Hilarious to me that Tron beat Storm in the quarters and people still say it is (or is close to) Tron's worst matchup. It's surprisingly close to 50-50
when I was grinding storm on MTGO I found that it seemed to be even. Even dumb stuff like on the play turn 3 karn exile a land is nontrivial for storm to beat game 1 and it turns into a mess post board.
To me, it's all about decision trees. Picking a plan and sticking to it. Changing the plan if the circumstances change, etc. When I first got into Modern, I played BW Tokens, built from the Modern Event Deck. Then I built my first "real" deck: Burn. I loved it because it was simple and it won without too much trouble on my end. Attack with things, point burn to face, and win. Then I discovered Islands and never looked back. I actually still have Burn sleeved up and ready to go today, but I haven't touched it in years because the games were ALL one dimensional. I don't like the feeling that I've won as a result of the top 10 cards of my deck and not my choices and decisions within the game.
The idea that URx decks can produce non-games is true, but it is the tiny minority and the exception, not the rule. And when a matchup consistently involves multiple decision trees, changes of role from beatdown to control and back, and decisions that could win or lose you the game; those just feel more engaging and rewarding to play. And the games I've had with Snap Bolt decks over the past several years have been orders of magnitude more enjoyable and more complex than almost any of my matches with Burn.
This is simply not true, and a lot of fair players fall into this trap. Burn is one of the easier decks to be ok with but is extremely (I mean extremely) punishing on misplays. Just listen to Pat Sullivan commentate any burn match. In fact at the highest level I would claim that linear decks lose due to singular (often small) misplays more than fair decks. I used to grind gifts storm on MTGO, sadly my PhD has sucked up a lot of my time and I can't anymore, but what a lot of people don't understand is, that to play the linear decks correctly you have so limited options and you can often lose by 1 mana or 1 point of damage, you have a string of complex decisions to make with little to no information, ie they promote a different skill set. No matter what deck you are playing, to succeed at the highest level (assuming it is viable) takes an enormous amount of skill, but that skill might not be grinding incremental card advantage (which seems to be all fair players really care about deep down).
Seriously has no one noticed that Paul Muller and Caleb Scherer wreck with storm and thats about it? Linear decks can also be extremely rewarding to pilot just in different ways. I haven't played Tron for years but I would assume that it rewards different skills as well, and that just because it doesn't fit your idea of grinding out CA it's not 'worse' magic.
You guys sound like the most entitled magic players I've heard in a long time. Tron is not unbeatable with your fair decks, you have in no way the right to have a hate card that 100% of the time blows the deck out. Crumble to dust will blow them out in 90% of games and that is good enough. Yes sometimes there are non-games, but I honest to god hate this idea that by virtue of being fair your games are 'deeper'. They can be, but they also can be extremely shallow. I am a control player at heart but I've had my fair share of 'fair' non-games, if you've never been hit by the ole triple thoughtseize into LotV draw by Jund as a fair blue deck, let me tell you its just as bad as tron resolving turn 3 karn, which you have actually more chance of interacting against (you know with counterspells). Does no one remember the citrus assassin (Greg Orange) beating tron with UWR on camera at a PT (or GP I actually forget), through some of the tightest play I've seen (ambush viper into cryptic as a timewalk multiple times). Yes it's uphill but you're allowed to have bad matchups.
Moreover there are plenty of games against control where you're playing aggro, and they draw some variation of 3/4 removal spells and an azcanta or planeswalker. That's a complete non-game too. I like midrange mirrors, but often they are nowhere as deep as you're making out, you do the obvious one-for-ones (don't beat around the bush 90% of the time you just hit them with the correct removal spell it's not extremely hard) and then you topdeck until someone drops a bomb with no answer. Yes sometimes you have great interplay but often it plays out like that.
My final point is that you guys aren't the only magic players, I love tuning wacky control decks and playing long drawn out defensive games (I actually tuned 4c teachings for years in modern and top 8'd some PTQ's by myself) but one of the beauties of magic is that it's not just one dimensional play. The clash of different styles is what makes it unique and such a great game, I said this when people were complaining that aggro was over represented (which was guess what, not permanent anyway) but "aggro (big mana) players deserve to play too". Especially in a non-rotating format like modern. They deserve to have a deck to drop early bombs with and thats ok. Just like engine combo players, just like linear aggro players, just like midrange players
I'm building this deck rn, and my local meta seems to be burn/humans/storm heavy. What tweaks should I make from a relatively stock list? I'm thinking of maybe 1 moon and an extra brutality MD, and maybe two Kambal's SB?
And you've just discovered why hard and fast rules never promote optimal game play in a complex game like magic. Sure it's mostly correct to bolt the bird if your deck can actually handle their 3 drops easier than their two drops coming down, you inquisition there (:. That's part of the package of understanding decklists, roles and game plans a lot better and separates average from good players.
I don't think so, the problem I have with it, is that for a zoo-style deck it potentially invalidates creatures for the rest of the game for them, like a super boardwipe. Control decks aren't supposed to beat aggro decks and this card seems bonkers, absolutely bonkers, like it almost single handedly shuts down humans. I dunno it should be a negative ability I'm pretty sure.
I agree, I'm having a really hard time trying to think up a finisher that would benefit control more than it will benefit midrange. Also, THAT IS LITERALLY THE POINT OF A CONTROL DECK. You sacrifice ability to be proactive to have less dead draws and focus on answers rather than questions. Your finishers are not supposed to be coming down the same time an aggro deck is killing you, if you're playing such a high value finisher you are not a control deck, you are midrange, or combo or ramp, you're not control.
Twin was not a control deck, it was a combo-midrange/tempo deck.
Ok I definitely did not make my point clear. I'm saying that it seems to me that most of the pro-Twin arguments hinge on the fact that blue-based reactive tempo/control is under represented in modern as of right now. Then in regards to a separate debate on whether Twin was suppressing decks in the past and whether the meta now would have decks be suppressed by the existence of Twin they start bringing up data sets which imply completely fringe decks (like GW taxes, like seriously I'd hesitate to call that deck even tier 2 at any point in modern's history) 'existed' and weren't suppressed by the existence of Twin.
My argument is, if you're going to bring up decks like that as viable decks during the pre-ban Twin era you absolutely do not need to unban twin because decks like UWR midrange/control, grixis control, faeries and UW control are at least as viable as them right now. Hell I'd call UW control and faeries far far far more viable than decks like esper midrange were in the pre-Twin ban era.
You can't say "Twin was fine look at all these sweet decks that existed when it was around" while at the same time claiming "U based reactive decks are unviable right now, we need to Twin to have a viable option".
@idSurge: If you're going to claim decks like GW taxes, Grishoalbrand, UW control and Esper Midrange 'existed' with Twin in the format, I'm going to contend blue mages should be happy with the state of reactive blue decks right now, as they are more viable than all of those decks were at the time. Careful with your data sets
Sounds like you're just defining interaction to be what you want it to be my dude. Interaction is a broad term as I've been saying recently all players are equal. A well built prison deck is interaction, you have to guess what you're opponent is going to show up with and what they have and proactively interact with it.
Hot take: Most of the time when people complain about the meta being uninteractive, they are just bad at combat maths. Or assigning roles based on matchup and game state
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This is simply not true, and a lot of fair players fall into this trap. Burn is one of the easier decks to be ok with but is extremely (I mean extremely) punishing on misplays. Just listen to Pat Sullivan commentate any burn match. In fact at the highest level I would claim that linear decks lose due to singular (often small) misplays more than fair decks. I used to grind gifts storm on MTGO, sadly my PhD has sucked up a lot of my time and I can't anymore, but what a lot of people don't understand is, that to play the linear decks correctly you have so limited options and you can often lose by 1 mana or 1 point of damage, you have a string of complex decisions to make with little to no information, ie they promote a different skill set. No matter what deck you are playing, to succeed at the highest level (assuming it is viable) takes an enormous amount of skill, but that skill might not be grinding incremental card advantage (which seems to be all fair players really care about deep down).
Seriously has no one noticed that Paul Muller and Caleb Scherer wreck with storm and thats about it? Linear decks can also be extremely rewarding to pilot just in different ways. I haven't played Tron for years but I would assume that it rewards different skills as well, and that just because it doesn't fit your idea of grinding out CA it's not 'worse' magic.
Moreover there are plenty of games against control where you're playing aggro, and they draw some variation of 3/4 removal spells and an azcanta or planeswalker. That's a complete non-game too. I like midrange mirrors, but often they are nowhere as deep as you're making out, you do the obvious one-for-ones (don't beat around the bush 90% of the time you just hit them with the correct removal spell it's not extremely hard) and then you topdeck until someone drops a bomb with no answer. Yes sometimes you have great interplay but often it plays out like that.
My final point is that you guys aren't the only magic players, I love tuning wacky control decks and playing long drawn out defensive games (I actually tuned 4c teachings for years in modern and top 8'd some PTQ's by myself) but one of the beauties of magic is that it's not just one dimensional play. The clash of different styles is what makes it unique and such a great game, I said this when people were complaining that aggro was over represented (which was guess what, not permanent anyway) but "aggro (big mana) players deserve to play too". Especially in a non-rotating format like modern. They deserve to have a deck to drop early bombs with and thats ok. Just like engine combo players, just like linear aggro players, just like midrange players
Twin was not a control deck, it was a combo-midrange/tempo deck.
My argument is, if you're going to bring up decks like that as viable decks during the pre-ban Twin era you absolutely do not need to unban twin because decks like UWR midrange/control, grixis control, faeries and UW control are at least as viable as them right now. Hell I'd call UW control and faeries far far far more viable than decks like esper midrange were in the pre-Twin ban era.
You can't say "Twin was fine look at all these sweet decks that existed when it was around" while at the same time claiming "U based reactive decks are unviable right now, we need to Twin to have a viable option".