Silumgar's Scorn shows why a 2 mana counterspell is too powerful and should not have a place in standard. UB/Esper Dragons will be the undisputed #1 deck until theros rotates, then black will lose a lot of its most powerful spells (bile blight, drown in sorrow, hero's downfall etc). Then midrange decks will come back and dominate again unless mono blue or UW becomes too powerful with the next block.
Aside from mono red, Den Protector+Deathmist Raptor decks are the only midrange decks that stand a chance vs UBx control tbh. (unless they side perilous vault or land Ugin)
And mono red is tier 2 unless it splashes green for Atarka's Command and Become Immense.
edit: I'm not complaining, I think the meta is relatively diverse right now. There is a top tier control deck, a top tier aggro deck and a top tier midrange deck. A ton of other tier 2 decks and gimmicky decks that don't really matter. But hey there's at least 3 decks that can win and 4-6 decks that can place top 8. That's enough diversity for me.
So then Esper is just what what Abzan was during KTK and FRF. It's probably the best deck, but rogues will pop up every week and something different could win at any time, since Esper main deck choices are highly meta dependent.
Now, I'm not the best player in the world, but Esper Dragons is definitely beatable. It's good. It's really good. But it's not invincible at all.
Todd Anderson wrote "The Death of Midrange" it's SCG premium.
Which is a bit of a misleading title.
I have Premium and he actually says that he doubts that Esper Dragons will continue to be the best deck and he does say that Abzan Aggro has all the tools to beat it as could something like Bant Midrange.
Midrange is not Midrange.
Midrange decks that play a ton of mana producers and want to ramp into big stuff like Dragonlord Atarka are surely poorly positioned because of low threat density and their high-end stuff being easily countered coupled with a huge tempo loss for them.
Not all Midrange decks operate this way though. It should definitely be possible to come up with an efficient list than can keep up with Control. It has been done so countless times over the years already. All these Den Protector/Deathmist Raptor lists are already a step in that direction.
Todd Anderson wrote "The Death of Midrange" it's SCG premium.
Which is a bit of a misleading title.
I have Premium and he actually says that he doubts that Esper Dragons will continue to be the best deck and he does say that Abzan Aggro has all the tools to beat it as could something like Bant Midrange.
Midrange is not Midrange.
Midrange decks that play a ton of mana producers and want to ramp into big stuff like Dragonlord Atarka are surely poorly positioned because of low threat density and their high-end stuff being easily countered coupled with a huge tempo loss for them.
Not all Midrange decks operate this way though. It should definitely be possible to come up with an efficient list than can keep up with Control. It has been done so countless times over the years already. All these Den Protector/Deathmist Raptor lists are already a step in that direction.
Abzan Aggro is an aggro deck, not a midrange deck. It's right in the name. Just because it's three colors doesn't automatically mean midrange. Abzan Aggro is viable against Counterspell because it lowers the curve, plays a bunch of two-drops, and doesn't play mana creatures. It's got a full set of Lions and Deathdealers, and probably Heir to the Wilds as well.
This doesn't mean Counterspell isn't retardedly warping, however. Siege Rhino probably isn't even good anymore just because of how badly it lines up against Counterspell. Just think about that one for a second. The card that's arguably better than Bloodbraid Elf isn't good anymore because Counterspell entered the format.
Todd Anderson wrote "The Death of Midrange" it's SCG premium.
Which is a bit of a misleading title.
I have Premium and he actually says that he doubts that Esper Dragons will continue to be the best deck and he does say that Abzan Aggro has all the tools to beat it as could something like Bant Midrange.
Midrange is not Midrange.
Midrange decks that play a ton of mana producers and want to ramp into big stuff like Dragonlord Atarka are surely poorly positioned because of low threat density and their high-end stuff being easily countered coupled with a huge tempo loss for them.
Not all Midrange decks operate this way though. It should definitely be possible to come up with an efficient list than can keep up with Control. It has been done so countless times over the years already. All these Den Protector/Deathmist Raptor lists are already a step in that direction.
Abzan Aggro is an aggro deck, not a midrange deck. It's right in the name. Just because it's three colors doesn't automatically mean midrange. Abzan Aggro is viable against Counterspell because it lowers the curve, plays a bunch of two-drops, and doesn't play mana creatures. It's got a full set of Lions and Deathdealers, and probably Heir to the Wilds as well.
This doesn't mean Counterspell isn't retardedly warping, however. Siege Rhino probably isn't even good anymore just because of how badly it lines up against Counterspell. Just think about that one for a second. The card that's arguably better than Bloodbraid Elf isn't good anymore because Counterspell entered the format.
I always have to smile when people say decks are Aggro when they run 25-26 lands and so many 4-6 cmc cards. It's clearly a Midrange deck. An aggressive Midrange surely but still a Midrange deck.
Just like the Abzan Liege decks in Modern have replaced the Black disruption suite of the traditional Abzan Midrange decks with more threats. That doesn't make them suddenly not a Midrange deck though. The same thing is happening here.
Anyway Im not here to argue semantics. You are free to think what you will.
Also Siege Rhino better than Bloodbraid Elf? I don't think so at least in this case. A single counterspell doesn't get you that far against the elf if you have noticed.
This doesn't mean Counterspell isn't retardedly warping, however. Siege Rhino probably isn't even good anymore just because of how badly it lines up against Counterspell. Just think about that one for a second. The card that's arguably better than Bloodbraid Elf isn't good anymore because Counterspell entered the format.
So, dies to counterspell is a thing now?
Control decks prey on Midrange strategies so well because Midrange usually takes several turns to set up its strategy of overwhelming an opponent. By the time Midrange gets rolling, Control has the mana and tools it needs to derail it. An efficient counterspell is always part of the toolbox that Control uses.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The world is on fire
and you are here to stay and burn with me.
In general, I'm sorry, but I don't see UB Control staying on top either.
If anything Abzan Midrange has tools it hasn't even had time to explore yet. Such as the best Bob printed yet in any color: Abzan Beastmaster. Wait until some joker figures out turn 2 Sylvan Caryatid into turn 3 Beastmaster.
Remember the Jund Midrange deck from last year? That one had Domri Rade. Together with Courser of Kruphix, they could draw some 3 cards per turn since the whole deck is creatures and land almost exclusively. You could Supreme Verdict them and they'd still get four creatures out next turn. They could throw out Stormbreath Dragons and World Eaters at the same rate that Legacy Elves could cast elves with Glimpse of Nature out.
Abzan will adjust. The 3-color Midrange deck in Standard always adjusts.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
This signature holds priority until end of comment.
Control decks prey on Midrange strategies so well because Midrange usually takes several turns to set up its strategy of overwhelming an opponent. By the time Midrange gets rolling, Control has the mana and tools it needs to derail it. An efficient counterspell is always part of the toolbox that Control uses.
That highly depends on what approach you take to midrange. If you have a lot of early-game disruption and discard, you can easily throw control off by making it durdle around digging for replacements to the answers it just lost while you out-value them. If you have a lot of ways to generate two-for-ones, you can out-value control without too much difficulty just through raw card advantage. On the other hand, if your game plan is "mana dorks into a low density of big threats," you're just going to get rolled over by counters and removal. In general, there's no hard-and-fast "archetype X preys on archetype Y" because of the variables involved.
Midrange has the tools to overcome control in this Standard if properly tuned. It's just a case of adapting to a new meta.
Deathmist Raptor+Den protector is hard for UB, Ojutai Bant is incredibly favored (basically takes UB's long game and adds deathmist/protector, though weaker in some other matchups) RDW can beat it, Abzan cam either go aggro or go for Dragonlord Dromoka. Sultan Whip hasn't shown up much since rotation (blame Dromoka's command), but if it can adapt to the Deathmist engine and maybe add a few Sagu Mauler sideboard it should be great against UB (though again, it really needs Abzan to get hated on, Anafenza and Command are tough). Jeskai tokens still struggles vs UB, and probably will for the foreseeable future. (UB has the sideboard tools for RDW that also crush jeskai)
This doesn't mean Counterspell isn't retardedly warping, however. Siege Rhino probably isn't even good anymore just because of how badly it lines up against Counterspell. Just think about that one for a second. The card that's arguably better than Bloodbraid Elf isn't good anymore because Counterspell entered the format.
So... Siege Rhino isn't good because it can be countered? I guess Rhino was never good then, it gets countered by Disdainful Stroke!
That's it people, everyone was wrong. Siege Rhino is actually a bad card. Countered by counters and dies to removal. Complete trash.
Also, as someone that plays a dragons deck with 4 Silumgar's Scorn, the card is notCounterspell. There are games I have lost with it in hand because I had no dragon in hand and my GW devotion opponent had so much mana to play with that there was no way I could stop it. If they get Frontier Siege online it also makes life hard if you don't find a dragon any time soon.
Though I don't think he's the best Bob ever printed... I'm going to try Beastmaster out in place of Den Protector. I have a feeling he'll be win more and won't do too much on his own.
Control decks prey on Midrange strategies so well because Midrange usually takes several turns to set up its strategy of overwhelming an opponent. By the time Midrange gets rolling, Control has the mana and tools it needs to derail it. An efficient counterspell is always part of the toolbox that Control uses.
That highly depends on what approach you take to midrange. If you have a lot of early-game disruption and discard, you can easily throw control off by making it durdle around digging for replacements to the answers it just lost while you out-value them. If you have a lot of ways to generate two-for-ones, you can out-value control without too much difficulty just through raw card advantage. On the other hand, if your game plan is "mana dorks into a low density of big threats," you're just going to get rolled over by counters and removal. In general, there's no hard-and-fast "archetype X preys on archetype Y" because of the variables involved.
Midrange has the tools to overcome control in this Standard if properly tuned. It's just a case of adapting to a new meta.
Preach.
Just take a look at GP Toronto.
7 of the Top 8 decks packing Den Protector to grind out people.
People should stop with this archetype X beats archetype Y thinking. It's a pretty outdated concept nowadays where things are far less clear cut then they were like 10 years ago or something like that.
Especially since Midrange is not even part of the original trifecta of Control, Combo and Aggro that the game started with.
Midrange describes part of the scale between aggro and control, frankly. Decks in that area are just so prevalent that people act like it's its own archetype (and there are people who say the three basic archetypes in Standard are aggro/control/midrange, even). The concept's still valid, since even back in the day, whether the rock/paper/scissors went aggro-beats-control-beats-combo-beats-aggro or the reverse depended heavily on the available tools.
Control decks prey on Midrange strategies so well because Midrange usually takes several turns to set up its strategy of overwhelming an opponent. By the time Midrange gets rolling, Control has the mana and tools it needs to derail it. An efficient counterspell is always part of the toolbox that Control uses.
That highly depends on what approach you take to midrange. If you have a lot of early-game disruption and discard, you can easily throw control off by making it durdle around digging for replacements to the answers it just lost while you out-value them. If you have a lot of ways to generate two-for-ones, you can out-value control without too much difficulty just through raw card advantage. On the other hand, if your game plan is "mana dorks into a low density of big threats," you're just going to get rolled over by counters and removal. In general, there's no hard-and-fast "archetype X preys on archetype Y" because of the variables involved.
Midrange has the tools to overcome control in this Standard if properly tuned. It's just a case of adapting to a new meta.
The problem is when you're running a deck with 23 lands, 4 sylvan caryatid, and 4 elvish mystic, there's no way to overwhelm a control deck's defenses. You just have too much air. Playing discard does not help. You're taking out threats to play the discard, and if the control deck had the ability to answer all your threats before, they'll still have that ability after your discard trades 1:1 with their answers. Against control decks relying on removal, discard CAN work, because removal tends to be conditional and you can force them to discard the specific removal spell that would have killed your next threat, leaving them with dead removal that can't target it. If your opponent is on the counterspell plan, however, and has access to enough quality, unconditional hard counters, this can never work. Counterspells don't care what you're casting, they counter it regardless. The only way to beat decks playing a bunch of hard, unconditional counters is to go under them. Play a bunch of one and two drops and make their counterspells inefficient. Since the whole point of playing midrange is to sacrifice threat density for mana acceleration and threat quality, midrange simply can't do this.
Abzan aggro decks can abuse Den Protector and Raptor because those two cards are legitimate threats by themselves and the synergy is just a bonus. Stuff like G/W Devotion or Abzan Control with 32-36 mana sources + 4 Courser of Kruphix are always going to be byes for counterspell decks regardless of what they board in.
[quote from="Teia Rabishu »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/603928-so-its-come-to-this?comment=69"]Abzan aggro decks can abuse Den Protector and Raptor because those two cards are legitimate threats by themselves and the synergy is just a bonus. Stuff like G/W Devotion or Abzan Control with 32-36 mana sources + 4 Courser of Kruphix are always going to be byes for counterspell decks regardless of what they board in.
Yeah... no. I don't think you're properly considering just how powerful Den Protector, Deathmist Raptor and Whisperwood Elemental are against control (or any deck really). And mana dorks allow those decks to start slamming those creatures faster than the opponent can find all the answers. And once you have a resolved Den Protector life for a control deck becomes very difficult because now you're going to just generate value every time they try to 1-for-1 the creature. Not only are all the Raptors coming back for free, another card is coming back to the player's hand as well. I don't know about Abzan midrange, but Bant midrange is very much a well-positioned deck in a meta filled with control.
I think mana dorks are just plain bad in the current meta. I wouldn't run any elvish mystics or caryatids whatsoever. Just like with abzan midrange before, the bant morph players are likely to conclude that the deck is better with just threats and answers and no ramp at all.
The only minor exception is rattleclaw mystic in certain matchups just cuz he can hit for 2 and also unmorph to get raptors back and whatnot.
Control decks prey on Midrange strategies so well because Midrange usually takes several turns to set up its strategy of overwhelming an opponent. By the time Midrange gets rolling, Control has the mana and tools it needs to derail it. An efficient counterspell is always part of the toolbox that Control uses.
That highly depends on what approach you take to midrange. If you have a lot of early-game disruption and discard, you can easily throw control off by making it durdle around digging for replacements to the answers it just lost while you out-value them. If you have a lot of ways to generate two-for-ones, you can out-value control without too much difficulty just through raw card advantage. On the other hand, if your game plan is "mana dorks into a low density of big threats," you're just going to get rolled over by counters and removal. In general, there's no hard-and-fast "archetype X preys on archetype Y" because of the variables involved.
Midrange has the tools to overcome control in this Standard if properly tuned. It's just a case of adapting to a new meta.
The problem is when you're running a deck with 23 lands, 4 sylvan caryatid, and 4 elvish mystic, there's no way to overwhelm a control deck's defenses. You just have too much air. Playing discard does not help. You're taking out threats to play the discard, and if the control deck had the ability to answer all your threats before, they'll still have that ability after your discard trades 1:1 with their answers. Against control decks relying on removal, discard CAN work, because removal tends to be conditional and you can force them to discard the specific removal spell that would have killed your next threat, leaving them with dead removal that can't target it. If your opponent is on the counterspell plan, however, and has access to enough quality, unconditional hard counters, this can never work. Counterspells don't care what you're casting, they counter it regardless. The only way to beat decks playing a bunch of hard, unconditional counters is to go under them. Play a bunch of one and two drops and make their counterspells inefficient. Since the whole point of playing midrange is to sacrifice threat density for mana acceleration and threat quality, midrange simply can't do this.
Abzan aggro decks can abuse Den Protector and Raptor because those two cards are legitimate threats by themselves and the synergy is just a bonus. Stuff like G/W Devotion or Abzan Control with 32-36 mana sources + 4 Courser of Kruphix are always going to be byes for counterspell decks regardless of what they board in.
There's a couple of things wrong here. First of all, most control decks don't actually run that many counterspells. They have the 4 Scorns and a couple Dissolves/2-mana situational counterspells, but it's usually 6-7. So it's not like they can just counter anything. Furthermore if you can stick even one threat - and Courser does pressure them enough to qualify, because it also filters your draws to the effect of drawing about 0.4 cards per turn, meaning they need to answer it before it gets a chance to draw you into more gas than they have - control decks need a lot of mana to answer the threat and keep up counterspells. It's really not that hard to put a lot of pressure on their answers. Maybe GR Dragons specifically doesn't have it, but hey, I can't help you if you're trying to beat control with a deck that matches up badly - says nothing about how dominant or overpowered Esper Dragons allegedly is.
Secondly, if you have discard effects you're not supposed to be hitting removal with them. Literally your only chance is hitting Dig Through Time (or Anticipate if not Dig). If they have more answers than you have threats, don't let them find those answers!
Take a step back from the ledge, buddy. Esper Dragons Control is a hell of a deck, and I agree that it's annoying how hard Wizards pushed it with Ojutai + Scorn + Anticipate, but you're overhyping it big time. I mean you just got done saying Siege Rhino wasn't a good card anymore because Scorn was printed when there already existed a more efficient counterspell for Siege Rhino in the first place (Disdainful Stroke costs 1U instead of UU). It's just not that dire.
There's a couple of things wrong here. First of all, most control decks don't actually run that many counterspells. They have the 4 Scorns and a couple Dissolves/2-mana situational counterspells, but it's usually 6-7. So it's not like they can just counter anything. Furthermore if you can stick even one threat - and Courser does pressure them enough to qualify, because it also filters your draws to the effect of drawing about 0.4 cards per turn, meaning they need to answer it before it gets a chance to draw you into more gas than they have - control decks need a lot of mana to answer the threat and keep up counterspells. It's really not that hard to put a lot of pressure on their answers. Maybe GR Dragons specifically doesn't have it, but hey, I can't help you if you're trying to beat control with a deck that matches up badly - says nothing about how dominant or overpowered Esper Dragons allegedly is.
Secondly, if you have discard effects you're not supposed to be hitting removal with them. Literally your only chance is hitting Dig Through Time (or Anticipate if not Dig). If they have more answers than you have threats, don't let them find those answers!
Take a step back from the ledge, buddy. Esper Dragons Control is a hell of a deck, and I agree that it's annoying how hard Wizards pushed it with Ojutai + Scorn + Anticipate, but you're overhyping it big time. I mean you just got done saying Siege Rhino wasn't a good card anymore because Scorn was printed when there already existed a more efficient counterspell for Siege Rhino in the first place (Disdainful Stroke costs 1U instead of UU). It's just not that dire.
Disdainful Stroke is conditional. Sure, you'll lose games because stroke blows you out on tempo when you try to cast rhino, but you'll also win games because they have it in hand and it can't counter what you're currently casting. Silumgar's Scorn will never have this problem. Neither will Dissolve. Dissolve costs 3 and is often inefficient, but this is not relevant if you're playing Abzan Midrange or G/R Dragons or G/W Devotion where all your own threats cost 3+ mana to begin with.
Also, I never said Esper Dragons Control is unbeatable, I just said that if it's a huge part of the metagame, that makes midrange really bad.
There's a couple of things wrong here. First of all, most control decks don't actually run that many counterspells. They have the 4 Scorns and a couple Dissolves/2-mana situational counterspells, but it's usually 6-7. So it's not like they can just counter anything. Furthermore if you can stick even one threat - and Courser does pressure them enough to qualify, because it also filters your draws to the effect of drawing about 0.4 cards per turn, meaning they need to answer it before it gets a chance to draw you into more gas than they have - control decks need a lot of mana to answer the threat and keep up counterspells. It's really not that hard to put a lot of pressure on their answers. Maybe GR Dragons specifically doesn't have it, but hey, I can't help you if you're trying to beat control with a deck that matches up badly - says nothing about how dominant or overpowered Esper Dragons allegedly is.
I've played Esper Dragons quite a bit, and I often don't care about Courser. It's nowhere close enough to racing Ojutai, and once Ojutai is online, you're drawing more cards than they are. Killing Courser after a turn or 2 with a random Ultimate Price or Downfall isn't that hard either. So while Courser isn't bad against control, I've found it to often be a do nothing card that doesn't produce any real pressure.
Well, I'll go ahead and admit that I was wrong about the oppressiveness of the Esper Dragons/Atarka red decks. I'm glad to see standard still a very healthy, diverse place.
Newb here. I got a good laugh from Soebek going silent after being schooled on statistics. Also funny are the people who only find variety in decks someone else thought of. It gives me an idea. I'm gonna SPLASH Abzan with uh.... Red! No Blue! Hell, why not both! Then my sideboard will cover ALL threats!
I'm not so sure about the luck critique. I don't think there's really luck in Magic. Just deckbuilding. I always find it funny when I beat people with fringe decks and they say "nice topdecks bro". Like, they're on the top of my deck because I put them in my deck. And they're on the top of my deck at the right time because I put the right number of them in there, and backed them up with adequate library manipulation.
Especially right now with scry and fetch and so much cheap card draw. Like, yeah man, I topdecked a wrath at exactly the right moment. But I spent the whole game manipulating my library so the late game cards came later on. I scried 2 wraths to the bottom early then cracked a fetch to shuffle. It's not magic. It's Magic.
The real luck is probably just in which matchups you end up pairing with. And that's where I think the "out-guessing" critique comes in. It's kinda true. But at the same time, better a meta where you have some guessing to do than one where you damn well know what's going to be at the top tables.
It all just boils down to a standard where brewing is a legitimately competitive activity. Which is all I care about. Playing someone else's list is, for me, never an option.
So then Esper is just what what Abzan was during KTK and FRF. It's probably the best deck, but rogues will pop up every week and something different could win at any time, since Esper main deck choices are highly meta dependent.
Now, I'm not the best player in the world, but Esper Dragons is definitely beatable. It's good. It's really good. But it's not invincible at all.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Yeah, WHAT OP-ED PIECE ???
Which is a bit of a misleading title.
I have Premium and he actually says that he doubts that Esper Dragons will continue to be the best deck and he does say that Abzan Aggro has all the tools to beat it as could something like Bant Midrange.
Midrange is not Midrange.
Midrange decks that play a ton of mana producers and want to ramp into big stuff like Dragonlord Atarka are surely poorly positioned because of low threat density and their high-end stuff being easily countered coupled with a huge tempo loss for them.
Not all Midrange decks operate this way though. It should definitely be possible to come up with an efficient list than can keep up with Control. It has been done so countless times over the years already. All these Den Protector/Deathmist Raptor lists are already a step in that direction.
Abzan Aggro is an aggro deck, not a midrange deck. It's right in the name. Just because it's three colors doesn't automatically mean midrange. Abzan Aggro is viable against Counterspell because it lowers the curve, plays a bunch of two-drops, and doesn't play mana creatures. It's got a full set of Lions and Deathdealers, and probably Heir to the Wilds as well.
This doesn't mean Counterspell isn't retardedly warping, however. Siege Rhino probably isn't even good anymore just because of how badly it lines up against Counterspell. Just think about that one for a second. The card that's arguably better than Bloodbraid Elf isn't good anymore because Counterspell entered the format.
I always have to smile when people say decks are Aggro when they run 25-26 lands and so many 4-6 cmc cards. It's clearly a Midrange deck. An aggressive Midrange surely but still a Midrange deck.
Just like the Abzan Liege decks in Modern have replaced the Black disruption suite of the traditional Abzan Midrange decks with more threats. That doesn't make them suddenly not a Midrange deck though. The same thing is happening here.
Anyway Im not here to argue semantics. You are free to think what you will.
Also Siege Rhino better than Bloodbraid Elf? I don't think so at least in this case. A single counterspell doesn't get you that far against the elf if you have noticed.
So, dies to counterspell is a thing now?
Control decks prey on Midrange strategies so well because Midrange usually takes several turns to set up its strategy of overwhelming an opponent. By the time Midrange gets rolling, Control has the mana and tools it needs to derail it. An efficient counterspell is always part of the toolbox that Control uses.
The world is on fire
and you are here to stay and burn with me.
If anything Abzan Midrange has tools it hasn't even had time to explore yet. Such as the best Bob printed yet in any color: Abzan Beastmaster. Wait until some joker figures out turn 2 Sylvan Caryatid into turn 3 Beastmaster.
Remember the Jund Midrange deck from last year? That one had Domri Rade. Together with Courser of Kruphix, they could draw some 3 cards per turn since the whole deck is creatures and land almost exclusively. You could Supreme Verdict them and they'd still get four creatures out next turn. They could throw out Stormbreath Dragons and World Eaters at the same rate that Legacy Elves could cast elves with Glimpse of Nature out.
Abzan will adjust. The 3-color Midrange deck in Standard always adjusts.
That highly depends on what approach you take to midrange. If you have a lot of early-game disruption and discard, you can easily throw control off by making it durdle around digging for replacements to the answers it just lost while you out-value them. If you have a lot of ways to generate two-for-ones, you can out-value control without too much difficulty just through raw card advantage. On the other hand, if your game plan is "mana dorks into a low density of big threats," you're just going to get rolled over by counters and removal. In general, there's no hard-and-fast "archetype X preys on archetype Y" because of the variables involved.
Midrange has the tools to overcome control in this Standard if properly tuned. It's just a case of adapting to a new meta.
So... Siege Rhino isn't good because it can be countered? I guess Rhino was never good then, it gets countered by Disdainful Stroke!
That's it people, everyone was wrong. Siege Rhino is actually a bad card. Countered by counters and dies to removal. Complete trash.
Also, as someone that plays a dragons deck with 4 Silumgar's Scorn, the card is not Counterspell. There are games I have lost with it in hand because I had no dragon in hand and my GW devotion opponent had so much mana to play with that there was no way I could stop it. If they get Frontier Siege online it also makes life hard if you don't find a dragon any time soon.
Find me on TappedOut also!
Trade with me!! Always in search of cards!
Preach.
Just take a look at GP Toronto.
7 of the Top 8 decks packing Den Protector to grind out people.
People should stop with this archetype X beats archetype Y thinking. It's a pretty outdated concept nowadays where things are far less clear cut then they were like 10 years ago or something like that.
Especially since Midrange is not even part of the original trifecta of Control, Combo and Aggro that the game started with.
The problem is when you're running a deck with 23 lands, 4 sylvan caryatid, and 4 elvish mystic, there's no way to overwhelm a control deck's defenses. You just have too much air. Playing discard does not help. You're taking out threats to play the discard, and if the control deck had the ability to answer all your threats before, they'll still have that ability after your discard trades 1:1 with their answers. Against control decks relying on removal, discard CAN work, because removal tends to be conditional and you can force them to discard the specific removal spell that would have killed your next threat, leaving them with dead removal that can't target it. If your opponent is on the counterspell plan, however, and has access to enough quality, unconditional hard counters, this can never work. Counterspells don't care what you're casting, they counter it regardless. The only way to beat decks playing a bunch of hard, unconditional counters is to go under them. Play a bunch of one and two drops and make their counterspells inefficient. Since the whole point of playing midrange is to sacrifice threat density for mana acceleration and threat quality, midrange simply can't do this.
Abzan aggro decks can abuse Den Protector and Raptor because those two cards are legitimate threats by themselves and the synergy is just a bonus. Stuff like G/W Devotion or Abzan Control with 32-36 mana sources + 4 Courser of Kruphix are always going to be byes for counterspell decks regardless of what they board in.
Yeah... no. I don't think you're properly considering just how powerful Den Protector, Deathmist Raptor and Whisperwood Elemental are against control (or any deck really). And mana dorks allow those decks to start slamming those creatures faster than the opponent can find all the answers. And once you have a resolved Den Protector life for a control deck becomes very difficult because now you're going to just generate value every time they try to 1-for-1 the creature. Not only are all the Raptors coming back for free, another card is coming back to the player's hand as well. I don't know about Abzan midrange, but Bant midrange is very much a well-positioned deck in a meta filled with control.
The only minor exception is rattleclaw mystic in certain matchups just cuz he can hit for 2 and also unmorph to get raptors back and whatnot.
There's a couple of things wrong here. First of all, most control decks don't actually run that many counterspells. They have the 4 Scorns and a couple Dissolves/2-mana situational counterspells, but it's usually 6-7. So it's not like they can just counter anything. Furthermore if you can stick even one threat - and Courser does pressure them enough to qualify, because it also filters your draws to the effect of drawing about 0.4 cards per turn, meaning they need to answer it before it gets a chance to draw you into more gas than they have - control decks need a lot of mana to answer the threat and keep up counterspells. It's really not that hard to put a lot of pressure on their answers. Maybe GR Dragons specifically doesn't have it, but hey, I can't help you if you're trying to beat control with a deck that matches up badly - says nothing about how dominant or overpowered Esper Dragons allegedly is.
Secondly, if you have discard effects you're not supposed to be hitting removal with them. Literally your only chance is hitting Dig Through Time (or Anticipate if not Dig). If they have more answers than you have threats, don't let them find those answers!
Take a step back from the ledge, buddy. Esper Dragons Control is a hell of a deck, and I agree that it's annoying how hard Wizards pushed it with Ojutai + Scorn + Anticipate, but you're overhyping it big time. I mean you just got done saying Siege Rhino wasn't a good card anymore because Scorn was printed when there already existed a more efficient counterspell for Siege Rhino in the first place (Disdainful Stroke costs 1U instead of UU). It's just not that dire.
GW ~ Angels ~ WG
Modern:
RBW ~ Shadowmancer ~ WBR
Legacy:
BUG ~ Shadow Delver ~ GUB
Disdainful Stroke is conditional. Sure, you'll lose games because stroke blows you out on tempo when you try to cast rhino, but you'll also win games because they have it in hand and it can't counter what you're currently casting. Silumgar's Scorn will never have this problem. Neither will Dissolve. Dissolve costs 3 and is often inefficient, but this is not relevant if you're playing Abzan Midrange or G/R Dragons or G/W Devotion where all your own threats cost 3+ mana to begin with.
Also, I never said Esper Dragons Control is unbeatable, I just said that if it's a huge part of the metagame, that makes midrange really bad.
fixed that for you
I've played Esper Dragons quite a bit, and I often don't care about Courser. It's nowhere close enough to racing Ojutai, and once Ojutai is online, you're drawing more cards than they are. Killing Courser after a turn or 2 with a random Ultimate Price or Downfall isn't that hard either. So while Courser isn't bad against control, I've found it to often be a do nothing card that doesn't produce any real pressure.
Modern - GB Elves, UW Ojutai Control
Legacy - BWG Junk Stoneblade
Gay and Proud
#MakeAmericaGreatAgain
SCG Portland top 8 had:
1 esper dragons
1 sultai reanimator
1 UG devotion
1 Mono G aggro
1 Atarka Red
3 Abzan aggro
Control is not OP... All kinds of good things vs. control. With white, mastery of the unseen is good. With red, rending volley is good (and just killing them while they drop taplands is also nice). With green, there's den protector/deathmist raptor. With blue, stubborn denial and stratus dancer go a long way. With black, duress or thoughtseize is a must. Planeswalkers are almost always good. If control is such a problem, just SB better.
GWU Bant Manifest - The Future Is Here. Or it will be at the end of turn. GWU
Especially right now with scry and fetch and so much cheap card draw. Like, yeah man, I topdecked a wrath at exactly the right moment. But I spent the whole game manipulating my library so the late game cards came later on. I scried 2 wraths to the bottom early then cracked a fetch to shuffle. It's not magic. It's Magic.
The real luck is probably just in which matchups you end up pairing with. And that's where I think the "out-guessing" critique comes in. It's kinda true. But at the same time, better a meta where you have some guessing to do than one where you damn well know what's going to be at the top tables.
It all just boils down to a standard where brewing is a legitimately competitive activity. Which is all I care about. Playing someone else's list is, for me, never an option.