Hey guys. Yesterday, I stumbled upon this article: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/pvs-playhouse-hard-decks/. It was interesting, outlining the easiest and hardest decks in certain formats, including modern, but it's rather outdated, including stuff like pod and not having some of the current top decks. So what do you guys think the current easiest-hardest decks would be? Based off my somewhat limited knowledge, I would probably rank them like this:
Burn (very linear and straightfoward)
Bogles (same as burn, but you have to be decent at math and know what auras to play when against certain decks)
Abzan Liege (a simple beatdown deck. but it does have some interaction...)
RG Tron (okay so I have no experience with this one, but it seems pretty easy -- just ramp into threats and win. but I'm just guessing...)
Infect (again, don't have a whole lot of knowledge about this one, but it seems like a somewhat tricky linear deck -- you need to figure out when your opponent has removal or not and how much you can extend)
Junk (generally where "good stuff" decks would go, you can often get away with mistakes because cards like goyf are big stupid beaters but you want to definitively adapt to the interactive play)
Affinity (not terribly hard to pilot at first, but hard to master. you need to practice a bunch due to the many lines of play you can take)
Grixis Delver (arguably the most interactive deck in modern, you have to know when to play creatures, what to let resolve, when to use removal, etc. it's headache inducing)
Tempo Twin (like delver but you have to know when to combo as well. very tricky)
Amulet Bloom (was there any doubt about this one? supposedly the deck in modern but doesn't see that much play due to how tricky it is to pilot!)
Are we saying only popular decks that have proven themselves? Because otherwise things like Fateseal/Lantern of Insight is up there. Green's Sun's Zenith is up there.
I find that generally if you play a 'solitaire' deck like Bloom Titan you can learn the ins-and-outs of it on your own while maybe only missing maybe two or three interactions. In a tournament you could loose because you didn't know some line of play, but you could probably get by by playing the same thing over and over.
Now decks like Affinity (Possibly the hardest to pilot optimally in Modern) and Junk Company which have 20 different lines of play at any given time are punishing to play. This is because if you sac at the wrong time--or don't, or don't chump for example can all add up and snowball very fast. They are decks that require very tight play and reward knowledge of the format.
I was at a PPTQ with about 6 others there playing Junk Company. It seemed like the hot new deck for all of them but after talking to them there were tons of things that they missed in the deck just because they netdecked it. One guy didn't know how Melira and Inkmoth Nexus worked. One guy I saw missed the fact that he actually had a combo assembled on the board and lost the next turn. These kind of small things really dd up over the course of a tournament and can be the fact that you don't make top 8 etc...
My point is that every deck is hard to play in it's own right. Think of an iceberg in terms of skill. Some harder than others, and some are deceptively hard to play.
I don't think any deck is easy to play at a competitive level. In fact, I think their all hard.
Affinity is the mathmatical deck of modern, I'd say. Probably my choice for hardest.
Amulet Bloom is hard to learn, but once you've masted a handful (perhaps ~12?) basic lines of play, it's a pretty repetitive deck. I don't consider it especially hard to play, like most combo decks, for that reason. Once you've got it, you've pretty much got it.
really modern does not have any hard to play decks most modern players tend to be newer to magic so they don't make there own decks.
Legacy has some of the most hard to play decks in the game ex. Four Hoursman and so on. i do not think any of the decks in modern can even be considered hard to play when compared to legacy decks were a turn 2 kills happen.
but in my opinion the hardest to play deck in modern is going to have to be bloom titian
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[center][color=Blue]
U/R Delver
Edric Spy and die
Azami the lady of the draw
Naya Zoo
Past decks
Orloro
sharuum the hegemond
Mono black control
splinter twin
Four Horseman isn't hard, it's just annoying. You keep bashing at the combo until you win.
If you want hard in Legacy, look at Fetchland Doomsday Tendrils.
Against a really good player, I think the hardest deck in Modern is Affinity. Affinity has so many branching lines of play that in a given situation, there are 10 possible lines you could take. Against a medium-level player, you can usually go with one of the top 3 of those lines and still win. But at the top level of the game? You need to see, and pick, the absolute best line of play in a given situation if you want to win.
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
IMHO what makes a deck hard to play has to do with how punishing a poor decision is. For example, if I'm on burn and cast lavamancer instead of lightning bolt, what is the downside? It's a relatively small issue. If I make a bad decision playing bloom or storm or eggs that might be game.
It's hard to say. I can't win crap with aggro builds like zoo or affinity, I do much better with tempo and control decks. Well we know affinity is the most consistently good aggro deck all the time, so it's not the cards, but that's a hard deck for me and I'd rather be running delver or jeskai control.
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Modern UB Tezzerator UBW Gifts B 8Rack
Legacy RB Goblins
Also I like how everyone is mentioning Affinity. It's basically an idiot test to ask someone what the hardest deck is to play. Most think Affinity is only piloted by monkeys.
Also honorable mention for the Merfolk mirror match.
Also I like how everyone is mentioning Affinity. It's basically an idiot test to ask someone what the hardest deck is to play. Most think Affinity is only piloted by monkeys.
Are you saying that people fail the "idiot test" if they think Affinity is easy (i.e. Affinity is actually not a hard deck)? Or that they fail it if they think it's hard (i.e. Affinity is actually really easy)? I couldn't tell based on the way I read your comment.
On Amulet Bloom, I don't think the deck is that hard to play. I definitely think there is a perception that Amulet Bloom is very hard to play, which discourages a lot of players from trying (probably encourages others, but they are in the minority). It's a puzzle deck with lots of interactions, but it also has an oops-I-win factor that gives it a lot of raw power, regardless of how good or bad its pilot is. Players also don't often know how to play against the deck, which leads to all sorts of misplays an Amulet player can take advantage of.
Also I like how everyone is mentioning Affinity. It's basically an idiot test to ask someone what the hardest deck is to play. Most think Affinity is only piloted by monkeys.
Are you saying that people fail the "idiot test" if they think Affinity is easy (i.e. Affinity is actually not a hard deck)? Or that they fail it if they think it's hard (i.e. Affinity is actually really easy)? I couldn't tell based on the way I read your comment.
On Amulet Bloom, I don't think the deck is that hard to play. I definitely think there is a perception that Amulet Bloom is very hard to play, which discourages a lot of players from trying (probably encourages others, but they are in the minority). It's a puzzle deck with lots of interactions, but it also has an oops-I-win factor that gives it a lot of raw power, regardless of how good or bad its pilot is. Players also don't often know how to play against the deck, which leads to all sorts of misplays an Amulet player can take advantage of.
I meant it as I find a lot of people think Affinity is extremely easy to play [optimally]. You just dump your hand and turn things sideways every turn. They failing if they judge it as easy before they play it. People who tend to have more experience in the format will often rank it as once of the hardest to play [optimally] and be able to explain why/understand that it has a larger decision tree than other decks.
I mentioned affinity, but not whether it was hard or easy, just that I play it like junk. Frankly the combat math with it is frequently the reason I fail with it.
One deck that hasn't been mentioned is Glitterstorm. Not only do you have to trust the ascendancy and cantrips to find you wish, then you have to tutor up the right answer. No, it's not the most resilient deck, the best performing, or any sort of tier, but it does force good decisions and makes you show faith.
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Modern UB Tezzerator UBW Gifts B 8Rack
Legacy RB Goblins
Affinity and Burn are easy decks to learn, but extremely hard decks to master.
Burn allows zero mistakes and forces you to make prospective assestments of board state and draw probabilities two turns in advance. Affinity can lose unlosable games by activating a moth when they shouldn't have, or eating the wrong artifact with Ravager.
Bloom is mostly luck, goldfishing and bluffing, when you win, you win period. When you lose, there was notthing you could've done about it.
'I'm condescending and smarter than you because of the deck I play' because I play X.
/thread.
Yeah, this thread probably won't really produce an answer. I suppose the critical difficult part in playing a deck is mulliganing and sideboarding, and this will be equally difficult for most decks I think.
This.
There is something to be said about 'types of hard' too however. Still not interested in answering the question, but am interested in why people may actually pick what they think is an answer.
For one, I could see a lot of people picking xyz bad deck. I think Gifts is a really hard deck to master and do well with. Its because its simply just not good enough most of the time. You have to draw really well, not draw some specific things AND THEN not mess it up yourself. Some decks don't give you anything close to free wins, and this is one. Sometimes you just burn people out before they draw hate, sometimes you thoughtseize goyf and ride it victory, sometimes you titan turn 2 and they topdeck that abrupt decay as their only removal--some decks never have these options, and thus are harder, but also probably not tier 1.
Hard to master doesn't mean hard to play though. I submit that burn is the most popular entry deck to eternal formats, both for skill and price. A person with a modicum of magic skill can compete with burn. To me that means, while it may be difficult to master, isn't particularly hard to play well. It's not like running faeries where tempo, timing, and spell selection are all factors where a bad choice is punishing. Burn loses because decks have to hate it out. Even then if I can't find my kor firewalker in time I'm just dead.
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Modern UB Tezzerator UBW Gifts B 8Rack
Legacy RB Goblins
'I'm condescending and smarter than you because of the deck I play' because I play X.
/thread.
I've played RW Burn, Jund, UR Storm, Junk, and Little Kid. I've never touched Affinity. And I think it's the hardest deck to play.
I don't think people in this thread have been more condescending than in any other, honestly.
Oddly enough, not yet. Maybe I've warded them off, but this thread topic is ages old and always turns into the same thing. I'm also not an aggro player, I couldn't touch burn or affinity myself either.
Hatebears is fairly easy to play. Making sure that you and your opponent are both aware of all the taxes and static abilities on the field is the hardest part.
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GW Hatebears more like HateBROS BWR THE ARISTAHCRATZ!
'I'm condescending and smarter than you because of the deck I play' because I play X.
/thread.
I've played RW Burn, Jund, UR Storm, Junk, and Little Kid. I've never touched Affinity. And I think it's the hardest deck to play.
I don't think people in this thread have been more condescending than in any other, honestly.
Oddly enough, not yet. Maybe I've warded them off, but this thread topic is ages old and always turns into the same thing. I'm also not an aggro player, I couldn't touch burn or affinity myself either.
I've been here since the formats creation and have only ever played RG Tron, 5 colour control, Pod, and CC. Never touched an Affinity deck but it (from my perspective of the format) looks to be the most thought provoking with the most lines of play. Really no one has told anyone off, it has only been peoples opinions (and my one joke about Affinity that wasn't directed at anyone).
'I'm condescending and smarter than you because of the deck I play' because I play X.
/thread.
Well I guess I'm condescending because I play Amulet Bloom and I think it is the hardest deck in the format to play at 100% for an entire tournament. It is part of the reason I play the deck because I like to be challenged with the deck I am playing.
Oh and I have played UWR control/midrange, GW hatebears, Affinity, BW tokens, 4C gifts, UR Delver and Goryo's Breach in the past 3 years in Modern, so I have a bit to compare it to.
I'm biased but I would say that Faeries is one of the hardest decks to play with because: its a deck where every interaction matters, your life needs to be managed carefully, and the decision between going on the offensive/defensive decides games.
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On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
'I'm condescending and smarter than you because of the deck I play' because I play X.
/thread.
So you expect comments in the vein of "Aggro is easy. Just turn them sideways" or "Control is the hardest. It takes so much skill".
That's fair. They always seem to crop up when talking about stuff like this and the elitism of certain groups a commonly known thing.
My personal answer is just that every deck that not only has to take itself but also the opponent into account is harder. Decks with reactive elements(I count discard in this too) require that you know what the opponent is actually on, what his deck can do, what the important pieces are, what needs to be answered right away and what not, etc.
That is knowledge that you can't get by just goldfishing and practicing lines and playing the deck for yourself for a while. You have to inform yourself about the other decks, keep up with the meta and just play and probably also lose for a while until you have figured everything out.
I think PVs article said something in the same vein too. Answer decks require format knowledge and that's why these type of deck are probably not the best idea for newer players unless they have no problem with taking the losses because they didn't know for example what Ad Nauseam is trying to do and what the important cards are.
'I'm condescending and smarter than you because of the deck I play' because I play X.
/thread.
So you expect comments in the vein of "Aggro is easy. Just turn them sideways" or "Control is the hardest. It takes so much skill".
That's fair. They always seem to crop up when talking about stuff like this and the elitism of certain groups a commonly known thing.
My personal answer is just that every deck that not only has to take itself but also the opponent into account is harder. Decks with reactive elements(I count discard in this too) require that you know what the opponent is actually on, what his deck can do, what the important pieces are, what needs to be answered right away and what not, etc.
That is knowledge that you can't get by just goldfishing and practicing lines and playing the deck for yourself for a while. You have to inform yourself about the other decks, keep up with the meta and just play and probably also lose for a while until you have figured everything out.
I think PVs article said something in the same vein too. Answer decks require format knowledge and that's why these type of deck are probably not the best idea for newer players unless they have no problem with taking the losses because they didn't know for example what Ad Nauseam is trying to do and what the important cards are.
This reference is going to sound weird but here me out. I see decks like fighting game characters in that there are ones that are easier than others. For example in Street fighter 4 series Gen is regarded as one of the hardest fighters to play as due to his execution (combos, stances, etc.) being very difficult to manage. Compared to Ryu who is a very easy character to understand on a fundamental level. (throws fireballs to keep away and use strong buttons to poke with). Even though Gen is a harder character to play as, that does not mean that learning Ryu is easy. Ryu, just like every street fighter character, has to learn matchups, combos, metagame, what to do in certain situations, etc. Just like decks in magic, each character requires understanding both what the character can do and what others can do as well.
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On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
'I'm condescending and smarter than you because of the deck I play' because I play X.
/thread.
So you expect comments in the vein of "Aggro is easy. Just turn them sideways" or "Control is the hardest. It takes so much skill".
That's fair. They always seem to crop up when talking about stuff like this and the elitism of certain groups a commonly known thing.
My personal answer is just that every deck that not only has to take itself but also the opponent into account is harder. Decks with reactive elements(I count discard in this too) require that you know what the opponent is actually on, what his deck can do, what the important pieces are, what needs to be answered right away and what not, etc.
That is knowledge that you can't get by just goldfishing and practicing lines and playing the deck for yourself for a while. You have to inform yourself about the other decks, keep up with the meta and just play and probably also lose for a while until you have figured everything out.
I think PVs article said something in the same vein too. Answer decks require format knowledge and that's why these type of deck are probably not the best idea for newer players unless they have no problem with taking the losses because they didn't know for example what Ad Nauseam is trying to do and what the important cards are.
This reference is going to sound weird but here me out. I see decks like fighting game characters in that there are ones that are easier than others. For example in Street fighter 4 series Gen is regarded as one of the hardest fighters to play as due to his execution (combos, stances, etc.) being very difficult to manage. Compared to Ryu who is a very easy character to understand on a fundamental level. (throws fireballs to keep away and use strong buttons to poke with). Even though Gen is a harder character to play as, that does not mean that learning Ryu is easy. Ryu, just like every street fighter character, has to learn matchups, combos, metagame, what to do in certain situations, etc. Just like decks in magic, each character requires understanding both what the character can do and what others can do as well.
That comparison has one problem though.
The only avenue to win the game in Street Fighter is by attacking the opposing character and reduce his life total that way. In Magic that is not the case and that is what leads to decks that simply don't care about the opponent.
Take the infamous Storm deck for example. Does it really matter that you know what your opponent can do? Not really.
If your opponent plays a turn 2 Eidolon of the Great Revel then it is so.
If your opponent blows up your Pyromancer Ascension then it is so.
If your opponent plays a turn 2 Primeval Titan with haste then it is so.
It doesn't matter that you know about this stuff because you cannot even doing anything about it in the first place.
This is not a knock against Storm or hard or easy it is to play. Just saying that there are definitely ways to build decks that don't require you to know what the opponent is up to.
Akuma was by the way always my favorite Street Fighter character. Must be something about me and dark characters...
Can I get in? If yes, I win (usually with moves that take out 25-50% of your health bar in one hit - OMG CHEAP!!!).
Can you keep me away? If yes, you win.
Burn (very linear and straightfoward)
Bogles (same as burn, but you have to be decent at math and know what auras to play when against certain decks)
Abzan Liege (a simple beatdown deck. but it does have some interaction...)
RG Tron (okay so I have no experience with this one, but it seems pretty easy -- just ramp into threats and win. but I'm just guessing...)
Infect (again, don't have a whole lot of knowledge about this one, but it seems like a somewhat tricky linear deck -- you need to figure out when your opponent has removal or not and how much you can extend)
Junk (generally where "good stuff" decks would go, you can often get away with mistakes because cards like goyf are big stupid beaters but you want to definitively adapt to the interactive play)
Affinity (not terribly hard to pilot at first, but hard to master. you need to practice a bunch due to the many lines of play you can take)
Grixis Delver (arguably the most interactive deck in modern, you have to know when to play creatures, what to let resolve, when to use removal, etc. it's headache inducing)
Tempo Twin (like delver but you have to know when to combo as well. very tricky)
Amulet Bloom (was there any doubt about this one? supposedly the deck in modern but doesn't see that much play due to how tricky it is to pilot!)
Modern
UBR Grixis Control
U Merfolk
Pauper
U Mono U Delver
Ancestral Visions is freed
I find that generally if you play a 'solitaire' deck like Bloom Titan you can learn the ins-and-outs of it on your own while maybe only missing maybe two or three interactions. In a tournament you could loose because you didn't know some line of play, but you could probably get by by playing the same thing over and over.
Now decks like Affinity (Possibly the hardest to pilot optimally in Modern) and Junk Company which have 20 different lines of play at any given time are punishing to play. This is because if you sac at the wrong time--or don't, or don't chump for example can all add up and snowball very fast. They are decks that require very tight play and reward knowledge of the format.
I was at a PPTQ with about 6 others there playing Junk Company. It seemed like the hot new deck for all of them but after talking to them there were tons of things that they missed in the deck just because they netdecked it. One guy didn't know how Melira and Inkmoth Nexus worked. One guy I saw missed the fact that he actually had a combo assembled on the board and lost the next turn. These kind of small things really dd up over the course of a tournament and can be the fact that you don't make top 8 etc...
My point is that every deck is hard to play in it's own right. Think of an iceberg in terms of skill. Some harder than others, and some are deceptively hard to play.
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
Affinity is the mathmatical deck of modern, I'd say. Probably my choice for hardest.
Amulet Bloom is hard to learn, but once you've masted a handful (perhaps ~12?) basic lines of play, it's a pretty repetitive deck. I don't consider it especially hard to play, like most combo decks, for that reason. Once you've got it, you've pretty much got it.
Modern - GB Elves, UW Ojutai Control
Legacy - BWG Junk Stoneblade
Gay and Proud
#MakeAmericaGreatAgain
Legacy has some of the most hard to play decks in the game ex. Four Hoursman and so on. i do not think any of the decks in modern can even be considered hard to play when compared to legacy decks were a turn 2 kills happen.
but in my opinion the hardest to play deck in modern is going to have to be bloom titian
[center][color=Blue]
Edric Spy and die
Azami the lady of the draw
Naya Zoo
Past decks
Orloro
sharuum the hegemond
Mono black control
splinter twin
>Four Horseman
Pick one.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
If you want hard in Legacy, look at Fetchland Doomsday Tendrils.
Against a really good player, I think the hardest deck in Modern is Affinity. Affinity has so many branching lines of play that in a given situation, there are 10 possible lines you could take. Against a medium-level player, you can usually go with one of the top 3 of those lines and still win. But at the top level of the game? You need to see, and pick, the absolute best line of play in a given situation if you want to win.
It's hard to say. I can't win crap with aggro builds like zoo or affinity, I do much better with tempo and control decks. Well we know affinity is the most consistently good aggro deck all the time, so it's not the cards, but that's a hard deck for me and I'd rather be running delver or jeskai control.
UB Tezzerator
UBW Gifts
B 8Rack
Legacy
RB Goblins
Also I like how everyone is mentioning Affinity. It's basically an idiot test to ask someone what the hardest deck is to play. Most think Affinity is only piloted by monkeys.
Also honorable mention for the Merfolk mirror match.
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
Are you saying that people fail the "idiot test" if they think Affinity is easy (i.e. Affinity is actually not a hard deck)? Or that they fail it if they think it's hard (i.e. Affinity is actually really easy)? I couldn't tell based on the way I read your comment.
On Amulet Bloom, I don't think the deck is that hard to play. I definitely think there is a perception that Amulet Bloom is very hard to play, which discourages a lot of players from trying (probably encourages others, but they are in the minority). It's a puzzle deck with lots of interactions, but it also has an oops-I-win factor that gives it a lot of raw power, regardless of how good or bad its pilot is. Players also don't often know how to play against the deck, which leads to all sorts of misplays an Amulet player can take advantage of.
I meant it as I find a lot of people think Affinity is extremely easy to play [optimally]. You just dump your hand and turn things sideways every turn. They failing if they judge it as easy before they play it. People who tend to have more experience in the format will often rank it as once of the hardest to play [optimally] and be able to explain why/understand that it has a larger decision tree than other decks.
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
'I'm condescending and smarter than you because of the deck I play' because I play X.
/thread.
One deck that hasn't been mentioned is Glitterstorm. Not only do you have to trust the ascendancy and cantrips to find you wish, then you have to tutor up the right answer. No, it's not the most resilient deck, the best performing, or any sort of tier, but it does force good decisions and makes you show faith.
UB Tezzerator
UBW Gifts
B 8Rack
Legacy
RB Goblins
Burn allows zero mistakes and forces you to make prospective assestments of board state and draw probabilities two turns in advance. Affinity can lose unlosable games by activating a moth when they shouldn't have, or eating the wrong artifact with Ravager.
Bloom is mostly luck, goldfishing and bluffing, when you win, you win period. When you lose, there was notthing you could've done about it.
This.
There is something to be said about 'types of hard' too however. Still not interested in answering the question, but am interested in why people may actually pick what they think is an answer.
For one, I could see a lot of people picking xyz bad deck. I think Gifts is a really hard deck to master and do well with. Its because its simply just not good enough most of the time. You have to draw really well, not draw some specific things AND THEN not mess it up yourself. Some decks don't give you anything close to free wins, and this is one. Sometimes you just burn people out before they draw hate, sometimes you thoughtseize goyf and ride it victory, sometimes you titan turn 2 and they topdeck that abrupt decay as their only removal--some decks never have these options, and thus are harder, but also probably not tier 1.
UB Tezzerator
UBW Gifts
B 8Rack
Legacy
RB Goblins
I've played RW Burn, Jund, UR Storm, Junk, and Little Kid. I've never touched Affinity. And I think it's the hardest deck to play.
I don't think people in this thread have been more condescending than in any other, honestly.
Modern - GB Elves, UW Ojutai Control
Legacy - BWG Junk Stoneblade
Gay and Proud
#MakeAmericaGreatAgain
Oddly enough, not yet. Maybe I've warded them off, but this thread topic is ages old and always turns into the same thing. I'm also not an aggro player, I couldn't touch burn or affinity myself either.
BWR THE ARISTAHCRATZ!
I've been here since the formats creation and have only ever played RG Tron, 5 colour control, Pod, and CC. Never touched an Affinity deck but it (from my perspective of the format) looks to be the most thought provoking with the most lines of play. Really no one has told anyone off, it has only been peoples opinions (and my one joke about Affinity that wasn't directed at anyone).
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
Well I guess I'm condescending because I play Amulet Bloom and I think it is the hardest deck in the format to play at 100% for an entire tournament. It is part of the reason I play the deck because I like to be challenged with the deck I am playing.
Oh and I have played UWR control/midrange, GW hatebears, Affinity, BW tokens, 4C gifts, UR Delver and Goryo's Breach in the past 3 years in Modern, so I have a bit to compare it to.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
So you expect comments in the vein of "Aggro is easy. Just turn them sideways" or "Control is the hardest. It takes so much skill".
That's fair. They always seem to crop up when talking about stuff like this and the elitism of certain groups a commonly known thing.
My personal answer is just that every deck that not only has to take itself but also the opponent into account is harder. Decks with reactive elements(I count discard in this too) require that you know what the opponent is actually on, what his deck can do, what the important pieces are, what needs to be answered right away and what not, etc.
That is knowledge that you can't get by just goldfishing and practicing lines and playing the deck for yourself for a while. You have to inform yourself about the other decks, keep up with the meta and just play and probably also lose for a while until you have figured everything out.
I think PVs article said something in the same vein too. Answer decks require format knowledge and that's why these type of deck are probably not the best idea for newer players unless they have no problem with taking the losses because they didn't know for example what Ad Nauseam is trying to do and what the important cards are.
This reference is going to sound weird but here me out. I see decks like fighting game characters in that there are ones that are easier than others. For example in Street fighter 4 series Gen is regarded as one of the hardest fighters to play as due to his execution (combos, stances, etc.) being very difficult to manage. Compared to Ryu who is a very easy character to understand on a fundamental level. (throws fireballs to keep away and use strong buttons to poke with). Even though Gen is a harder character to play as, that does not mean that learning Ryu is easy. Ryu, just like every street fighter character, has to learn matchups, combos, metagame, what to do in certain situations, etc. Just like decks in magic, each character requires understanding both what the character can do and what others can do as well.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
That comparison has one problem though.
The only avenue to win the game in Street Fighter is by attacking the opposing character and reduce his life total that way. In Magic that is not the case and that is what leads to decks that simply don't care about the opponent.
Take the infamous Storm deck for example. Does it really matter that you know what your opponent can do? Not really.
If your opponent plays a turn 2 Eidolon of the Great Revel then it is so.
If your opponent blows up your Pyromancer Ascension then it is so.
If your opponent plays a turn 2 Primeval Titan with haste then it is so.
It doesn't matter that you know about this stuff because you cannot even doing anything about it in the first place.
This is not a knock against Storm or hard or easy it is to play. Just saying that there are definitely ways to build decks that don't require you to know what the opponent is up to.
Akuma was by the way always my favorite Street Fighter character. Must be something about me and dark characters...
Can I get in? If yes, I win (usually with moves that take out 25-50% of your health bar in one hit - OMG CHEAP!!!).
Can you keep me away? If yes, you win.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.