I think we're on track to a comfortable amount of permission already. Cavern is a bad card and it should never be reprinted, but then counterspell probably never should either because UU is too cheap for that effect in a world without cavern. The balance is in making the permission more conditional or more expensive and include a couple uncounterable spells in the standard pool and that's exactly what we will have once rotation happens. I think 'ramp vs syncopate' or 'savage summoning vs cancel' is much more interesting than 'you may counterspell everything vs you may counterspell nothing.'
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Playing against permission isnt fun. Really. Control does not mean permission. Control is fine. Permission isnt. Permission when it goes too far is a complete disaster for magic. Nerf permission and magic gets more popular.
Part of the reason permission isnt fun is because it promotes people stroking their total lock downs. That means you can sit in a game for 20 minutes with 0% chance of winning whilst they find their win con. Even if you go 5-1 with this one game probably the most of your play wont involve any thought whatsoever because you are in total lock down behind a permission wall.
That is lame and not fun.
Okay, this makes some sense... some. I'm not a big fan of playing against decks like CounterTop because of things like this. Still, decks like CounterTop are pretty important for the Legacy metagame. But I can see why you might not want more of--
You think people enjoy playing against permission? They dont. Thats why wizards printed cavern. It is why wizards nerfed permission recently. It is why they said mana leak was too powerful and a "relic of the past" - to quote them. And it is why magic is now bigger than ever.
Wait wait wait wait wait. What? The stuff you were talking about was in reference to decks like CounterTop or Lands in Legacy. Now you're talking about Standard, where such decks are pretty much non-existent. They certainly were non-existent in the format Cavern of Souls was printed in. They certainly were non-existent in the format when Mana Leak was around. The removal of Mana Leak (and by the way, calling Mana Leak too powerful is a joke if you ask me) and printing of Cavern of Souls didn't do anything to stop permission decks in Standard, because they didn't exist. UW Delver certainly wasn't a permission deck as you define it, it played its win condition early in the game, sometimes Turn 1.
So basically, your defense is that formats where permission decks don't exist need counterspells nerfed to weaken said decks that don't exist. 'Kay.
(Random note: CounterTop actually got a big boost from the Miracle cards, meaning the same set that had Cavern of Souls was the one that made that permission deck worth playing again)
I've been reading this thread since the beginning and now I see a chance to share/comment/make my opinion.
I do agree with people arguing that Permission (understand by permission countermagic based control) is unfun for the victim, since you are being only a practice dummy being negated every single action until the Permission Player finds the wincon and proceeds to kill you mercifuly. I've been in both sides and yes, is frustrating, is not playing at all, but this aspect of magic, as other aspects that have been nerfed (Prison, Land Destruction, Combo) due to being unfun for some major population.
Somebody talk about the stack, which I consider to be one of, if not the main, spinal cord of Magic. Somebody else mentioned interaction and this is key of this game. Magic has interaction in many ways, being creatures, countermagic wars, attrition wars, activated abilities going into the stack, I mean, at least for me this is fun and I'm pretty sure some other people will find it fun. But nowadays the newer population finds it unfun mainly because they are more familiar with dudes steam rolling the board and beating someone directly. For WotC this is a business, not a game, for some other people this is a sport, but at the end the main purpose of all of this is to make money, so if my audience (being "us") demands and is pleased by creature interactions, ergo I'll give it to them, thus we are going into the spell+creature = ETB overpowered creature.
In this current standard, creatures are way better than spells and thanks to Cavern, creature-based decks rule. Sure you can kill them once they hit the table, but at least they have done their grace once they arrived, which means little to nothing when the effect triggers. This is what Control likes to do, answer spells from the other player and stop it from being cast. But killing it is also a good way of controlling the board. However, creatures today are very resilient, they are indestructible, they come back from the grave as easily as sneezing, they can't be targeted, they sprawl minions from themselves. So Control cannot deal with the creatures in either way, countering them (permission control) or killing them (board control).
I do really hope the game becomes balanced again, reprinting spells with same power like the creatures we face today. Doomblade for now seems good. I don't want counterspell to come back again, I'm already sure that it will never come back, but at least they could give us Mana leak, which will balance things for good.
In addition to the Control dying... Combo is also inexistant... I remember Exarch Twin from a couple years ago. It was pretty funny to play with and against, giving some thrill to the match. Pyromancers ascension also...
One funny fact I noticed is Sphere of Safety... it behaves exactly like Ghostly Prison but as you can see is a watered down version. Prison is unfun for some players (aggro players to be honest) and there you have... a 5 mana version that depends on the amount of other enchantments you control. I need at least 2 other enchantments to make it good and to survive turn 5 (3 if I ramp with heaven and dork) while the aggro player smacks the table with 3 creatures and hits for 20 at turn 3, sometimes 4. Wizards contradicts itself with no turn 3 kills really.
I remember aggro decks like Landfall boros that got the kill by turn 5 most of the time, sometimes 4 or 6 depending, but at last the deck was much more skill demanding than just vomiting the table with creatures. I have nothing against aggro players, I play aggro too, but I don't like to play a game and have it finish by turn 3, either I'm losing or winning, I think there is little to no interaction in that. Just my humble opinion...
I don't understand why permission is so demonized. My favorite match-up in the history of MTG is mono-blue control v. mono-blue control because it is so mind gamey. What I like about permission is that it makes the game significantly more interactive. Each time someone plays a card it is up for their opponent to decide if it is worth blowing a permission spell, or if their opponent is trying to bait them.
I would agree that playing against a permission based deck isn't that fun but I think that nerfing permission rather than expanding it is the wrong decision. I think MTG would be a really interesting game if every deck and every color had the option to run worthwhile permission cards. I think that it would expand the interaction that exists and increase the amount of strategy required to play.
What I'd really like to see from the game is for there to be a way for players to win games by manipulating any aspect of the game. Currently it seems like the game is moving towards only winning through combat damage.
Honestly, the nubcake players here who say "permission is not fun" are the veyr poblem with magic right now. Ok you complain about counters, but what about creatures with rediculous ETB effects? What about cards like thragtusk that take 2 cards to kill. Oh and someone tried saying bounce spells. Do you even know how STUPID it is to use a bounce spell on creatures now that everything in their mother has a stupid ETB ability/LTB ability?? That is the definition of card disadvantage.
I swear, the aggro players here are just a group of children who don't like when they can't do what they want.
Oh, and to the people who said that the game got more popular without permission, the Numbers are actually AGAINST you. The most popular set in all of Magic History is (when it comes to sale numbers) Innistrad. When Innistrad dropped, it became an instant hit. And guess what was the biggest deck of the time? Delver... Oh and magic has gotten more and more popular after the whole Time Spiral debacle (granted I will say I liked Time Spiral but that is a whole different topic). And that happens to be in time with:
Honestly, the nubcake players here who say "permission is not fun" are the veyr poblem with magic right now. Ok you complain about counters, but what about creatures with rediculous ETB effects? What about cards like thragtusk that take 2 cards to kill. Oh and someone tried saying bounce spells. Do you even know how STUPID it is to use a bounce spell on creatures now that everything in their mother has a stupid ETB ability/LTB ability?? That is the definition of card disadvantage.
I swear, the aggro players here are just a group of children who don't like when they can't do what they want.
Oh, and to the people who said that the game got more popular without permission, the Numbers are actually AGAINST you. The most popular set in all of Magic History is (when it comes to sale numbers) Innistrad. When Innistrad dropped, it became an instant hit. And guess what was the biggest deck of the time? Delver... Oh and magic has gotten more and more popular after the whole Time Spiral debacle (granted I will say I liked Time Spiral but that is a whole different topic). And that happens to be in time with:
You're entitled to your opinion, as are all the people you so obviously despise. Luckily, Wizards tries to keep the game balanced enough to appease both sides of the argument -- of all arguments, really. There were tons of people who were upset when they started phasing out mass LD, for example.
Control is fine. Aggro is currently slightly too fast, so the Control players have a legitimate complaint. However, Aggro pays for that speed by sacrificing consistency, though not enough I think. They won't nut draw every game. Just remember that.
As it sits right now, Control has the tools it needs. The decks simply need to be tuned to the meta correctly, and that's harder than it used to be since, blessedly, the meta is so diverse.
Kind of tired of hearing people say, "because permission is gone magic is bigger than ever."
This has nothing to do with how popular magic is. **** like affinity destroys magic not permission.
We haven't seen anything that broken since but came close with cascade.
Yeah, I actually played from Ice Age until Affinity's domination - that's when I quit. I started playing again when Innistrad came out. The lack of permission and, to a lesser extent, LD has definitely changed the game and in my opinion, not entirely for the better. It's entirely too creature-based now. The lack of permission is one example but artifacts and enchantments have been neutered as well. Man, I miss the days of Pros Bloom, Sligh, Recurring/Survival, Necro decks (before Necro was used in combo)... And contrary to belief, even though permission was strong back then with Counterspell, Mana Leak, Forbid etc, it didn't dominate the format. You learned to play around it or main deck cards like Duress to deal with it. Playing situational cards in your main deck wasn't unheard of like it is today.
Some people hate playing against control but personally, I hate playing against the current aggro. An aggro deck's nut draw can be as noninteractive and frustrating to play against as a combo deck that can go off on turn 3-4. To each their own, though.
Control largely has the tools it needs to compete. Creature power creep needs to stop.
Part of the problem is how denial strategies operate in general. It has a psychological effect on an opponent that is disabled from taking action. Preventing someone from doing something altogether (rendering them impotent essentially) has a real mental effect. I think this emotional response is what players find so undesirable in general, hence the dismay and hatred of denial strategies like countermagic and land destruction. Countermagic and land destruction in particular, as well as Prison decks center the entire basis of their design and function to simply stop the opponent from ever getting into the game. One could also argue hyper aggressive strategies essentially aim to the do the same, but I am also against those types of decks as well (unless they're is hyper cheap efficient removal to match). The idea is to find a balance where some of these things can exist, but not be oppressive. Old school MUC with tons of counterspells and instant speed draw spells, Ponza land destruction, Staxx decks, Sligh decks, Necro decks all to some extent what magic should not be in evolution. This isn't to say no counterspells, land destruction, permanents that slow things down, efficient burn/creatures or non creature combish spells shouldn't exist BUT that it should be much more toned down, and it is. Some if these elements got totally nerfed like prison cards, land destruction and combo cards, but that's because countermagic (which helped suppress powerful spells) is also weak. Blue's countermagic power is often based on what is necessary to keep in check. This isn't to say there are not powerful ETB creatures requiring countermagic to handle efficiently, they do exist, we all know it. However, consider that WOTC wants creatures to be harder to handle and have a greater impact when they resolve, and that they want at least for a time, to actually resolve more often. I cant say its fair or unfair, just different. Now, I have played blue control most of my magic playing. I have countered endless spells, Treacheried countless dorks, Disked away permanents, Jace'd people, sent dorks Farming, EotFoFIWIN, Brainstormed with fetches, SDTopped, Miracled, Shackled, Capsized everything under the sun. Those days are over. Magic is about more than what it was. That's not necessarily bad.
Nobody who doesnt play permission enjoys playing against permission.
You are just re-posting the exact same arguments without even reading what i posted in response...
We already covered this. No, that isn't true, stop attempting to make statements about what the entire playerbase can/can not enjoy based only on your own experience.
Fun should be two sided. Fun for the person playing the deck AND fun for the person playing AGAINST the deck.
We also covered this. This is a fairly obviously fundamentally flawed depiction of what "fun" is. I already said, winning is fun for you, but losing isn't fun for the other guy. Casting instant speed spot removal when he goes to attack with his creature isn't fun for him, either. Basically, there are VERY few ways you can gain an advantage over your opponent and have that exact action be "fun" for both of you.
Winning against permission isnt fun either. Except that it means you beat somebody whose pleasure in life is to make others miserable in some power crazed way.
We also already talked about this. No, i am not trying to make my opponent feel or not feel anything. I just want to win, i want to play the game as competitively as possible within the rules, and all strategies are to me to be objectively viewed as tools to win. I am fond of the "control" strategy, as a tool to win with. It is not because i want you to cry in your ****ing cereal.
You are just re-posting the exact same arguments without even reading what i posted in response...
We already covered this. No, that isn't true, stop attempting to make statements about what the entire playerbase can/can not enjoy based only on your own experience.
We also covered this. This is a fairly obviously fundamentally flawed depiction of what "fun" is. I already said, winning is fun for you, but losing isn't fun for the other guy. Casting instant speed spot removal when he goes to attack with his creature isn't fun for him, either. Basically, there are VERY few ways you can gain an advantage over your opponent and have that exact action be "fun" for both of you.
We also already talked about this. No, i am not trying to make my opponent feel or not feel anything. I just want to win, i want to play the game as competitively as possible within the rules, and all strategies are to me to be objectively viewed as tools to win. I am fond of the "control" strategy, as a tool to win with. It is not because i want you to cry in your ****ing cereal.
Right, so you're a Spike. That's very clear for anyone who knows the psychographic personalities. But not everyone is a Spike.
I think what people tend to forget is that not everyone plays Magic the same way or for the same reasons. You play to win. Cool. I'm glad there are people like that who play Magic, because it helps feed the competitive nature of the game. But others play to play: they want to cast the huge spells (Timmy) or play the cards no one else has thought of yet (Johnny) or experience the game's lore (Vorthos). The cool part of Magic is that that is FINE. It pleases multiple types of people.
I think you mis-characterize the people you're criticizing. Most don't care when a dude gets hit by removal because at least they got to play it. There's a difference there, and it's substantial, even if you hit it at instant-speed the same turn. It's different from counters. I can't explain it; removal simply doesn't affect people the same way.
So it's not that losing is unfun to all of them. Some people honestly don't care about that aspect of the game. They play to play, for the experience, for the journey, not the destination (outcome). We've got to accept that Magic isn't just for one type of person, and that Wizards is trying to please all of them ... except the LD crowd.
Right, so you're a Spike. That's very clear for anyone who knows the psychographic personalities. But not everyone is a Spike.
I think what people tend to forget is that not everyone plays Magic the same way or for the same reasons. You play to win. Cool. I'm glad there are people like that who play Magic, because it helps feed the competitive nature of the game. But others play to play: they want to cast the huge spells (Timmy) or play the cards no one else has thought of yet (Johnny) or experience the game's lore (Vorthos). The cool part of Magic is that that is FINE. It pleases multiple types of people.
I think you mis-characterize the people you're criticizing. Most don't care when a dude gets hit by removal because at least they got to play it. There's a difference there, and it's substantial, even if you hit it at instant-speed the same turn. It's different from counters. I can't explain it; removal simply doesn't affect people the same way.
So it's not that losing is unfun to all of them. Some people honestly don't care about that aspect of the game. They play to play, for the experience, for the journey, not the destination (outcome). We've got to accept that Magic isn't just for one type of person, and that Wizards is trying to please all of them ... except the LD crowd.
Absolutely! And, if you aren't playing the game competitively, then you get to choose who you play against. You and your playgroup can play or not play certain kinds of cards or strategys if you deem them unfun. Casual play is very self regulating in this way and has been for a long time. So, it's unnecessary to demand that wizards doesn't print any of the cards i like playing with just because you don't like playing against them, especially if you are not a very tournament minded player. Larry94 is the one who doesn't want wotc to cater to everyone, not me.
Absolutely! And, if you aren't playing the game competitively, then you get to choose who you play against. You and your playgroup can play or not play certain kinds of cards or strategys if you deem them unfun. Casual play is very self regulating in this way and has been for a long time. So, it's unnecessary to demand that wizards doesn't print any of the cards i like playing with just because you don't like playing against them, especially if you are not a very tournament minded player. Larry94 is the one who doesn't want wotc to cater to everyone, not me.
Oh, you're totally right. I'm not vouching for his preferences more than yours, and I'm not suggesting that they not print certain types of cards. What I was pointing out was that you were seeming to show only one side of the argument and completely discounting the other side(s), just as he was.
I'm neutral in this "argument." I play tournaments, but I'm admittedly more Johnny than Spike. It makes for a rough mix.
I don't understand why permission is so demonized. My favorite match-up in the history of MTG is mono-blue control v. mono-blue control because it is so mind gamey. What I like about permission is that it makes the game significantly more interactive. Each time someone plays a card it is up for their opponent to decide if it is worth blowing a permission spell, or if their opponent is trying to bait them.
I would agree that playing against a permission based deck isn't that fun but I think that nerfing permission rather than expanding it is the wrong decision. I think MTG would be a really interesting game if every deck and every color had the option to run worthwhile permission cards. I think that it would expand the interaction that exists and increase the amount of strategy required to play.
What I'd really like to see from the game is for there to be a way for players to win games by manipulating any aspect of the game. Currently it seems like the game is moving towards only winning through combat damage.
One of the best posts in this thread. The stack is simply far too large for any one colour to dominate, and all colours should have the means to interact on it within their flavour. Bring back powerful spells that have downsides, because it adds an element of depth to their use. Open permission up to other colours (within flavour), because that means spells no longer have to be so weak in comparison to creatures, and paves the way for more interaction.
You should be able to win by leveraging any aspect of the game.
Honestly it isn't that hard to think of ways for other colors to interact with the stack oddly enough.
Black: "Counter target creature spell, you gain life equal to its power" (The black mage "siphoning" the life force of the creature card), or "When Target creature spell enters the battlefield it gets -2/-2 until end of turn and you gain 2 life. If the creature card would be destroyed this way it enters the battlefield under control but is black and a zombie in addition to its other colors and types"
Green: "target creature spell gets Split Second until end of turn."
White: "you gain life equal to the converted mana cost of target spell" or "Exile target spell with a mana cost of 4 or greater"
Red: "Target spell deals damage to its caster equal to its mana cost." Red also has Reverberate type spells that interact with the stack.
And those are abilities I have thought of in just a few minutes. That allows for plenty of "Spell Wars" that many people are fond of and allows them to be available for all colors to use.
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This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
Giving stack interactions to every color could be possible but pretty narrow in some ways. For white for example, you could give protection to your spells, just the way you use protection from colors in permanents. However, I feel that giving stack interaction to all the colors could change some aspects of the game.
Pyrite looks like gold. Is it gold? No. It's pyrite. Fool's gold if you wish. I will allow you to call midrange decks "fool's control" if you want. It is still not control.
But that is the goal. That is the objective. If you remove the word arbitrarily, which doesn't belong in the phrase, everything else is right, because it is what people tried to achieve with this system of classifying decks. Thing is, it is far far FAR from arbitrary. It follows rules and patterns, not of play, but of strategy. Not of actual execution of strategy, but of what the deck planned. And that is what tells deck styles apart in any way that can be unambiguous.
Also, sorry tomisa if I am a bit more sarcastic and cynical than normal, but the poster above got me cranky and annoyed. I hate irrationality. *sigh*
Hey, no worries. My initial post was an attempt to show that people can't claim that control is alive and well and then point to Jund as an example of control when 2 months ago Jund was largely classified as midrange. Something had to change in order for people's classification of the deck to change as the deck didn't gain any drastically different tools from Dragon's Maze and the plan remains the same. I think that the plethora of aggro decks and the controlling role Jund takes in most of its matches now (since aggro makes up such a large % of the format) has caused that. Or people were not classifying the deck correctly for months on end... I didn't want to straight up tell anyone that they were wrong in reclassifying Jund so instead I rolled with it and hoped that people could read between the lines. Ultimately, I believe that people were trying to reclassify a deck to fit their argument. Though, most importantly, I conceded that point because by needing to reclassify a deck that was long viewed as midrange to control, I believe that they were somewhat proving their own argument false. The need to call a true midrange deck a control deck goes to show that there isn't much actual control out there.
In essence, I agree that a deck's strategy should be viewed in a vacuum. I agree that you SHOULD classify a deck according to its overall plan or strategy. I stated that midrange may seem like control in this metagame. I never stated that midrange was actual control - though I do think that it is somewhat ambiguous in its nature which is another reason why I am willing to concede that point in my argument above. It does have an overall plan of attack but its strategy matchup by matchup varies more than aggro and control; that's part of what makes midrange, midrange. I really should have left those last few sentences out - in my initial response to you - because I largely agree with you. I was going on like 3 hours of sleep after working for 16 hours and got lost in my own hypothetical argument.
Honestly it isn't that hard to think of ways for other colors to interact with the stack oddly enough.
Black: "Counter target creature spell, you gain life equal to its power" (The black mage "siphoning" the life force of the creature card), or "When Target creature spell enters the battlefield it gets -2/-2 until end of turn and you gain 2 life. If the creature card would be destroyed this way it enters the battlefield under control but is black and a zombie in addition to its other colors and types"
Green: "target creature spell gets Split Second until end of turn."
White: "you gain life equal to the converted mana cost of target spell" or "Exile target spell with a mana cost of 4 or greater"
Red: "Target spell deals damage to its caster equal to its mana cost." Red also has Reverberate type spells that interact with the stack.
And those are abilities I have thought of in just a few minutes. That allows for plenty of "Spell Wars" that many people are fond of and allows them to be available for all colors to use.
Exactly. There's no real reason the other colours shouldn't have ways of conditionally countering spells that fit within their own colour identity. In addition to this, it would increase interaction ten-fold.
Personally, I think psychological arguments explaining the reason why counters are unfun are generally a cop out. There is nothing inherently unfun about counters that other removal mechanics don't also share. The main difference is that with permanents, you can find ways of overcoming that removal, so interaction is actually happening. You have creatures like resto and snapcaster that can respond to removal, as well as mechanics like bounce, combat tricks, etc. With counters, when a blue deck says no, there is nothing you can do.
The solution to this was to create cavern of souls and uncounterable spells, but that's a problem in itself. A better solution would have been to expand design space to give other colours effects that are able to target on the stack. E.g. flash creatures that make a target spell uncounterable as an ETB, flash enchantments that counter a spell for a price, and then can be sac'd for another effect. A fiend hunter that targets on the stack. Seriously, the opportunities are endless.
Control decks are built on interacting with their opponents, but their opponents are completely unable to interact back. Of course that isn't fun. Change this one facet of the game, and a whole host of other problems fix themselves, because you can then bring back real counterspells, real draw, real library manipulation, tutors in colours other than green, etc. since every colour should have ways of shutting those strategies down.
It's weird how everyone keeps repeating that not everyone hates playing against control. The only thing people hate about control is losing to it. It's fine when you have a shot and resolve a beater with enough of a clock, but when they have you completely locked out, it sucks.
Wizards is having it's fun re-balancing the game, but hopefully they will match spells power with creatures again, so they can justify a single creature being able to close the game.
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"If you don't wear your seatbelt, the police will shoot you in the head."
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Everyone knows that good luck and good game are such insincere terms that any man who does not connect his right hook with the offender's jaw on the very utterance of such a phrase is no man I would consider as such.
Wizards is having it's fun re-balancing the game, but hopefully they will match spells power with creatures again, so they can justify a single creature being able to close the game.
They will and I think Control will rebound regardless (some of my investments are counting on it). Hopefully WotC can find that sweet spot your talking about. It does seem quite difficult however as often times they themselves are very unsure or just plain wrong about how a format will play out. I remember them saying that they thought Wolfir Silverheart and not Thragtusk would dominate the meta as the go to G 5-drop.
Mana is time is mana (for the most part). By regular game acceleration, a player has a combined total of 15 mana by turn 5 (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5). Now let's say that you are playing G/x. Add a turn 1 arbor elf (we'll assume it doesn't die) and turn 2 farseek and you get (1 + 3 + 5 + 6 + 7) which is 22. For 2 cards and 3 mana (actually 2 since the last turn gave 7 instead of 6 which would be the normal turn mana), you have virtually timewalked a player who doesn't have mana acceleration. What does blue (or even black) do to compensate?
Blue has counters because it doesn't have anything else. A bounce spell gains tempo by costing less than the creature it bounces, but a "kill before it hits the field" is the biggest kill method blue has (black has kill after it hits).
While I'm all for other colors being able to interact with the stack, they must do so in a far less efficient manner because they already have other advantages. Mono blue isn't particularly powerful (broken merfolk and faeries aside). Gamers use multiple colors because of the special parts each color brings to the table. When you share those parts, there's a danger that the identity of the colors becomes lost.
Blue has already lost much of it's advantage with the advent of "play and kill garruk to draw 5 cards from thragtusk for 5cmc" and killing creatures outright is currently a better tempo play than bouncing them to hand. Jund is so powerful right now (and historically) because it can kill so effectively while dropping power creatures and (now) drawing cards for direct card advantage in addition to creature generated card advantage (which is already too powerful). Give the current jund even a fairly weak counter and they'll be making a UU counterspell that cantrips to retain the balance.
edit: I think one huge problem is that players EXPECT their 6/6 monsters to stick. The problem is that those come down turn 4 (in our example above) and they are likely a 2-3 turn win at most. Either Wizards must go back to making a 4/4 serra angel the "big creature" or the removal must get better to keep the game even. When every turn past 4 is a must answer creature, how can you NOT expect a permission playstyle?
Some food for thought: permission to deal damage and permission to leave the stack are nearly identical except that the card rests briefly on the table (unless the card is loaded with abilities which make it even more necessary to answer)
I see playing against permission as a challenge rather than boring, painfully slow, torture. It makes players play more carefully, have to allocate their resources more effectively, have some self control. I can see why people don't like it, but when is the last time you played against a control deck that literally countered everything? In recent history (scars, innistrad standard pre avacyn's restored) the draw go deck ran 8 maybe 10 counterspells + some number of counterspells. It's about learning to play against it, not complaining to wotc until the archetype that many people (myself included) really enjoy playing.
Okay, this makes some sense... some. I'm not a big fan of playing against decks like CounterTop because of things like this. Still, decks like CounterTop are pretty important for the Legacy metagame. But I can see why you might not want more of--
Wait wait wait wait wait. What? The stuff you were talking about was in reference to decks like CounterTop or Lands in Legacy. Now you're talking about Standard, where such decks are pretty much non-existent. They certainly were non-existent in the format Cavern of Souls was printed in. They certainly were non-existent in the format when Mana Leak was around. The removal of Mana Leak (and by the way, calling Mana Leak too powerful is a joke if you ask me) and printing of Cavern of Souls didn't do anything to stop permission decks in Standard, because they didn't exist. UW Delver certainly wasn't a permission deck as you define it, it played its win condition early in the game, sometimes Turn 1.
So basically, your defense is that formats where permission decks don't exist need counterspells nerfed to weaken said decks that don't exist. 'Kay.
(Random note: CounterTop actually got a big boost from the Miracle cards, meaning the same set that had Cavern of Souls was the one that made that permission deck worth playing again)
This has nothing to do with how popular magic is. **** like affinity destroys magic not permission.
We haven't seen anything that broken since but came close with cascade.
I do agree with people arguing that Permission (understand by permission countermagic based control) is unfun for the victim, since you are being only a practice dummy being negated every single action until the Permission Player finds the wincon and proceeds to kill you mercifuly. I've been in both sides and yes, is frustrating, is not playing at all, but this aspect of magic, as other aspects that have been nerfed (Prison, Land Destruction, Combo) due to being unfun for some major population.
Somebody talk about the stack, which I consider to be one of, if not the main, spinal cord of Magic. Somebody else mentioned interaction and this is key of this game. Magic has interaction in many ways, being creatures, countermagic wars, attrition wars, activated abilities going into the stack, I mean, at least for me this is fun and I'm pretty sure some other people will find it fun. But nowadays the newer population finds it unfun mainly because they are more familiar with dudes steam rolling the board and beating someone directly. For WotC this is a business, not a game, for some other people this is a sport, but at the end the main purpose of all of this is to make money, so if my audience (being "us") demands and is pleased by creature interactions, ergo I'll give it to them, thus we are going into the spell+creature = ETB overpowered creature.
In this current standard, creatures are way better than spells and thanks to Cavern, creature-based decks rule. Sure you can kill them once they hit the table, but at least they have done their grace once they arrived, which means little to nothing when the effect triggers. This is what Control likes to do, answer spells from the other player and stop it from being cast. But killing it is also a good way of controlling the board. However, creatures today are very resilient, they are indestructible, they come back from the grave as easily as sneezing, they can't be targeted, they sprawl minions from themselves. So Control cannot deal with the creatures in either way, countering them (permission control) or killing them (board control).
I do really hope the game becomes balanced again, reprinting spells with same power like the creatures we face today. Doomblade for now seems good. I don't want counterspell to come back again, I'm already sure that it will never come back, but at least they could give us Mana leak, which will balance things for good.
In addition to the Control dying... Combo is also inexistant... I remember Exarch Twin from a couple years ago. It was pretty funny to play with and against, giving some thrill to the match. Pyromancers ascension also...
One funny fact I noticed is Sphere of Safety... it behaves exactly like Ghostly Prison but as you can see is a watered down version. Prison is unfun for some players (aggro players to be honest) and there you have... a 5 mana version that depends on the amount of other enchantments you control. I need at least 2 other enchantments to make it good and to survive turn 5 (3 if I ramp with heaven and dork) while the aggro player smacks the table with 3 creatures and hits for 20 at turn 3, sometimes 4. Wizards contradicts itself with no turn 3 kills really.
I remember aggro decks like Landfall boros that got the kill by turn 5 most of the time, sometimes 4 or 6 depending, but at last the deck was much more skill demanding than just vomiting the table with creatures. I have nothing against aggro players, I play aggro too, but I don't like to play a game and have it finish by turn 3, either I'm losing or winning, I think there is little to no interaction in that. Just my humble opinion...
BR RkDW-Aggro | UBR Cruel Grixis-Control
Legacy:
WW Soldier Tribal-Aggro| WW Stax-Control
Modern:
RW Artifact Boros-Aggro | GB The Rock-Midrange
I would agree that playing against a permission based deck isn't that fun but I think that nerfing permission rather than expanding it is the wrong decision. I think MTG would be a really interesting game if every deck and every color had the option to run worthwhile permission cards. I think that it would expand the interaction that exists and increase the amount of strategy required to play.
What I'd really like to see from the game is for there to be a way for players to win games by manipulating any aspect of the game. Currently it seems like the game is moving towards only winning through combat damage.
I swear, the aggro players here are just a group of children who don't like when they can't do what they want.
Oh, and to the people who said that the game got more popular without permission, the Numbers are actually AGAINST you. The most popular set in all of Magic History is (when it comes to sale numbers) Innistrad. When Innistrad dropped, it became an instant hit. And guess what was the biggest deck of the time? Delver... Oh and magic has gotten more and more popular after the whole Time Spiral debacle (granted I will say I liked Time Spiral but that is a whole different topic). And that happens to be in time with:
Fairies (Tempo/Control)
Cawblade (Tempo)
Splintertwin (Combo/Control)
Delver (Tempo/Control)
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
You're entitled to your opinion, as are all the people you so obviously despise. Luckily, Wizards tries to keep the game balanced enough to appease both sides of the argument -- of all arguments, really. There were tons of people who were upset when they started phasing out mass LD, for example.
Control is fine. Aggro is currently slightly too fast, so the Control players have a legitimate complaint. However, Aggro pays for that speed by sacrificing consistency, though not enough I think. They won't nut draw every game. Just remember that.
As it sits right now, Control has the tools it needs. The decks simply need to be tuned to the meta correctly, and that's harder than it used to be since, blessedly, the meta is so diverse.
Currently Working On: Jund Ramp (RTR Block)
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"The big thing is not to project your own emotions on what other people are trying to get out of Magic" -Brad Nelson
Why must people act like everyone who chooses to play types of decks other than their own is less smart than them for it, or an ******* for it?
Yeah, I actually played from Ice Age until Affinity's domination - that's when I quit. I started playing again when Innistrad came out. The lack of permission and, to a lesser extent, LD has definitely changed the game and in my opinion, not entirely for the better. It's entirely too creature-based now. The lack of permission is one example but artifacts and enchantments have been neutered as well. Man, I miss the days of Pros Bloom, Sligh, Recurring/Survival, Necro decks (before Necro was used in combo)... And contrary to belief, even though permission was strong back then with Counterspell, Mana Leak, Forbid etc, it didn't dominate the format. You learned to play around it or main deck cards like Duress to deal with it. Playing situational cards in your main deck wasn't unheard of like it is today.
Some people hate playing against control but personally, I hate playing against the current aggro. An aggro deck's nut draw can be as noninteractive and frustrating to play against as a combo deck that can go off on turn 3-4. To each their own, though.
Control largely has the tools it needs to compete. Creature power creep needs to stop.
You remember wrong.
You are just re-posting the exact same arguments without even reading what i posted in response...
We already covered this. No, that isn't true, stop attempting to make statements about what the entire playerbase can/can not enjoy based only on your own experience.
We also covered this. This is a fairly obviously fundamentally flawed depiction of what "fun" is. I already said, winning is fun for you, but losing isn't fun for the other guy. Casting instant speed spot removal when he goes to attack with his creature isn't fun for him, either. Basically, there are VERY few ways you can gain an advantage over your opponent and have that exact action be "fun" for both of you.
We also already talked about this. No, i am not trying to make my opponent feel or not feel anything. I just want to win, i want to play the game as competitively as possible within the rules, and all strategies are to me to be objectively viewed as tools to win. I am fond of the "control" strategy, as a tool to win with. It is not because i want you to cry in your ****ing cereal.
Right, so you're a Spike. That's very clear for anyone who knows the psychographic personalities. But not everyone is a Spike.
I think what people tend to forget is that not everyone plays Magic the same way or for the same reasons. You play to win. Cool. I'm glad there are people like that who play Magic, because it helps feed the competitive nature of the game. But others play to play: they want to cast the huge spells (Timmy) or play the cards no one else has thought of yet (Johnny) or experience the game's lore (Vorthos). The cool part of Magic is that that is FINE. It pleases multiple types of people.
I think you mis-characterize the people you're criticizing. Most don't care when a dude gets hit by removal because at least they got to play it. There's a difference there, and it's substantial, even if you hit it at instant-speed the same turn. It's different from counters. I can't explain it; removal simply doesn't affect people the same way.
So it's not that losing is unfun to all of them. Some people honestly don't care about that aspect of the game. They play to play, for the experience, for the journey, not the destination (outcome). We've got to accept that Magic isn't just for one type of person, and that Wizards is trying to please all of them ... except the LD crowd.
Currently Working On: Jund Ramp (RTR Block)
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Absolutely! And, if you aren't playing the game competitively, then you get to choose who you play against. You and your playgroup can play or not play certain kinds of cards or strategys if you deem them unfun. Casual play is very self regulating in this way and has been for a long time. So, it's unnecessary to demand that wizards doesn't print any of the cards i like playing with just because you don't like playing against them, especially if you are not a very tournament minded player. Larry94 is the one who doesn't want wotc to cater to everyone, not me.
Oh, you're totally right. I'm not vouching for his preferences more than yours, and I'm not suggesting that they not print certain types of cards. What I was pointing out was that you were seeming to show only one side of the argument and completely discounting the other side(s), just as he was.
I'm neutral in this "argument." I play tournaments, but I'm admittedly more Johnny than Spike. It makes for a rough mix.
Currently Working On: Jund Ramp (RTR Block)
GR My Blog RG (Std)
One of the best posts in this thread. The stack is simply far too large for any one colour to dominate, and all colours should have the means to interact on it within their flavour. Bring back powerful spells that have downsides, because it adds an element of depth to their use. Open permission up to other colours (within flavour), because that means spells no longer have to be so weak in comparison to creatures, and paves the way for more interaction.
You should be able to win by leveraging any aspect of the game.
Black: "Counter target creature spell, you gain life equal to its power" (The black mage "siphoning" the life force of the creature card), or "When Target creature spell enters the battlefield it gets -2/-2 until end of turn and you gain 2 life. If the creature card would be destroyed this way it enters the battlefield under control but is black and a zombie in addition to its other colors and types"
Green: "target creature spell gets Split Second until end of turn."
White: "you gain life equal to the converted mana cost of target spell" or "Exile target spell with a mana cost of 4 or greater"
Red: "Target spell deals damage to its caster equal to its mana cost." Red also has Reverberate type spells that interact with the stack.
And those are abilities I have thought of in just a few minutes. That allows for plenty of "Spell Wars" that many people are fond of and allows them to be available for all colors to use.
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
BR RkDW-Aggro | UBR Cruel Grixis-Control
Legacy:
WW Soldier Tribal-Aggro| WW Stax-Control
Modern:
RW Artifact Boros-Aggro | GB The Rock-Midrange
And yet people mine pyrite for gold.
The world is a complicated place, and loves nothing more than to make fools out of people who seek to confine it within rigid definitions.
Hey, no worries. My initial post was an attempt to show that people can't claim that control is alive and well and then point to Jund as an example of control when 2 months ago Jund was largely classified as midrange. Something had to change in order for people's classification of the deck to change as the deck didn't gain any drastically different tools from Dragon's Maze and the plan remains the same. I think that the plethora of aggro decks and the controlling role Jund takes in most of its matches now (since aggro makes up such a large % of the format) has caused that. Or people were not classifying the deck correctly for months on end... I didn't want to straight up tell anyone that they were wrong in reclassifying Jund so instead I rolled with it and hoped that people could read between the lines. Ultimately, I believe that people were trying to reclassify a deck to fit their argument. Though, most importantly, I conceded that point because by needing to reclassify a deck that was long viewed as midrange to control, I believe that they were somewhat proving their own argument false. The need to call a true midrange deck a control deck goes to show that there isn't much actual control out there.
In essence, I agree that a deck's strategy should be viewed in a vacuum. I agree that you SHOULD classify a deck according to its overall plan or strategy. I stated that midrange may seem like control in this metagame. I never stated that midrange was actual control - though I do think that it is somewhat ambiguous in its nature which is another reason why I am willing to concede that point in my argument above. It does have an overall plan of attack but its strategy matchup by matchup varies more than aggro and control; that's part of what makes midrange, midrange. I really should have left those last few sentences out - in my initial response to you - because I largely agree with you. I was going on like 3 hours of sleep after working for 16 hours and got lost in my own hypothetical argument.
Exactly. There's no real reason the other colours shouldn't have ways of conditionally countering spells that fit within their own colour identity. In addition to this, it would increase interaction ten-fold.
Personally, I think psychological arguments explaining the reason why counters are unfun are generally a cop out. There is nothing inherently unfun about counters that other removal mechanics don't also share. The main difference is that with permanents, you can find ways of overcoming that removal, so interaction is actually happening. You have creatures like resto and snapcaster that can respond to removal, as well as mechanics like bounce, combat tricks, etc. With counters, when a blue deck says no, there is nothing you can do.
The solution to this was to create cavern of souls and uncounterable spells, but that's a problem in itself. A better solution would have been to expand design space to give other colours effects that are able to target on the stack. E.g. flash creatures that make a target spell uncounterable as an ETB, flash enchantments that counter a spell for a price, and then can be sac'd for another effect. A fiend hunter that targets on the stack. Seriously, the opportunities are endless.
Control decks are built on interacting with their opponents, but their opponents are completely unable to interact back. Of course that isn't fun. Change this one facet of the game, and a whole host of other problems fix themselves, because you can then bring back real counterspells, real draw, real library manipulation, tutors in colours other than green, etc. since every colour should have ways of shutting those strategies down.
Wizards is having it's fun re-balancing the game, but hopefully they will match spells power with creatures again, so they can justify a single creature being able to close the game.
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.
They will and I think Control will rebound regardless (some of my investments are counting on it). Hopefully WotC can find that sweet spot your talking about. It does seem quite difficult however as often times they themselves are very unsure or just plain wrong about how a format will play out. I remember them saying that they thought Wolfir Silverheart and not Thragtusk would dominate the meta as the go to G 5-drop.
Blue has counters because it doesn't have anything else. A bounce spell gains tempo by costing less than the creature it bounces, but a "kill before it hits the field" is the biggest kill method blue has (black has kill after it hits).
While I'm all for other colors being able to interact with the stack, they must do so in a far less efficient manner because they already have other advantages. Mono blue isn't particularly powerful (broken merfolk and faeries aside). Gamers use multiple colors because of the special parts each color brings to the table. When you share those parts, there's a danger that the identity of the colors becomes lost.
Blue has already lost much of it's advantage with the advent of "play and kill garruk to draw 5 cards from thragtusk for 5cmc" and killing creatures outright is currently a better tempo play than bouncing them to hand. Jund is so powerful right now (and historically) because it can kill so effectively while dropping power creatures and (now) drawing cards for direct card advantage in addition to creature generated card advantage (which is already too powerful). Give the current jund even a fairly weak counter and they'll be making a UU counterspell that cantrips to retain the balance.
edit: I think one huge problem is that players EXPECT their 6/6 monsters to stick. The problem is that those come down turn 4 (in our example above) and they are likely a 2-3 turn win at most. Either Wizards must go back to making a 4/4 serra angel the "big creature" or the removal must get better to keep the game even. When every turn past 4 is a must answer creature, how can you NOT expect a permission playstyle?
Some food for thought: permission to deal damage and permission to leave the stack are nearly identical except that the card rests briefly on the table (unless the card is loaded with abilities which make it even more necessary to answer)
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