Hello all I would like to ask why do so many players seem to dislike Combo? I've never understood this, as I mostly perfer to play combo but I have several friends who groan and whine when I break one out for a casual game, (not a good one mind but a turn six affair with a Goldberg Machine type combo.) as wel the attitude that many players seem to have toward combo as being "easy to play" cited examples are Dredge and Storm, so I am asking the community why do you feel that combo is so maligned? Please keep your comments helpful and facillitate converstion thank you.
Ignoring the skill part, combo decks can have the ability of just ignoring your opponent until they have everything they need to win securely. This basically makes it like a game of solitaire.
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Legacy:
combo elves
Modern:
White Rock (41-24-4 in matches. Beginning 10/14/14. Last updated 1/2/15)
List:
Ignoring the skill part, combo decks can have the ability of just ignoring your opponent until they have everything they need to win securely. This basically makes it like a game of solitaire.
Only if your opponents deck has no disruption. And at that point, you should find new people to play with.
Competitive combo players actually need to have a decent amount of skill to pull off a win. Combos can be easy to counter and very fragile - stop it once and that's it. A smart combo player has to choose the right moment to go off, play around threats, maybe even fake out an opponent to bluff them into wasting counters. Once a combo is public, people know how to stop it, and will pack their sideboards accordingly. A combo player needs added protection or smart playing to get through the rest of the match. It's not solitaire, it's a predator stalking its prey, making feints, biding time, and then striking with lethal force.
Storm is a complicated deck. High Tide is tricky. Ever heard of Turboland? It was pretty much impenetrable to rookie players, and tough for even seasoned players to pilot. But damn, after that ten minute turn, you were dead, pulped by a singular Battlefield Scrounger or Treetop Village. Hell, even Eggs needed some skill to pilot.
The problem with combo in casual is that there typically isn't sideboarding involved. Just one game. If you wanted to win every casual game ever, you'd play dredge, or tendrils, because your opponents need to play hate cards to stand a chance. These hate cards are otherwise bad cards in your typical game, so usually they are relegated to sideboards in competitive, and unplayed in casual.
It's not that combo is "easy to play" or anything. Magic as a whole is either easy or hard to play depending on the player. It's that it's easy to win before others get the chance to play. If they have to sit there and watch you combo out for ten minutes while they have two lands and a sea eagle or whatever in play, it's pretty reasonable to understand why they're complaining.
And when they start playing all the hate cards just to beat you so that they can play? Then you're the one who's sitting quiet at the table for a while. Good casual games are the ones with a level playing field.
I wouldn't say storm decks are easy to play. Some are quite confusing.
People dislike combo because you "Can" with the game with just ignoring your opponent. If they aren't playing blue or black you could care less what they do. You are just trying to race them.
I have played both Storm and Dredge (and love them both) and neither is "easy" I was saying that these were pointed out to me as easy decks that just HerpandDerp and then win no skill needed unlike my aggro opponent (yeah I know I rolled my eyes at that so hard I think something broke). Wow just realized how doucey that sounded I should explain he decided to play his Legacy Zoo against my wierd Grindclock/Proliferate deck. I got lucky and won first he then preceded to thrash me roundly the whole while telling me I needed to "invest in a better deck" and etc. it is at that point I rolled my eyes.
I think it's the way combo plays. You allow your opponent to beat you up in the first few turns, then you assemble the combo and kill him just as he thought he was winning.
Maybe people are just sore losers. They think that if they have been attacking unopposed for 4+ turns, you'll let them continue doing so until you die. When you dash their hopes and combo kill them, they get pissed.
I think it's the way combo plays. You allow your opponent to beat you up in the first few turns, then you assemble the combo and kill him just as he thought he was winning.
I agree. I never really understood why people rage when lose to combo but they are ok by being roflstomped by creatures. Same goes for control, why having a creature countered by a Mana Leak is such a big issue but having it destroyed by an Abrupt Decay is just ok? It's beyond me.
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Competitive combo players actually need to have a decent amount of skill to pull off a win. Combos can be easy to counter and very fragile - stop it once and that's it. A smart combo player has to choose the right moment to go off, play around threats, maybe even fake out an opponent to bluff them into wasting counters. Once a combo is public, people know how to stop it, and will pack their sideboards accordingly. A combo player needs added protection or smart playing to get through the rest of the match. It's not solitaire, it's a predator stalking its prey, making feints, biding time, and then striking with lethal force.
Storm is a complicated deck. High Tide is tricky. Ever heard of Turboland? It was pretty much impenetrable to rookie players, and tough for even seasoned players to pilot. But damn, after that ten minute turn, you were dead, pulped by a singular Battlefield Scrounger or Treetop Village. Hell, even Eggs needed some skill to pilot.
I totally agree with you analysis of playing a combo deck, but using your own analogy, your opponent is the prey. Nobody likes being the prey. I'm not saying I hate combo players, I actually enjoy the counters wars since I'm a control player, but I can see why other players aren't a fan.
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As long as it does not take 30 minutes to kill me ( like eggs) I am fine with it. I am pretty sure it is the long amount of time it takes to actually go through the whole combo that causes people to hate playing against combo. Some combo players in casual games often don't let their opponents concede until they finish the combo, causing people to rage quit. In competitive it should not matter, because you play what wins. If combo decks end the game quickly, like splinter twin for example, then that should be fine for casual. If they still complain, tell them to just pack hate and adapt.
People enjoy the illusion of control and involvement.
Getting roflstomped by a goblin deck or any hyper-aggro and incredibly resilient aggro decks is about as fun as getting killed by a combo deck. Both require you to have specific ways to counter, and if you don't have them you will lose.
But the goblin decks of old have people swinging with creatures, whereas most combo decks kill you with spells. Spells can only be blocked by counters or related abilities. Creatures can be blocked with other creatures, killed with kill spells, and countered. I suppose the fact that there are many ways to deal with creatures, in spite of the reality that you actually don't if you face a well-tuned aggro deck, makes people feel better.
In other words, most people are delusional. They think they can win against a fine-tuned aggro deck when they really have no chance. They never get the feeling that they can win against a combo deck, and that's all that matters.
It's not just Combo decks that some people hate playing against, it's also Mono Green Elves which is so cheap and easy to go off with no drawbacks because of the way the deck is designed to spam infinite Elf tokens, produce massive amounts of mana off of creatures instead of lands, and can harness a ridiculous amount of drawpower with cards like Regal Force, Glimpse of Nature, and Slate of Ancestry. Not only that If someone catches you playing Elf Combo in a Casual Multiplayer game good chances are you will be the first to die. I've seen it happen so many times it's not even funny...
Because creature spells these days seem to have become as powerful as spells were years ago before they got nerfed down, it's almost like Wizards is contradicting themselves. First they printed spells with really powerful abilities that players abused through Combo but then they realized it was too powerful so they decided to print those powerful abilities on creatures instead where players still abused through Combo and now Wizards sort of had the final straw on that by printing Anti-Aggro cards like Lightmine Field which kills infinite creature combo decks in a heartbeat however I don't think it's enough.
With Countermagic gone in most sanctioned formats in MTG for being too powerful for denying players playing cards in which it was used to keep Aggro decks in check, how's Mill (which replaced Countermagic) going to do the same thing? It doesn't. It's like Wizards these days are so paranoid about MTG's overall power creep that they're forced to release keyword mechanics that pale in comparison to the kind we've seen in the first Ravnica block and/or Urza block. Exalted is pretty meh as well as Detain but I'll give them credit for Extort in Return to Ravnica block at least it was somewhat creative. Maybe they should name a mechanic off of Blink effects that's played in Standard like Simic Thragtusk/Deadeye Navigator.
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The problem with combo in casual is that there typically isn't sideboarding involved. Just one game. If you wanted to win every casual game ever, you'd play dredge, or tendrils, because your opponents need to play hate cards to stand a chance. These hate cards are otherwise bad cards in your typical game, so usually they are relegated to sideboards in competitive, and unplayed in casual.
It's not that combo is "easy to play" or anything. Magic as a whole is either easy or hard to play depending on the player. It's that it's easy to win before others get the chance to play. If they have to sit there and watch you combo out for ten minutes while they have two lands and a sea eagle or whatever in play, it's pretty reasonable to understand why they're complaining.
And when they start playing all the hate cards just to beat you so that they can play? Then you're the one who's sitting quiet at the table for a while. Good casual games are the ones with a level playing field.
So when the people in the group play legacy elves or some kind of really overpowered deck from back in te day with overpowered and banned cards (black vise and tolarian academy and friends) I have to bring something to combat that. Usually some sort of combo deck. An yet I get blasted about it instead of the other guys simply because my deck goes infinite. That sure seems like a "level playing field" and a fair game to me **dripping with sarcasm**
So when the people in the group play legacy elves or some kind of really overpowered deck from back in te day with overpowered and banned cards (black vise and tolarian academy and friends) I have to bring something to combat that. Usually some sort of combo deck. An yet I get blasted about it instead of the other guys simply because my deck goes infinite. That sure seems like a "level playing field" and a fair game to me **dripping with sarcasm**
I don't understand. Legacy Elves is clearly a combo deck. People lose game 1, then bring the Pyroclasms or what-have-you in. Do you hate playing against it? If your playgroup likes combo so much, play with well thought-out sideboards and demand to play best of 3s, it might improve things. And if someone is playing against you with a vintage deck, it's on them that they're complaining about your legal combo deck. Vintage is combo and stax and pretty much threatens to be too fast for anything else.
Elves, by the way, isn't nearly as notorious as something like Dredge. People play wraths. Elves lose casual games often.
People enjoy the illusion of control and involvement.
Getting roflstomped by a goblin deck or any hyper-aggro and incredibly resilient aggro decks is about as fun as getting killed by a combo deck. Both require you to have specific ways to counter, and if you don't have them you will lose.
But the goblin decks of old have people swinging with creatures, whereas most combo decks kill you with spells. Spells can only be blocked by counters or related abilities. Creatures can be blocked with other creatures, killed with kill spells, and countered. I suppose the fact that there are many ways to deal with creatures, in spite of the reality that you actually don't if you face a well-tuned aggro deck, makes people feel better.
In other words, most people are delusional. They think they can win against a fine-tuned aggro deck when they really have no chance. They never get the feeling that they can win against a combo deck, and that's all that matters.
This is absolutely correct. When you play aggro, you know that you're in trouble facing down combo. It's a well-known match-up. I think there's a tendency when playing control vs. aggro to think that it's always an even match-up if you play tight, or at least it's not so lopsided as Zoo vs. Storm, for example. However, Zoo probably about as good a shot against Storm as traditional Blue Based control has against Goblins. Perhaps because Goblins doesn't kill in a flashy way all at once, generally? The reality is, if you sit down with traditional control against super-fast or resilient aggro, you're hoping to steal games. This can obviously be mitigated by metagaming, but then you risk losing your edge against combo. Give and take.
I have no problem playing against combo decks in general, and I certainly disagree with combo being easy.
However I have noticed that while I have faced arrogant smug players across archtypes, there is a noticeably larger number of them that play combo. Perhaps this is because generally newer players tend to run aggro, and also why alot of combo players tend to look down on aggro players.
Additionally there is nothing that bores me more than playing against an eggs deck, high tides deck, or some other form of time consuming combo that has me sitting across from someone in a casual game just waiting for 10 minutes while the other player tries to win. If I need to read a book for 10 minutes to entertain myself while I'm playing a game that SHOULD be entertaining me already then that's when I start having an issue with combo.
If you or your combo deck don't fall in these two categories then I am more than happy to play with you and your combo decks.
Generally people who hate combo only like playing aggro decks and expect you to play into their hands. You never see a MUC player whining about those pesky combo decks do you?
So far, the complaints against my casual legacy storm deck are minor. For example, I already got 9 storm count (20 damage) for Tendrils of Agony, my opponent would sometimes say "done yet?" or "is it finished?". I have the habit of trying to do at least 26 damage against white decks, because who knows they might have a sudden life gain - like Sword to Plowshare one of their creatures.
Generally people who hate combo only like playing aggro decks and expect you to play into their hands. You never see a MUC player whining about those pesky combo decks do you?
Maybe I want to be free to play a new deck every time I play casual? Sometimes it's control, sometimes combo, sometimes aggro, most of the time somewhere in between two of them. I'm not always going to have the best matchup against everyone. I'm typically never going to win a 1v1 against a dredge opponent though, and I don't think that's a huge problem, since I didn't enter into a tournament with my casual deck. And it's fine to lose this way once in a while. It's just when someone does it every game, it shows a clear misunderstanding of what makes casual multiplayer magic games potentially really fun.
Not all combo decks sit idle until it assembles the pieces to win. Most of my decks are combo decks. A good example is my goblin deck. If you happen to survive my goblins until turn 4, then I play Aluren and put all of my goblins in to play.
Going from a position of almost winning to having lost in the game in the course of 1 turn can be a pretty devastating feeling. I used to hate it in EDH. But I've gotten over it, and I pack answers. Johnny Combo Player is one of the core stereotypes of Magic, so you'll just have to deal with it existence and relish the fact that there are a variety of ways to win in the game.
People enjoy the illusion of control and involvement.
Getting roflstomped by a goblin deck or any hyper-aggro and incredibly resilient aggro decks is about as fun as getting killed by a combo deck. Both require you to have specific ways to counter, and if you don't have them you will lose.
But the goblin decks of old have people swinging with creatures, whereas most combo decks kill you with spells. Spells can only be blocked by counters or related abilities. Creatures can be blocked with other creatures, killed with kill spells, and countered. I suppose the fact that there are many ways to deal with creatures, in spite of the reality that you actually don't if you face a well-tuned aggro deck, makes people feel better.
In other words, most people are delusional. They think they can win against a fine-tuned aggro deck when they really have no chance. They never get the feeling that they can win against a combo deck, and that's all that matters.
Combo decks are often specifically built along an axis that is hard to interact with (especially game 1). Dredge and Storm being the two most classic examples.
If I'm playing Maverick vs. Belcher (this is a real example, btw), and I have a turn 2 Thalia in my hand, and I'm on the play, and my opponent goes T1 Empty the Warrens for 14, then guess what, all the turn 2 disruption in the world ain't gonna mean jack ****.
If you think interacting with a deck like Belcher or even ANT is the same as interacting with a deck like Zoo, you're a lot more delusional than the people you're railing against. You yourself note that there are many more ways to interact with creature combat, and then you wave your hands and pretend like it doesn't matter, because, well, it's very inconveniently getting in the way of your own argument.
FWIW I have built and played many of these solitaire style decks over the years because I really enjoy operating a deck as an engine with many moving parts. However I don't enjoy inflicting it on my friends so I tend not to play them vs other people as much. The first deck I built competitively was UG Enchantress Words of Wind combo in 2002. The second was Turbo Land, which is easily as if not more complicated than modern Legacy Storm decks. I built Dredge in 2009. Ultimately though, these decks are very ego-centric: they're all about showing off your ability to spend 10 minutes figuring out the puzzle on your turn and fiddle with all your engine pieces for another 5 minutes carrying out the win, while your opponent looks bored and twiddles his thumbs. If you are crass enough that you don't at least understand why people may not enjoy this, then you may be among the many Magic players who are not the most socially adept members of society.
Legacy:
combo elves
Modern:
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2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Back to nature
1 Utter End
1 Golgari Charm
Only if your opponents deck has no disruption. And at that point, you should find new people to play with.
Storm is a complicated deck. High Tide is tricky. Ever heard of Turboland? It was pretty much impenetrable to rookie players, and tough for even seasoned players to pilot. But damn, after that ten minute turn, you were dead, pulped by a singular Battlefield Scrounger or Treetop Village. Hell, even Eggs needed some skill to pilot.
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It's not that combo is "easy to play" or anything. Magic as a whole is either easy or hard to play depending on the player. It's that it's easy to win before others get the chance to play. If they have to sit there and watch you combo out for ten minutes while they have two lands and a sea eagle or whatever in play, it's pretty reasonable to understand why they're complaining.
And when they start playing all the hate cards just to beat you so that they can play? Then you're the one who's sitting quiet at the table for a while. Good casual games are the ones with a level playing field.
People dislike combo because you "Can" with the game with just ignoring your opponent. If they aren't playing blue or black you could care less what they do. You are just trying to race them.
I have played both Storm and Dredge (and love them both) and neither is "easy" I was saying that these were pointed out to me as easy decks that just HerpandDerp and then win no skill needed unlike my aggro opponent (yeah I know I rolled my eyes at that so hard I think something broke). Wow just realized how doucey that sounded I should explain he decided to play his Legacy Zoo against my wierd Grindclock/Proliferate deck. I got lucky and won first he then preceded to thrash me roundly the whole while telling me I needed to "invest in a better deck" and etc. it is at that point I rolled my eyes.
Maybe people are just sore losers. They think that if they have been attacking unopposed for 4+ turns, you'll let them continue doing so until you die. When you dash their hopes and combo kill them, they get pissed.
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I agree. I never really understood why people rage when lose to combo but they are ok by being roflstomped by creatures. Same goes for control, why having a creature countered by a Mana Leak is such a big issue but having it destroyed by an Abrupt Decay is just ok? It's beyond me.
I totally agree with you analysis of playing a combo deck, but using your own analogy, your opponent is the prey. Nobody likes being the prey. I'm not saying I hate combo players, I actually enjoy the counters wars since I'm a control player, but I can see why other players aren't a fan.
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Getting roflstomped by a goblin deck or any hyper-aggro and incredibly resilient aggro decks is about as fun as getting killed by a combo deck. Both require you to have specific ways to counter, and if you don't have them you will lose.
But the goblin decks of old have people swinging with creatures, whereas most combo decks kill you with spells. Spells can only be blocked by counters or related abilities. Creatures can be blocked with other creatures, killed with kill spells, and countered. I suppose the fact that there are many ways to deal with creatures, in spite of the reality that you actually don't if you face a well-tuned aggro deck, makes people feel better.
In other words, most people are delusional. They think they can win against a fine-tuned aggro deck when they really have no chance. They never get the feeling that they can win against a combo deck, and that's all that matters.
Because creature spells these days seem to have become as powerful as spells were years ago before they got nerfed down, it's almost like Wizards is contradicting themselves. First they printed spells with really powerful abilities that players abused through Combo but then they realized it was too powerful so they decided to print those powerful abilities on creatures instead where players still abused through Combo and now Wizards sort of had the final straw on that by printing Anti-Aggro cards like Lightmine Field which kills infinite creature combo decks in a heartbeat however I don't think it's enough.
With Countermagic gone in most sanctioned formats in MTG for being too powerful for denying players playing cards in which it was used to keep Aggro decks in check, how's Mill (which replaced Countermagic) going to do the same thing? It doesn't. It's like Wizards these days are so paranoid about MTG's overall power creep that they're forced to release keyword mechanics that pale in comparison to the kind we've seen in the first Ravnica block and/or Urza block. Exalted is pretty meh as well as Detain but I'll give them credit for Extort in Return to Ravnica block at least it was somewhat creative. Maybe they should name a mechanic off of Blink effects that's played in Standard like Simic Thragtusk/Deadeye Navigator.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
So when the people in the group play legacy elves or some kind of really overpowered deck from back in te day with overpowered and banned cards (black vise and tolarian academy and friends) I have to bring something to combat that. Usually some sort of combo deck. An yet I get blasted about it instead of the other guys simply because my deck goes infinite. That sure seems like a "level playing field" and a fair game to me **dripping with sarcasm**
I don't understand. Legacy Elves is clearly a combo deck. People lose game 1, then bring the Pyroclasms or what-have-you in. Do you hate playing against it? If your playgroup likes combo so much, play with well thought-out sideboards and demand to play best of 3s, it might improve things. And if someone is playing against you with a vintage deck, it's on them that they're complaining about your legal combo deck. Vintage is combo and stax and pretty much threatens to be too fast for anything else.
Elves, by the way, isn't nearly as notorious as something like Dredge. People play wraths. Elves lose casual games often.
This is absolutely correct. When you play aggro, you know that you're in trouble facing down combo. It's a well-known match-up. I think there's a tendency when playing control vs. aggro to think that it's always an even match-up if you play tight, or at least it's not so lopsided as Zoo vs. Storm, for example. However, Zoo probably about as good a shot against Storm as traditional Blue Based control has against Goblins. Perhaps because Goblins doesn't kill in a flashy way all at once, generally? The reality is, if you sit down with traditional control against super-fast or resilient aggro, you're hoping to steal games. This can obviously be mitigated by metagaming, but then you risk losing your edge against combo. Give and take.
However I have noticed that while I have faced arrogant smug players across archtypes, there is a noticeably larger number of them that play combo. Perhaps this is because generally newer players tend to run aggro, and also why alot of combo players tend to look down on aggro players.
Additionally there is nothing that bores me more than playing against an eggs deck, high tides deck, or some other form of time consuming combo that has me sitting across from someone in a casual game just waiting for 10 minutes while the other player tries to win. If I need to read a book for 10 minutes to entertain myself while I'm playing a game that SHOULD be entertaining me already then that's when I start having an issue with combo.
If you or your combo deck don't fall in these two categories then I am more than happy to play with you and your combo decks.
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Maybe I want to be free to play a new deck every time I play casual? Sometimes it's control, sometimes combo, sometimes aggro, most of the time somewhere in between two of them. I'm not always going to have the best matchup against everyone. I'm typically never going to win a 1v1 against a dredge opponent though, and I don't think that's a huge problem, since I didn't enter into a tournament with my casual deck. And it's fine to lose this way once in a while. It's just when someone does it every game, it shows a clear misunderstanding of what makes casual multiplayer magic games potentially really fun.
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Combo decks are often specifically built along an axis that is hard to interact with (especially game 1). Dredge and Storm being the two most classic examples.
If I'm playing Maverick vs. Belcher (this is a real example, btw), and I have a turn 2 Thalia in my hand, and I'm on the play, and my opponent goes T1 Empty the Warrens for 14, then guess what, all the turn 2 disruption in the world ain't gonna mean jack ****.
If you think interacting with a deck like Belcher or even ANT is the same as interacting with a deck like Zoo, you're a lot more delusional than the people you're railing against. You yourself note that there are many more ways to interact with creature combat, and then you wave your hands and pretend like it doesn't matter, because, well, it's very inconveniently getting in the way of your own argument.
FWIW I have built and played many of these solitaire style decks over the years because I really enjoy operating a deck as an engine with many moving parts. However I don't enjoy inflicting it on my friends so I tend not to play them vs other people as much. The first deck I built competitively was UG Enchantress Words of Wind combo in 2002. The second was Turbo Land, which is easily as if not more complicated than modern Legacy Storm decks. I built Dredge in 2009. Ultimately though, these decks are very ego-centric: they're all about showing off your ability to spend 10 minutes figuring out the puzzle on your turn and fiddle with all your engine pieces for another 5 minutes carrying out the win, while your opponent looks bored and twiddles his thumbs. If you are crass enough that you don't at least understand why people may not enjoy this, then you may be among the many Magic players who are not the most socially adept members of society.
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