MTG Salvation

Yes it does... Like I said in another post, if you play combo, you plan on playing unfair magic and the more unfair the better.(Twin is the poster child for this btw.) It's always gonna be the case in this format that because of its rules such decks are on borrowed time. Always. Safe and combo are ultimately mutually exclusive terms in this format.

Just because it didn't win before turn 4 doesn't mean it couldn't. The deck sacrificed speed for durability. It also consistently over-performed, having a smaller share of the meta appear at a higher rate of top 8's. Further still, it was so oppressive that two combo decks, TWO have had to receive bans because it was good enough to keep them in check. Jesus christ I feel like I'm talking to a trump supporter.

It's gone. For someone who has been railing about this for ,well since it happened, I don't think you can be objective regarding it. Its not a fight you should continue to fight. If your right, someone else will do it but your capital was spent along time ago regarding. Let it go.

Was there with you ya man. My philosophy regarding combo is pretty simple: if its not broken, why play it? So the question follow: why play something I know will be banned eventually? Why get attached, spending hours teaking and goldfishing and playing when in the end, it has to go and deep down, you know it has to go?

That's kinda why I'm a bit anti-combo in general.

Twin was expected too. If you could bring yourself to look at the format objectively. Every combo deck starts the same way when it breaks. Everyone playing it says oh its not broken its fine etc, etc. If a couple people say objectively, it's broken, it likely is. It just takes the format a while to wrap its head around that. Pod was the same as Twin. So was Bloom.

I never considered Twin a control deck. It had control elements but ultimately feels like a tempo combo hybrid. Ultimately I think that is why the whole Twin ban experiment failed. They thought removing a combo deck would help control be a thing again.

It's like calling DSJ midrange. It's not. DSJ is the aggro-tempo/midrange hybrid equivalent to Twin. The difference is if you got rid of DSJ, there would likely be other GBx builds to fill the gap. Removing twin left a combo vacuum that was quickly filled by a couple more banned decks, but control never happened to any major degree. You could argue that is because control is missing what it needs or that WotC doesn't want it in the format really, or that combo breaks all the good control cards so they have to be pulled from the format.

To me this kinda sounds like folks aren't running enough solutions. Or they are playing too aggressively. Mana leak will answer most problems through turn 5. DS is one that it doesn't. Plan old removal in the form of FP, path or dismember would be adequate here, sometimes lightning bolt even does the job. I would avoid path against DSJ if possible because the deck has an aggressive mana base and giving them a land is likely about as bad as letting them keep a creature. Discard is always a huge pain for control. Also, why not use Nullify or Psychic Barrier or Remove Soul? If a decks major threat density is creatures, why not use countermagic that affects them? There are 12 creature counters there at 2 mana per. How does DSJ win without DS or Goyf? These are real SB options if you wanna put the work in. Have something more generic maindeck and slide them in once you know what they are packing. I know they are narrow solutions but DSJ is a really narrow deck. Its actual threat count isn't that high.

There must be solutions to this problem, we just have to find them.

Yes, it did.

So what is a good finisher. In my mind a cheap beatstick with counterspell back-up and an open battlefield should do the job. Celestial Colonnade was almost perfect, except it does get expensive. GoST needs evasion to get through most of the time. Delver is a little slow. Tas and ANgler tax your yard something fierce, making it hard to recover if one is lost. Thing in Ice more or less spawned its own deck but would require to much time and protection to really be viable in control. Torrential Gearhulk is a little pricy at 6. Gideon is a little slow at 5.

See, in my mind everybody is trying to end games way to early for control. Control never used to win on turn 4 or 5 or 6. Earliest I would consider for control is like turn 8.

Control has universal board wipes though, the ultimate catch me up. A good control deck should be able to fall to 4 or 5 life and stabilize and win. I remember some of my early games and playing control guys that just let me swing away. It was the same deal over and over again where I could do what ever I wanted...to a point and then nothing. My creatures died, my spells fizzled and I was in top deck mode in a couple turns while they sat with a fist full of cards. I had eroded a good chunk of life but after they stabilized, there was no breaking through.

To me you're talking like a tempo player here too. Down an attacker/blocker. I want to use SCM to affect the game in ways other than simple combat math. Everybody can do combat math. If you FR your opponent's spell and return the SCM you just blew like five big holes in their initial game plan. They planned on 4 removal, some counter magic and 4 SCM, they didn't prepare for up to 8 of them and the untold havoc you can instill upon them from your yard. Magic is about so much more than battlefield tactics and math and doing some off the wall stuff can yield benefits. Maybe they forget about the rebounded SCM and two removal spells in the yard. Maybe they don't account for second SCM you just drew.

I do think you hit the proverbial nail on the head though with the statement of "modern these days..." We have all been coaxed into this vision of mtg where creatures are manifested and create these amazing board states of intercat interactions. And me, I love it. I'm not a natural control player. I hated it so much I learned it. And because of that, I began to appreciate it. Personally, I think WotC doesn't want control to be a powerful player in the format. Folks can say what they want that I have some crazy hair brained conspiracy theories but they're more based on what I see in magic today and how I internally rationalize them. The game we play is literally based on infinite numbers of worlds and its hard to couple that fact that it is all under WotC control and direction.

I guess part of me must miss playing control, otherwise why advocate for it...:P

I think the thing that bothers me the most about the twin argument is the idea that twin was a control deck. It wasn't. It was a combo deck that controlled the board state for as long as it needed to (usually not longer than 6 turns, maybe someone can check that) and then comboed off. The very idea instituted by WotC that removing twin to help other "control decks" was erroneous on its face. I think the community has shown quite well that control wasn't being held back by twin, its being held back by the lack of a relevant hard counter and the lack of a substantial finisher, though there appear to be more than a few of those around. The twin deck itself, minus the combo, is a really well constructed tempo deck that can almost consistently get there by itself, as long as it has the threat of twin going off. Without the constant threat of twin comboing of, the deck tends to fall flat. It seems like WotC expected someone to slot in a a couple removal cards and something a little more threatening and just take off with the deck and then have it spawn a number of variants...Well that didn't happen.

Now I'm not a combo fan, never have been, even though I put the deck together to try it out and I wish I could say it's a safe unban, but what else, even now with all the ridiculousness out there, constantly wins turn 4, period full stop? It's still an incredibly powerful combo with unmatched explosivity. I mean to put it in perspective, two other combo decks have seen bans since it left because they were too good too, but were held in check by twin, at least to some degree (Three if you wanna count DS though it's most effective iteration seems more mid range than linear aggro and it has yet to see a ban. Note: yes it does have a very powerful linear game but that wasn't enough to get it passed tier three during the twin era). I don't think it's a healthy thing to have in the format. It warps every deck's playstyle to have to pay the twin tax(always leaving mana open to deal with twin if it is played at instant speed), which honestly is quite boring after the 18th game of watching it. ( it was probably not that bad to play against, if you didn't mind losing I suppose since it was usually over quick...)

ANyone saying that SFM is not a safe unban is really not paying attention. And batterskull is SFM best play, it better figure out how to raise its game. I mean SFM has to sit on the board an entire turn before its fetched equipment even hits the board. That puts it at turn three when said batterskull lands and stares directly at a 3/4 goyf, which will soon be a 4/5 and a 3/3 DS that will quickly become an 8/8. Or the skull lands and your opponent drops Karn and blows it up the following turn. Or you just comboed out turn 4 after 1 attack. I mean SFM is a fine card but its gonna need DnT level of shenanigans to actually do something really impressive. Oh did I mention the turn 3 Thoughtknot Seer that will eat the batterskull if you don't play it for some reason...thought not...

Snap bolt snap or snap path snap or snap push snap doesn't need to be turn 5. And you would likely still run leak and or remand for the early game anyway. And just because a creature is on the board doesn't mean you have to attack or block with it. If the opponent feels scm has to die, let them waste a removal spell. Otherwise let him sit there. Control almost always has the long game in the bag. To me, the biggest mistake is pushing it to be faster than it is. Also, the one thing I remember from many matches against control, was it has an ability to generate tempo when it needs to to win. Snap push snap into a hard 2 mana counter is pretty solid for tempo. IDk, more less just a thought.

One other thing: is it that 3 mana isn't viable or that the community as a whole has been spoiled by 2 mana counter magic. Rather, I mean that sounds too negative, but WotC wouldn't print it if it wasn't viable in standard. But people don't seem to play it much there either. And Spell Queller isn't even a hard counter, but people play it. IDK. I think sometimes the community at large has gotten so myopic and creature centric that if it doesn't have legs its not worth running. Is it possible we as a community are just not patient enough for the decks to work? That 3 mana counter magic is feasible, just not so with the currently understood playstyle. Or rather, are control decks trying to play too fast, kind of absorbed the tempo instinct unconsciously and like wise are unconsciously trying to apply it to an actual control build?

I'm just kinda spitballing here. Deep down, if what everybody around here tells me is true and WotC did not and does not continue to want to make modern a counterspellless format, why would they continue to print unviable countermagic? Why waste the set space?

Seriously, Familiar's Ruse and Snapcaster Mage, could it be a thing? Do we need another Ruse target that is lights out perfect to make it viable? Returning SCM to your hand doesn't feel like a drawback to me. IDK. Maybe something that deals damage when it comes into play? Or bounces. Or makes a boat load of tokens??? It feels viable.

Disallow can hit fetches. Late game mana fixing is critical and it stifles it. Yeah for 3 mana, but it's still solid and does something CC cannot.

I do like soul manipulation and Rise and Fall and have been looking for something to run them in...

As for Familiar's Ruse, what blue really needs is a good DnT creature. Wait...why isn't anyone using Familiar's ruse with SCM? That seems kinda good doesn't?