Im slowly getting into modern and hoping to build as competitive of a deck as I can. Ive been playing control recently and have run into the question of whether targeted discard (thoughtseize/inquisition of kozilek) or early counters (spell snare/mana leak) are better.
Also as a side note is thought seize really better than iok in the current meta for control? With fetches and shock lands that 2 life seems pretty big.
Until the meta settles down, probably discard, there's just so many strategies out there. I think IoK is favored over Thoughtseize as the 2 life matters more in Modern than the 3 mana limitation.
Im slowly getting into modern and hoping to build as competitive of a deck as I can. Ive been playing control recently and have run into the question of whether targeted discard (thoughtseize/inquisition of kozilek) or early counters (spell snare/mana leak) are better.
Also as a side note is thought seize really better than iok in the current meta for control? With fetches and shock lands that 2 life seems pretty big.
Counter and discard function very differently, though the end result is essentially a 1-for-1 of your choice. Discard is a proactive strategy, meaning you decide what is important in your opponent's hand, and disable it. Counter is a reactive strategy, meaning your opponent decides what is important, and you disable it. If you need to choose one over the other, the question is whether you want to play blue or black or both, not so much which is better. The relative strength of the cards themselves favors discard in this format, since our available counter magic is relatively weak.
As for IoK vs Thoughtseize, the majority of the important cards in the meta can be pulled with IoK. There have been numerous debates on this topic. That being said, no discard is as flexible as Thoughtseize. Most discard runs both.
On the main topic, it's not really a choice that needs to be made independently of the type of deck you're playing. In general aggressive decks are better off using discard if they can use it because they can keep the tempo up and not have to sit back on the mana for multiple turns. That said, if your mana base doesn't support it, counters can also do the trick. In general, counters are much better in control decks for a reason, they're slower and more reactive. Decks that try to lay out a threat before turn 7 or so are usually better off using discard if they can support it, provided of course that the discard is actually good enough to be worth using.
As for IoK vs Thoughtseize, the majority of the important cards in the meta can be pulled with IoK. There have been numerous debates on this topic. That being said, no discard is as flexible as Thoughtseize. Most discard runs both.
The majority of the important cards...aside from two cards that make up half of the Splinter Twin combo, Splinter Twin itself and Kiki Jiki. You can ignore that deck at your peril, but I would be very afraid of it and expect to see it at the top tables at any serious Modern event right now. Because of this if I was making a call between the two cards in the current meta I would most definitely bias in favour of Thoughtseize as being able to force the Splinter Twin player to discard the cards you want them to can be very relevant. Sometimes you're just going to want the Pestermite, but if you Inquisition and are looking at a hand with only Kiki Jiki or ST as opposed to Exarch and Pestimite, then you're not going to be happy. Twin players routinely keep hands with only half of the combo and plan to dig for the other half, if you nab that card they were counting on, then you can slow them down a lot.
Splinter Twin isn't a high performing card though and you can still pull counters and cantrips from their hand to neuter their ability to get the combo or deal with your creature removal
Splinter Twin isn't a high performing card though and you can still pull counters and cantrips from their hand to neuter their ability to get the combo or deal with your creature removal
I'll put it this way, if I look at their hand and see a combo piece and search, I'll take the combo piece any day if I have the option. The search represents a possible 1/2 of the combo, the combo piece represents...certainty. In some cases it makes sense to hit the search, if they have two copies of one half of the combo for instance, but if they only have one combo chunk, then I most definitely want to take it and let them do the work of trying to re-find both pieces.
Again, this is going to depend on your meta, but I assume that most of the people interested in Modern are interested because they're playing in PTQs. Splinter Twin is one of the beasts of the current meta. If you want the best chance to take home the blue envelope you'd better have a good game against that deck.
I s'pose you have to balance that against the life loss in the sense that you end up being weaker against the currently popular Red Affinity (you can hit all of Affinity's cards with Inquisition) as well though. So I'd look and see your odds and see which match you want to shore up more. Losing life against Affinity makes it easier for them to burn you out quickly, not having the ability to strip the cards you want from Splinter Twin can be very relevant and weaken that match though, and, personally, I'm more afraid of the instant-win combo currently.
Discard and counter magic generally comes down to what colors you're in honestly.
Discard is the best when you want to play your 3CC spell uncontested on turn 3.
Thoughtseize is way better were discard is good though. Against aggro, you don't really want discard at all as then they start out attritioning you so you wind up boarding them out. Against control and midrange, you want Thoughtseize so much more of the time. Birthing Pod, Twin, Kiki, Gifts, BBE, Wrath, Cryptic, and so much more. These are some of the best cards to hit with discard and they all cost over 3.
Discard is far too unreliable unless you have a deck focused on it and can force multiple discards a turn. It is much more reliable and has a much larger slowing impact to counter as things are played because it means your opponent is using resources. When you force discard it has no impact on resource usage so it could very well have no significant slowing effect.
Again, this does not go for dedicated discard decks.
The majority of the important cards...aside from two cards that make up half of the Splinter Twin combo, Splinter Twin itself and Kiki Jiki. You can ignore that deck at your peril, but I would be very afraid of it and expect to see it at the top tables at any serious Modern event right now. Because of this if I was making a call between the two cards in the current meta I would most definitely bias in favour of Thoughtseize as being able to force the Splinter Twin player to discard the cards you want them to can be very relevant. Sometimes you're just going to want the Pestermite, but if you Inquisition and are looking at a hand with only Kiki Jiki or ST as opposed to Exarch and Pestimite, then you're not going to be happy. Twin players routinely keep hands with only half of the combo and plan to dig for the other half, if you nab that card they were counting on, then you can slow them down a lot.
You can toss Sudden Death in the sideboard if you think that deck's going to be a problem, since you're already in black.
Discard is far too unreliable unless you have a deck focused on it and can force multiple discards a turn. It is much more reliable and has a much larger slowing impact to counter as things are played because it means your opponent is using resources. When you force discard it has no impact on resource usage so it could very well have no significant slowing effect.
Again, this does not go for dedicated discard decks.
Not completely true.
While with counterspells they always "spend the mana", discard can often enough do the same thing.
If your opponent only has one two drop and you take it, the mana on their second turn is as good as spent. Just because they don't tap the lands doesn't mean you aren't effecting their resources.
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I support WotC's goal of shaping Modern in favor of diversity.
I ran a thought experiment on my blog Modern in a Nuclear Wasteland
of an extreme case of banning 20 more cards to make sure they get everything, then scaling back where appropriate. WotC seems to be on a slowly build up approach. Both ways probably reach similar end points.
The post Gatecrash metagame is proving to be closer to the endpoint than I estimated, so its very possible that few (if any) more cards need to be banned.
While with counterspells they always "spend the mana", discard can often enough do the same thing.
That only really happens with dedicated discard decks, which is why I mark them out as the exception. A deck that just puts a few IoK or Thoughtseize in a deck will almost never have the juice to deny them anything good to use their resources on. If you have 4-6 slots to fill in a deck, and you are deciding between discard and counter spells, I say counter spells are much more efficient in that situation.
In playtesting something like Gifts vs Jund, Gifts which only has a handful of slots for discard or counters can very often take jund's only 2 mana play with an inquisition.
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I support WotC's goal of shaping Modern in favor of diversity.
I ran a thought experiment on my blog Modern in a Nuclear Wasteland
of an extreme case of banning 20 more cards to make sure they get everything, then scaling back where appropriate. WotC seems to be on a slowly build up approach. Both ways probably reach similar end points.
The post Gatecrash metagame is proving to be closer to the endpoint than I estimated, so its very possible that few (if any) more cards need to be banned.
In playtesting something like Gifts vs Jund, Gifts which only has a handful of slots for discard or counters can very often take jund's only 2 mana play with an inquisition.
How many discard spells are you running? Because you can do the math on how frequently they will have only one two mana play on turn two, while at the same time you have a discard spell in hand. I'm no statistician but the numbers seem pretty high to me.
Discard is good because it allows you to trade your discard spell for one of the best cards in their hand. A mix of both is probably best because the information you gain from discard makes it easier to know what spells to counter.
depends on the deck although in modern discard is generally as good as or better than counterspells depending on several factors. In my UB decks I tend to run a mix. Instead of running something like spell snare just run IoK and save yourself the trouble. Counterspells that are less situational are fine except they will at times be too slow against the meta. For a control deck atm discard is better against any combo deck, and random tempo decks.
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Discard is good because it allows you to trade your discard spell for one of the best cards in their hand.
So does a counter spell, and it uses up enemy resources. Lets assume that the spell we are talking about removing (one way or the other) is Goyf. If you play IoK on your turn and target Goyf then Goyf goes to the graveyard and on their turn they are free to cast another 2cmc spell. If you, instead, wait for that goyf to be played then counter it they tap their two mana and play it, and in response you send it to the graveyard. The result is the same either way, only in one you might be timewalking your opponent, and in the other they just have to choose a different play.
That does not even consider late game when your opponent has to tap a lot of mana (taking up quite a bit more resources) to play their wincon, while you simply counter that wincon by paying a measly 2 mana.
depends on the deck although in modern discard is generally as good as or better than counterspells depending on several factors. In my UB decks I tend to run a mix. Instead of running something like spell snare just run IoK and save yourself the trouble.
The Devil you say! You would rather run a spell that might hit a target, and then becomes useless in the late game, than a spell that can be played to target exactly what you want to get rid of? How does that make sense. In my experience IoK is great in your first two turns, but after that it rarely takes out anything important, where as Spell Snare might have less likely targets in the mid to late game, it still has some and you can use it tactically. I think people are a little too enamored of casual (as in not dedicated) discard, and are not taking in to account the resources your opponent must commit to cast a spell that you can counter (often for much less than it cost to cast).
The Devil you say! You would rather run a spell that might hit a target, and then becomes useless in the late game, than a spell that can be played to target exactly what you want to get rid of? How does that make sense. In my experience IoK is great in your first two turns, but after that it rarely takes out anything important, where as Spell Snare might have less likely targets in the mid to late game, it still has some and you can use it tactically. I think people are a little too enamored of casual (as in not dedicated) discard, and are not taking in to account the resources your opponent must commit to cast a spell that you can counter (often for much less than it cost to cast).
Modern is about your opening hand. It just is.I would rather have IoK in my starting grip than spell snare.
For example
You can deal with a 2 drop using IoK, but you cant stop twin. You can use a IoK to get delver or other one drops on the play, spell snare can't. What do you even want to counter with spell snare? No dangerous 2cmc spells really exist in modern anymore, and 2cmc creatures are better handled by removal which is not limited to 2cmc.
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I cannot get behind you on that. I think perhaps your sentament about the format is giving you blinders. Legacy is about your opening hand, sure, but modern has much more leeway.
I cannot get behind you on that. I think perhaps your sentament about the format is giving you blinders. Legacy is about your opening hand, sure, but modern has much more leeway.
Legacy control has cards to come back from slow starts and general cards and good cards for that matter. Control in modern is just so weak when you consider that modern is only I turn slower than legacy.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
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Legacy control has cards to come back from slow starts and general cards and good cards for that matter. Control in modern is just so weak when you consider that modern is only I turn slower than legacy.
The Devil you say! You would rather run a spell that might hit a target, and then becomes useless in the late game, than a spell that can be played to target exactly what you want to get rid of? How does that make sense.
I don't agree with this assessment. A counterspell is reactive, which means it does not target exactly what I want to get rid of. A skilled opponent can bait me into wasting my removal on the wrong spell. Discard is proactive, which means I get to pick out exactly what I want to get rid of (IoK/Duress/etc's restrictions notwithstanding).
I don't agree with this assessment. A counterspell is reactive, which means it does not target exactly what I want to get rid of. A skilled opponent can bait me into wasting my removal on the wrong spell. Discard is proactive, which means I get to pick out exactly what I want to get rid of (IoK/Duress/etc's restrictions notwithstanding).
well its not even that. It is that on the draw most counterspells are just too slow matchup depending. Using a mixture of counterspells, discard, and removal is the best way to run a control deck for versatility sake.
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Brainstorm doesn't refill your hand, and Ancestral vision sees very little competitive play in Legacy (now that misstep is banned). Standstill has also been a very meta-dependent card, and is straight up awful against any deck that can regularly drop a threat turn 1, then pass the turn (zoo, team america, gobs, merfolk, canadian thresh, affinity, maverick... just to name a few). Some of the best control strategies in Legacy completely ignore card advantage (Countertop Thopters, Stax, Lands) in favor of more prison-based control strategies anyway.
As for modern card advantage, Modern has cards like Esper Charm, Thirst for Knowledge, Mystical Teachings, Gifts, etc that perform the same function to refill your hand in a slower meta. And I don't want to hear about how any of these are unplayable, because they are all seeing play in decks that are seeing success either in Modern Dailies, PTQ's, or other Modern tournaments.
And saying Modern is 1 turn slower than legacy is a load of bull crap. Just because there are decks that can potentially win a single turn after Legacy decks doesn't mean it's a turn slower. Legacy is so astronomically faster than Modern, you can't even come close to making a statement like it's 1 turn slower.
Legacy has decks that will win turn 1 about 10-15 % of the time if there isn't any disruption. Modern has 1-2 decks that *can* potentially win on turn 3 about 10-15 % of the time if given the perfect draw. This isn't even accounting for other random stuff in Legacy like Wasteland, Stifle, and Daze that basically negate any high CMC card from ever being relevant in the format. Another thing to note, is that the Legacy decks that would win on turn 3 via combos, are playing with maindeck disruption, either via Thoughtseize/Duress, or Force of will, whereas the only Modern combo deck that plays with any legitimate disruption is Twin, in which they're generally a turn 5 combo deck anyway.
I'm not even trying to say control is a powerhouse in modern, because it's not, but it's certainly not bad, and it certainly has it's place in the meta.
Discard is a good option, and as always, it depends on the deck you're playing and the strategies you use it with. As others have stated, Discard effects you negatively in terms of tempo, and also won't stop anything from ever hitting the board. It's also a lot worse after turn 2 than any permission would be. Permission on the other hand, requires you to be reactive, can potentially be played around, and can't hit turn 1 plays. Discard traditionally works better when you can back it up by a clock of some sort. In a pure control deck, what happens frequently when you replace permission effects with too many discard effects, is that you'll win the early game, then stall mid to late game after drawing into extra (and worthless) discard effects. For midrange decks like Jund, discard is perfect since you're putting a pretty intense clock on them, and they're not likely to make it to mid-late game. When you can couple it with extraction effects (primarily in a deck like teachings) it can function as a good way to permanently shut down various decks as well.
Having a mix of both probably isn't a bad idea, but a general rule of thumb is that permission is slightly better in any deck that isn't trying to generate a clock of any type, and the opposite is true of discard.
but a general rule of thumb is that permission is slightly better in any deck that isn't trying to generate a clock of any type, and the opposite is true of discard.
This part just isn't true. This is a bad misconception. Tempo decks have clocks and run counterspells to great effect. I mean look at the counter-slivers decks or fish decks from legacy. Discard is better when opening hands are important and countermagic is expensive(ie modern) Control decks can't really get away with just running cards like spell snare, spells pierce, dispel, ect. Mana leak is the most efficient counter that is also versatile, but on the draw it is possible for your opponent to pretty much have you dead on the board by the time you play your second land. Thus cards like bolt, path, and IoK/duress/thoughtseize are played instead of counterspells(in control decks) because of said efficiency.
It also depends on the control deck too. Decks like teachings for example rely on card advantage more than tempo advantage while decks like bant or uw control are more worried about gaining tempo. Also the argument that IoK is a loss of tempo is kind of a joke because it might be a loss of tempo. IE if your playing against an aggro deck on the draw:
they make a dork turn 1
your turn 1 you iok taking there only 2 drop.
That is a tempo type effect, and is just as good as say spell snare, except what if they only have another i drop, or they have two 3 drops?
Thus comparing a card like IoK to the most efficient control counterspells in the format.(leak and snare)
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Also as a side note is thought seize really better than iok in the current meta for control? With fetches and shock lands that 2 life seems pretty big.
Modern:
UWThe End ForetoldUW
Counter and discard function very differently, though the end result is essentially a 1-for-1 of your choice. Discard is a proactive strategy, meaning you decide what is important in your opponent's hand, and disable it. Counter is a reactive strategy, meaning your opponent decides what is important, and you disable it. If you need to choose one over the other, the question is whether you want to play blue or black or both, not so much which is better. The relative strength of the cards themselves favors discard in this format, since our available counter magic is relatively weak.
As for IoK vs Thoughtseize, the majority of the important cards in the meta can be pulled with IoK. There have been numerous debates on this topic. That being said, no discard is as flexible as Thoughtseize. Most discard runs both.
CG
The majority of the important cards...aside from two cards that make up half of the Splinter Twin combo, Splinter Twin itself and Kiki Jiki. You can ignore that deck at your peril, but I would be very afraid of it and expect to see it at the top tables at any serious Modern event right now. Because of this if I was making a call between the two cards in the current meta I would most definitely bias in favour of Thoughtseize as being able to force the Splinter Twin player to discard the cards you want them to can be very relevant. Sometimes you're just going to want the Pestermite, but if you Inquisition and are looking at a hand with only Kiki Jiki or ST as opposed to Exarch and Pestimite, then you're not going to be happy. Twin players routinely keep hands with only half of the combo and plan to dig for the other half, if you nab that card they were counting on, then you can slow them down a lot.
I'll put it this way, if I look at their hand and see a combo piece and search, I'll take the combo piece any day if I have the option. The search represents a possible 1/2 of the combo, the combo piece represents...certainty. In some cases it makes sense to hit the search, if they have two copies of one half of the combo for instance, but if they only have one combo chunk, then I most definitely want to take it and let them do the work of trying to re-find both pieces.
Again, this is going to depend on your meta, but I assume that most of the people interested in Modern are interested because they're playing in PTQs. Splinter Twin is one of the beasts of the current meta. If you want the best chance to take home the blue envelope you'd better have a good game against that deck.
I s'pose you have to balance that against the life loss in the sense that you end up being weaker against the currently popular Red Affinity (you can hit all of Affinity's cards with Inquisition) as well though. So I'd look and see your odds and see which match you want to shore up more. Losing life against Affinity makes it easier for them to burn you out quickly, not having the ability to strip the cards you want from Splinter Twin can be very relevant and weaken that match though, and, personally, I'm more afraid of the instant-win combo currently.
Discard is the best when you want to play your 3CC spell uncontested on turn 3.
Thoughtseize is way better were discard is good though. Against aggro, you don't really want discard at all as then they start out attritioning you so you wind up boarding them out. Against control and midrange, you want Thoughtseize so much more of the time. Birthing Pod, Twin, Kiki, Gifts, BBE, Wrath, Cryptic, and so much more. These are some of the best cards to hit with discard and they all cost over 3.
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Again, this does not go for dedicated discard decks.
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You can toss Sudden Death in the sideboard if you think that deck's going to be a problem, since you're already in black.
Not completely true.
While with counterspells they always "spend the mana", discard can often enough do the same thing.
If your opponent only has one two drop and you take it, the mana on their second turn is as good as spent. Just because they don't tap the lands doesn't mean you aren't effecting their resources.
I ran a thought experiment on my blog
Modern in a Nuclear Wasteland
of an extreme case of banning 20 more cards to make sure they get everything, then scaling back where appropriate. WotC seems to be on a slowly build up approach. Both ways probably reach similar end points.
The post Gatecrash metagame is proving to be closer to the endpoint than I estimated, so its very possible that few (if any) more cards need to be banned.
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
In playtesting something like Gifts vs Jund, Gifts which only has a handful of slots for discard or counters can very often take jund's only 2 mana play with an inquisition.
I ran a thought experiment on my blog
Modern in a Nuclear Wasteland
of an extreme case of banning 20 more cards to make sure they get everything, then scaling back where appropriate. WotC seems to be on a slowly build up approach. Both ways probably reach similar end points.
The post Gatecrash metagame is proving to be closer to the endpoint than I estimated, so its very possible that few (if any) more cards need to be banned.
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
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That does not even consider late game when your opponent has to tap a lot of mana (taking up quite a bit more resources) to play their wincon, while you simply counter that wincon by paying a measly 2 mana.
The Devil you say! You would rather run a spell that might hit a target, and then becomes useless in the late game, than a spell that can be played to target exactly what you want to get rid of? How does that make sense. In my experience IoK is great in your first two turns, but after that it rarely takes out anything important, where as Spell Snare might have less likely targets in the mid to late game, it still has some and you can use it tactically. I think people are a little too enamored of casual (as in not dedicated) discard, and are not taking in to account the resources your opponent must commit to cast a spell that you can counter (often for much less than it cost to cast).
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Modern is about your opening hand. It just is.I would rather have IoK in my starting grip than spell snare.
For example
You can deal with a 2 drop using IoK, but you cant stop twin. You can use a IoK to get delver or other one drops on the play, spell snare can't. What do you even want to counter with spell snare? No dangerous 2cmc spells really exist in modern anymore, and 2cmc creatures are better handled by removal which is not limited to 2cmc.
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Legacy control has cards to come back from slow starts and general cards and good cards for that matter. Control in modern is just so weak when you consider that modern is only I turn slower than legacy.
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Slipknott is actually right on this. Legacy has Ancestral Vision, Standstill, and Brainstorm to refill its hand. Modern doesn't have anything like this. We just have Dark Confidant.
I don't agree with this assessment. A counterspell is reactive, which means it does not target exactly what I want to get rid of. A skilled opponent can bait me into wasting my removal on the wrong spell. Discard is proactive, which means I get to pick out exactly what I want to get rid of (IoK/Duress/etc's restrictions notwithstanding).
well its not even that. It is that on the draw most counterspells are just too slow matchup depending. Using a mixture of counterspells, discard, and removal is the best way to run a control deck for versatility sake.
Albert Einstein
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Brainstorm doesn't refill your hand, and Ancestral vision sees very little competitive play in Legacy (now that misstep is banned). Standstill has also been a very meta-dependent card, and is straight up awful against any deck that can regularly drop a threat turn 1, then pass the turn (zoo, team america, gobs, merfolk, canadian thresh, affinity, maverick... just to name a few). Some of the best control strategies in Legacy completely ignore card advantage (Countertop Thopters, Stax, Lands) in favor of more prison-based control strategies anyway.
As for modern card advantage, Modern has cards like Esper Charm, Thirst for Knowledge, Mystical Teachings, Gifts, etc that perform the same function to refill your hand in a slower meta. And I don't want to hear about how any of these are unplayable, because they are all seeing play in decks that are seeing success either in Modern Dailies, PTQ's, or other Modern tournaments.
And saying Modern is 1 turn slower than legacy is a load of bull crap. Just because there are decks that can potentially win a single turn after Legacy decks doesn't mean it's a turn slower. Legacy is so astronomically faster than Modern, you can't even come close to making a statement like it's 1 turn slower.
Legacy has decks that will win turn 1 about 10-15 % of the time if there isn't any disruption. Modern has 1-2 decks that *can* potentially win on turn 3 about 10-15 % of the time if given the perfect draw. This isn't even accounting for other random stuff in Legacy like Wasteland, Stifle, and Daze that basically negate any high CMC card from ever being relevant in the format. Another thing to note, is that the Legacy decks that would win on turn 3 via combos, are playing with maindeck disruption, either via Thoughtseize/Duress, or Force of will, whereas the only Modern combo deck that plays with any legitimate disruption is Twin, in which they're generally a turn 5 combo deck anyway.
I'm not even trying to say control is a powerhouse in modern, because it's not, but it's certainly not bad, and it certainly has it's place in the meta.
Discard is a good option, and as always, it depends on the deck you're playing and the strategies you use it with. As others have stated, Discard effects you negatively in terms of tempo, and also won't stop anything from ever hitting the board. It's also a lot worse after turn 2 than any permission would be. Permission on the other hand, requires you to be reactive, can potentially be played around, and can't hit turn 1 plays. Discard traditionally works better when you can back it up by a clock of some sort. In a pure control deck, what happens frequently when you replace permission effects with too many discard effects, is that you'll win the early game, then stall mid to late game after drawing into extra (and worthless) discard effects. For midrange decks like Jund, discard is perfect since you're putting a pretty intense clock on them, and they're not likely to make it to mid-late game. When you can couple it with extraction effects (primarily in a deck like teachings) it can function as a good way to permanently shut down various decks as well.
Having a mix of both probably isn't a bad idea, but a general rule of thumb is that permission is slightly better in any deck that isn't trying to generate a clock of any type, and the opposite is true of discard.
This part just isn't true. This is a bad misconception. Tempo decks have clocks and run counterspells to great effect. I mean look at the counter-slivers decks or fish decks from legacy. Discard is better when opening hands are important and countermagic is expensive(ie modern) Control decks can't really get away with just running cards like spell snare, spells pierce, dispel, ect. Mana leak is the most efficient counter that is also versatile, but on the draw it is possible for your opponent to pretty much have you dead on the board by the time you play your second land. Thus cards like bolt, path, and IoK/duress/thoughtseize are played instead of counterspells(in control decks) because of said efficiency.
It also depends on the control deck too. Decks like teachings for example rely on card advantage more than tempo advantage while decks like bant or uw control are more worried about gaining tempo. Also the argument that IoK is a loss of tempo is kind of a joke because it might be a loss of tempo. IE if your playing against an aggro deck on the draw:
they make a dork turn 1
your turn 1 you iok taking there only 2 drop.
That is a tempo type effect, and is just as good as say spell snare, except what if they only have another i drop, or they have two 3 drops?
Thus comparing a card like IoK to the most efficient control counterspells in the format.(leak and snare)
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