What makes a better deck? A deck packed full of synergy or a deck packed full of good stuff? Which one do you prefer to play?
An example would be Affinity (Which has a lot of unplayable cards without each other) vs a deck like Azban, which is just chock full of good stuff, but doesn't really do stuff together.
What makes a better deck? A deck packed full of synergy or a deck packed full of good stuff? Which one do you prefer to play?
An example would be Affinity (Which has a lot of unplayable cards without each other) vs a deck like Azban, which is just chock full of good stuff, but doesn't really do stuff together.
A lot of players like synergy because it's fun, and it's generally easier to build since one card leads into the next. These are more risky decks to build though because relying on synergy means an untimely ban can take out your whole deck.
Playing cards of individually high power levels, is the safest synergy in Modern. If somethin=g gets banned, all you lose is that card, and you replace it with the next most powerful card. That's why Jund has worked as a deck for so long, despite eating 3 different bans and why Twin was gone after one.
Unless you don't care about the card investment, playing a deck of 60 individually powerful cards is by far the safest strategy in the format, and it's quite effective.
Isn't jund like the most synergistic deck ever? The synergy is so simplistic it's easily looked over but it is there. Get cards into the yard to feed the goyf and move your opponent into a top deck situation. I mean they are all powerful cards but the decks design seems synergistic.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Even in classic jund though. I mean, discard spells are all sorceries, removal is instants, bob is an auto remove creature similar to LotV being an auto remove walker. Fetchlands. It all just falls in line. But yeah, DSJ is much more synergistic. Even the delirium mechanic with goyf. Classic jund was more coincidental but coincidental or not, there is a lot of synergy there and on curve. Honestly there has to be some synergy for every deck to work well. If its missing the deck doesn't work.
Perhaps a more interesting question is can a deck exist without synergy? I'm not sure they can. There needs to be some kind of glue holding the deck together. How strong the deck is seems to be how strong the natural synergy within it is.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Really depends on the event. The more rounds the event has, the less thinking I actually want to have to do. Playing a 8 or more round event is just draining mentally if you are playing a deck that you have to make multiple decisions and the deck isnt forgiving.
Its a better question for standard. Almost every card that seems play in modern is a standard allstar and a great card. Its a question of a BIT less powerful cards with synergy like a storm or tron, or more powerful midrange type deck like Grixis Jund or Junk.
I think this is actually a pivotal point in any deck brew. Ultimately you have to balance this with every card in the deck. How strong is the card with the other cards being around (synergy)? How likely though is it going to be on its own and how useful could it then still be (individual power level)?
Jund by the way: To disrupt/simplify and win just with one goyf on the board: this is more about a strong gameplan rather then synergy. Even though there are synergies in the deck - they are fairly weak..
I'd say that the most successful decks have both, but fall more on the side of strong cards than specific synergies. There are exceptions, like Affinity, Abzan Coco, or Gifts Storm, but they aren't the rule. Classical GBx has a cohesive strategy, but the synergies between the cards have very little to with actually winning the game- the entire point of the synergies are to make it difficult for your opponent to trade effectively. Grixis control has pretty much always been a value deck above all else. UW control is the same deal, but trades speed for sturdiness. Gx Tron and Eldrazitron are the definition of strong cards over strong synergies, which get sped up by how the decks cheat on land drops. Knightfall is a GWx aggro deck with a combo tucked inside it. Even with Twin, it had a solid shell that backed up the synergy in the deck. Infect is 50/50 Synergy and card quality. It was really predicated on strong, cheap pump spells and being able to double dip with cheap infect creatures- but it didn't work with bad pump spells or weak infect creatures.
Historically, synergy has only truly dominated when it was paired with consistency and speed, like with Shoal Infect, Bloom Titan, or Swathstorm. The reason is fairly straightforward: Decks that rely entirely on synergies don't work when disrupted. Decks that rely entirely on strong cards will never have the accidental wins that more synergistic decks have. So the decks that have been a real problem (or a pillar of format, depending on your viewpoint) have had strong cards with some synergy, because it meant they had the best of both worlds.
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An example would be Affinity (Which has a lot of unplayable cards without each other) vs a deck like Azban, which is just chock full of good stuff, but doesn't really do stuff together.
Modern Tallowisp Spirits - A Modern Tallowisp Deck UW
Eldrazi Ninjas - Summoning Octopus Jutsu YYYYAAAHHHH!
STANDARD
Naban Wizards
Spirits
A lot of players like synergy because it's fun, and it's generally easier to build since one card leads into the next. These are more risky decks to build though because relying on synergy means an untimely ban can take out your whole deck.
Playing cards of individually high power levels, is the safest synergy in Modern. If somethin=g gets banned, all you lose is that card, and you replace it with the next most powerful card. That's why Jund has worked as a deck for so long, despite eating 3 different bans and why Twin was gone after one.
Unless you don't care about the card investment, playing a deck of 60 individually powerful cards is by far the safest strategy in the format, and it's quite effective.
Looking at the current Tier 1 list, this seems to be the case. Also, in previous lists that I recall.
Personally, I enjoy playing synergistic decks more.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Perhaps a more interesting question is can a deck exist without synergy? I'm not sure they can. There needs to be some kind of glue holding the deck together. How strong the deck is seems to be how strong the natural synergy within it is.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Modern Tallowisp Spirits - A Modern Tallowisp Deck UW
Eldrazi Ninjas - Summoning Octopus Jutsu YYYYAAAHHHH!
STANDARD
Naban Wizards
Jund by the way: To disrupt/simplify and win just with one goyf on the board: this is more about a strong gameplan rather then synergy. Even though there are synergies in the deck - they are fairly weak..
Historically, synergy has only truly dominated when it was paired with consistency and speed, like with Shoal Infect, Bloom Titan, or Swathstorm. The reason is fairly straightforward: Decks that rely entirely on synergies don't work when disrupted. Decks that rely entirely on strong cards will never have the accidental wins that more synergistic decks have. So the decks that have been a real problem (or a pillar of format, depending on your viewpoint) have had strong cards with some synergy, because it meant they had the best of both worlds.