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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 3:21AM
#11
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Date Joined:
Mar 16, 2004
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This is very telling:
Aggro → Midrange → Ramp/Combo → Control/Disruptive Aggro
Note how there's no arrow pointing back towards aggro. I think it's pretty clear from the text of the article that this was meant to be turned into a circular diagram with arrows pointing from C/DA back to Aggro.
And yes, I have to disagree with SadisticMystic's claim that an attacker would never consider it a net positive attack step if any one of their creatures gets blocked.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 3:37AM
#12
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Date Joined:
Feb 23, 2012
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This is disappointing. This is really, really disappointing. As SadisticMystic pointed out above, turning the format into creatures-only DOESN'T encourage creature interaction. It turns it into one of the following:
1. I have the advantage in creatures, so I can attack without fear. If he blocks, I trade favorably; if he tries to race, I win. 2. I do not have the advantage in creatures, so I cannot attack. I'm just going to wait to drop Bomby Mythic Rare and then win. 3. I have a creature with evasion, so I'm going to attack with that and leave everything else back. 4. I am playing a heavy aggro deck like RDW, so blocking does not exist. I am going to attack every turn unless there's a really persuasive reason not to.
As you see, NONE of those involve complex combat calculations. There's no calculated risk in straight-up creature fights. You know that you're going to win or lose, barring combat tricks, which continue to get worse (no Giant Growth, depleting stores of removal, HEXPROOF EVERYWHERE). So you attack when it's advantageous, and don't when it's not. This translates to a lot of racing and stalling, and very little actual interaction.
Another problem is how important it is who goes first when creatures are involved. Here are two examples using mirrors in today's popular decks:
First, RG Aggro. Player 1 lands Huntmaster of the Fells. Player 2 lands Huntmaster of the Fells. Player 1 untaps, draws, plays a land, and passes turn. During Player 2's upkeep, Player 1's Huntmaster flips first and snipes the enemy Huntmaster, putting him in a commanding lead. This is a commonly accepted scenario for this mirror, and one in which the player who is on the play has an immense advantage.
Second, UW Delver. The player who goes second is always on the back foot in many, many ways. He's ALWAYS going to be behind in tempo, barring extreme luck. He can't make calculated decisions to hold back mana for a counterspell, because his opponent will always end up in the lead. His opponent can wait until turn 4 and then hold mana for a Restoration Angel or Mana Leak, knowing he already has the advantage in tempo. Everything goes the way of the player who plays first.
When Control and Combo are involved, it isn't this cut and dry. The cards from the Control player traditionally have more power, because they are answers rather than threats. They are able to neutralize threats for less mana, and will often generate card advantage. This is fine, because the Control player is on the back foot for the whole game until they stabilize and land a finisher like Mahamoti Djinn: nothing more than a big body that's on-color. Combo similarly likes having more cards because it means they have more pieces of the puzzle, although it's also happy going first because then it can get the combo off earlier.
The final issue with this stupid creature metagame is the way it's being implemented: with huge, swingy creatures. A player lands a Titan, and everything's pretty much over. If you look at the best Control decks in the format, they pretty much boil down to: turn 1-3 play a couple of target removal spells and some acceleration, turn 4 play a sweeper, turn 5 or 6 drop a Titan and hope it's enough. These dumb creatures are now HOW you stabilize, not what you do ONCE you've stabilized. The reason that's inappropriate is that it makes the game much more luck-reliant. In a standard Control-Aggro matchup, Aggro just needs to get ONE creature to stick in order to win. It matters much less which creature it is. Similarly, Control needs just ONE removal spell to stabilize. It matters much less which removal spell it is. Now, it's about whether you can get the right creature AND enough land to play it. But once you do play it, the game ends. That's wildly inappropriate, because games suddenly become luck-of-the-draw. How dull. Don't get me started on Delver. Some games, it flips on turn 2 and you have a 7-turn clock starting right off the bat (more like 4 once that Runechanter's Pike gets equipped). Some games, it never flips and it's a vanilla 1/1 in a tempo deck. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I really hope you guys at Wizards realize soon how terrible this is for the metagame. You're turning the game into Sorcery-speed, when all interaction happens at Instant-speed. You're turning it into a topdeckfest. You're turning it into Delver Goldfish, instead of the calculations of Control. It's just sad.
EDIT: Oh, I forgot about Bonfire of the Damned. You know, maybe it isn't a problem with a creature-centric metagame. Maybe it's just that R&D is terrible at making cards these days. That could be it too.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 3:55AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Nov 18, 2003
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This is very telling:
Aggro → Midrange → Ramp/Combo → Control/Disruptive Aggro
Note how there's no arrow pointing back towards aggro. This is very telling when the best deck in the format for the past 4 years have been either Control or Disruptive Aggro decks, with the exception of the one year when there wasn't a single playable card for either of those archetypes. For reference: LOR/ALA: Faeries (Disruptive Aggro, or Control, depending on your definition) ALA/ZEN: Jund ZEN/SOM: Caw-Blade (Control) SOM/ISD: Delver (Disruptive Aggro) So I suppose that's an accurate description of the Standard metagame. It's kind of disappointing that R&D appears to engineer the format to act in that way.
I agree with you in that Aggro vs Control balance has somewhat shifted to favor Control. I think it is a direct result of R&D's decision to make better creatures. All archetypes benefitted from that, but Aggro benefitted somewhat less and Control somewhat more, resulting in that Aggro now can have three 2/2s on turn 2 more consistently, but Control can now have Blade Splicer and Restoration Angel on turns 3 and 4, which stem the bleeding much better than Wrath of God/Day of Judgment it used to rely on.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 4:08AM
#14
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Date Joined:
Aug 30, 2007
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Another article showing that the people behind the game know very little about it. Look at the format that most people woudl say is the best, Modern, why is it good? Because there is aggro, combo and control.
So they've intentionally made the format worse, control is very interactive, it's the most interactive archetype, so it's worth having in the format for sure. What about Combo? How is ramp more interactive than something like Twin was? Answer is that it isn't.
You can't remove two thirds of the game and make it better.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 4:47AM
#15
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Date Joined:
Jun 14, 2006
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Another article showing that the people behind the game know very little about it.
Pretty much.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 5:29AM
#16
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- Jawsome UnCon Prizewinner
Date Joined:
Sep 22, 2003
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Thanks, Zac - it was great to see this written out! I think in a year or two we'll reference this article as much as MaRo's writings about how design goals have changed.
I'm thinking "Disruptive Aggro" = what we formerly called "Aggro/Control".
I agree with the categorization of combo as the deck that tries to do something orthogonal to the game to win - to move the goalposts as it were. I don't necessarily agree with making Combo something that only fits in the ****s in the metagame, though - it seems like if everything's balanced properly, it should be OK for combo to be strong (i.e. a consistent 25% of the metagame all the time) because Control and aggro/control should still be able to keep a lid on it.
I think the trick for making Combo viable is that you can make the parts stronger, but you have to make sure there's not an over the top anti-Control element that the combo decks can play to fend off their natural enemies. For example, Pauper combo might use Gigadrowse to shut down mono-blue control; you probably don't want to have that available in a hypothetical metagame.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 6:09AM
#17
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Date Joined:
Oct 14, 2007
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I love how zac put control on his diagram but never talked about it...
My blog (everyone else is doing it...): http://ideas-abounding.blogspot.com/ "Opinions are immunity to being told you're wrong. Paper, rock, and scissors, they all have their pros and cons." - Relient K DISCLAIMER: I'm not a nice person. MOTL Sale List: http://www.magictraders.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/087367.html#0  Sig by the modest, yet talented, zpikduM.
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 6:42AM
#18
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Date Joined:
Jun 26, 2012
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To barrow a part of a movie quote.
NOT EVEN WOTC KNOWS WHAT THERE DOING!
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 6:49AM
#19
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Date Joined:
Aug 30, 2007
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They don't need to wreck archetypes etc, if they just balanced things out. Replacing combo with ramp seems like a really bad move.
I do wonder if they have just stated this after the fact having seen how much of an error the format is, they then claimed to have made it that may on purpose, since poor intention seems better than ignorance.
Website for my radio series: http://www.cyrusbalesfilms.co.uk/id2.html
For the facebook group of my radio series, search for "Who will save us now?" Please join!
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10 months ago ::
Aug 10, 2012 - 8:56AM
#20
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Date Joined:
Aug 11, 2008
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I...I have no words...*shakes head*
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
I've seen angels fall from blinding heights. But you yourself are nothing so divine. Just next in line.
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