I swear I first read it as Wingbonger...something tells me that "As Long as Wingbonger is paired with another creature, both creatures have weed." wouldn't be as good. Seems solid for limited.
A bit late, but I thought I should add that true control hasn't been Tier 1 in Legacy since old-school Landstill, and for a short while when Misstep was in the format. It's done very well without it in the meantime.
As for efficient card draw, even Standstill is pretty conditional. Then again, you have Brainstorm. Why bother trying to draw extra cards when you can make sure you draw more relevant ones and win through quality?
A bit late, but I thought I should add that true control hasn't been Tier 1 in Legacy since old-school Landstill, and for a short while when Misstep was in the format. It's done very well without it in the meantime.
As for efficient card draw, even Standstill is pretty conditional. Then again, you have Brainstorm. Why bother trying to draw extra cards when you can make sure you draw more relevant ones and win through quality?
Well when you have all the answers in your hand you don't need to worry about finding the right one.
I swear I first read it as Wingbonger...something tells me that "As Long as Wingbonger is paired with another creature, both creatures have weed." wouldn't be as good. Seems solid for limited.
U/B Fea wasnt all that good and yes it was very suicidal.
One thing I notice many have glossed over (unless I missed it in my scanning of the thread) is how todays creatures do so much more. So control variants are running more dudes but its because of the abilities the creature carries with it either etb or ltb. Hate bears ,in my opinion, would be a control variant. Same with tempo. Tempo is a form of control. It depends on the build if its aggro-control or flat out tempo.
I mentioned earlier today that Jund is equally strong because of its spells it plays around the creatures you bring to finish off. Sounds alot like a control deck to me. Maybe not draw-go style, but very controlish. People just seem to be just hung up on a certain type of control not being played in the format, not control itself.
I swear I first read it as Wingbonger...something tells me that "As Long as Wingbonger is paired with another creature, both creatures have weed." wouldn't be as good. Seems solid for limited.
Well maybe we should be thinking about a more creature based control strategy. Granted some would argue that that is exactly what tempo is.
Thats only because creatures do so much more today then they did a few years back when draw go type control was big. They tried the route of making spells do multiple things (command cycle) and they found out how over powered it was. They can balance the effects on a creature.. sometimes :rolleyes:..lol
I dunno I like the Commands. With restrictive mana costs as they are I don't think they're particularly overpowered. I don't think I've ever seen Austere or Incendiary used outside of EDH.
I swear I first read it as Wingbonger...something tells me that "As Long as Wingbonger is paired with another creature, both creatures have weed." wouldn't be as good. Seems solid for limited.
I dont think the new and improved Sorin will see much play outside of Standard. By turn 4 you really need the gae to be in your favor or drawing into something to turn it that way. Sorin takes a couple turns AFTER he resolves to turn the game around. I could be wrong and Ill admit it if I am, but thats just what I have seen in testing.
I dunno I like the Commands. With restrictive mana costs as they are I don't think they're particularly overpowered.
Of course you do,you are a control player who hates creatures..lol
Of course you do, you are a control player who hates creatures..lol
Hahaha hey watch it buddy. I love aggro. Its tons of fun. But sometimes i like some intellectual gameplay, and control fills that roll. Also, Primal Command it very useful for finding big fatties to smash face with
Good point about ratchet bomb though. I think it could be done, albeit not Tier 1. And there are plenty of answers to that. Moving into blue for counters would help, but I digress.
I swear I first read it as Wingbonger...something tells me that "As Long as Wingbonger is paired with another creature, both creatures have weed." wouldn't be as good. Seems solid for limited.
U/B Fea wasnt all that good and yes it was very suicidal.
One thing I notice many have glossed over (unless I missed it in my scanning of the thread) is how todays creatures do so much more. So control variants are running more dudes but its because of the abilities the creature carries with it either etb or ltb. Hate bears ,in my opinion, would be a control variant. Same with tempo. Tempo is a form of control. It depends on the build if its aggro-control or flat out tempo.
I mentioned earlier today that Jund is equally strong because of its spells it plays around the creatures you bring to finish off. Sounds alot like a control deck to me. Maybe not draw-go style, but very controlish. People just seem to be just hung up on a certain type of control not being played in the format, not control itself.
faeries was quite bad. It probably would have been tier 2 because of its ability to snuff out combo. Other than that the deck didn't have any game. It was part of the ban this because people once upon a time hated this deck and it has the color blue stigma attached to it.
As for a control deck with tons of creatures proc exist. It is also pretty meh. I have been messing around with lark decks of all colors, but several of the cards are just way too weak for modern. Bears are kinda bad here.
As for jund I think your looking at it the wrong way. Your asserting a deck the deck interacts thus it must be control. the best way to think is what the deck is trying to do.
Is it proactive or reactive. Sure jund might not be very aggressive as far as getting damage through early, but attacking your opponents resources is just as aggressive as attacking their life total.
I know this argument is going to come up so I will squash it preemptively:
Why are delver decks tempo decks but you consider lark decks control?
Lark decks are made for the long game and grinding it out. They can serve as the beatdown against decks that can't function in this way.(teachings, tron, gifts, ect)
Delver(and tempo in general) is made for aggression as it gets really bad in the late game. Lark is pretty bad early, but gets better in the late game because it relies on card advantage. This is the fundamental difference.
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.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
you might want to read the card. the cage stops Retrace.
faeries was quite bad. It probably would have been tier 2 because of its ability to snuff out combo. Other than that the deck didn't have any game. It was part of the ban this because people once upon a time hated this deck and it has the color blue stigma attached to it.
As for a control deck with tons of creatures proc exist. It is also pretty meh. I have been messing around with lark decks of all colors, but several of the cards are just way too weak for modern. Bears are kinda bad here.
As for jund I think your looking at it the wrong way. Your asserting a deck the deck interacts thus it must be control. the best way to think is what the deck is trying to do.
Is it proactive or reactive. Sure jund might not be very aggressive as far as getting damage through early, but attacking your opponents resources is just as aggressive as attacking their life total.
I know this argument is going to come up so I will squash it preemptively:
Why are delver decks tempo decks buy you consider lark decks control?
Lark decks are made for the long game and grinding it out. They can serve as the beatdown against decks that can't function in this way.(teachings, tron, gifts, ect)
Delver(and tempo in general) is made for aggression as it gets really bad in the late game. Lark is pretty bad early, but gets better in the late game because it relies on card advantage. This is the fundamental difference.
This is the point I've been trying to get across. The difference between tempo and control lies not in what they do, but the order and manner that they do it.
I swear I first read it as Wingbonger...something tells me that "As Long as Wingbonger is paired with another creature, both creatures have weed." wouldn't be as good. Seems solid for limited.
Thats only because creatures do so much more today then they did a few years back when draw go type control was big. They tried the route of making spells do multiple things (command cycle) and they found out how over powered it was. They can balance the effects on a creature.. sometimes :rolleyes:..lol
Its always good to mix it up though. Sometimes powerful effects should be placed on instants/sorcery's (Cryptic Command), and sometimes on creatures (Snapcaster Mage). The pendulum should never sway in one direction for too long.
Its also good to throw a bone to every archetype every now and then:
"engines"
Teachings
Gifts + graveyard goodies
Lark
Haakon + nameless inv
Loam + retrace
Tron mana
academy ruins + artifacts(sometimes)
Anyone have anything to add? I don't think the haakon engine is really viable, but listed it for arguments sake.
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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.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
Probably worse than other engines which also deal with the GY....
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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.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
I think the best engine is a Grixis engine that incorporates Ravings, Gifts and perhaps one Teachings. From that point you can even splash green for Loam and other goodies.
I think the best engine is a Grixis engine that incorporates Ravings, Gifts and perhaps one Teachings. From that point you can even splash green for Loam and other goodies.
I am going to go through every well known control deck in history and breakdown card choices.......see you in about a week.:)
so far my searching has given no relevant information other than all of the control decks in extended for the past couple of years have lived and died by banned cards. I did find that most successful control decks ran 7-8 draw spells. Also I saw how many awesome cards and decks didn't make the cut into modern.(gifts rock, astral slide, ect)
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.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
I think that a 4-5 color Reveillark deck with a Fauna Shaman toolbox and Gifts Ungiven engine could be viable. 7-8 mana dorks and about 30 creatures and it would still be control.
"True control" is for people that want to win at all costs with the lesser variance possible while having more than 50% chances to win against everything. Those don't accept the randomness of the game.
"True control" is for people that want to win at all costs with the lesser variance possible while having more than 50% chances to win against everything. Those don't accept the randomness of the game.
What exactly does this mean? Very unclear.
In your sentence, I could replace "true control" with "combo" or "aggro" and make sentences like:
1. "Combo" is for people that want to win at all costs with the lesser variance possible while having more than 50% chances to win against everything. Those don't accept the randomness of the game.
2. "Aggro" is for people that want to win at all costs with the lesser variance possible while having more than 50% chances to win against everything. Those don't accept the randomness of the game.
And we have generated actual sentences which I can easily imagine somebody using. But what's the use of any of them?
I think the problem is that you're trying to describe a certain player mentality (wants to win at all costs, doesn't want variance, doesn't accept randomness) and it doesn't exactly map onto any one deck archetype, or it can be mapped on to all archetypes.
Obviously, aggro can't win against everything because it gets owned pretty hard against combo.
Combo, (at least historically) can't win against everything because a well placed counterspell (or to a lesser extent, permanent based hate or discard) wrecks them.
I think that a 4-5 color Reveillark deck with a Fauna Shaman toolbox and Gifts Ungiven engine could be viable. 7-8 manage dorks and about 30 creatures and it would still be control.
"True control" is for people that want to win at all costs with the lesser variance possible while having more than 50% chances to win against everything. Those don't accept the randomness of the game.
By chance do you read what you post? While part of control does rely on cutting variance through card draw random control spam hate is really not necessary.
Obviously, aggro can't win against everything because it gets owned pretty hard against combo.
Combo, (at least historically) can't win against everything because a well placed counterspell (or to a lesser extent, permanent based hate or discard) wrecks them.
and control loses to jund, tempo, and affinity decks in modern.........your point?
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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.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
There is so much arguing in this thread that I don't know what to address first. Let me start with this.
I agree with Slipknot about one thing. I do not believe that having a tier 1 control deck would hurt the format.
Let me give you an example from Vintage, which is what I mostly play. Well, when I had people to play against.
I had a classic Vintage control deck. All the top counters, Control Magic (in case something snuck through) power 9, Jace, you name it. The deck was stifling as all hell. It had a 70% win rate.
But it couldn't beat Vintage Goblins consistently. A turn 1 Lackey (if no FoW in hand) was literally game over. Opponent could just drop threats after each successful attack.
Win rate against this deck was under 50%. Turn 1 was usually the deal breaker.
Point is, as good as that control deck was, it wasn't unbeatable. And if we could have gotten a Vintage play group together (good luck with that if you're playing Vintage folks) we would have had a very diverse meta. Oath decks would have been very competitive as well as many other archetypes.
Modern can be the same exact way. Right now, it's not. Control (classic control) just doesn't cut it. I've looked at the "top" control decks. They're meh. I have four modern decks.
Zoo
Affinity
Jund
Elves
I wouldn't make a control deck if you put a gun to my head.
And I am a die hard long time control player who loves blue more than any other color.
But I don't play it in standard and I certainly wouldn't play it in modern.
For one thing, almost nothing can keep up with Affinity other than Jund. And control has no chance against Zoo or even my "crappy" elf deck.
That's a sad commentary on the state of control magic in modern.
Okay, again, I don't feel that having a solid control deck would stagnate this meta.
However, having said that, WotC obviously feels differently.
And that, as they say, is the ball game.
Which is why all of this discussion (including my contribution to this thread) is moot.
So what's the solution?
Given that the ban list and available card pool is out of our control, the solution is to stick to what IS in our control.
What's that?
If you want to play a top tier control deck then figure out a way to make it work. If you can't, and don't want to play modern because you feel the format is boring or whatever, then don't play it. Play something else. Because getting yourself all worked up over something that you have no control of is pointless and counterproductive.
And yes, judging by some of the responses in this thread, there have been quite a few people who have gotten quite worked up over this topic.
Folks...it's just not worth it.
The state of modern (good or bad) is what it is.
You can either deal with it and accept it or, if it's not your cup of tea, move on to something else.
No...I won't be playing a control deck once my LGS starts running modern events.
But that's okay...I still have plenty of other decks to play.
My 2 cents on this subject for whatever they're worth.
from our groups testing, there is no viable GOOD control deck right now. Jund really has been the "control" deck in our testing group as it is the only deck that really has the inevitability that the good control decks have in most formats (ie if they can survive to turn 4/5, they will usually win the game with card advantage).
gifts is bad, teachings is bad, Tron is bad (you aren't LSV, so you won't win anything with it), snapcaster is better in aggro delver builds than it is in control builds.
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Not only that, but I have a feeling Fae would have been pretty suicidal between Bitterblossom, Thoughtseize, and the landbase.
RIP Mike McArtor. The Mothership won't be the same.
Legacy
GG Aggro Elves GG
As for efficient card draw, even Standstill is pretty conditional. Then again, you have Brainstorm. Why bother trying to draw extra cards when you can make sure you draw more relevant ones and win through quality?
Well when you have all the answers in your hand you don't need to worry about finding the right one.
RIP Mike McArtor. The Mothership won't be the same.
Legacy
GG Aggro Elves GG
Going up the UR Counterburn or Burn decks would certainly be suicidal for Fae.
One thing I notice many have glossed over (unless I missed it in my scanning of the thread) is how todays creatures do so much more. So control variants are running more dudes but its because of the abilities the creature carries with it either etb or ltb. Hate bears ,in my opinion, would be a control variant. Same with tempo. Tempo is a form of control. It depends on the build if its aggro-control or flat out tempo.
I mentioned earlier today that Jund is equally strong because of its spells it plays around the creatures you bring to finish off. Sounds alot like a control deck to me. Maybe not draw-go style, but very controlish. People just seem to be just hung up on a certain type of control not being played in the format, not control itself.
Actually, although this isn't entirely relevant, a BW token based strategy using Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Bitterblossom, and Lingering Souls could be very interesting. Vault of the Archangel could counteract the life loss from Bitterblossom and Thoughtseize.
RIP Mike McArtor. The Mothership won't be the same.
Legacy
GG Aggro Elves GG
Thats only because creatures do so much more today then they did a few years back when draw go type control was big. They tried the route of making spells do multiple things (command cycle) and they found out how over powered it was. They can balance the effects on a creature.. sometimes :rolleyes:..lol
RIP Mike McArtor. The Mothership won't be the same.
Legacy
GG Aggro Elves GG
A resolved ratchet bomb wrecks your day.
I dont think the new and improved Sorin will see much play outside of Standard. By turn 4 you really need the gae to be in your favor or drawing into something to turn it that way. Sorin takes a couple turns AFTER he resolves to turn the game around. I could be wrong and Ill admit it if I am, but thats just what I have seen in testing.
Of course you do,you are a control player who hates creatures..lol
Hahaha hey watch it buddy. I love aggro. Its tons of fun. But sometimes i like some intellectual gameplay, and control fills that roll. Also, Primal Command it very useful for finding big fatties to smash face with
Good point about ratchet bomb though. I think it could be done, albeit not Tier 1. And there are plenty of answers to that. Moving into blue for counters would help, but I digress.
RIP Mike McArtor. The Mothership won't be the same.
Legacy
GG Aggro Elves GG
you might want to read the card. the cage stops Retrace.
faeries was quite bad. It probably would have been tier 2 because of its ability to snuff out combo. Other than that the deck didn't have any game. It was part of the ban this because people once upon a time hated this deck and it has the color blue stigma attached to it.
As for a control deck with tons of creatures proc exist. It is also pretty meh. I have been messing around with lark decks of all colors, but several of the cards are just way too weak for modern. Bears are kinda bad here.
As for jund I think your looking at it the wrong way. Your asserting a deck the deck interacts thus it must be control. the best way to think is what the deck is trying to do.
Is it proactive or reactive. Sure jund might not be very aggressive as far as getting damage through early, but attacking your opponents resources is just as aggressive as attacking their life total.
I know this argument is going to come up so I will squash it preemptively:
Why are delver decks tempo decks but you consider lark decks control?
Lark decks are made for the long game and grinding it out. They can serve as the beatdown against decks that can't function in this way.(teachings, tron, gifts, ect)
Delver(and tempo in general) is made for aggression as it gets really bad in the late game. Lark is pretty bad early, but gets better in the late game because it relies on card advantage. This is the fundamental difference.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
This is the point I've been trying to get across. The difference between tempo and control lies not in what they do, but the order and manner that they do it.
RIP Mike McArtor. The Mothership won't be the same.
Legacy
GG Aggro Elves GG
Its always good to mix it up though. Sometimes powerful effects should be placed on instants/sorcery's (Cryptic Command), and sometimes on creatures (Snapcaster Mage). The pendulum should never sway in one direction for too long.
Its also good to throw a bone to every archetype every now and then:
Aggro: Wild Nacatl, Knight of the Reliquary
Control: Snapcaster Mage, Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Combo: Past in Flames, Pyromancer Ascension
That way nobody feels too left out.
UWU/W BlinkUW
BMono-Black ControlB
Commander:
GWUJenaraGWU
BGeth MBCB
RGXenagosRG
WUBSharuumWUB (retired)
Modern:
xAffinityx (starting)
Standard:
Ha! That's a good one.
esper charm
desperate ravings
think twice
gifts ungiven
teachings
"engines"
Teachings
Gifts + graveyard goodies
Lark
Haakon + nameless inv
Loam + retrace
Tron mana
academy ruins + artifacts(sometimes)
Anyone have anything to add? I don't think the haakon engine is really viable, but listed it for arguments sake.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
Probably worse than other engines which also deal with the GY....
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
I am going to go through every well known control deck in history and breakdown card choices.......see you in about a week.:)
so far my searching has given no relevant information other than all of the control decks in extended for the past couple of years have lived and died by banned cards. I did find that most successful control decks ran 7-8 draw spells. Also I saw how many awesome cards and decks didn't make the cut into modern.(gifts rock, astral slide, ect)
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
The Saga of Arkay
What exactly does this mean? Very unclear.
In your sentence, I could replace "true control" with "combo" or "aggro" and make sentences like:
1. "Combo" is for people that want to win at all costs with the lesser variance possible while having more than 50% chances to win against everything. Those don't accept the randomness of the game.
2. "Aggro" is for people that want to win at all costs with the lesser variance possible while having more than 50% chances to win against everything. Those don't accept the randomness of the game.
And we have generated actual sentences which I can easily imagine somebody using. But what's the use of any of them?
I think the problem is that you're trying to describe a certain player mentality (wants to win at all costs, doesn't want variance, doesn't accept randomness) and it doesn't exactly map onto any one deck archetype, or it can be mapped on to all archetypes.
BRG Loam Control (Assault - Loam) BRG
W Mono White Control (Martyr - Proc) W
Combo, (at least historically) can't win against everything because a well placed counterspell (or to a lesser extent, permanent based hate or discard) wrecks them.
That is a rather unique idea...
By chance do you read what you post? While part of control does rely on cutting variance through card draw random control spam hate is really not necessary.
and control loses to jund, tempo, and affinity decks in modern.........your point?
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
I agree with Slipknot about one thing. I do not believe that having a tier 1 control deck would hurt the format.
Let me give you an example from Vintage, which is what I mostly play. Well, when I had people to play against.
I had a classic Vintage control deck. All the top counters, Control Magic (in case something snuck through) power 9, Jace, you name it. The deck was stifling as all hell. It had a 70% win rate.
But it couldn't beat Vintage Goblins consistently. A turn 1 Lackey (if no FoW in hand) was literally game over. Opponent could just drop threats after each successful attack.
Win rate against this deck was under 50%. Turn 1 was usually the deal breaker.
Point is, as good as that control deck was, it wasn't unbeatable. And if we could have gotten a Vintage play group together (good luck with that if you're playing Vintage folks) we would have had a very diverse meta. Oath decks would have been very competitive as well as many other archetypes.
Modern can be the same exact way. Right now, it's not. Control (classic control) just doesn't cut it. I've looked at the "top" control decks. They're meh. I have four modern decks.
Zoo
Affinity
Jund
Elves
I wouldn't make a control deck if you put a gun to my head.
And I am a die hard long time control player who loves blue more than any other color.
But I don't play it in standard and I certainly wouldn't play it in modern.
For one thing, almost nothing can keep up with Affinity other than Jund. And control has no chance against Zoo or even my "crappy" elf deck.
That's a sad commentary on the state of control magic in modern.
Okay, again, I don't feel that having a solid control deck would stagnate this meta.
However, having said that, WotC obviously feels differently.
And that, as they say, is the ball game.
Which is why all of this discussion (including my contribution to this thread) is moot.
So what's the solution?
Given that the ban list and available card pool is out of our control, the solution is to stick to what IS in our control.
What's that?
If you want to play a top tier control deck then figure out a way to make it work. If you can't, and don't want to play modern because you feel the format is boring or whatever, then don't play it. Play something else. Because getting yourself all worked up over something that you have no control of is pointless and counterproductive.
And yes, judging by some of the responses in this thread, there have been quite a few people who have gotten quite worked up over this topic.
Folks...it's just not worth it.
The state of modern (good or bad) is what it is.
You can either deal with it and accept it or, if it's not your cup of tea, move on to something else.
No...I won't be playing a control deck once my LGS starts running modern events.
But that's okay...I still have plenty of other decks to play.
My 2 cents on this subject for whatever they're worth.
gifts is bad, teachings is bad, Tron is bad (you aren't LSV, so you won't win anything with it), snapcaster is better in aggro delver builds than it is in control builds.