After watching some of the SCG Seattle Open including more standard control mirror matches (like most weekends), I just can't stand the stalling, slow, grindy nature of the control decks! A big part of the deck is playing a land tapped each turn, answering each threat and slow rolling a win condition.
Have control decks ever been this boring, this slow and this linear? There are no interesting 'controlly' cards like Winter Orb just a bunch of objectively good card draw, sweepers, and removal. There is no interesting lock or card interaction, just an 'I go bigger, better and slower than you to win' strategy.
Have control decks ever been this excruciating to play against or watch before?
Control decks wouldn't be control decks if they didnt have open mana to control the game. How exactly would a control win faster without controlling the game? And if there was a way to win fast while controlling wouldn't it just be a broken archetype? Is this even a serious post?
Control decks wouldn't be control decks if they didnt have open mana to control the game. How exactly would a control win faster without controlling the game? And if there was a way to win fast while controlling wouldn't it just be a broken archetype? Is this even a serious post?
Yes. It is a serious question. Though you seem to have missed it entirely. I'm aware of how control decks operate. The question is have they always been this slow? It seems like this is the slowest control decks have been.
So- IronPlushy- don't be so typical with your "is this a serious post?" spamming comment. Which is really just code for calling me an idiot.
I think that- maybe- there might be something uniquely boring about land drops + sphinx's rev. I'm just seeking others' constructive perspectives.
Of course there was.... control decks back in the day won with a millstone... or a serra angel. both those cards are in standard right now I challange to you build a control deck where they are the win con.
A fast control deck is called tempo, and we haven't really had a tempo deck in standard since Delver. Really though control is, has always, and will always be a slow archetype by nature of design, and why shouldn't they be? It's an archetype that rewards slow play by letting you play with the most powerful cards in the current format. I personally prefer watching a control deck slug it out as opposed to the slew of devotion decks, but that's personal opinion. They're definitely faster then the drownyard kill condition that we had last season.
In the past they would just counter all your spells and beat you with lands or something like Serra angel. Your "interesting" card Winter Orb is a troll card that can prolong a 15-20 min. game to 2 hours...
Of course they are slow. That is by nature of the archetype. That's like asking if Aggro decks have always been this fast.
Control takes "control" of the game and that takes time and they need sweepers, card draw and removal to do that. They grind the opponent out and then deploy the most powerful cards in their end-game and those are pretty expensive adding to the slowness of the archetype.
And while this is irrelevant in competitive play, it is also more fun for your opponent that way. He still got to play Magic instead of all his lands getting blown up or his board not untapping anymore.
You may find those "lock" cards cool and interesting but most of your opponents dont think like that. That is the reason such cards are not printed anymore. Wizard doesn't like such "unfun" cards.
The current UW-based control decks are pretty slow by modern standards, mostly because of Sphinx's Revelation allowing them to effectively win the game and dig for a win con at their leisure. A typical U/W control deck today has only one AEtherling and a couple Elspeth, Sun's Champion as finishers, neither of which are particularly fast, whereas a control deck in the past couple of years is probably playing cards like Grave Titan, Gideon Jura, or Batterskull, all of which are more direct threats that end the game quicker. It's a quirk of the format, and control decks will almost certainly play more threats once Sphinx's Revelation rotates.
Of course there was.... control decks back in the day won with a millstone... or a serra angel. both those cards are in standard right now I challange to you build a control deck where they are the win con.
I would be willing to bet that U/W control could slot in a couple Serra Angels into their main and still put up half decent numbers. The reason they don't is because there are far better options for win-cons obviously, and it wouldn't win as easily/often as ones not running them. But frankly I'm certain they'd do "fine".
The current UW-based control decks are pretty slow by modern standards, mostly because of Sphinx's Revelation allowing them to effectively win the game and dig for a win con at their leisure. A typical U/W control deck today has only one AEtherling and a couple Elspeth, Sun's Champion as finishers, neither of which are particularly fast, whereas a control deck in the past couple of years is probably playing cards like Grave Titan, Gideon Jura, or Batterskull, all of which are more direct threats that end the game quicker. It's a quirk of the format, and control decks will almost certainly play more threats once Sphinx's Revelation rotates.
This. Sphinx's Revelation is single-handedly responsible for the unusual slowness of control decks in Standard. The only way to fight it in the long game would be with land destruction (which could make a case for Ember Swallower, but GR Monsters has better options); recurrent, uncounterable threats (which don't exist in Standard); or countermagic (which probably means you're playing UW Control yourself).
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You haven't lived until you've seen a Draw-Go mirror circa 1997. Play lands, Thawing Glaciers to fetch more lands, then a massive counter battle over the one win con in your deck (pick your poison...Waterspout Djinn, Morphling, Rainbow Efreet, or Steel Golem). The another counter war to protect the win condition from a Disk or a Capsize. It was GLORIOUS!
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You haven't lived until you've seen a Draw-Go mirror circa 1997. Play lands, Thawing Glaciers to fetch more lands, then a massive counter battle over the one win con in your deck (pick your poison...Waterspout Djinn, Morphling, Rainbow Efreet, or Steel Golem). The another counter war to protect the win condition from a Disk or a Capsize. It was GLORIOUS!
I believe Jon Finkel created a control deck back then which had the entire purpose of slow-milling the opponent and locking up the board in order to win game 1 with as little time left as possible to go into game 2, and thus winning the match 1-0.
Stasis decks were also incredibly slow decks to play against, as were decks using Winter Orb and the like. The entire point was to draw out the games forever. Certainly U/W control wants games to take a lot of turns, but I don't think they're especially slow. At least they allow you to *do* something against them.
Last rotation I had to aggro out in a control mirror and ended up winning because I realized I was the aggro player. Haunted Plate Mail on my Augur of Bolas or Restoration Angel was too much for him to handle.
It becomes very interesting when your control deck is capable of aggroing, I think in the control mirrors currently by the time you assume the role as the aggro or control player it's already too late since control decks are so similar and the most controlling player wins.
Last rotation I had to aggro out in a control mirror and ended up winning because I realized I was the aggro player. Haunted Plate Mail on my Augur of Bolas or Restoration Angel was too much for him to handle.
It becomes very interesting when your control deck is capable of aggroing, I think in the control mirrors currently by the time you assume the role as the aggro or control player it's already too late since control decks are so similar and the most controlling player wins.
That's a pretty well-known bit of Magic theory. The basic question of any matchup is "who's the beatdown?" One deck is the aggro deck, and one deck is the control deck. This applies in literally every game. Control matchups have to determine who's the more aggressive of the two. Aggro matchups have to determine which can outrace the other, and which has to slow the other down. Misassignment of role there is frequently a game loss.
Last rotation I had to aggro out in a control mirror and ended up winning because I realized I was the aggro player. Haunted Plate Mail on my Augur of Bolas or Restoration Angel was too much for him to handle.
It becomes very interesting when your control deck is capable of aggroing, I think in the control mirrors currently by the time you assume the role as the aggro or control player it's already too late since control decks are so similar and the most controlling player wins.
That's a pretty well-known bit of Magic theory. The basic question of any matchup is "who's the beatdown?" One deck is the aggro deck, and one deck is the control deck. This applies in literally every game. Control matchups have to determine who's the more aggressive of the two. Aggro matchups have to determine which can outrace the other, and which has to slow the other down. Misassignment of role there is frequently a game loss.
I think that's part of what the OP is saying - the control decks in Standard right now are going so deep that it can be really difficult to figure out who is playing which role. Some decks run so few ways to win that by the time anyone can see which player is/should be more aggressive the first game has gone 30 minutes. And then after sideboarding you have to figure it out all over again.
You haven't lived until you've seen a Draw-Go mirror circa 1997. Play lands, Thawing Glaciers to fetch more lands, then a massive counter battle over the one win con in your deck (pick your poison...Waterspout Djinn, Morphling, Rainbow Efreet, or Steel Golem). The another counter war to protect the win condition from a Disk or a Capsize. It was GLORIOUS!
In the same idea, you haven't lived until you saw the glorious trio that was Stasis, Kismet and Chronatog pieced together.
It was slow, slow, slow and oh so painful for your opponent when the combo dropped on him.
Force of Will were mandatory to make this work, but it was worth it.
You haven't lived until you've seen a Draw-Go mirror circa 1997. Play lands, Thawing Glaciers to fetch more lands, then a massive counter battle over the one win con in your deck (pick your poison...Waterspout Djinn, Morphling, Rainbow Efreet, or Steel Golem). The another counter war to protect the win condition from a Disk or a Capsize. It was GLORIOUS!
I believe Jon Finkel created a control deck back then which had the entire purpose of slow-milling the opponent and locking up the board in order to win game 1 with as little time left as possible to go into game 2, and thus winning the match 1-0.
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You haven't lived until you've seen a Draw-Go mirror circa 1997. Play lands, Thawing Glaciers to fetch more lands, then a massive counter battle over the one win con in your deck (pick your poison...Waterspout Djinn, Morphling, Rainbow Efreet, or Steel Golem). The another counter war to protect the win condition from a Disk or a Capsize. It was GLORIOUS!
In the same idea, you haven't lived until you saw the glorious trio that was Stasis, Kismet and Chronatog pieced together.
It was slow, slow, slow and oh so painful for your opponent when the combo dropped on him.
Force of Will were mandatory to make this work, but it was worth it.
Oh I do remember, but I think Chronatog came in later builds. The original Finnish builds (and the one Matt Place took to US Nats top 8) just ran Howling Mines as the win con. THOSE were the days!
Excuse me, I have to go chase some kids off my lawn with my cane
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You haven't lived until you've seen a Draw-Go mirror circa 1997. Play lands, Thawing Glaciers to fetch more lands, then a massive counter battle over the one win con in your deck (pick your poison...Waterspout Djinn, Morphling, Rainbow Efreet, or Steel Golem). The another counter war to protect the win condition from a Disk or a Capsize. It was GLORIOUS!
In the same idea, you haven't lived until you saw the glorious trio that was Stasis, Kismet and Chronatog pieced together.
It was slow, slow, slow and oh so painful for your opponent when the combo dropped on him.
Force of Will were mandatory to make this work, but it was worth it.
Oh I do remember, but I think Chronatog came in later builds. The original Finnish builds (and the one Matt Place took to US Nats top 8) just ran Howling Mines as the win con. THOSE were the days!
Excuse me, I have to go chase some kids off my lawn with my cane
I feel yah, those were the fun days.
With duals ar 15$ a pop a the ability to scare your opponent with a well timed Kjeldoran Outpost.
You haven't lived until you've seen a Draw-Go mirror circa 1997. Play lands, Thawing Glaciers to fetch more lands, then a massive counter battle over the one win con in your deck (pick your poison...Waterspout Djinn, Morphling, Rainbow Efreet, or Steel Golem). The another counter war to protect the win condition from a Disk or a Capsize. It was GLORIOUS!
In the same idea, you haven't lived until you saw the glorious trio that was Stasis, Kismet and Chronatog pieced together.
It was slow, slow, slow and oh so painful for your opponent when the combo dropped on him.
Force of Will were mandatory to make this work, but it was worth it.
Oh I do remember, but I think Chronatog came in later builds. The original Finnish builds (and the one Matt Place took to US Nats top 8) just ran Howling Mines as the win con. THOSE were the days!
Excuse me, I have to go chase some kids off my lawn with my cane
I feel yah, those were the fun days.
With duals ar 15$ a pop a the ability to scare your opponent with a well timed Kjeldoran Outpost.
Back in my day we grinded you out with Kjeldoran Outpost and we liked it!
Have control decks ever been this boring, this slow and this linear? There are no interesting 'controlly' cards like Winter Orb just a bunch of objectively good card draw, sweepers, and removal. There is no interesting lock or card interaction, just an 'I go bigger, better and slower than you to win' strategy.
Have control decks ever been this excruciating to play against or watch before?
Sure, even just the last two seasons when they had Nephalia Drownyard weren't any better than now.
Control decks have been as slow or slower in the past, but it's been a while since I can remember control decks having so many tools at their disposal and aggro decks having so few.
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Have control decks ever been this boring, this slow and this linear? There are no interesting 'controlly' cards like Winter Orb just a bunch of objectively good card draw, sweepers, and removal. There is no interesting lock or card interaction, just an 'I go bigger, better and slower than you to win' strategy.
Have control decks ever been this excruciating to play against or watch before?
Yes. It is a serious question. Though you seem to have missed it entirely. I'm aware of how control decks operate. The question is have they always been this slow? It seems like this is the slowest control decks have been.
So- IronPlushy- don't be so typical with your "is this a serious post?" spamming comment. Which is really just code for calling me an idiot.
I think that- maybe- there might be something uniquely boring about land drops + sphinx's rev. I'm just seeking others' constructive perspectives.
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Control takes "control" of the game and that takes time and they need sweepers, card draw and removal to do that. They grind the opponent out and then deploy the most powerful cards in their end-game and those are pretty expensive adding to the slowness of the archetype.
And while this is irrelevant in competitive play, it is also more fun for your opponent that way. He still got to play Magic instead of all his lands getting blown up or his board not untapping anymore.
You may find those "lock" cards cool and interesting but most of your opponents dont think like that. That is the reason such cards are not printed anymore. Wizard doesn't like such "unfun" cards.
I would be willing to bet that U/W control could slot in a couple Serra Angels into their main and still put up half decent numbers. The reason they don't is because there are far better options for win-cons obviously, and it wouldn't win as easily/often as ones not running them. But frankly I'm certain they'd do "fine".
This. Sphinx's Revelation is single-handedly responsible for the unusual slowness of control decks in Standard. The only way to fight it in the long game would be with land destruction (which could make a case for Ember Swallower, but GR Monsters has better options); recurrent, uncounterable threats (which don't exist in Standard); or countermagic (which probably means you're playing UW Control yourself).
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I believe Jon Finkel created a control deck back then which had the entire purpose of slow-milling the opponent and locking up the board in order to win game 1 with as little time left as possible to go into game 2, and thus winning the match 1-0.
Stasis decks were also incredibly slow decks to play against, as were decks using Winter Orb and the like. The entire point was to draw out the games forever. Certainly U/W control wants games to take a lot of turns, but I don't think they're especially slow. At least they allow you to *do* something against them.
It becomes very interesting when your control deck is capable of aggroing, I think in the control mirrors currently by the time you assume the role as the aggro or control player it's already too late since control decks are so similar and the most controlling player wins.
That's a pretty well-known bit of Magic theory. The basic question of any matchup is "who's the beatdown?" One deck is the aggro deck, and one deck is the control deck. This applies in literally every game. Control matchups have to determine who's the more aggressive of the two. Aggro matchups have to determine which can outrace the other, and which has to slow the other down. Misassignment of role there is frequently a game loss.
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Their opponents simply don't have to give them the luxury of fast play so they can lose quicker.
I think that's part of what the OP is saying - the control decks in Standard right now are going so deep that it can be really difficult to figure out who is playing which role. Some decks run so few ways to win that by the time anyone can see which player is/should be more aggressive the first game has gone 30 minutes. And then after sideboarding you have to figure it out all over again.
In the same idea, you haven't lived until you saw the glorious trio that was Stasis, Kismet and Chronatog pieced together.
It was slow, slow, slow and oh so painful for your opponent when the combo dropped on him.
Force of Will were mandatory to make this work, but it was worth it.
There's always the fun-police
http://www.limitedmagic.com/fun-police-standard-brew/
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Oh I do remember, but I think Chronatog came in later builds. The original Finnish builds (and the one Matt Place took to US Nats top 8) just ran Howling Mines as the win con. THOSE were the days!
Excuse me, I have to go chase some kids off my lawn with my cane
Check out my blog and help me improve my game
Currently playing:
Standard BUG Control
Modern :UAffinity, GNyxWave
Legacy UBTezzAffinity
My Cube
I feel yah, those were the fun days.
With duals ar 15$ a pop a the ability to scare your opponent with a well timed Kjeldoran Outpost.
Back in my day we grinded you out with Kjeldoran Outpost and we liked it!
Sure, even just the last two seasons when they had Nephalia Drownyard weren't any better than now.