I got into competitive Magic around May of last year. I would have liked to play Standard (after it rotated because it was too close to rotation then), but as someone who likes to play combo, I noticed that since Zendikar/Scars (Valakut and Splinter Twin), combo decks in Standard have been a lot less playable. Why is this?
I don't think making combo competitive in Standard is one of Wizards' goals. Sometimes it just happens, sometimes it doesn't, and often WotC doesn't see well-built combo decks coming (EG: Dragonstorm dominating TSP-era Standard for a while because none of the testers at WotC had thought to put Gigadrowse in their Dragonstorm builds... or any Academy or Necropotence build). Combo has been viable in Standard as recently as Pro Tour Gatecrash, where Humanimator put up some decent showings.
WotC has the philosophy that combo decks should be a one trick pony that do well at one tournament and then do all kinds of nothing forevermore. They think standard should be aggro, a little control, and crappy homebrew combo. If you want to see how WotC views combo look at the modern banned list. Some combo enablers and such that shouldn't be on the modern banned list are namely seething song. WotC dislikes combo quite a bit. Storm as a mechanic isn't coming back ever as each time WotC tried it it blew up in their faces due to how powerful the mechanic is.
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It really depends on the sets and how they work together. Innistrad had cards that comboed nice with the RTR defender cards that are combo and still legal btw like galvanic alchemist and axebane gaurdian for infinite mana into increasing confusion or mind grind. as someone else mentioned innistrads strong human tribal lead to Huminator which is combo and quiete fun too. Theros has whip of erebos and the new champion of stray souls and don't forget the black sacrifice a creature do things cycle in m14 and maybe a balustrade spy or 2 on ypur self to fill your graveyard so there is some hope for a black combo reanimator deck though i think monoblack control would be the go to for black right now though if they use a thoughtseize on a creature against you it really helps you
Printing something like Splinter Twin or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker now that just begs to be exploited in a non-interactive, non-fun-for-beginners deck, means they would sell fewer packs. They as a company would make less money. They as individuals would make less salary. Their spouses would be unhappy, and their children unable to attend a competitive college. Their genes would gradually be eliminated from the larger gene pool. Darwin would be sad.
They as a company would make less money. They as individuals would make less salary. Their spouses would be unhappy, and their children unable to attend a competitive college. Their genes would gradually be eliminated from the larger gene pool. Darwin would be sad.
I thought the higher up the education ladder people went the fewer kids they ended up having? If the raging hormones at WotC want to propagate their genetics they need to print more combo enabling cards. This would make both Darwin and Machiavelli happy.
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Wind of Endless Plains 2WWWWW
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Flying, Vigilance, Lifelink
Madness 3WWWWW
If Wind of the Endless Plains' madness cost was paid, destroy all lands and creatures. They can't be regenerated. Wind of Endless Plains gains Defender.
7/7
Waves of the Endless Island 2UUUUU
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Split-second, Non-basic Landwalk, Shroud
Madness 3UUUUU
If Waves of the Endless Island's madness cost was paid, return all permanents to their owner's hands. Waves of the Endless Island gains Defender.
7/7
Confusion of Endless Possibilities 5WUBRG
Legendary Creature - Avatar
When Confusion of Endless Possibilities enters the battlefield, target player skips his or her next turn and your life total becomes 1.
Hexproof, Haunt, Amplify 7
Madness 7WUBRG
If Confusion of Endless Possibilities' madness cost was paid, target player skips his or her next turn. Confusion of Endless Possibilities gains Defender.
7/7
The thing is there is middle ground between "combo as a forced synonym for synergy" and "combo as instant kill." Combo should ideally take some amount of setup and be able to kill you on its own, even if it doesn't come out of nowhere in an "untap, you're dead" sort of way like Eternal formats and even Modern have to an extent. The thing is, deck variety is healthy for the game. Having different playstyles be viable helps make formats better and also attracts more players. Something like Humanimator didn't really drive players away from the game, and it represented something different than the norm.
It's not like prison, which as an archetype actually has existed in Standard fairly recently (even if it was just the awful Possibility Storm/Curse of Exhaustion lock) and tends to be far less fun and interesting to play against. I'd much rather see proper combo exist in Standard than proper Stax.
I don't think making combo competitive in Standard is one of Wizards' goals. Sometimes it just happens, sometimes it doesn't, and often WotC doesn't see well-built combo decks coming (EG: Dragonstorm dominating TSP-era Standard for a while because none of the testers at WotC had thought to put Gigadrowse in their Dragonstorm builds... or any Academy or Necropotence build). Combo has been viable in Standard as recently as Pro Tour Gatecrash, where Humanimator put up some decent showings.
It really depends on the sets and how they work together. Innistrad had cards that comboed nice with the RTR defender cards that are combo and still legal btw like galvanic alchemist and axebane gaurdian for infinite mana into increasing confusion or mind grind. as someone else mentioned innistrads strong human tribal lead to Huminator which is combo and quiete fun too. Theros has whip of erebos and the new champion of stray souls and don't forget the black sacrifice a creature do things cycle in m14 and maybe a balustrade spy or 2 on ypur self to fill your graveyard so there is some hope for a black combo reanimator deck though i think monoblack control would be the go to for black right now though if they use a thoughtseize on a creature against you it really helps you
As I said, competitive combo that is on the same level as the other archetypes.
Printing something like Splinter Twin or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker now that just begs to be exploited in a non-interactive, non-fun-for-beginners deck, means they would sell fewer packs. They as a company would make less money. They as individuals would make less salary. Their spouses would be unhappy, and their children unable to attend a competitive college. Their genes would gradually be eliminated from the larger gene pool. Darwin would be sad.
This is why they don't print combo.
I'm pretty sure that the designers and developers were able to send their kids to competitive colleges before Wizards stopped making Tier 1 combo decks after New Phyrexia.
Because many players like to play with or against said combos. For most of Magic's history, combo was a tier 1 archetype. Now, it isn't. I just don't understand why Wizards would ruin an entire archetype in Standard and make people who love that archetype not want to play in that format. Magic was successful when decks like Splinter Twin, Valakut, Mythic Conscription, and Pyromancer Ascension were very playable. Why change that?
It's simple because Combo is not how the game should be played. A game of Magic represents two Wizards/Planeswalkers battling each other with spells and creatures.
How does Combo fit in there? It doesnt.
I can definitely see why they dont want combo anymore.
It doesnt interact with the opponent so that player is actually playing Solitaire.
It's hard to balance right and unpredictable. Miss something and that combo could basically explode and make for a really unfun Standard for people who dont want to play counter or discard spells.
It goes against what the is actually about like I already said.
These are three good reasons to keep Combo out of Standard. If players want to play it then they have the eternal formats for that which are littered with Combo decks.
Basically, they think that combo feels too unfair and as a result it's unfriendly to new players. Because their focus has been on new players for a long time now, they want to keep things out of standard that aren't new player friendly.
It's a planeswalker battling with spells. It really is that simple.
I mean, I can play a deck with nothing but burn spells, and that's presumably an "acceptable" way to play with no creatures (since it's possible in Standard, even if it's not particularly good), but the moment everything's concentrated into one turn instead of spread out across the game, it becomes "unacceptable," even when the fundamental turn is the same? That's a downright nonsensical notion.
It's a planeswalker battling with spells. It really is that simple.
I mean, I can play a deck with nothing but burn spells, and that's presumably an "acceptable" way to play with no creatures (since it's possible in Standard, even if it's not particularly good), but the moment everything's concentrated into one turn instead of spread out across the game, it becomes "unacceptable," even when the fundamental turn is the same? That's a downright nonsensical notion.
No it's not.
Combo is, for the most part, something that never could be a part of any movie or book, unlike non-combo plays, because it completely breaks any and all immersion into the "planeswalker versus planeswalker" concept.
Infinite mana cannot exist in the Magic universe, for obvious reasons.
The same applies to all infinite combos, and most silly game winning combos, and even revival (based on creatures that actually never died).
How many times the past 20 games you've played have you actually seen armies of summoned creatures interact directly with armies of other summoned creatures?
Summoning more than two creatures most often means a one-sided boardwipe.
In mage-battles in fantasy history, they will, for the most part, kill eachother directly after trading one or two spells each, often engaging in a continous casting.
The exception is, most likely, that one mage summoned a powerful creature.
Magic in general is not good at portraying a melee between mages at one occation.
It's more like two mages living in the same city, conspiring against eachother from day to day over months.
I think creatures are too powerful, and that most spells interacting with the board are too "all or nothing", forcing subtle or not so subtle combos.
I mean:
Most creatures are like spells that read:
Bolt of Lightning 1RR
Bolt of Lightning deals 3 damage to target player unless that player has Bolt of Lightning deal 3 damage to a creature that player controls. If that creature has 2 power, remove Bolt of Lightning from the game.
On your next turn, you may play Bolt of Lightning from the graveyard without paying it's mana cost.
Forcing removal of said cards to be extremely easy and accessible for the game to WORK.
How many times the past 20 games you've played have you actually seen armies of summoned creatures interact directly with armies of other summoned creatures?
Summoning more than two creatures most often means a one-sided boardwipe.
In mage-battles in fantasy history, they will, for the most part, kill eachother directly after trading one or two spells each, often engaging in a continous casting.
The exception is, most likely, that one mage summoned a powerful creature.
Magic in general is not good at portraying a melee between mages at one occation.
It's more like two mages living in the same city, conspiring against eachother from day to day over months.
and why don't they make it less about being generals and more like wizards?
Simple. Profit.
I don't hold that against them.
But this is a deliberate decision in their part. There is nothing stopping them from changing the game to make spells matter more.
Heck, I certainly feel the "wizard" vibe way before New World Order. Don't kid yourself that this can't be done.
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"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
- H. L. Mencken
Playing combo is more flavourful than being a zookeeper, because it's actual spell slinging like, you know, a wizard. Combo is where you outfox your opponent with your counterspells and discard, and then unleash your assault of spells (i.e. storm). It's just as interactive as creature-bash magic (if not more so), it's just that the spells required to interact with it aren't in standard, and aren't appreciated by scrubs who find it unfair. As with anything, if you can't interact with a strategy, you're at least responsible as your opponent for not putting spells that can interact with your opponent into your deck. If you're complaining that your 30 creature deck gets turned into a crater by storm, the only person to blame is yourself.
It's all pretty simple.
A very vocal minority of Magic players are scrubs. They are what you would call poor or unskilled or maybe do not know any better. Many of these scrubs are here posting on this topic and posting regularly on this forum. You can recognise the scrubs when you read what they have to say on any given topic. On the topic of "combos" they repeat the scrub mantra of "unfun" "unfair" and "not how the game is supposed to be played"
You see the scrub, rather than improve their play and get better, instead of puttin a decent sideboard package together, instead of understanding how the rock/scissor/paper flow of strategies works, will just complain vociferously.
And the problem is, WOTC thinks it is the masses that are complaining and restless. And WOTC make these bad decisions.
Time and time again the logical and level headed common sense will be said that all archetypes should be represented, so, you know, more people can play what they want.
If combo is your thing then I'm sure winning with it is very thrilling but sitting across from you waiting 15 minutes for you to win on your combo turn is hardly the most engaging thing for your opponent. As a whole for there flagship format it is better to keep such things out.
In the end combo is like sex. Playing with yourself is good but playing with a friend is soo much better.
If combo is your thing then I'm sure winning with it is very thrilling but sitting across from you waiting 15 minutes for you to win on your combo turn is hardly the most engaging thing for your opponent. As a whole for there flagship format it is better to keep such things out.
In the end combo is like sex. Playing with yourself is good but playing with a friend is soo much better.
More nonsense? Do you know what the word subjective means? Maybe go check that in a dictionary.
I've seen new players awestruck when they have have an almost certain win get swept away by a 10+ piece combo in a turn. very few combos go 15 minutes either. Exaggerate much?
And whats with this misconception of interaction? You can interact with a combo!!!! Conterspells, Instants, Flash creatures, Activated abilities!!! If there is no interaction its your own fault.
How is it interactive if you play creatures and swing turn after turn while I don't cast creatures myself?
As a whole the game is lacking more then just combo. Its being boiled down to "play creatures; turn sideways". The old style control where they had 3-4 creatures and that's it cause you didn't sideboard to deal with it is dead. True Prison decks that locked you harshly if you played no answers is dead. One turn combo cause you didn't play an answer to block them out of it is dead. The irony is most of the answers that would be used can be used against many of them as the same bloody card. Pros did answers yes but they also didn't. But they aren't the ones that matter here.. Its the fnms, the kitchen tables, the coffee table, and floor players. The ones who play at home or locally for fun that just refused to deal with what the meta actually is. So how does one correct such a thing? Easy don't print the enablers anymore. Don't allow those decks to exist anymore. but those views of killing those style of decks became solid when they killed them in modern. The only place these decks exist anymore is Legacy and Vintage. One that is going to implode on itself due to rising costs and keeping players out because of it and the other which already did implode and just got worse when moxes and such 2x/3x the price recently. People want these decks to exist BUT yet they don't. You could have 1,000 people here Say YES I WANT THESE DECKS... but sadly for every 1,000 there will be 100,000 that say NO.
Again it all boils down to Wizards and most lower end players want to "Play creature; turn sideways"
When you think of an epic wizard, having seen countless worlds, having lived for millennia, being able to walk planes and conjure up magic of god-like proportion conjure up memories of his mountain of origin, do you expect him to conjure up a:
If combo is your thing then I'm sure winning with it is very thrilling but sitting across from you waiting 15 minutes for you to win on your combo turn is hardly the most engaging thing for your opponent. As a whole for there flagship format it is better to keep such things out.
In the end combo is like sex. Playing with yourself is good but playing with a friend is soo much better.
More nonsense? Do you know what the word subjective means? Maybe go check that in a dictionary.
I've seen new players awestruck when they have have an almost certain win get swept away by a 10+ piece combo in a turn. very few combos go 15 minutes either. Exaggerate much?
And whats with this misconception of interaction? You can interact with a combo!!!! Conterspells, Instants, Flash creatures, Activated abilities!!! If there is no interaction its your own fault.
How is it interactive if you play creatures and swing turn after turn while I don't cast creatures myself?
I sure do not like your aggressive tone much kid. Have you seen a game of second sunrise combo? They do take forever to go off.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
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Printing something like Splinter Twin or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker now that just begs to be exploited in a non-interactive, non-fun-for-beginners deck, means they would sell fewer packs. They as a company would make less money. They as individuals would make less salary. Their spouses would be unhappy, and their children unable to attend a competitive college. Their genes would gradually be eliminated from the larger gene pool. Darwin would be sad.
This is why they don't print combo.
I thought the higher up the education ladder people went the fewer kids they ended up having? If the raging hormones at WotC want to propagate their genetics they need to print more combo enabling cards. This would make both Darwin and Machiavelli happy.
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Flying, Vigilance, Lifelink
Madness 3WWWWW
If Wind of the Endless Plains' madness cost was paid, destroy all lands and creatures. They can't be regenerated. Wind of Endless Plains gains Defender.
7/7
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Split-second, Non-basic Landwalk, Shroud
Madness 3UUUUU
If Waves of the Endless Island's madness cost was paid, return all permanents to their owner's hands. Waves of the Endless Island gains Defender.
7/7
Legendary Creature - Avatar
When Confusion of Endless Possibilities enters the battlefield, target player skips his or her next turn and your life total becomes 1.
Hexproof, Haunt, Amplify 7
Madness 7WUBRG
If Confusion of Endless Possibilities' madness cost was paid, target player skips his or her next turn. Confusion of Endless Possibilities gains Defender.
7/7
The thing is there is middle ground between "combo as a forced synonym for synergy" and "combo as instant kill." Combo should ideally take some amount of setup and be able to kill you on its own, even if it doesn't come out of nowhere in an "untap, you're dead" sort of way like Eternal formats and even Modern have to an extent. The thing is, deck variety is healthy for the game. Having different playstyles be viable helps make formats better and also attracts more players. Something like Humanimator didn't really drive players away from the game, and it represented something different than the norm.
It's not like prison, which as an archetype actually has existed in Standard fairly recently (even if it was just the awful Possibility Storm/Curse of Exhaustion lock) and tends to be far less fun and interesting to play against. I'd much rather see proper combo exist in Standard than proper Stax.
Correction. Why has Wizards removed traditional combo as seen by the playerbase from
Correction (again). Competitive combos.
My question is, why isn't it one of their goals?
As I said, competitive combo that is on the same level as the other archetypes.
I'm pretty sure that the designers and developers were able to send their kids to competitive colleges before Wizards stopped making Tier 1 combo decks after New Phyrexia.
Because many players like to play with or against said combos. For most of Magic's history, combo was a tier 1 archetype. Now, it isn't. I just don't understand why Wizards would ruin an entire archetype in Standard and make people who love that archetype not want to play in that format. Magic was successful when decks like Splinter Twin, Valakut, Mythic Conscription, and Pyromancer Ascension were very playable. Why change that?
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
How does Combo fit in there? It doesnt.
I can definitely see why they dont want combo anymore.
It doesnt interact with the opponent so that player is actually playing Solitaire.
It's hard to balance right and unpredictable. Miss something and that combo could basically explode and make for a really unfun Standard for people who dont want to play counter or discard spells.
It goes against what the is actually about like I already said.
These are three good reasons to keep Combo out of Standard. If players want to play it then they have the eternal formats for that which are littered with Combo decks.
It's a planeswalker battling with spells. It really is that simple.
I mean, I can play a deck with nothing but burn spells, and that's presumably an "acceptable" way to play with no creatures (since it's possible in Standard, even if it's not particularly good), but the moment everything's concentrated into one turn instead of spread out across the game, it becomes "unacceptable," even when the fundamental turn is the same? That's a downright nonsensical notion.
No it's not.
Combo is, for the most part, something that never could be a part of any movie or book, unlike non-combo plays, because it completely breaks any and all immersion into the "planeswalker versus planeswalker" concept.
Infinite mana cannot exist in the Magic universe, for obvious reasons.
The same applies to all infinite combos, and most silly game winning combos, and even revival (based on creatures that actually never died).
If I wanted that feel I would just play Total War.
- H. L. Mencken
French Duel Commander
WBR Kaalia of the Vast WBR
RUG Maelstrom Wanderer RUG
Summoning more than two creatures most often means a one-sided boardwipe.
In mage-battles in fantasy history, they will, for the most part, kill eachother directly after trading one or two spells each, often engaging in a continous casting.
The exception is, most likely, that one mage summoned a powerful creature.
Magic in general is not good at portraying a melee between mages at one occation.
It's more like two mages living in the same city, conspiring against eachother from day to day over months.
I think creatures are too powerful, and that most spells interacting with the board are too "all or nothing", forcing subtle or not so subtle combos.
I mean:
Most creatures are like spells that read:
Forcing removal of said cards to be extremely easy and accessible for the game to WORK.
and why don't they make it less about being generals and more like wizards?
Simple. Profit.
I don't hold that against them.
But this is a deliberate decision in their part. There is nothing stopping them from changing the game to make spells matter more.
Heck, I certainly feel the "wizard" vibe way before New World Order. Don't kid yourself that this can't be done.
- H. L. Mencken
French Duel Commander
WBR Kaalia of the Vast WBR
RUG Maelstrom Wanderer RUG
A very vocal minority of Magic players are scrubs. They are what you would call poor or unskilled or maybe do not know any better. Many of these scrubs are here posting on this topic and posting regularly on this forum. You can recognise the scrubs when you read what they have to say on any given topic. On the topic of "combos" they repeat the scrub mantra of "unfun" "unfair" and "not how the game is supposed to be played"
You see the scrub, rather than improve their play and get better, instead of puttin a decent sideboard package together, instead of understanding how the rock/scissor/paper flow of strategies works, will just complain vociferously.
And the problem is, WOTC thinks it is the masses that are complaining and restless. And WOTC make these bad decisions.
Time and time again the logical and level headed common sense will be said that all archetypes should be represented, so, you know, more people can play what they want.
In the end combo is like sex. Playing with yourself is good but playing with a friend is soo much better.
More nonsense? Do you know what the word subjective means? Maybe go check that in a dictionary.
I've seen new players awestruck when they have have an almost certain win get swept away by a 10+ piece combo in a turn. very few combos go 15 minutes either. Exaggerate much?
And whats with this misconception of interaction? You can interact with a combo!!!! Conterspells, Instants, Flash creatures, Activated abilities!!! If there is no interaction its your own fault.
How is it interactive if you play creatures and swing turn after turn while I don't cast creatures myself?
Again it all boils down to Wizards and most lower end players want to "Play creature; turn sideways"
When you think of an epic wizard, having seen countless worlds, having lived for millennia, being able to walk planes and conjure up magic of god-like proportion conjure up memories of his mountain of origin, do you expect him to conjure up a:
a) Golbin
or
b) Bold of Primordial Energy
When he thinks of the countless world's he's visited, should he bring into existence a:
a) Big Fox
or
b) Just look at the picture
The way magic is going is LAAAAME. Creatures aren't what you think of when you think of two powerful wizards duking out it.
The fight in my head between a green and red wizard looks like this (look at the pics):
Not
Creatures are just lame.
Also to the guy who says combo has no place in a movie.
Control:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kkyc986lVNM
Agro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFsnLChVvGE
Combo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGCMfprPJoA
Which is the coolest?
I sure do not like your aggressive tone much kid. Have you seen a game of second sunrise combo? They do take forever to go off.