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Apr 9, 2013 -- 1:13AM, Wynzerman wrote:

Now you've really lost me. Mid-range and Ramp as far as I know don't even exist on the same deckbuilding variable  and have little to nothing to do with each other. I'm not sure where New World Order is trying to eliminate any particular archetype or method of playing, since it primarily exists to make the game more accessible and more casualized than it used to be. As in, New World Order is trying to take the game away from Infinite Turn loops, Stasis effects, and convoluted layering glitches, but the groundwork for combo play is still there. But that's mostly because New World Order isn't synonymous with "Zac Hill Magic"- it's a stream-lining and accessibility concept, not a witchhunt for cards that have unintuitive types of play.

You're also suggesting that lategame is a universal point- which makes no sense because an Aggro deck's late game is to deal 20 damage to you over and over again in the most resilient manner possible. A ramp deck's lategame is to drop a spell like Prime Speaker Zegana , Primeval Titan or Regal Force and torrent into infinite resources and threats. And a control deck's lategame might take several more turns, but that doesn't make it the only "late game".  Just playing inevitability doesn't make a control deck, because Ramp decks often get to a point of inevitability  by chaining draw, ramp and threats. Which is why control identifies the type of cards that makeup most of the spells (methods of answer often tied with utility selection or draw), just the same as Ramp identifies that a deck contains several ways to pump out threats or chain threats before they are conventionally castable and Aggro identifies that a deck is loaded with threats and killspells.

Honestly, I think I've lost myself and gotten myself mixed up. I'll see if I can clarify myself.

Midrange and Ramp both play to the midgame (bigger than aggro but smaller than control) which is why they're largely seen as the same group of decks by WotC. If anything, WotC wants more ramp than traditional midrange, because playing big dudes fast makes for a better show than a big value train.
It isn't a matter of eliminating archtypes, but to simplify things to make them easier to understand. The groundwork for combo is there, but WotC doesn't want combo decks to be a major pillar of Magic anymore, because they largely make for boring Magic to play and watch (Kibler's F6 on camera comes to mind, though it was probably my favorite part of that tournament)
"Zac Hill Magic," as you call it, is really just NWO taken to a stupid extreme.

You can argue that any deck has "inevitability" just by playing an unanswered Squire. To explain what I'm trying to tell you about what I mean by lategame and it being a universal point, I'll find and link you that Flores article I mentioned. 

www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/15164_M... This is the original article about Phases I was talking about
www.starcitygames.com/article/23961_Stag...  This is a revist of that article.

Both are worth reading, if you haven't yet.
What I'm trying to get at is that the control archtype plays with the goal of winning in Stage three, where aggro decks aim to win during Stage two. You can argue finer points ("Well if the aggro deck is winning/outracing an opponent, the game has already reached Stage three" Not exactly. A Control deck would still consider that to be Stage two, because it can still dig itself out with a board sweeper) but the bottom line is that an Aggro deck and a Control deck are playing towards different end games (or lack there-of, arguably)

You can't really define an archtype by the cards it plays (talking about the 4-5 major ones, Aggro/Midrange/Control/Tempo aka Aggro-Control(Though you could lump this in midrange)/Combo) because they just don't always use those cards. For example, Bant Control decks today have few spot removal spells and counters, but instead rely on their big derpy dudes like Thragtusk, Resto Angel, and friends to reach an endgame of casting a bunch of Sphinx's Revelations and doing whatever else they decide to do from that point.
The archtypes are defined by their goals, not by their cards. Yes, there are often cards that you would always want in those archtypes (control decks generally always want sweepers to create value and delay the game) but then what do you call a midrange deck with counterspells and sweepers? Prime Speaker Bant is rather definitively a midrange deck, but many have sideboard (or even mainboard) Supreme Verdicts, Syncopates, and Detention Spheres. R/G decks are generally considered aggro decks, but many of them rely on things like a big Gyre Sage, Ghor-Clan Rampager, Wolfir Silverheart or Thundermaw Hellkite to win the game more than their smaller dudes. Does that make them a midrange deck, or an aggro deck?

I think that's what I was trying to get at yesterday, at least.