I am prepared to call a critterless deck critterless if it's prime core strategy does not revolve around critters. We know wasteland in legacy is a spell, thalia is a goblin that does not die to e plague. Similarly electromancer is a spell that happens to beat, ssg a man source that does the same.
I may mean to beat critter decks with magus of the tabernacle and a bunch of ghostly prisons- it would not make my deck a creature deck.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
I feel like people who want more no creature decks in Modern should just play Legacy. There are arguably 3 no creature decks in Modern right now. Storm, Ad Nauseum, and Scapeshift. Sure that's only a small portion of the field but that doesn't mean every other deck is an aggro deck. How many viable no creature decks do we really need anyways? I'm off the belief that such a niche idea shouldn't ever be more than a quarter of the field at any particular GP or PTQ. The metagame seems pretty healthy right now as is. Aside from Prison all the deck types are accounted for in Modern it just happens that most of those deck types use creatures. Blue control decks could theoretically have no creatures but Snapcaster and Clique are just too good.
There are only 3 reasons I can think of to not want to run creatures in your deck, unless you're that guy who just doesn't like summoning sentient things to do your fighting for you in which case your problem is strictly a flavor reason. You could want no creatures to blank your opponent's removal spells. How useful is that really though? Most maindeck removal has multiple uses already. Burn spells will get thrown at your face and stuff like Abrupt Decay will hit your other permanents and if you don't play other permanents they'll just pitch it to Lili. Path might not have any targets but maybe they'll just path their own stuff in response to your removal to grab a land. Ultimately blanking removal doesn't really do much but can provide small incremental advantage over the course of a game. If you've weighed all the pros and cons and decided that the advantage provided by snapcaster isn't worth giving them an abrupt decay target then go right ahead and run zero creatures. The second reason could be you're playing some sort of deck where creatures are explicitly bad. Some sort of prison control deck with stuff like humility in it. The tools for these decks don't currently exist in modern because they create a huge list of problems for the format. If these decks get too powerful than basically ALL creature based strategies are completely shut out. This is the primary reason why Prison decks are bad. Not because "the players are douches" or "they hate fun" but because prison strategies(and fast combo but we'll get to that later) are bad for diversity. The third reason you would want to play a no creatures deck is if you're trying to play a deck that's too fast for creatures, like storm. The problem with these decks is that they overcentralize the metagame and as a result make other decks unviable. If spell based combo decks get to be too fast and too consistent then basically every one is forced to run blue in order to interact with them. We can see this very thing happening in Legacy where the vast majority of decks have blue in them just to support force of will as a necessity. Being forced to run a particular color just to play in the format increases the barrier of entry and decreases deck diversity, both of with are unhealthy for the metagame. So of the 3 reasons why you would want to play a no creatures deck 2 of them are just straight up bad for the health of the modern format.
The three decks you list are combo. They even use creatures in their deck list. Not exactly creature less. What about a deck that locks the game down for the long haul? The closest we have is 8 Rack and its blown out by abrupt decay, and side board affinity hate.
I've never seen spirit guide cast and not all storm decks run electromancer, most do but not all.
I've seen Simian Spirit Guide cast. Heck, I actually lost a game to a Simian Spirit Guide once (though admittedly, that wasn't Ad Nauseam, but Griselcannon after they hit me with an Emrakul). Indeed, Simian Spirit Guide is, from my understanding, how someone actually wins the Ad Nauseam mirror, because if your opponent has Angel's Grace at the ready, going off just loses you the game, so you have to hardcast your Simian Spirit Guides and try to get there with them. Just because the card is there primarily for a different purpose does not mean it can't be used as an actual creature sometimes.
If you're playing Storm without Goblin Electromancer, you're doing something horribly wrong.
As for Sakura tribe it's in there as a ramp spell that can sometimes stall a blocker if you want to play scapeshift and absolutely refuse to run creatures than you can just run Rampant Growth instead.
Yes, but running without Sakura-Tribe Elder is playing a worse deck.
Additionally, Sakura-Tribe Elder actually can function as an attacker to bring your opponent down to 18 if they aren't punishing themselves enough with fetchlands. Indeed, I once had a Scapeshift opponent attack a few times with Sakura-Tribe Elder before sacrificing it in order to bring my life total down to the point that they could Scapeshift off with only 7 lands.
The point is that these decks are still playing creatures. Even if their primary purpose is not to do creature things (e.g. attack, block) they are still seeing play, and they do still sometimes serve the typical role of a creature, namely attacking and blocking. So it seems disingenuous to me to consider them creatureless decks.
I've never seen spirit guide cast and not all storm decks run electromancer, most do but not all.
I've seen Simian Spirit Guide cast. Heck, I actually lost a game to a Simian Spirit Guide once (though admittedly, that wasn't Ad Nauseam, but Griselcannon after they hit me with an Emrakul). Indeed, Simian Spirit Guide is, from my understanding, how someone actually wins the Ad Nauseam mirror, because if your opponent has Angel's Grace at the ready, going off just loses you the game, so you have to hardcast your Simian Spirit Guides and try to get there with them. Just because the card is there primarily for a different purpose does not mean it can't be used as an actual creature sometimes.
If you're playing Storm without Goblin Electromancer, you're doing something horribly wrong.
As for Sakura tribe it's in there as a ramp spell that can sometimes stall a blocker if you want to play scapeshift and absolutely refuse to run creatures than you can just run Rampant Growth instead.
Yes, but running without Sakura-Tribe Elder is playing a worse deck.
Additionally, Sakura-Tribe Elder actually can function as an attacker to bring your opponent down to 18 if they aren't punishing themselves enough with fetchlands. Indeed, I once had a Scapeshift opponent attack a few times with Sakura-Tribe Elder before sacrificing it in order to bring my life total down to the point that they could Scapeshift off with only 7 lands.
The point is that these decks are still playing creatures. Even if their primary purpose is not to do creature things (e.g. attack, block) they are still seeing play, and they do still sometimes serve the typical role of a creature, namely attacking and blocking. So it seems disingenuous to me to consider them creatureless decks.
Exactly. I also think this thread needs sticky. The biggest problem I see for a lock down permanents that are not land (aka The The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale and Maze of Ith) that would be in a playable CMC range has to contest with abrupt decay. 4 cmc plus makes it much hard to play these cards and makes the decks slow. An other option is more cards like small pox. Also cards that make creatures worse like Humility or a Night of Souls' Betrayal for -2/-2 instead would be nice. A nether void like card would also be potent.
This analysis is like so wrong on so many stages... Tempo decks such as Delver are Aggro decks not Midrange decks, the fact that they play disruption does not make them Midrange. Same is true for Zoo, Merfolk, DnT, Hatebears and most Soul Sisters decks (Marty-Proc is a different deck that is actually a control deck but I think you meant Soul Sisters)
The fact that those decks can go onto the midgame and not be straight up dead does not mean they are midrange decks. Death and Taxes and Hatebears are based on taxing your opponent slowing them down enough to beat down with, well, Bears. Soul Sisters is an aggro deck that just uses the strong synergy between Serra Ascendant,Ajani's Pridemate and Martyr of Sands to beat face, while Merfolk is an aggro deck that uses some disruption similarly to Delver. Yes none of these decks are aggro in its purest form but they are actually aggro decks.
The Midrange decks of the format are mainly Pod, Rock/Jund/Junk and all the Tron variants besides RG but some build of Twin (Tarmotwin, Tempotwin) and UWR Control can classify as midrange decks, as they aim to win in the midgame and can play both Control against Aggro decks and Aggro when the game calls for it.
Decks like Storm, Ad-Nauseum Unlife, Living End and Amulet/Hivemind/Other fringe decks are purely combo decks that just want to win with their combo as soon as possible, as consistantly as possible. They do not want to control the game not do they mind about what the opponent is doing which are the main characteristics of a Combo deck.
Control decks are in fact as you said few and far between. Scapeshift being the main suspect here as it is the only true control deck of the format that aims for the endgame along with its buddies as you said 8-Rack and Martyr-Proc. Some builds of UWR Control and UW Tron can be controlish but generally they aim for a midrange of bolt-snap-bolt or gifts-rites game.
In my honest opinion the hardest decks to classify on the Suicide Black to Elixir Control scale are RG Tron and Boggles, both are extremely aggressive decks that can win of turn 3-4 but they cannot be called either Combo nor Aggro but are in fact something in between.
I aggree that we need more control decks, I think that those decks by themselves would balance the format out allowing for more space for aggro decks as they would force a large chunk of Combo/Midrange out of the format. (Aggro beats Control beats Combo beats Aggro) All the kill spells do not matter as much when you have access to very strong aggro cards such as Nacatl and Goyf which are must answer threats AND strong tax cards such as Moon Effects, Lodestone Golem (Seriously people play this card).
Not sure there is much point in discussing what is midrange and what is not in this thread. If you want to call tempo decks aggro then fine. But when wizards talk about boosting aggro decks I am pretty sure they mean affinity/burn speed decks with no tempo elements. In legacy it is a bit easier to classify- many aggro decks have control elements (eg pyromancer/delver) but generally still kill by t4 against an opponent doing stuff, unlike their modern equivalents which do it rarely without help. Merfolk is hard to classify due to so many versions of it.
Incidentally, as I have discussed on the sistas and proc threads- they are the same deck (they used to have the same thread as white lifegain), and both can be placed on the spectrum with any number of control elements. There are not many accepted builds of either as neither is very successful. Norrin is in the same boat.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
The three decks you list are combo. They even use creatures in their deck list. Not exactly creature less. What about a deck that locks the game down for the long haul? The closest we have is 8 Rack and its blown out by abrupt decay, and side board affinity hate.
As I stated before prison decks are explicitly bad for the health of the metagame. For starters they cause games to go to time too often. Remember this is one of the reasons they took a shot at eggs and it's why sensei's top is banned. It's even worse in finals where games are 3 out of 5 and there are no time limits. Can you imagine an 8 hour long match? Next we have the fact that prison decks actively make creature based strategies bad and that's bad for diversity. If you give prison decks enough tools to thrive than creature based strategies start to wither away. Aggressive decks are inherently worse in all the older formats for a reason. If you add something new you'll end up losing something we have. Lastly is that those decks are just "unfun". Remember there are two people playing the game and when one person can't do anything at all they're not going to enjoy their gaming experience. This leads to less people wanting to play Modern, which in turn leads to smaller grand prix, less modern FNMs, and other stuff along those lines. Wizards wants modern to be as inclusive as possible, part of making it inclusive is making people want to play it. Being part of a 2 player game where you are completely at the mercy of the other player and unable to do anything doesn't make a player want to keep playing. When it happens consistently it makes people not want to play the format.
Unfortunately every try hard from Sacramento to Shanghai preaches from the top of their 27 lands + Mana Reflection that Tooth and Nail and Time Stretch are fine to play in the same turn but Armageddon is unfair.
If people want casual fun they should play kitchen table or edh where telling the other guy that you don't want to play against his deck is viable. As for prison dumping on creature based strategies, the various prison matchups all have differing matchups. 8rack stomps draw go and other bridge decks. LD strategies have issues with fast combo and low mana decks. Sure there are some prison decks that crush creature based strategies, but if you can't punish creature based strategies the metagame is just gonna stagnate into play bigger dudes and beat their slightly dudes to death.
The three decks you list are combo. They even use creatures in their deck list. Not exactly creature less. What about a deck that locks the game down for the long haul? The closest we have is 8 Rack and its blown out by abrupt decay, and side board affinity hate.
As I stated before prison decks are explicitly bad for the health of the metagame. For starters they cause games to go to time too often. Remember this is one of the reasons they took a shot at eggs and it's why sensei's top is banned. It's even worse in finals where games are 3 out of 5 and there are no time limits. Can you imagine an 8 hour long match? Next we have the fact that prison decks actively make creature based strategies bad and that's bad for diversity. If you give prison decks enough tools to thrive than creature based strategies start to wither away. Aggressive decks are inherently worse in all the older formats for a reason. If you add something new you'll end up losing something we have. Lastly is that those decks are just "unfun". Remember there are two people playing the game and when one person can't do anything at all they're not going to enjoy their gaming experience. This leads to less people wanting to play Modern, which in turn leads to smaller grand prix, less modern FNMs, and other stuff along those lines. Wizards wants modern to be as inclusive as possible, part of making it inclusive is making people want to play it. Being part of a 2 player game where you are completely at the mercy of the other player and unable to do anything doesn't make a player want to keep playing. When it happens consistently it makes people not want to play the format.
Prison decks are not bad for the game. Not all prison deck attack creatures directly either. Some make spells weak or more costly or more time consuming to play like Static Orb. Some also prevent damage being dealt to the player such as using Solitary Confinement as a lock piece. Then there's classic staxs which makes it difficult for your opponent to keep a board presence. However, no prison deck should take 8 hours to finish a game. They should be arguable faster than eggs since they would not need to draw their entire deck before they can do anything. I know when it comes to pox and I have a nether void, and a Cursed Scroll on the field. My opponent unless they draw the land to push past the additional 3 mana tax. Their turns are quick and so are mine. So a round of our turns are fast, and from each round they take 2 damage. It generally does not take more than 5 minutes to close the game from there. Also the prison player is likely not going to be using the combat phase if they have no creatures so there is less to their turn. They primarily are going to play permanents that effect the board or spells that provide disruption. Again leading to faster turns. The choice of the kill condition is usually what dictates how many turns the deck takes. If your kill condition is milling one card a turn its a lot slower than doing 1 or 2 damage a turn. That's more of a problem if the only kill conditions available are slow. If anything prison decks bring more diversity its an other archetype to play with. It's also gives the opponent a lot more time to deal the problem unlike combo which forces to you have the answer in hand when they go off. So it allows for more interaction than a combo deck. I don't see how it could be bad for the game unless wizards pushes prison to broken levels.
I may mean to beat critter decks with magus of the tabernacle and a bunch of ghostly prisons- it would not make my deck a creature deck.
The three decks you list are combo. They even use creatures in their deck list. Not exactly creature less. What about a deck that locks the game down for the long haul? The closest we have is 8 Rack and its blown out by abrupt decay, and side board affinity hate.
I loathe creatures! Praise Prison and Land Destruction!
My Peasant Cube (looking for feedback)
If you're playing Storm without Goblin Electromancer, you're doing something horribly wrong.
Yes, but running without Sakura-Tribe Elder is playing a worse deck.
Additionally, Sakura-Tribe Elder actually can function as an attacker to bring your opponent down to 18 if they aren't punishing themselves enough with fetchlands. Indeed, I once had a Scapeshift opponent attack a few times with Sakura-Tribe Elder before sacrificing it in order to bring my life total down to the point that they could Scapeshift off with only 7 lands.
The point is that these decks are still playing creatures. Even if their primary purpose is not to do creature things (e.g. attack, block) they are still seeing play, and they do still sometimes serve the typical role of a creature, namely attacking and blocking. So it seems disingenuous to me to consider them creatureless decks.
Exactly. I also think this thread needs sticky. The biggest problem I see for a lock down permanents that are not land (aka The The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale and Maze of Ith) that would be in a playable CMC range has to contest with abrupt decay. 4 cmc plus makes it much hard to play these cards and makes the decks slow. An other option is more cards like small pox. Also cards that make creatures worse like Humility or a Night of Souls' Betrayal for -2/-2 instead would be nice. A nether void like card would also be potent.
I loathe creatures! Praise Prison and Land Destruction!
My Peasant Cube (looking for feedback)
Not sure there is much point in discussing what is midrange and what is not in this thread. If you want to call tempo decks aggro then fine. But when wizards talk about boosting aggro decks I am pretty sure they mean affinity/burn speed decks with no tempo elements. In legacy it is a bit easier to classify- many aggro decks have control elements (eg pyromancer/delver) but generally still kill by t4 against an opponent doing stuff, unlike their modern equivalents which do it rarely without help. Merfolk is hard to classify due to so many versions of it.
Incidentally, as I have discussed on the sistas and proc threads- they are the same deck (they used to have the same thread as white lifegain), and both can be placed on the spectrum with any number of control elements. There are not many accepted builds of either as neither is very successful. Norrin is in the same boat.
Prison decks are not bad for the game. Not all prison deck attack creatures directly either. Some make spells weak or more costly or more time consuming to play like Static Orb. Some also prevent damage being dealt to the player such as using Solitary Confinement as a lock piece. Then there's classic staxs which makes it difficult for your opponent to keep a board presence. However, no prison deck should take 8 hours to finish a game. They should be arguable faster than eggs since they would not need to draw their entire deck before they can do anything. I know when it comes to pox and I have a nether void, and a Cursed Scroll on the field. My opponent unless they draw the land to push past the additional 3 mana tax. Their turns are quick and so are mine. So a round of our turns are fast, and from each round they take 2 damage. It generally does not take more than 5 minutes to close the game from there. Also the prison player is likely not going to be using the combat phase if they have no creatures so there is less to their turn. They primarily are going to play permanents that effect the board or spells that provide disruption. Again leading to faster turns. The choice of the kill condition is usually what dictates how many turns the deck takes. If your kill condition is milling one card a turn its a lot slower than doing 1 or 2 damage a turn. That's more of a problem if the only kill conditions available are slow. If anything prison decks bring more diversity its an other archetype to play with. It's also gives the opponent a lot more time to deal the problem unlike combo which forces to you have the answer in hand when they go off. So it allows for more interaction than a combo deck. I don't see how it could be bad for the game unless wizards pushes prison to broken levels.
I loathe creatures! Praise Prison and Land Destruction!
My Peasant Cube (looking for feedback)