That is such a backwards view, because you don't like a deck they shouldn't be viable. Ideally decks of every archetype should be viable and represented. Saying combo decks are unfun to play against is a personal opinion. I have fun playing and designing against combo decks, control decks, prison decks, and aggro decks because I have to approach each match-up differently. What is blatantly unhealthy is your me first opinions on game design.
Because then you run into Modern's problem. Legacy has enough "This hates on 75% of the combo" cards that you can be prepared for combo decks. But as the card pool shrinks, the answers do too.
Now in Modern, Infect needed to go because if you ever took a point of damage, you lost the game. Then Storm needed to take a hit because if you didn't play counterspells or tons of hand disruption, you were dead. Then Eggs took a hit because it took forever and forced people to play 8 hate cards and hope they drew them.
The issue wasn't the decks, but that there are very few cards that answer all of them.
In standard it's even worse. If there was some infinite combo in standard, as well as a graveyard combo in standard, that is well over half of everyone's board at any one time.
So you either have a format where no combo gets hated out because it's too hard to predict which one you will face, or one with a single combo, and it will be a bad deck because everyone can bullseye on it. Again with Modern, but it is real easy to win a match against Splinter Twin. It is real hard to win all the match ups against Splinter Twin, 2 Different Pod decks with 4 combo kills, RG Tron, and Goryo's Vengence decks.
Could see standard play in the board of midrange decks. If you face a removal light deck, this thing is insane. Obviously, it garbage against removal heavy decks, but something like this is pretty busted in a G/R Monsters mirror or out of G/R against Mono-Blue.
That would be so broken. Play an Elvish Mystic, go grab two lands, play another one, get two more lands, etc.
Ah-ha. My opponently ca't possibly win when I play my blank 5 drop, then on turn 6, play some one drops to get mana for the rest of the cards that aren't in my hand because I played two 1 drops late in the game.
Magic is a game of small edges. If there is only one piece of Magic advice you remember, then that should be it.
I apologize, though. I realize that I am probably talking waaaay over your level here; I don't mean to. It's hard to remember that MTGS is mainly made up of non-competitive players, you know?
But it isn't anymore.
It can be, but giving up your 5 drop to start gaining small edges isn't worth it when the power level of 5 drops is high.
Basically, if you play this, and your opponent plays Stormbreath Dragon, you might get the advantage in 4 turns, but you are dead in 2.
This is the black sweeper we've been waiting for? A sideboard card? A worse Anger of the Gods?
Sad Panda.
Oh no. This will see lots of play. The issue with anger is that it dealt 3 damage. this leaves X/3s alive.
Now you have a sweeper that clears out aggro, but doesn't kill your Sylvan Caryatid, leaving you with a 0/3 blocking mana dork. This card instantly makes the idea of a ramp deck much much better.
Wanting to help her home plane no matter what the cost?
That's about as white as it gets.
No, Kiora's +1 will stop Thassa dead in her tracks,
which is amusing since it represents being smashed by a wave
She's still blue/green. She is striving to save nature through blue means. She is going to learn about the massive sea monsters on Theros and use that info to try and save Zendikar. I don't think that sentence refers to self sacrifice, like it would in white. I think it is meant to show the callousness of blue.
She doesn't care what damage she causes (angering Thassa and causing massive tidal waves) if it is in the name of knowledge.
Without that 5 life the cards might not matter anyway.
It's just not good enough. If you let them Rev for 3-4, then they are super ahead even without the life. You did 3 (7-8ish?) "damage" to them with one card, but then they get to untap and either cast a bigger one or verdict away your threats so you can't finish the job before they get to stabilize.
I like that the OP is saying the deck is garbage, and you see the 4-0 in the daily next to it. If I recall, DZY was actually 11-1 that day in dailies with it.
People always think control needs a bunch of win conditions. The only one it needs is not losing. It doesn't matter how last you win if you have control of the game and with this deck, that is the goal.
Frankly, it doesn't even need the Elspeth. All this deck wants to do is chain revelations, and eventually use the elixir so that you they don't draw out. It can will will often win from the old 53 turn clock.
Once the pressure is off it's just going to cast sphinx's until it's hand has 2 counters, 2 removal spells, another sphinx's and some more draw and that it. It's hand will always be able to answer you because the entire deck is answers, cards to draw answers, land and 2 other cards.
It falls under the "Don't play the worse version of a good deck rule"
A Bant Primespeaker build or something with more creatures could work but when you want to be a hard control deck, what does green get you that black doesn't.
Green gives you access to Caryatid and a few cheap beaters. Unfortunately all those have real issues when you plan is to sweep the board on turn 4 or 5.
For Black you get Hero's Downfall and then a bunch of 2 mana cost removal. It also brings in access to much more powerful multicolor cards in Far/Away, Blood Baron, Obzedat, and Ashiok.
I love me some Bant, but there is just no reason to play a Bant Control deck right now.
WoTC have an acknowledged problem with the interraction of the colour pie and protection, and I think this card's apparent popularity is going to highlight this starkly. The issue is that Black and White sweepers can deal with protection, but red can't. I feel like they need to print a red spell that's something like "XR - each player deals X damage to each of their creatures" to get around the problem (I think that works rules-wise). If something like this existed, there'd be probably-playable answers to TNN (and pro-creatures in general) in three colours which would go a long way to keeping it in check.
They just need an earthquake that says damage can't be prevented. That is right up their alley and for some reason doesn't exist. There isn't a single pyroclasm/earthquake type effect with "Damage can't be prevented" on it.
Raw Deal has both God Packs and Boxes. I think it was something like 1 out of 36 boxes had a Foil card every pack (they were normally 4 per box-ish) and there was a single pack out of 36 boxes that was all Foil Cards.
And again, this post is kinda assuming that the term unfair in MtG is the same as the word unfair in English. The thing is that it doesn't. Its a magic specific definition. Its like tilt. In English, its defined as:
Verb
1. move or cause to move into a sloping position.
2. historical
(in jousting) thrust at with a lance or other weapon.
noun
1. a sloping position or movement.
2. historical
a combat for exercise or sport between two men on horseback with lances; a joust.
3. CANADIAN - a small hut in a forest.
Yet in magic its used to mean a player who is so overwhelmed by their negative emotions about previous a turn of events in a game or tourney that their current and/or future play suffers.
Or Junk. If you said to a non MtG player or a new player that you were playing a junk deck, they'd probably assume you were calling your deck a bad deck. Yet to us, we know that it means GWB. We'd also recognise Rock as GB, what RUG and BUG mean and a decent chunk would know that MUD is a completely colourless artifact deck. None of them actually relate to the English word. A non player would probably assume BUG was insect based or something.
Its the same with Fair/Unfair. In real life, unfair means:
not based on or behaving according to the principles of equality and justice.
or
not following the rules of a game or sport.
Well no deck fulfils the second one by virtue of being playable within the game, and they don't fulful the first because we all in theory have access to the same pool of cards when building our decks (budget not withstanding). So in magic it has its own suite of meanings. What they are is quite subjective and depends on where you learned, who you learned from, etc.
RIP/Helm in itself is pretty unfair, but it isn't used in an unfair way. RIP/Helm is a finisher in U/W control decks that play fair magic and use that as a win condition of choice. It isn't like a show and tell deck where the entire game is about them digging and accelerating out their combo pieces.
Cawblade in legacy is a fair deck, but cawgo from standard was not.
Being able to draw 3 squadron hawks, brainstorm with jace, and then shuffle two of them away, while being tutor up a sword, equip it to a squadron hawk, swing and then untap everything, also while being able to have protection from any relevant colors, and then of course, batterskull.
Cawgo wasn't fair because the cards that existed along side it weren't as powerful as the interactions that were possible with the deck were a step above everything else in the format. It was a combo aggro control deck.
In legacy, the deck is a lot more fair, and a lot more fun because of that. I hated the deck in standard, but I enjoy playing it in legacy.
That is still the traditional magic definition of "Fair". It isn't about how good it is, it is about it's route to victory.
If anything, Cawblade was the fairest deck around at the time. Everything it did was just about gaining value and winning through fair means. It drew cards, it killed things, it played threats and it did it all in fair ways.
Because then you run into Modern's problem. Legacy has enough "This hates on 75% of the combo" cards that you can be prepared for combo decks. But as the card pool shrinks, the answers do too.
Now in Modern, Infect needed to go because if you ever took a point of damage, you lost the game. Then Storm needed to take a hit because if you didn't play counterspells or tons of hand disruption, you were dead. Then Eggs took a hit because it took forever and forced people to play 8 hate cards and hope they drew them.
The issue wasn't the decks, but that there are very few cards that answer all of them.
In standard it's even worse. If there was some infinite combo in standard, as well as a graveyard combo in standard, that is well over half of everyone's board at any one time.
So you either have a format where no combo gets hated out because it's too hard to predict which one you will face, or one with a single combo, and it will be a bad deck because everyone can bullseye on it. Again with Modern, but it is real easy to win a match against Splinter Twin. It is real hard to win all the match ups against Splinter Twin, 2 Different Pod decks with 4 combo kills, RG Tron, and Goryo's Vengence decks.
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"Sup dawg! I herd u like mountains so I equipped a mountain on your mountain so your can swing with land while you swing with land!"
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"Sup dawg! I herd u like mountains so I equipped a mountain on your mountain so your can swing with land while you swing with land!"
Ah-ha. My opponently ca't possibly win when I play my blank 5 drop, then on turn 6, play some one drops to get mana for the rest of the cards that aren't in my hand because I played two 1 drops late in the game.
You clearly broke it.
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"Sup dawg! I herd u like mountains so I equipped a mountain on your mountain so your can swing with land while you swing with land!"
This is a different card. You can play it on a board without creatures and it's an 0/1.
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"Sup dawg! I herd u like mountains so I equipped a mountain on your mountain so your can swing with land while you swing with land!"
But it isn't anymore.
It can be, but giving up your 5 drop to start gaining small edges isn't worth it when the power level of 5 drops is high.
Basically, if you play this, and your opponent plays Stormbreath Dragon, you might get the advantage in 4 turns, but you are dead in 2.
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"Sup dawg! I herd u like mountains so I equipped a mountain on your mountain so your can swing with land while you swing with land!"
Oh no. This will see lots of play. The issue with anger is that it dealt 3 damage. this leaves X/3s alive.
Now you have a sweeper that clears out aggro, but doesn't kill your Sylvan Caryatid, leaving you with a 0/3 blocking mana dork. This card instantly makes the idea of a ramp deck much much better.
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"Sup dawg! I herd u like mountains so I equipped a mountain on your mountain so your can swing with land while you swing with land!"
She's still blue/green. She is striving to save nature through blue means. She is going to learn about the massive sea monsters on Theros and use that info to try and save Zendikar. I don't think that sentence refers to self sacrifice, like it would in white. I think it is meant to show the callousness of blue.
She doesn't care what damage she causes (angering Thassa and causing massive tidal waves) if it is in the name of knowledge.
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"Sup dawg! I herd u like mountains so I equipped a mountain on your mountain so your can swing with land while you swing with land!"
She seems really good. She looks like Tamiyo 2.0
Her +1 protects her, her -1 is pure upside if you need it, and her ultimate will win the game. She's got all the makings of being very good.
It's not hard to see her being played on turn 4, then verdict/anger on turn 5 and then the game ends unless they have a non-creature answer.
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"Sup dawg! I herd u like mountains so I equipped a mountain on your mountain so your can swing with land while you swing with land!"
It's just not good enough. If you let them Rev for 3-4, then they are super ahead even without the life. You did 3 (7-8ish?) "damage" to them with one card, but then they get to untap and either cast a bigger one or verdict away your threats so you can't finish the job before they get to stabilize.
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"Sup dawg! I herd u like mountains so I equipped a mountain on your mountain so your can swing with land while you swing with land!"
People always think control needs a bunch of win conditions. The only one it needs is not losing. It doesn't matter how last you win if you have control of the game and with this deck, that is the goal.
Frankly, it doesn't even need the Elspeth. All this deck wants to do is chain revelations, and eventually use the elixir so that you they don't draw out. It can will will often win from the old 53 turn clock.
Once the pressure is off it's just going to cast sphinx's until it's hand has 2 counters, 2 removal spells, another sphinx's and some more draw and that it. It's hand will always be able to answer you because the entire deck is answers, cards to draw answers, land and 2 other cards.
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"Sup dawg! I herd u like mountains so I equipped a mountain on your mountain so your can swing with land while you swing with land!"
A Bant Primespeaker build or something with more creatures could work but when you want to be a hard control deck, what does green get you that black doesn't.
Green gives you access to Caryatid and a few cheap beaters. Unfortunately all those have real issues when you plan is to sweep the board on turn 4 or 5.
For Black you get Hero's Downfall and then a bunch of 2 mana cost removal. It also brings in access to much more powerful multicolor cards in Far/Away, Blood Baron, Obzedat, and Ashiok.
I love me some Bant, but there is just no reason to play a Bant Control deck right now.
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"Sup dawg! I herd u like mountains so I equipped a mountain on your mountain so your can swing with land while you swing with land!"
They just need an earthquake that says damage can't be prevented. That is right up their alley and for some reason doesn't exist. There isn't a single pyroclasm/earthquake type effect with "Damage can't be prevented" on it.
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"Sup dawg! I herd u like mountains so I equipped a mountain on your mountain so your can swing with land while you swing with land!"
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"Sup dawg! I herd u like mountains so I equipped a mountain on your mountain so your can swing with land while you swing with land!"
RIP/Helm in itself is pretty unfair, but it isn't used in an unfair way. RIP/Helm is a finisher in U/W control decks that play fair magic and use that as a win condition of choice. It isn't like a show and tell deck where the entire game is about them digging and accelerating out their combo pieces.
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"Sup dawg! I herd u like mountains so I equipped a mountain on your mountain so your can swing with land while you swing with land!"
That is still the traditional magic definition of "Fair". It isn't about how good it is, it is about it's route to victory.
If anything, Cawblade was the fairest deck around at the time. Everything it did was just about gaining value and winning through fair means. It drew cards, it killed things, it played threats and it did it all in fair ways.
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"Sup dawg! I herd u like mountains so I equipped a mountain on your mountain so your can swing with land while you swing with land!"