It seems kinda crazy but I was playing a friend tonight who doesn't run competitively paced decks and we got on the topic of the whole internal clock thing. I mean having combos like scapeshift, pod, tron and storm are fun and all but what if they didn't exist. (I'm merely using these as examples because they are somewhat familiar, not because they are any better than some of the other combos like eggs or twin.) I mean WotC has deemed modern a 4 turn format but I could have one tonight on turn three with my pod deck and turn two with my storm deck, both of which are entirely legal. I mean even with vulnerabilities they present an inevitable outcome with out any real interaction and even if you interact with one piece, its only a matter of time until you pull out another piece. And with such consistency, its really kind of frightening.
So my question I guess is, what would happen if all game ending combos(combos that effectively end the game by themselves) were banned?
Interested in hearing your thoughts...
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
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Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Valakut was banned for a long time. Now WOTC think it is Ok for the format.
Combo decks are ok. Neither is dominating the metagame. Let people play interesting decks.
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This is not how bans/unbans work. Its always the enabler that gets the ban, not the card that is being abused. If you would have Yawgmoths will + whatever cards - it would be Yawgs that would be banned. If you would have Stoneforge and batterskull - it would be stone who would be banned and that is exactly how it works. Furthermore, banning a card in order to unban a different card is a thought process that was and wont be never applied in practical means.
I'm just kinda thinking out loud I guess. I mean if the idea is to make Modern the most diverse format possible it seems like removing clock decks might not be a bad idea. Sure you'd make a lot of people unhappy but you would also open up the game quite a bit.
Note to the mods, this isn't about banning anything. Rather its more of a thought experiment.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Some amount of combo is needed for keeping the format healthy. And Modern doesn't have many pure combo decks (eggs, Valakut), just a lot of supersynergystic decks like Tron or Pod, but they aren't combo per se.
I'm just kinda thinking out loud I guess. I mean if the idea is to make Modern the most diverse format possible it seems like removing clock decks might not be a bad idea.
Isn`t removing all combo decks is making format less diverse?
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This is not how bans/unbans work. Its always the enabler that gets the ban, not the card that is being abused. If you would have Yawgmoths will + whatever cards - it would be Yawgs that would be banned. If you would have Stoneforge and batterskull - it would be stone who would be banned and that is exactly how it works. Furthermore, banning a card in order to unban a different card is a thought process that was and wont be never applied in practical means.
It is impossible to ban every combo. As long as there are magic cards, there are combos. You cannot stop all combos unless you ban pretty much everything. I'd imagine it would need a banned list of around 1,000 of Modern's 7,512 cards (maybe more if we're going to say all Tron decks are combo decks). That's not the point though.
It's not even possible for them to stop turn two combos. I can make bad decks all day that win turn 2. This is possible every other year in Standard even. The key from wizards is making sure decks balance speed and consistency. They've done an okay job of this thus far. I disagree with some moves but I digress.
With this move, do you start by calling anything infinite a combo, then anything arbitrarily large, and then move onto anything synergistic? At some point, Lava Spike starts looking a little too synergistic with Bump in the Night and everything has to go. Eventually people will start registering their Momir Basic decklists as the ban list is stretched to include 7,507 cards.
While obviously I mean this all slightly hyperbolically, this is what the format would degenerate to. I don't play this format to play basic lands. I play Modern to play sweet, sweet Magic: the Gathering.
Clarke's Third Law:
Any sufficiently advanced combo deck is indistinguishable from magic.
The more complicated a combo deck is, the more believable the lies spread about it. Noobs just see a combo deck in action and say "Holy ****, this deck won and I have no idea how or why! It must be the work of the devil! BAN BAN BAN!", and then you get nonsense from them like "it wins on turn 3", "discard/counterspells/grave hate is useless against it", "you need half your sideboard against it". They're full of complaints about a deck that they haven't even bothered to try goldfishing.
Combo separates the noobs from the pros. New players will not know how to deal with it (coincidentally, most combos are weak to counterspells, and noobs HATE playing with or against counters), while experienced ones will have answers in their sideboard.
Well, I don't like to pilot combo decks, it's not my style, but let them be. A lot of people like it, I have no problem with that.
If all combo would be removed from Magic, them Control would run rampant. Everyone would play goodstuff decks filled with removal (like UWR) 'cause the aggro MU would be a walk in the park.
It seems kinda crazy but I was playing a friend tonight who doesn't run competitively paced decks and we got on the topic of the whole internal clock thing. I mean having combos like scapeshift, pod, tron and storm are fun and all but what if they didn't exist. (I'm merely using these as examples because they are somewhat familiar, not because they are any better than some of the other combos like eggs or twin.) I mean WotC has deemed modern a 4 turn format but I could have one tonight on turn three with my pod deck and turn two with my storm deck, both of which are entirely legal. I mean even with vulnerabilities they present an inevitable outcome with out any real interaction and even if you interact with one piece, its only a matter of time until you pull out another piece. And with such consistency, its really kind of frightening.
So my question I guess is, what would happen if all game ending combos(combos that effectively end the game by themselves) were banned?
Interested in hearing your thoughts...
Actually combo is required for a healthy format.
Combo keeps aggro decks honest.
Combo forces control to play broad answers.
Combo helps stifle the absurd midrange decks we have now. Without combo we'd have had 75% jund instead of 40%. Midrange would be the only deck type without combo. Aggro simply doesn't exist because of goyf+bolt and control is bad against DRS + Liliana.
The biggest problem is that engine combo (Storm and eggs) are hated and one got banned. They are the form of combo that keeps the format most honest since they require another axis of interaction instead of creature removal. Scapeshift is another decent one but the twin/kiki combos are much weaker than combos which are able to be interacted with.
What is combo by your definition? Eg. Is playing champion of the parish and a bunch of humans combo? Is using unburial rights to bring a thragtusk back into play combo?
Are you banning cards or are you just making them illegal to use in certain ways?
I believe that Aggro,Combo and Control are needed to keep the format healthy.
Without either one, 1 archtype of the 3 will become too dominant which prob will make the format pretty stale.
Also combo decks are pretty easy to disrupt, spellskites against pump infect, cage against pod, counterflux against storm, tormod's crypt against eggs, torpor orb against splinter etc.
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Seems bad. Combo is a play style some players enjoy. So ignoring those guys is kinda being a jerk. And this is coming from a guy who cant play combo at all. I just don't enjoy it. But some do.
Also, its part of the meta game. By cutting out a chunk of the living breathing thing that is the meta, you dumb it down. You make the game less lively and less diverse. Should you look at the rock paper scissors of magic, and you take away scissors, you have a really unfair game.
I raged my first time against eggs, just went 'woah' first time against Splintertwin. everything else was cool but I didn't care too much really.
New players generally aren't very good deck builders, so it's really hard to interact with some of these decks, thus its frustrating cause you can't hold a candle to it.
I'd suggest you try and help your friend build some better decks
When you can be completely losing a game, and you just topdeck lucksack that one card and bam, infinite combo I win hahaha good game (when generally it wasn't).
Oops I win just makes players pack more dedicated hate, and run cards and colours that they don't want to to stop them from auto-losing to that damned dull deck that just ignores you until it goes infinite. Boring game is boring.
You are just playing with yourself.
I didn't mind storm, working hard to earn yourself a 15+ damage storm count was impressive.
Just going herpderp infinite damage combo because you managed to dump a few things onto a table and your opponent hasn't managed to mull into or draw removal. Yeah. Fun game guys.
So "oops I win".. The one thing that truly grinds my gears.
That's the point of combo....Top decking good cards happens with ANY decent deck. One of the first goals of any good deck builder should be "Would I ever want to top deck this". And it the answer should be yes. I think it's pretty narrow minded to only think combo decks can just say "oops I win". I've seen people go: "Oh wait I drew another thragtusk, I guess you can't kill me" or "Oh hey my thundermaw hellkite, you lose!" That's no different than drawing one of your FOUR pestermites in twin.
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Currently playing: GCasual 8-post R Casual Land Destruction UBRWG Legacy Dredge WGB Modern Melira Pod RUG EDH
It seems kinda crazy but I was playing a friend tonight who doesn't run competitively paced decks and we got on the topic of the whole internal clock thing.
By the measure of the non-competitively paced deck, any combo (or even any decent aggro deck!) is probably going to look too broken and fast. Non-competitive decks just lack the tools needed to stop even the most fragile combos, let alone the tuned and tested ones. Better decks with built-in and sideboarded disruption strategies are much more effective at consistently stopping combos.
I mean WotC has deemed modern a 4 turn format but I could have one tonight on turn three with my pod deck and turn two with my storm deck, both of which are entirely legal.
We can always think of turn 2 and 3 wins in any format, whether casual, Modern, or even Standard. The speed of the combo is not what matters. What matters is whether it is consistent and/or resilient.
Turn 1 Glistener Elf into turn 2 Might of Old Krosa/Assault Strobe is an instant turn 2 win against an opponent...at least one who missed both a creature or removal drop. Turn 2 Wall of Blood into turn 3 Fling can automatically kill an opponent who cracked a shock or fetchland... at least if they didn't cast a single discard spell, already deal you damage, or gain an life (Deathrite Shaman). Turn 1 Faithless Looting into turn 2 Goryo's Vengeance/Griselbrand/Fury of the Horde can also whip out a turn 2 win... at least if you face no graveyard hate, countermagic, or hand disruption on that first turn. And all of those examples rely on either 3+ cards (even Wall/Fling which depends on your opponent losing life independently).
Your examples of the turn 2 storm win and the turn 3 pod win are like all of the examples given above. They are neither consistent nor resilient. They require lots of cards and no resistance from an active opponent with a decent deck. Such combos are not real threats to a format. At best, they are fun gimmicks that can win the occasional FNM. At worst, they are inconsistent piles.
I mean even with vulnerabilities they present an inevitable outcome with out any real interaction and even if you interact with one piece, its only a matter of time until you pull out another piece. And with such consistency, its really kind of frightening.
I agree that this kind of combo you describe, an inevitable and non-interactive one, is dangerous for a format. But I strongly disagree that this kind of combo exists in Modern.
Now, what about those decks not based on creatures? As long as those decks are slow enough to interact with on other levels (turn 4 or later wins), then those decks are also going to be fine. In those first 3-4 turns, depending on whether you are on play or draw, the combo opponent can see a lot of Thoughtseizes and Inquisition of Kozileks, not to mention Mana Leaks, Spell Pierces, and Izzet Charms. Starting in games 2 and 3, you can get the really nasty anti-combo spells, whether Slaughter Games/Extirpate, Nature's Claim, Leyline of the Void/Relic of Progenitus, and a huge range of other combo killers. Sure, combo gets its own sideboarded defense mechanisms, but that means drawing more cards to succeed, and taking a longer time to assemble pieces.
Let's end with a quick talk about Eggs, a deck that has been accused of being the new "Dredge" of our format. It seems noninteractive and unfair; Kibler's hilarious incident at San Diego highlights the Eggs solitaire-style gameplay.
The main reason that Eggs did so well at San Diego was because the graveyard hate of choice was Grafdigger's Cage, a card that doesn't do anything against Eggs. The metagame was unprepared for the unique graveyard-based style of Eggs, and it didn't have the sideboard cards to stop it in games 2 and 3. The combo itself is very fragile. Extirpate or Surgical Extraction on a cracked Lotus Bloom wipes out the deck's positive mana generation. Slaughter Games on any number of targets, including the singleton Pyrite Spellbomb, is also a disaster. Relic of Progenitus or Tormod's Crypt can also ruin Eggs at timely moments. Now that the format knows about Eggs, deckbuilders will be ready for it. It will still be around as a combo deck, but all the tools to stop it are already present.
Let's say your opponent plays cantrips for 3 turns straight, while you assemble a small army. Do you think he's:
1) stupid - "no good deck plays Sleight of Hand", "he kept a hand with nothing but cantrips, what a dumbass", or
2) plotting something?
If you underestimate your opponent, then you really deserve to lose to his combo. I mean, did you really think he was going to let you beat his face in forever, or did he have a wincon that rendered your entire board irrelevant?
Sacrificing life to your opponent's attacks in order to assemble a combo is no different from sacrificing life for your mana base or Bobs. Only the last point counts.
A couple things:
First of all I don't mean to say they should ban all combo decks, read thought experiment.
Second, I don't mean ban all interaction. If you did that, well there wouldn't be much left. Just getting rid of the strong, game ending combos. Things like infinite life or mana or storm. Where you more or less win out of left field.
Third, by more diverse, I don't mean necessarily deck design and type obviously. I'm proposing the willful losing of an entire archtype, diversity in that regard would suffer. What I'm looking for those is the ability to use decks that can't handle the clock.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts.
I mean I play a variety of decks and enjoy them all but some of the combos prevalent in modern are so devastating and consistent there is no reason for variation, outside of being different for different's sake. For example, I threw together a weird storm deck and ran through it 5 times yesterday. Only one time did it completely fail. The other games it went off turns 3, 4, 5 and the other game it would have went 2 if my friend wouldn't have doombladed the weird on turn 2. I know part of magic is having answers but having them so soon with so much hanging in the balance doesn't seem fair.
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Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
That really isn't a good reason. Oops I win cards occur in all styles of magic and deck types. Examples?
1. You have lethal creatures on board, your opponent dies next turn and has no cards in hand. He top decks wrath of god and proceeds to win.
2. You had a counterspell for every creature and threat he played, life gain to offset his early aggro. You stabalized at 3 life and will kill him next turn. He top decks lightning bolt.
You cannot convince me that the loser of the above two examples would be any less frustrated than a player who loses to a top-deck combo.
When you can be completely losing a game, and you just topdeck lucksack that one card and bam, infinite combo I win hahaha good game (when generally it wasn't).
That's not a strict enough definition, there are hundreds of topdecks that can determine the outcome of a game in a variety of different matchups. Bonfire of the Damned? Duress? Thoughtseize? Lightning Bolt? Supreme Verdict? Hundreds of cards that have seen Modern play can be "topdecked for the win." Whether a deck is dedicated to it or not is an arbitrary accusation.
This is exactly the reason Wizards has used the "Turn 4 Rule" as often as necessary so they could to punish violators.
It is impossible to ban every combo. As long as there are magic cards, there are combos. You cannot stop all combos unless you ban pretty much everything. I'd imagine it would need a banned list of around 1,000 of Modern's 7,512 cards (maybe more if we're going to say all Tron decks are combo decks). That's not the point though.
It's not even possible for them to stop turn two combos. I can make bad decks all day that win turn 2. This is possible every other year in Standard even. The key from wizards is making sure decks balance speed and consistency. They've done an okay job of this thus far. I disagree with some moves but I digress.
With this move, do you start by calling anything infinite a combo, then anything arbitrarily large, and then move onto anything synergistic? At some point, Lava Spike starts looking a little too synergistic with Bump in the Night and everything has to go. Eventually people will start registering their Momir Basic decklists as the ban list is stretched to include 7,507 cards.
While obviously I mean this all slightly hyperbolically, this is what the format would degenerate to. I don't play this format to play basic lands. I play Modern to play sweet, sweet Magic: the Gathering.
The above is correct.
Typically, I am anti-combo. I don't usually like playing against it or playing it myself, but that doesn't mean it should disappear completely from any format, and I think that it's realistically unreasonable to try to ban our way out of combo.
What is important is that playing combo should be difficult (but not impossible) and risky (but not foolishly so). That's why wizards has generally gone after generic enablers like ponder and brainstorm, rather than against actual combo pieces.
If a combo deck usually wins turn 4-5, it's risky to play... LOTS of decks can win turn 4-5 if they aren't interacted with, and typically combo doesn't have the deck space to dedicate many cards to removal, countering, or stalling. Yes, there are combo decks that can win turn 3, but in modern I don't think there are any that do it more than 50% of the time. And even then, on the draw they could lose turn 3 to decks like zoo or burn, or even turn 2 to infect.
When combo becomes a problem is when it's too fast and consistent. Belcher in modern would be horrific, because it goes off turn 1 or 2 nearly every game, and there's no force of will to get in the way.
The format already looks incredibly childish banning a ton of fun cards but arbitrarily allowing other powerhouses to exist. It needs less bans to gain diversity and be interesting, more bans will kill the fragile creature.
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So my question I guess is, what would happen if all game ending combos(combos that effectively end the game by themselves) were banned?
Interested in hearing your thoughts...
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I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Combo decks are ok. Neither is dominating the metagame. Let people play interesting decks.
Note to the mods, this isn't about banning anything. Rather its more of a thought experiment.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Isn`t removing all combo decks is making format less diverse?
It's not even possible for them to stop turn two combos. I can make bad decks all day that win turn 2. This is possible every other year in Standard even. The key from wizards is making sure decks balance speed and consistency. They've done an okay job of this thus far. I disagree with some moves but I digress.
With this move, do you start by calling anything infinite a combo, then anything arbitrarily large, and then move onto anything synergistic? At some point, Lava Spike starts looking a little too synergistic with Bump in the Night and everything has to go. Eventually people will start registering their Momir Basic decklists as the ban list is stretched to include 7,507 cards.
While obviously I mean this all slightly hyperbolically, this is what the format would degenerate to. I don't play this format to play basic lands. I play Modern to play sweet, sweet Magic: the Gathering.
L1 Judge
Any sufficiently advanced combo deck is indistinguishable from magic.
The more complicated a combo deck is, the more believable the lies spread about it. Noobs just see a combo deck in action and say "Holy ****, this deck won and I have no idea how or why! It must be the work of the devil! BAN BAN BAN!", and then you get nonsense from them like "it wins on turn 3", "discard/counterspells/grave hate is useless against it", "you need half your sideboard against it". They're full of complaints about a deck that they haven't even bothered to try goldfishing.
Combo separates the noobs from the pros. New players will not know how to deal with it (coincidentally, most combos are weak to counterspells, and noobs HATE playing with or against counters), while experienced ones will have answers in their sideboard.
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Big Johnny.
If all combo would be removed from Magic, them Control would run rampant. Everyone would play goodstuff decks filled with removal (like UWR) 'cause the aggro MU would be a walk in the park.
Actually combo is required for a healthy format.
Combo keeps aggro decks honest.
Combo forces control to play broad answers.
Combo helps stifle the absurd midrange decks we have now. Without combo we'd have had 75% jund instead of 40%. Midrange would be the only deck type without combo. Aggro simply doesn't exist because of goyf+bolt and control is bad against DRS + Liliana.
The biggest problem is that engine combo (Storm and eggs) are hated and one got banned. They are the form of combo that keeps the format most honest since they require another axis of interaction instead of creature removal. Scapeshift is another decent one but the twin/kiki combos are much weaker than combos which are able to be interacted with.
Wizards in relation to modern.
"The bannings will continue until attendance improves."
Not sure if trolling or just very stupid.:fry:
What is combo by your definition? Eg. Is playing champion of the parish and a bunch of humans combo? Is using unburial rights to bring a thragtusk back into play combo?
Are you banning cards or are you just making them illegal to use in certain ways?
Just exactly what are you proposing?
Without either one, 1 archtype of the 3 will become too dominant which prob will make the format pretty stale.
Also combo decks are pretty easy to disrupt, spellskites against pump infect, cage against pod, counterflux against storm, tormod's crypt against eggs, torpor orb against splinter etc.
Modern : Huh?
EDH : UBGW Thrasios / Tymna Combo UBGW // GRW Mayael Big Stuff GRW // GU Edric Timewalkers GU
Also, its part of the meta game. By cutting out a chunk of the living breathing thing that is the meta, you dumb it down. You make the game less lively and less diverse. Should you look at the rock paper scissors of magic, and you take away scissors, you have a really unfair game.
New players generally aren't very good deck builders, so it's really hard to interact with some of these decks, thus its frustrating cause you can't hold a candle to it.
I'd suggest you try and help your friend build some better decks
That's the point of combo....Top decking good cards happens with ANY decent deck. One of the first goals of any good deck builder should be "Would I ever want to top deck this". And it the answer should be yes. I think it's pretty narrow minded to only think combo decks can just say "oops I win". I've seen people go: "Oh wait I drew another thragtusk, I guess you can't kill me" or "Oh hey my thundermaw hellkite, you lose!" That's no different than drawing one of your FOUR pestermites in twin.
Currently playing:
GCasual 8-post
R Casual Land Destruction
UBRWG Legacy Dredge
WGB Modern Melira Pod
RUG EDH
By the measure of the non-competitively paced deck, any combo (or even any decent aggro deck!) is probably going to look too broken and fast. Non-competitive decks just lack the tools needed to stop even the most fragile combos, let alone the tuned and tested ones. Better decks with built-in and sideboarded disruption strategies are much more effective at consistently stopping combos.
We can always think of turn 2 and 3 wins in any format, whether casual, Modern, or even Standard. The speed of the combo is not what matters. What matters is whether it is consistent and/or resilient.
Turn 1 Glistener Elf into turn 2 Might of Old Krosa/Assault Strobe is an instant turn 2 win against an opponent...at least one who missed both a creature or removal drop. Turn 2 Wall of Blood into turn 3 Fling can automatically kill an opponent who cracked a shock or fetchland... at least if they didn't cast a single discard spell, already deal you damage, or gain an life (Deathrite Shaman). Turn 1 Faithless Looting into turn 2 Goryo's Vengeance/Griselbrand/Fury of the Horde can also whip out a turn 2 win... at least if you face no graveyard hate, countermagic, or hand disruption on that first turn. And all of those examples rely on either 3+ cards (even Wall/Fling which depends on your opponent losing life independently).
Your examples of the turn 2 storm win and the turn 3 pod win are like all of the examples given above. They are neither consistent nor resilient. They require lots of cards and no resistance from an active opponent with a decent deck. Such combos are not real threats to a format. At best, they are fun gimmicks that can win the occasional FNM. At worst, they are inconsistent piles.
I agree that this kind of combo you describe, an inevitable and non-interactive one, is dangerous for a format. But I strongly disagree that this kind of combo exists in Modern.
Any combo based on creatures is going to be interactive. Modern has a ton of cost efficient, versatile, and robust removal spells that really mess up creature-based combos. Dismember, Path to Exile, Galvanic Blast, and Lightning Bolt take down the combo for 1 mana. Abrupt Decay and Sudden Death murder pieces even in the face of countermagic (and Sudden Death even circumvent other protection like Spellskite and Apostle's Blessing[/card). And then there is the run-of-the-mill removal that still messes with combo creatures, like Lightning Helix and Tribal Flames. Any deck running these removal/burn spells is going to be well prepared to interact with creature-based combo decks, and that's before sideboarding. Because of this, we really shouldn't worry about creature-based combo.
Now, what about those decks not based on creatures? As long as those decks are slow enough to interact with on other levels (turn 4 or later wins), then those decks are also going to be fine. In those first 3-4 turns, depending on whether you are on play or draw, the combo opponent can see a lot of Thoughtseizes and Inquisition of Kozileks, not to mention Mana Leaks, Spell Pierces, and Izzet Charms. Starting in games 2 and 3, you can get the really nasty anti-combo spells, whether Slaughter Games/Extirpate, Nature's Claim, Leyline of the Void/Relic of Progenitus, and a huge range of other combo killers. Sure, combo gets its own sideboarded defense mechanisms, but that means drawing more cards to succeed, and taking a longer time to assemble pieces.
Let's end with a quick talk about Eggs, a deck that has been accused of being the new "Dredge" of our format. It seems noninteractive and unfair; Kibler's hilarious incident at San Diego highlights the Eggs solitaire-style gameplay.
The main reason that Eggs did so well at San Diego was because the graveyard hate of choice was Grafdigger's Cage, a card that doesn't do anything against Eggs. The metagame was unprepared for the unique graveyard-based style of Eggs, and it didn't have the sideboard cards to stop it in games 2 and 3. The combo itself is very fragile. Extirpate or Surgical Extraction on a cracked Lotus Bloom wipes out the deck's positive mana generation. Slaughter Games on any number of targets, including the singleton Pyrite Spellbomb, is also a disaster. Relic of Progenitus or Tormod's Crypt can also ruin Eggs at timely moments. Now that the format knows about Eggs, deckbuilders will be ready for it. It will still be around as a combo deck, but all the tools to stop it are already present.
1) stupid - "no good deck plays Sleight of Hand", "he kept a hand with nothing but cantrips, what a dumbass", or
2) plotting something?
If you underestimate your opponent, then you really deserve to lose to his combo. I mean, did you really think he was going to let you beat his face in forever, or did he have a wincon that rendered your entire board irrelevant?
Sacrificing life to your opponent's attacks in order to assemble a combo is no different from sacrificing life for your mana base or Bobs. Only the last point counts.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
First of all I don't mean to say they should ban all combo decks, read thought experiment.
Second, I don't mean ban all interaction. If you did that, well there wouldn't be much left. Just getting rid of the strong, game ending combos. Things like infinite life or mana or storm. Where you more or less win out of left field.
Third, by more diverse, I don't mean necessarily deck design and type obviously. I'm proposing the willful losing of an entire archtype, diversity in that regard would suffer. What I'm looking for those is the ability to use decks that can't handle the clock.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts.
I mean I play a variety of decks and enjoy them all but some of the combos prevalent in modern are so devastating and consistent there is no reason for variation, outside of being different for different's sake. For example, I threw together a weird storm deck and ran through it 5 times yesterday. Only one time did it completely fail. The other games it went off turns 3, 4, 5 and the other game it would have went 2 if my friend wouldn't have doombladed the weird on turn 2. I know part of magic is having answers but having them so soon with so much hanging in the balance doesn't seem fair.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Combo is fine as long as nonblue/black players can interact, aka creature based combo.
That, or spell based combo but slower than turn 4.
That really isn't a good reason. Oops I win cards occur in all styles of magic and deck types. Examples?
1. You have lethal creatures on board, your opponent dies next turn and has no cards in hand. He top decks wrath of god and proceeds to win.
2. You had a counterspell for every creature and threat he played, life gain to offset his early aggro. You stabalized at 3 life and will kill him next turn. He top decks lightning bolt.
You cannot convince me that the loser of the above two examples would be any less frustrated than a player who loses to a top-deck combo.
Obviously they were working towards winning. Just because you perceive it differently doesn't make it true.
That's not a strict enough definition, there are hundreds of topdecks that can determine the outcome of a game in a variety of different matchups. Bonfire of the Damned? Duress? Thoughtseize? Lightning Bolt? Supreme Verdict? Hundreds of cards that have seen Modern play can be "topdecked for the win." Whether a deck is dedicated to it or not is an arbitrary accusation.
This is exactly the reason Wizards has used the "Turn 4 Rule" as often as necessary so they could to punish violators.
The above is correct.
Typically, I am anti-combo. I don't usually like playing against it or playing it myself, but that doesn't mean it should disappear completely from any format, and I think that it's realistically unreasonable to try to ban our way out of combo.
What is important is that playing combo should be difficult (but not impossible) and risky (but not foolishly so). That's why wizards has generally gone after generic enablers like ponder and brainstorm, rather than against actual combo pieces.
If a combo deck usually wins turn 4-5, it's risky to play... LOTS of decks can win turn 4-5 if they aren't interacted with, and typically combo doesn't have the deck space to dedicate many cards to removal, countering, or stalling. Yes, there are combo decks that can win turn 3, but in modern I don't think there are any that do it more than 50% of the time. And even then, on the draw they could lose turn 3 to decks like zoo or burn, or even turn 2 to infect.
When combo becomes a problem is when it's too fast and consistent. Belcher in modern would be horrific, because it goes off turn 1 or 2 nearly every game, and there's no force of will to get in the way.