plenty of good cards that incidentally also hit lands. A lot of the green decks I've built lately run some of both, it's actually pretty easy to land destruction something like solar flare out of the g
I agree with everything you've said. You've put into words some of my experiences playing Magic and the difference in terms of what those strategies entail for opponents facing them. Those strategies listed in the article today prevent the other person from interacting in the game, either through not being allowed to, or by their plays not having any meaning. What it has created is a situation where decks are designed simply to beat other decks or other cards. If there is deemed no viable solution for a card in a format, the card is deemed overpowered and banned. If there are solutions to it, then it forces players to rework their decks to include those solutions.
Building a deck to defeat a powerful deck such as "cawblade, affinity, solar flare, etc" is not my idea of fun and I would wager not many player's ideas of fun. Everybody likes to build a deck that does something but having certain deck strategies out there force decks to conform or build around a smaller selection of cards. For example, hexproof/uncounterable creatures have been way more common recently simply because they are ways around these frustrating strategies listed. However, it's also limiting because it means I need to build my deck with certain creatures to overcome my opponents. Other cool creatures simply cannot win in a standard competitive environment.
While I feel I'm in the vocal minority, I always hate winning a lopsided game due to my opponent having no mana, etc. The interaction dynamic mentioned in the article is the back and forth a good game of magic ideally should have. The strategies outlined today simply turn the game into a one sided affair/goldfishing experiement.
Does anybody remember the world finals back when Mirari's Wake decks were popular? They were apparently the most boring games ever witnessed since they involved cycling decrees to make soldiers and then killing your opponent. Attrition decks at their finest.
ChronegoI agree with everything you've said. You've put into words some of my experiences playing Magic and the difference in terms of what those strategies entail for opponents facing them. Those strategies listed in the article today prevent the ot
I'm pretty sure he's actually referring to Rock-style attrition that use hand disruption (like Duress or Cranial Extraction), 2-for-1 type creatures (Ravenous Rats, Mesmeric Fiend, Sakura Tribe Elder), and recursion (Eternal Witness, or Life from the Loam) to slowly grind out wins. Patch is right that these strategies aren't smart, or even necessarily overpowered. It's that they're safe to play, and boring and unfun to play against.
I can see those decks qualifying as "war of attrition resource superiority" but I am really surprised that Rock-related deck styles would be regarded as unfun or something to avoid. Those decks are very interactive, with a lot of play and counterplay, and I thought they were actually beloved by players. I thought interactive struggles for board control were what r&d wanted the environment to be like!
That's why I'm confused, because I haven't really seen references to this style of deck as "unfun" previously. There have been a lot of explanations of why countermagic is held in check so draw-go doesn't dominate, and why there arent 12 different playable Stone Rain effects in standard anymore, and how Tolarian Academy + Time Spiral decks drove players away, and how Stasis is not really a barrel of monkeys - but I don't recall ever seeing "resource advantage" or "war of attrition" called out as un-fun previously, and it is really hard for me to grasp what they could mean.
At it's core, the game of mtg is a "war of attrition" in the sense that creatures trade with each other in combat, we constantly trade Doom Blade s for creatures in play, we use board sweepers to try to gain card advantage, etc. Obviously they can't get rid of that element of the game! When you boil away the flavor and really look at the nuts and bolts of the mechanics, a game of magic is two players throwing cards at each other and whoever has the last threat that the opponent can't answer, wins. Trading "answers" with "threats" is absolutely fundamental, as is the concept of "resource advantage". I mean, the whole point of card drawing spells, land farming spells, 187 creatures, everything is to gain resource advantage.
That is why I can't really take that comment at face value, and I'd be shocked if archetypes like "the Rock" are now regarded as unfun by development.
I can see those decks qualifying as "war of attrition resource superiority" but I am really surprised that Rock-related deck styles would be regarded as unfun or something to avoid. Those decks are very interactive, with a lot of play and counterplay
I still love this game, but I really miss exactly those strategies that the majority supposedly hates. Magic is a game about resources, at it's core -- it's really weird to me that resource denial is such a problem for so many. Maybe I'm unfair for feeling people are a bit intentionally dull if they don't want to learn how to play under it or counter it, but sometimes I really do wonder where all the stupid came from.
This is also part of the recent top-down push. From that point of view, Magic is a game about fantasy creatures battling it out, at it's core, and Wizards wants tournament play to reflect that. If Magic didn't had art or flavor, it would have only a fraction of its current playerbase, but it would still have those strategies. That's where the stupid comes from.
Although draw-go is fundamentally flawed on a game design level already.
This is also part of the recent top-down push. From that point of view, Magic is a game about fantasy creatures battling it out, at it's core, and Wizards wants tournament play to reflect that. If Magic didn't had art or flavor, it would have only a
@chronego while i agree with alot of that... my main gripe is that they've deemed these whole archtypes to be unfun because of past experience.. (and hence have been not supporting them... sort of)
while i agree that all those archtypes can be bad if their made into degenerate powerhouses but so can any other archtype. theres nothing wrong with them being allowed to compete as long as they learn from past mistakes and dont make them so powerfull they don't allow that window to beat them. getting a diversified meta is good for everyone.
@chronego while i agree with alot of that... my main gripe is that they've deemed these whole archtypes to be unfun because of past experience.. (and hence have been not supporting them... sort of)while i agree that all those archtypes can be bad
@chronego while i agree with alot of that... my main gripe is that they've deemed these whole archtypes to be unfun because of past experience.. (and hence have been not supporting them... sort of)
while i agree that all those archtypes can be bad if their made into degenerate powerhouses but so can any other archtype. theres nothing wrong with them being allowed to compete as long as they learn from past mistakes and dont make them so powerfull they don't allow that window to beat them. getting a diversified meta is good for everyone.
The point made in the article isn't that they're not going to support the archetypes at all, it's that they won't print enough cards for them to allow a critical mass, which leads to the degenerate, unfun decks like pure land denial. We recently got Dissipate and Mana Leak , both of which are rather strong counterspells for control decks. They still do print land destruction (like Acidic Slime ); it's essential to answer weird land-based combo decks such as Valakut , or cards like Inkmoth Nexus and Kessig Wolf Run . They're just not printing it at cheap enough costs that you can start blowing up lands on turn two or three, nor in enough numbers to build a deck entirely around it.
Those who love the archetypes can still play them; they just won't be able to rely purely on the one method of choice to win. It's diversity on an individual deck level, as well as at a meta level.
The point made in the article isn't that they're not going to support the archetypes at all, it's that they won't print enough cards for them to allow a critical mass, which leads to the degenerate, unfun decks like pure land denial. We recently got
Here's my problem with this, as a *really* long-time player: All of the above strategies should, at least some of the time, be viable. You should be able to punish ridiculously greedy mana bases, you should be able to grind out games against excessively aggressive opponents, and you should be able to counter or combo someone out of the game. But at the same time, you should have the tools to defeat any or all of those strategies. The one thing the article doesn't mention is how quickly the game adapts to the latest "hot" strategy, unless it is something truly absurd, such as Ravager/Affinity or CawBlade.
And I am sadly in the boat of not liking the current way standard is. I started playing in Odessy, and I have never been a huge fan of creatures that just attack. I hate the Titans with the passion of a thousand suns, because it has boiled the format down very much to "have Titans or plan to win before turn 6." While I agree that counterspells can be somewhat degenerate, I am a fan of draw-go strategies, I am a fan of midrange creature decks, and my favorite decks are the attrition style decks. I don't like taking creatures and going "hurr-durr sideways to your face" constantly, and that is how I feel standard is now. And modern too.
I'd rant some more, but I have to get to class, and just wanted to point out that I'm another person who doesn't think the current standard is too fun. Titans and partially Praeators are killing the game for me.
Another great post. Seems like many people feel this way. What are the idiots in the Magic Larp Dungeon doing?
Another great post. Seems like many people feel this way. What are the idiots in the Magic Larp Dungeon doing?
My main issue with Wizards and Magic as whole is the fact that they don't let the players control the format. This latest standard is just flat boring. Me and my friends actually dropped from states (my friend at 4-1) because we were just so bored playing the same two decks over and over and just turning creatures sideways.
Last year's Zendikar Standard was more fun for me. I ran a burn based deck that ran only 10 creatures and just slung damage to an opponents dome. Say what you want about the strategy, but it was succesful in my hands and most importantly it was FUN. Well, apparently, Wizards doesn't think so and they have informed me that I am to feel the same way....?..... Where is the burn? 3 mana, 3 damage? huh? 1 mana 1 damage with a flashback of 4? what? Why can't I do what I do? Why can't I play the game I want to play? Oh yeah... because WIZARDS doesn't think it's fun.
I have no idea why Wizards needs to release 4 card blocks a year. I have no idea why Wizards prints creatures with paragraphs of abilities. I have no reason why wizards things smashing creatures into each other is fun. And, I have no idea why Wizards feels like they are so damn knowledgeable on Magic, and we are all so dumb, that they have to tell us how to play each season. What a stupid concept.
So, do I play Solar Flare, Kessing Run Ramp, or Mono Red? Screw this. If I can't get Burning Vengeance to work, i'm just going to stop playing Magic. Do you know why I am going to stop playing Magic, Wizards? Because I am no longer having FUN.
So this douche who wrote this ridiculous article, patting himself on the back for playing with toys all day (probably in room stinking like BO, Farts and has boogers slung all over the wall), can go eat a big loaf of crap. This way he can get an accurate taste of what I deal with everytime I play Innistrad.
My main issue with Wizards and Magic as whole is the fact that they don't let the players control the format. This latest standard is just flat boring. Me and my friends actually dropped from states (my friend at 4-1) because we were just so bored
Listening to the people who pay for their paycheck, not some vocal minority.
That clearly justifies ignorance then... my bad. Keep ruining Magic then for your $30k/yr
Sorry that came out wrong I think. What I meant was that they're concerned about the majority's 'fun' more than a minority's 'fun'.
That clearly justifies ignorance then... my bad. Keep ruining Magic then for your $30k/yr[/quote]Sorry that came out wrong I think. What I meant was that they're concerned about the majority's 'fun' more than a minority's 'fun'.
Listening to the people who pay for their paycheck, not some vocal minority.
That clearly justifies ignorance then... my bad. Keep ruining Magic then for your $30k/yr
Sorry that came out wrong I think. What I meant was that they're concerned about the majority's 'fun' more than a minority's 'fun'.
Ah, ok. Sry.
That clearly justifies ignorance then... my bad. Keep ruining Magic then for your $30k/yr[/quote]Sorry that came out wrong I think. What I meant was that they're concerned about the majority's 'fun' more than a minority's 'fun'.[/quote] Ah, ok. Sry
I'd put myself in the boat of the people who like unfun decks. One of my favorite metagames was Kamigawa-Ravnica. This included such unfun decks as:
-Magnivore -Owling Mine -Heartbeat of Spring
The thing about these decks is that they rode the edge of being out and out unfun versus a challenge to play against. Magnivore and Owling Mine were both answers to control decks, and the mental gymnastics it took to pilot either side of that matchup were great. Recently, I thought Pyromancer's Ascension was at a good level in terms of power level and interactiveness. Every now and then it would shanghi in turn 3 kills, but for most games it was an intruging battle of putting enough pressure on the Pyro player while he tries to 1) stay alive 2) get counters 3) protect the Ascension. Splinter Twin, on the other hand, was just unfun.
Speaking of traditional notions of unfun, for all those who like the things they seek to get rid of, come play Pauper online. We have
-Turn 2 infect decks courtesy of 0 mana pump spells -RDW with 3 damage per mana and almost no interaction -Affinity with artifact lands -Draw-Go Cloudpost decks -Draw-Go MUC -Zero interaction Storm. -Familiar Storm, a deck where timing out is always a concern because it is so slow.
I'd put myself in the boat of the people who like unfun decks. One of my favorite metagames was Kamigawa-Ravnica. This included such unfun decks as:-Magnivore-Owling Mine-Heartbeat of SpringThe thing about these decks is that they rode the edge of be
When he says LD decks and counterspell decks are unfun, he obviously doesn't mean they make them impossible to build. It is totally possible to build a decent casual LD deck in Standard right now. It won't win any tournaments, but who's insane enough to want an LD strategy in Standard dominant enough to become a typical matchup? As for grinding control decks, he put that lowest on the list after saying it was in descending order of significance - and in any case Wizards can't prevent people from building controlling decks no matter what cards they print.
The only thing I want to point out, though it already has been, is that Titans are, and always were, a stupid idea. They were printed with the specific intention of being ridiculous top ends for the curve of every deck that can even imagine casting a 6-drop, and while it's admirable to want to make competitive 6-drops, defining the top of every non-aggro deck in Standard for 2 entire years with one cycle of cards is the very definition of staleness.
When he says LD decks and counterspell decks are unfun, he obviously doesn't mean they make them impossible to build. It is totally possible to build a decent casual LD deck in Standard right now. It won't win any tournaments, but who's insane enou
i dont think wizards has any idea of what they want fun to mean..
also.. do you think this "majority" are regular attendee's of tournaments..? i wouldn't think so since it seems most people dont go to tournaments to have fun as opposed to win.
i'm pretty sure i didn't play cawblade for fun.. i played it to win. fun was irrelevant. i hated playing that deck but it gave me wins.
therefore i should say the concept of fun should have no bearing on what deck's are/are not allowed to thrive in that environment. and the players have basically already made it happen anyway. otherwise we wouldn't see the solar flare/ wolf run/ rdw numbers that we see... people obviously forego fun to play what give them a better chance to let them win.
i play edh for fun, i play standard to win. apparently i'm a minority.
i dont think wizards has any idea of what they want fun to mean.. also.. do you think this "majority" are regular attendee's of tournaments..? i wouldn't think so since it seems most people dont go to tournaments to have fun as opposed to win. i'
R&D wants the game to be about "awesome" moments, much like those NFL Highlights films from the 70's. That can't happen when all we really seem to play is martyball.
R&D wants the game to be about "awesome" moments, much like those NFL Highlights films from the 70's.That can't happen when all we really seem to play is martyball.
IMO, prision, storm, draw go, and what ever an "attrition" deck is, are all apart of magic. I feel they are good in small doses, sorta like quest decks in last years standard. The deck could have you dead on turn 2 or 3, but it was fragil.
I have talked to my less experianced friends about storm and prision. They say "The deck is stupid." "I hate it." I ask why and I get the following answers: "It denys the spirit of the game, when I play a game with you I want to play with you."
Think about it, when you open a pack of magic cards you get a land, some spells, and some creatures. Creatures deal damage and if you have zero life you lose. The implication is you use creatures to win. Aggro is the default deck of magic. I am sure when Richard Garfield made the game he did not say "I want to make a bunch of awesome cards like necropotance, channel, fireball, and ansestral recall so people can fireball someone for 20 on turn 2, or draw some crazy combo." It was more like "Here is an exciting game with battling monsters with some cool spell effects that spice it up and keep it original." (I am paraphrasing) That might sound radical to many people commenting here, but that is only because you have grown accustomed to it. It feels like I have been cheated, when my expectation is I attack with guys and they are never allowed to see play. People who want to see prision, combo, and draw go can play legacy or vintage, and leave standard to everyone else. FWIW I think standard is lame, I like legacy much more, but I am in the minority.
IMO, prision, storm, draw go, and what ever an "attrition" deck is, are all apart of magic. I feel they are good in small doses, sorta like quest decks in last years standard. The deck could have you dead on turn 2 or 3, but it was fragil.I have talk
AAARGH! No, it doesn't. It raises the question. Begging the question is something else entirely, and if you're doing it, you probably don't want to admit it. [/petpeeve]
Hmm, I had never read this before. In fact, I can't remember a time I even heard the phrase "beg the question" used in the correct context.
Anyway, on to the actual argument:
When I started playing Magic, I played only against my sister, who had an attrition-style deck with loads of Counterspells, Ertai, Prodigal Sorcerers, Stinging Barriers and the like. I still liked the game, but I'll be the first to admit it wasn't fun playing against. So I'd be the first to say that the current state of Magic is a vast improvement over Magic in the days of Ice Age and Urza's Saga (most notably in blue).
But, recently, I feel that Wizards has gone too far. It's as if they looked at rock-paper-scissors, determined rock was the most fun, and then changing the rules so that rock beats paper as well as scissors.
Aggro should not be the default state of the environment. The whole point of Magic is that it is diverse. Over recent years, this diversity has lessened, both because of the removal of good drawback cards (which, by the way, makes Johnny cry, so please start printing at least some new drawback cards) and because a number of controlling strategies have become less powerful: weakening control made combo stronger, which meant that whatever combo deck came through the cracks would become far more oppressive than it would've been with a good control deck. So combo became more annoying as well and has to become weaker, and suddenly we're left in an environment where aggro has to go top. Land destruction would actually have been very popular in the dark days of Jund, which is probably the dominant deck with the worst mana base in the history of Magic: there's a reason Spreading Seas was so popular, and some more good land destruction could've kept Jund in check.
I play solely casual (and prereleases, but that's a different matter entirely), so this thing doesn't even matter that much to me. But when I look at the cards that get printed these days, it saddens me that while most of the control cards are completely irrelevant (which is logical), the aggro cards keep getting exponentially better. The Titans are awful enough, obsoleting half of all the cards ever printed (and also obsoleting green as the creature colour, since every colour gets access to great big finishers) and Phyrexian Obliterator just leaves me aghast. And there's stuff like Leatherback Baloth and Woolly Thoctar, which are apparently only printworthy because they have difficult mana costs. Well, Leatherback Baloth is still better than 90% of Green's 3-drops.
So, to sum up:
1: Magic is a rock-paper-scissors game and it should stay that way. Changing the balance between one of the pairs affects the entire game and this is what happened here. 2: Every strategy needs its day in the sun. Aggro might be popular now, but control and combo need to shine every now and then to remind us why aggro is popular. 3: Drawbacks aren't inherently bad. I understand that drawback mechanics are unpopular, but Johnny likes them very very much. At least print some drawback cards. You cater to all kinds of people each set except for the drawback people. 4: Power creep in creatures is real and dangerous. To be honest, I was in the camp of people who thought Baneslayer Angel was too much, and the Titans don't help. 5: Power creep in rarity is even more dangerous. Wizards has done a good job of turning Green into the fat colour in Limited, but the presence of cycles like the Titans and the Praetors means that Green loses its identity in Standard: why is Green the creature colour if I can cast an Inferno, Frost, Grave or Sun Titan at the same price as green casts a Primeval Titan? By printing the Titans (and this is their main sin even above power creep), Wizards has destroyed the identity of Green. Green is no longer the creature colour or the fat colour: it is the ramp colour.
Hmm, I had never read this before. In fact, I can't remember a time I even heard the phrase "beg the question" used in the correct context.Anyway, on to the actual argument:When I started playing Magic, I played only against my sister, who had an att
Last year's Zendikar Standard was more fun for me. I ran a burn based deck that ran only 10 creatures and just slung damage to an opponents dome. Say what you want about the strategy, but it was succesful in my hands and most importantly it was FUN. Well, apparently, Wizards doesn't think so and they have informed me that I am to feel the same way....?..... Where is the burn? 3 mana, 3 damage? huh? 1 mana 1 damage with a flashback of 4? what? Why can't I do what I do? Why can't I play the game I want to play? Oh yeah... because WIZARDS doesn't think it's fun.
Every type of deck gets its day in the sun. Burn got it thanks to Lightning Bolt. Now it's time for some other strategies.
Also, seriously, the morbid burn spell is pretty darn nasty. Not for a mono-burn deck which generally doesn't see creatures die, but there's still good burn left in the format. You just can't expect to have Lightning Bolt for ever and ever.
Every type of deck gets its day in the sun. Burn got it thanks to Lightning Bolt. Now it's time for some other strategies.Also, seriously, the morbid burn spell is pretty darn nasty. Not for a mono-burn deck which generally doesn't see creatures die,
Wizards doesn't give a damn what the game should be.
Which do you think is more likely to bring in more customers?
"Magic is a game where you and an opponent battle each other with armies of huge monsters!"
"Magic is a game where each player does everything he can to cripple the opponent's ability to do anything, and undercut anything the opponent somehow manages to do."
Which marketing approach do you suppose a corporate executive is more likely to pursue?
It's all about getting butts in the seats, guys.
Wizards doesn't give a damn what the game should be.Which do you think is more likely to bring in more customers? "Magic is a game where you and an opponent battle each other with armies of huge monsters!" "Magic is a game where each player does ev
Wizards doesn't give a damn what the game should be.
Which do you think is more likely to bring in more customers?
"Magic is a game where you and an opponent battle each other with armies of huge monsters!"
"Magic is a game where each player does everything he can to cripple the opponent's ability to do anything, and undercut anything the opponent somehow manages to do."
Which marketing approach do you suppose a corporate executive is more likely to pursue?
Which marketing approach sounds like more fun? I know I wouldn't pick up a game with the second description, and if a friend suggested it, I'd ask if we could do something else. Huge fantasy monsters, on the other hand, are cool.
Which marketing approach sounds like more fun? I know I wouldn't pick up a game with the second description, and if a friend suggested it, I'd ask if we could do something else. Huge fantasy monsters, on the other hand, are cool.
I would ascribe as much legitimacy to design via committee in my Magic cards as I would design by committee in my music. That is to say, none at all. New Magic cards are like Bon Jovi.
I would ascribe as much legitimacy to design via committee in my Magic cards as I would design by committee in my music. That is to say, none at all. New Magic cards are like Bon Jovi.
i dont think wizards has any idea of what they want fun to mean..
also.. do you think this "majority" are regular attendee's of tournaments..? i wouldn't think so since it seems most people dont go to tournaments to have fun as opposed to win.
i'm pretty sure i didn't play cawblade for fun.. i played it to win. fun was irrelevant. i hated playing that deck but it gave me wins.
therefore i should say the concept of fun should have no bearing on what deck's are/are not allowed to thrive in that environment. and the players have basically already made it happen anyway. otherwise we wouldn't see the solar flare/ wolf run/ rdw numbers that we see... people obviously forego fun to play what give them a better chance to let them win.
i play edh for fun, i play standard to win. apparently i'm a minority.
No, something more complex is at work here. Many Spikes who play to win still care about fun. The difference is not whether you care about winning or about fun, it's about which one matters most. Both casuals and competitives will usually care about both, the difference is which one wins out. A Spike will indeed choose an unfun deck that will win him the tournament over a more fun deck, but that doesn't mean he's happy with it. The ideal metagame for a Spike is one where the strongest deck are also decks he finds fun.
When you get to lower levels (FNM etc) people might care less about winning and will have more experimental decks.
1: Magic is a rock-paper-scissors game and it should stay that way. Changing the balance between one of the pairs affects the entire game and this is what happened here. 2: Every strategy needs its day in the sun. Aggro might be popular now, but control and combo need to shine every now and then to remind us why aggro is popular. 3: Drawbacks aren't inherently bad. I understand that drawback mechanics are unpopular, but Johnny likes them very very much. At least print some drawback cards. You cater to all kinds of people each set except for the drawback people. 4: Power creep in creatures is real and dangerous. To be honest, I was in the camp of people who thought Baneslayer Angel was too much, and the Titans don't help. 5: Power creep in rarity is even more dangerous. Wizards has done a good job of turning Green into the fat colour in Limited, but the presence of cycles like the Titans and the Praetors means that Green loses its identity in Standard: why is Green the creature colour if I can cast an Inferno, Frost, Grave or Sun Titan at the same price as green casts a Primeval Titan? By printing the Titans (and this is their main sin even above power creep), Wizards has destroyed the identity of Green. Green is no longer the creature colour or the fat colour: it is the ramp colour.
1-2: It's still there. Now it's just aggro-midrange-control. Control has time in the sun all the time already. Combo somewhat less, it has been replaced by midrange in the R-P-S scheme. 3-5: all agreed! I'm glad they actually agreed reprinting the Titans was a bad idea, once they rotate within the year we might return to something more normal.
No, something more complex is at work here. Many Spikes who play to win still care about fun. The difference is not whether you care about winning or about fun, it's about which one matters most. Both casuals and competitives will usually care about
I would ascribe as much legitimacy to design via committee in my Magic cards as I would design by committee in my music. That is to say, none at all. New Magic cards are like Bon Jovi.
What are you talking about? Magic sets have always been team designs. Even Alpha was heavily playtested and went through a lot of changes based on feedback from the playtesters. Furthermore, we have an overwhelming weight of evidence that group collaboration produces better sets. The most "independently" designed magic set of all is Homelands, the worst set of all time.
If you have some idea that in the earlier days of Magic, card designers were wild-haired geniuses working in isolation, you are completely mistaken. The group workflow they use is really a model of how to do creative work as a team. The history of how Magic sets have been created is well-documented, and it has almost always been "design by committee".
What are you talking about? Magic sets have always been team designs. Even Alpha was heavily playtested and went through a lot of changes based on feedback from the playtesters. Furthermore, we have an overwhelming weight of evidence that group colla
I feel that there must be some deck archetypes or strategies he is referring to that I don't know about, but I've been playing for 13 years and I can't figure out what tournament decks in what format would qualify as "unfun war of attrition" decks.
I _think_ that he's talking about Cascade, where it's less about individual card power, and more about each crappy card in the deck actually being 2+ crappy cards ... which is pretty useful for winning wars of attrition. :-)
I'm pretty sure he's actually referring to Rock-style attrition that use hand disruption (like Duress or Cranial Extraction), 2-for-1 type creatures (Ravenous Rats, Mesmeric Fiend, Sakura Tribe Elder), and recursion (Eternal Witness, or Life from the Loam) to slowly grind out wins. Patch is right that these strategies aren't smart, or even necessarily overpowered. It's that they're safe to play, and boring and unfun to play against.
It's also wrong to assume that just because there's no Prison or Draw-Go top deck, that there aren't powerful control decks supported in Standard. The big difference is that current control decks need to tap mana during their turn midgame, which creates opportunities for the other player to interact.
Aw, really?? That's my favorite kind of deck! You're making me nostalgic for Onslaught block: cycle Krosan Tusker , bring it back with Oversold Cemetery , trying to keep up with my opponent's Eternal Dragon ... I thought it was really interactive and very skill-intensive (more so than Skirk Prospector into Goblin Warchief into Goblin Piledriver ). The opponent certainly had plenty of ways to mess with me.
I _think_ that he's talking about Cascade, where it's less about individual card power, and more about each crappy card in the deck actually being 2+ crappy cards ... which is pretty useful for winning wars of attrition. :-)[/quote]I'm pretty sure he
I would ascribe as much legitimacy to design via committee in my Magic cards as I would design by committee in my music. That is to say, none at all. New Magic cards are like Bon Jovi.
What are you talking about? Magic sets have always been team designs. Even Alpha was heavily playtested and went through a lot of changes based on feedback from the playtesters. Furthermore, we have an overwhelming weight of evidence that group collaboration produces better sets. The most "independently" designed magic set of all is Homelands, the worst set of all time.
If you have some idea that in the earlier days of Magic, card designers were wild-haired geniuses working in isolation, you are completely mistaken. The group workflow they use is really a model of how to do creative work as a team. The history of how Magic sets have been created is well-documented, and it has almost always been "design by committee".
Yes I'm aware that they have always worked in teams, for the most part. That'd be the bands behind the "art", if you will. I'd put more enjoyment into the in-house inserts in each set, and for that matter, there's always Arabian Nights, which was made mostly by Richard Garfield.
When I say "design by committee", I mean when they use focus groups to determine what they consider "fun" or "easy". There's more to say on this matter.
What are you talking about? Magic sets have always been team designs. Even Alpha was heavily playtested and went through a lot of changes based on feedback from the playtesters. Furthermore, we have an overwhelming weight of evidence that group colla
When you're lead developing a set, the temptation is to print as many massively powerful cards as possible. After all, don't players like to do powerful things? Don't you want your set to stand out above the rest? This seems intuitive but is actually disproved by our data, which shows that players universally respond better to weaker formats and weaker sets. Why is that?
This is the part of the article that encouraged me the most; not only is a power level arms race a death knell for the game, it's not fun to play during...at minimum because it makes old cards become useless to quickly.
That said, it makes me wonder why the Titans were (re)printed. All of the abilities were pretty bonkers, so making them 6/6 just made it even more ridiculous. Why not make, for example, Primeval Titan 6/4, doing things like evoking Craw Wurm while giving people unfortunate enough to see them show up while playing Limited a chance to kill them with a Chandra's Outrage? Something equivalent could have been done throughout the whole cycle, making their unique aspects - their abilities - more important, making them more interesting...yet less powerful.
I'll also chime in with the people that say the "unfun" strategies aren't always unfun. Sometimes decks that are unfun to play against are actually very fun and satisfying to beat, because they're so frustrating during the game - which suggests that they do have a place in metagames, even if it's only one at a time and as a lower tier deck. Yes, there are good prison, land destruction, attrition cards, but honestly, sometimes it would be nice to run up against (and even lose to) Invisible Stalker draw-go instead of yet another Deck That Plays Good Cards, which is what it seems is the default for everything that isn't a synergestic aggro/block strategy.
This is the part of the article that encouraged me the most; not only is a power level arms race a death knell for the game, it's not fun to play during...at minimum because it makes old cards become useless to quickly.That said, it makes me wonder w
So long as R&D remains stuck in a "design for Limited, plus one chase mythic" mode, and so long as they go out of their way to make cards that aren't even playable in Limited, you will continue to lose to The Deck That Plays Good Cards, simply becaus
1-2: It's still there. Now it's just aggro-midrange-control. Control has time in the sun all the time already. Combo somewhat less, it has been replaced by midrange in the R-P-S scheme. 3-5: all agreed! I'm glad they actually agreed reprinting the Titans was a bad idea, once they rotate within the year we might return to something more normal.
a) Yeah, but come on, that's not a metagame with that major differences. It's still terribly focused on creatures. In fact, the only reason that I'm not too concerned with this whole thing is that Wizards has proven itself to be quite incompetent at rooting out combo cards (Exarch-Twin, Valakut and Ascension have all been serious archetypes for a while). b) Seriously, they admitted that? I must've missed that.
a) Yeah, but come on, that's not a metagame with that major differences. It's still terribly focused on creatures. In fact, the only reason that I'm not too concerned with this whole thing is that Wizards has proven itself to be quite incompetent at
1-2: It's still there. Now it's just aggro-midrange-control. Control has time in the sun all the time already. Combo somewhat less, it has been replaced by midrange in the R-P-S scheme. 3-5: all agreed! I'm glad they actually agreed reprinting the Titans was a bad idea, once they rotate within the year we might return to something more normal.
a) Yeah, but come on, that's not a metagame with that major differences. It's still terribly focused on creatures. In fact, the only reason that I'm not too concerned with this whole thing is that Wizards has proven itself to be quite incompetent at rooting out combo cards (Exarch-Twin, Valakut and Ascension have all been serious archetypes for a while). b) Seriously, they admitted that? I must've missed that.
a) Nowhere in your points you talked about differences. You talked about RPS to create a balanced game which is still there, and about other archetypes getting time in the sun, which control still does. Yes it's focused on creatures, that was Wizards' goal. b) They wanted to not reprint them to freshen things up, but they feared there would be an outcry if expensive mythics would only be in standard for a year, so they kept them around.
a) Yeah, but come on, that's not a metagame with that major differences. It's still terribly focused on creatures. In fact, the only reason that I'm not too concerned with this whole thing is that Wizards has proven itself to be quite incompetent at
Yes I'm aware that they have always worked in teams, for the most part. That'd be the bands behind the "art", if you will. I'd put more enjoyment into the in-house inserts in each set, and for that matter, there's always Arabian Nights, which was made mostly by Richard Garfield.
When I say "design by committee", I mean when they use focus groups to determine what they consider "fun" or "easy". There's more to say on this matter.
Thanks for clarifying what you meant. I apologize if the tone of my reply was negative, because I misunderstood the context and meaning of your remarks.
I think there is a fine line to walk when it comes to customer feedback. Often what people say is very different from what they do, and people often misunderstand their own preferences, so even if you are trying to slavishly follow what customers say, you might end up actually alienating them. New ideas also require creativity and courage to follow a concept where it leads.
At the same time, I do want WotC to care about my preferences, and I agree with the majority of "feedback motivated" decisions. The creation of the Modern format is a good example of WotC listening to customers. At the same time, I don't want them to listen to all the people who whine about the banned list being too big!
Thanks for clarifying what you meant. I apologize if the tone of my reply was negative, because I misunderstood the context and meaning of your remarks. I think there is a fine line to walk when it comes to customer feedback. Often what people say is
1-2: It's still there. Now it's just aggro-midrange-control. Control has time in the sun all the time already. Combo somewhat less, it has been replaced by midrange in the R-P-S scheme. 3-5: all agreed! I'm glad they actually agreed reprinting the Titans was a bad idea, once they rotate within the year we might return to something more normal.
a) Yeah, but come on, that's not a metagame with that major differences. It's still terribly focused on creatures. In fact, the only reason that I'm not too concerned with this whole thing is that Wizards has proven itself to be quite incompetent at rooting out combo cards (Exarch-Twin, Valakut and Ascension have all been serious archetypes for a while). b) Seriously, they admitted that? I must've missed that.
a) Nowhere in your points you talked about differences. You talked about RPS to create a balanced game which is still there, and about other archetypes getting time in the sun, which control still does. Yes it's focused on creatures, that was Wizards' goal. b) They wanted to not reprint them to freshen things up, but they feared there would be an outcry if expensive mythics would only be in standard for a year, so they kept them around.
a) Okay, sure, I guess then it depends on what you consider one complete strategy. b) But that's not really admitting a mistake. Their reason was that they wanted to change the metagame, not that they made a big mess out of it by printing the Titans in the first place, which they really should.
a) Yeah, but come on, that's not a metagame with that major differences. It's still terribly focused on creatures. In fact, the only reason that I'm not too concerned with this whole thing is that Wizards has proven itself to be quite incompetent at
b) But that's not really admitting a mistake. Their reason was that they wanted to change the metagame, not that they made a big mess out of it by printing the Titans in the first place, which they really should.
Hehe true, they never said it was a mistake to print them, just a mistake to reprint them =)
Hehe true, they never said it was a mistake to print them, just a mistake to reprint them =)
I just don't understand why Wizards development thinks it is more "fun" to pre-construct decks for us rather then letting us figure stuff out on our own. Sure every once in a while they miss a combo that we find, but for the most part, Standard is just 1 years worth of Wizards telling us what and how to play. And, until we start upping their inbox with complaints... nothing will change.
There are too many cards printed that are too cute. STOP. Just make creatures creatures and spells spells. Save the cuteness for an Enchantment here or there. Just please stop pre-constructing decks and then forcing us to play them. There is absolutely NO fun factor when I am told what to do. I play Magic to be able to "compete creatively" with my deck building and card play.
Is modern the solution? It was until they banned pre-ordain and ponder. Eliminate cards that help make the game less random and more skill based? Really? Screw this. I should just save money and buy a regular card deck, shuffle them and play war with 7 cards. INTENSE
I just don't understand why Wizards development thinks it is more "fun" to pre-construct decks for us rather then letting us figure stuff out on our own. Sure every once in a while they miss a combo that we find, but for the most part, Standard is j
I just don't understand why Wizards development thinks it is more "fun" to pre-construct decks for us rather then letting us figure stuff out on our own.
Wizards of the Coast does not build our decks for us. There may be a lot of cards that aren't playable in Constructed, because of their focus on Limited gameplay, but there are still quite a few Constructed playable cards. The problem is that, with the internet and with pro-level tournaments occurring much more often, the millions of people who play Magic are able to figure out the best deck for the current meta much more quickly than ever before. Wizards has nothing to do with this; it's the desire people have to win which pushes them to use netdecks, rather than building their own deck, combined with the fact that net-decks are updated so often it's ridiculous, that leaves us with only a handful of deck archetypes, at best, in the meta. If Wizards were building our decks for us, you'd see many more cards like Nissa Revane , which explicitly tells you to play Nissa's Chosen . Or things like the Illusion tribe in M12, where there are literally just enough cards to actually build the tribal deck, so there's no variety. These things are rare in the overall scheme of things. As a budget player whose favorite part of the game is building his own deck, I assure you that you can build decks other than the top-8ers and do just fine at FNM level.
Wizards of the Coast does not build our decks for us. There may be a lot of cards that aren't playable in Constructed, because of their focus on Limited gameplay, but there are still quite a few Constructed playable cards.The problem is that, with th
And, until we start upping their inbox with complaints... nothing will change.
Actually, nothing will change until sales go down. A vocal minority might up an inbox, but if the majority is upping sales that won't work.
Number of times the "vocal minority" cliche has been slung around by 1 person in this thread: 4
Number of times the "majority" has chimed in to agree: 0?
Number of people who find this ironic?
:-)
Actually, nothing will change until sales go down. A vocal minority might up an inbox, but if the majority is upping sales that won't work.[/quote]Number of times the "vocal minority" cliche has been slung around by 1 person in this thread: 4Number o
...Assuming you meant, me? (Or maybe just the awesome NERD spam post, in which case, nevermind!)
I was just poking fun at how many times this turn of phrase has been used by a single user in this thread when replying to various people disagreeing with how they like WotC's definitions of what archetypes/strategies are "fun".
Actually, nothing will change until sales go down. A vocal minority might up an inbox, but if the majority is upping sales that won't work.
...Carry on.
(And no offense meant either, it's just one of those terms that gets thrown around so often and poorly when people are having these kinds of discussions I couldn't help but point it out here.)
...Assuming you meant, me? (Or maybe just the awesome NERD spam post, in which case, nevermind!)I was just poking fun at how many times this turn of phrase has been used by a single user in this thread when replying to various people disagreeing wit
(And no offense meant either, it's just one of those terms that gets thrown around so often and poorly when people are having these kinds of discussions I couldn't help but point it out here.)
Well, people that are invested enough in a game to routinely read and post on forums do tend to be a minority. Most people play casually, they have some vague awareness, and they might chime up occasionally to say "my friend's deck does this, how can I handle it?" or "infect is overpowered!" (basically the same as the previous, but focused on a mechanic) but that's about it. They go gaga for jank cards. And they aren't facing 4 ofs of power cards, but typically only one or two.
The reality is just that, forum posters are the minority.
But, as the article stated, things broken by the more hardcore can trickle down to others. Especially if a given strategy is pretty obvious, supported by plenty of non-rare/mythics in the last block or two, resulting in a deck that practically builds itself.
Anyway, I found it an interesting article, though I do wonder how things slip through. Saying they don't want to discourage draw-go, for example, right after they release a set with Snapcaster Mage, Think Twice, and Forbidden Alchemy. Essentially, more counterspells and instant speed draw to make it easy to keep counter mana up. I'm tired of seeing the Snapcaster package already, as most every deck with blue is running it.
Well, people that are invested enough in a game to routinely read and post on forums do tend to be a minority. Most people play casually, they have some vague awareness, and they might chime up occasionally to say "my friend's deck does this, how ca
I was just poking fun at how many times this turn of phrase has been used by a single user in this thread when replying to various people disagreeing with how they like WotC's definitions of what archetypes/strategies are "fun".
[...]
...Carry on.
(And no offense meant either, it's just one of those terms that gets thrown around so often and poorly when people are having these kinds of discussions I couldn't help but point it out here.)
Yeah it was getting a bit silly indeed =) But as Axterix points out, that majority will simply not be found on boards like these.
Yeah it was getting a bit silly indeed =) But as Axterix points out, that majority will simply not be found on boards like these.
My buddy got me into magic a couple months ago. He played the first 5 or 6 years it came out, then sold everything and stopped. When he told me about how different colors worked he told it to me like this... Blue is best for draw and counters, Red is good for quick creatures and burn, Green is good for powerful creatures, Black is "mess with your opponent" and punish them, white is the glorious jack of all trades, master of none, and artifacts are good gimmicks.
Simplifying it obviously so I could figure out how I wanted to play, but it made sense. Playing two colors would be more difficult than one because it increases your reliance on luck, but allows you to be more versatile. Playing one color made you one dimensional, but focused.
Although it is still kind of like this, why don't developers stay to this theory? Why are they making decks for us? Ever play one of these Innistrad Token decks? Insta-Win that is no fun to play. Every card does EXACTLY what you want and that isn't because we are so smart and built the deck right, it is because Wizards built it for us. Please, someone, make them stop. Get back to simplicity.
My buddy got me into magic a couple months ago. He played the first 5 or 6 years it came out, then sold everything and stopped. When he told me about how different colors worked he told it to me like this... Blue is best for draw and counters, Red
