Fair and Unfair with regard to decks (and at times mechanics) in constructed magic is a concept and terminology that has always been utterly lost on me even after 10+ years. To my mind as long as the cards are legal in your format and obey the rules of the game then there is no such thing as a deck or mechanic that is more or less fair than any other. Assuming money is no object then we all have access to the same tools, so why do some people find it unfair to choose certain tools over others?
I want to point out that it is very likely that I will not change my position in this regard, since I am known to be stubborn when retaining my interpretations, but I would like to at least understand what people are talking about when they say things like "mid-range tends to do well against fair decks", or something like that (I made that up).
Note: I am not talking about relative power level. If two players are playing with the Legacy card pool and one is playing casual WB Clerics and the other is playing with a tuned Death & Taxes deck then there is certainly a fairness disparity between the decks when it comes to advantage. That is different than what I am asking about.
"Unfair" is just MTG slang for 'very powerful' especially when a combo or series of plays is made on the same turn.
No one is saying anything is illegal.
edit: When people say midrange decks play well against "fair" decks, they're just taking about the expected power level of cards on a curve, usually involving 1-for-1 trades. "Unfair" decks may stall and set up for a turn or 2 and then just explode the next.
I think it's silly for people to label decks "unfair". If it's legal in the format...then by definition it's fair.
When people say "unfair" usually they mean something along the lines of using a card in ways that it clearly was not meant to be used when it was printed. Examples include things like the storm mechanic, or using Cloud of Faeries to continually untap Cloudposts.
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Current Legacy decks BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam UB Reanimator
I didn't want to play that deck, I loved my UB control deck, it was the perfect draw-go deck, IMO. But I couldn't best cawgo. So I had to switch.
Cawgo was absolutely unbeatable by anything but cawgo and super super fast decks like WW/GW quest decks, and even then those matchups were at best a coinflip.
Cawgo is the absolute standard for what an 'unfair' deck is. Same for the old ravaged affinity, you ether played affinity or you played tooth and nail because it had a 50% against affinity.
A fair deck is something more like delver, but even then most people thought delver was unfair. It eaked out small advantages and if it lost tempo it lost the game.
A fair deck is a deck without any creatures you can't deal with, that doesn't do anything ridiculous too fast, that isn't able to just demolish you without you seeing it coming.
Really, it's hard to define any deck specifically as fair. It doesn't have anything to do with money, it would be more about win percentage and interactions.
Most people would never consider a control deck as fair, though I don't think that's true. I think there's probably some that are and some that aren't.
"Unfair" is just MTG slang for 'very powerful' especially when a combo or series of plays is made on the same turn.
No one is saying anything is illegal.
edit: When people say midrange decks play well against "fair" decks, they're just taking about the expected power level of cards on a curve, usually involving 1-for-1 trades. "Unfair" decks may stall and set up for a turn or 2 and then just explode the next.
Of course no one is saying things are illegal, I get that much, but I don't think people are simply talking about a power differential either. There are decks and mechanics that I have seen people refer to as unfair where power was not the idea that was being communicated.
When people say "unfair" usually they mean something along the lines of using a card in ways that it clearly was not meant to be used when it was printed. Examples include things like the storm mechanic,
Well, if Storm was not meant to be used during a turn where you cast a lot of spells then what was it supposed to be used for? I think I see what you are trying to say though, kind of like how Gifts Ungiven is used in Modern to grab only the cards you want in the graveyard?
I didn't want to play that deck, I loved my UB control deck, it was the perfect draw-go deck, IMO. But I couldn't best cawgo. So I had to switch.
Cawgo was absolutely unbeatable by anything but cawgo and super super fast decks like WW/GW quest decks, and even then those matchups were at best a coinflip.
CawGo in Standard was a broken deck (or at least arguably so) due to the control that Jace gave it. Once Jace went away then it was perfectly manageable. Are you contending that unfair = broken? That is not how I have assumed it was being used.
Of course no one is saying things are illegal, I get that much, but I don't think people are simply talking about a power differential either. There are decks and mechanics that I have seen people refer to as unfair where power was not the idea that was being communicated.
I think people use the term very loosely and mean different things at different times.
Sometimes, people absolutely are just referring to power level of a single card. If someone casts Sphinx's Revelation where x=10, some people will call that unfair.
Other times, people will call an entire deck unfair, like the GR monsters powered by Nykthos. When it can generate 20+ mana in a turn and draw 4+ cards a turn through planeswalkers, some people will say their midrange deck has a very bad match-up against it because it doesn't play fair.
But it's not just card drawing or combo decks either. When Hellrider was legal, the moment he dropped on turn 4, that was unfair.
In all cases, people are just referring to things that are 'very powerful', especially versus someone who's entire game plan is built around 1-for-1 trades. These unfair plays either go over the top (Sphinx's Revelation) or bypass it all completely (Hellrider).
edit: In general, I would say that combo decks are most unfair. Control decks are generally very fair with a few unfair/broken cards. Aggro decks are usually very fair, just very fast. And midrange decks are the most fair.
Again, I think it has to do with 1-for-1 trades.
If two midrange decks are paired against each other, even though there can be a series of actions and reactions in very tense games, when the stack is cleared, one player is usually slightly ahead and the other is slightly behind and the game continues. With unfair decks, when the stack is cleared, it's possible for someone to be way ahead and the game can be all but over.
"Fair" means that the deck generally interacts with the opponent on a typical basis for Magic. For competitive decks this generally includes aggro, midrange, and control type strategies.
"Unfair" means that the deck generally ignores the text on it's opponents cards unless it's some kind of specialized hate that the deck outright folds to.
Jund in Modern is a good example of a fair deck. It's grossly efficient, and dominant enough to frequently be the most played deck at high profile events, and it wins a lot, but it's fair.
Charbelcher in Legacy is a good example of an unfair deck. It's still very much a beatable deck, but it trys to go all in on a combo to kill you without interaction. It just turns the game into a check on whether you have some specialized answer to it, and how well you can time playing it.
From the above posts, I'd actually say caw blade falls under the category of "fair" decks. It's possible for cards that operate on a fair basis to be too good or unfun, but cawblade still kills you by tapping a few creatures at a time over some number of turns.
Fair decks aren't necessarily innocent and unfair decks aren't necessarily bad for the game. I think it's useful to have the words to broadly group the two different general approaches to winning the game.
People too often seem to just refer to things that kills their homebrew tribal deck as being "unfair." By some more conventional definitions of the word they might be right, especially if it's casual play. However, I think that if you're reading articles written by high profile players they tend to mean it more in terms of the way I described it above.
Sure, there are (apparent) reason's why these cards have not seen reprints, but you'll still come upon a casual player who will use them. Cards that slow you down tremendously, drag the game on, and are made for frustration purposes just kill the game. I usually scoop if a few turns go by in group games & no one has an answer.
No one wants a game to go 3 or 4 times longer than it should just because you're playing a control freak.
1. Free/cheap spells that are powerful/overpowered for their cost.
2. Relative lack of interactivity of the cards/deck, aka solitaire Magic.
3. Streamlined mechanics that are efficient beyond anything else available.
4. Density of cards with duplicate effects, ie deck full of Tutors/Draw/Burn.
There might be others but I'm tired so that's what I've got at the moment. You see most/all of these in combo decks which is usually the target for the unfair tag but it can be applied to aggro or control decks as well.
Lack of interactivity is probably the biggest motivator of the unfair tag though. Storm decks, Voltaic Key /Time Vault, Mindslaver, 25counterspells.dec, Trinisphere. Basically decks that have you just sitting there doing nothing while your opponent looks at his hand and cards in play and there's no need for you to even be there.
Is this accurately unfair? Not under most forms as everything has a counter, everything can be beaten. The only case I'd agree with things being unfair is when a deck is so good that realistically you are forced to either play it or play a metagame hoser deck to beat it, as it was with Affinity before the banhammer hit. Unfair to me is when there's only two choices, deck A or anti deck A. Everything else can be answered, or if not then it just wasn't your luck. Blowouts happen, first turn kills happen, these are fine. What is unfair is really having no choice in what you can build as dictated by the card pool if you want to be competitive. This concern shrinks the less you care about being competitive but being competitive in a specific format should allow for more than 2 options one of which is just an anti 1st option.
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I've used it to mean things that are clearly unintended. Doubling Season+Planeswalkers, Melira+Persist, Cascade+Suspend, Teferi+Knowledge Pool, Celestial Dawn+EDH.
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The biggest context I've seen these used in is when talking about Legacy. I may be somewhat new to the format, but I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of what's 'fair' or 'unfair'.
Most decks that are considered 'fair', just means that it plays an actual game of Magic. Generally, Control, Aggro and Midrange all fall under this category. You control the board, or you attack, and eventually you win or lose by getting beat over the face, whether it's from an Etched Champion, a Creeping Tar-Pit or a Tarmogoyf.
'Unfair' decks, however, are usually Combo decks. Decks that essentially just ignore the opponent and try to win explosively, and out of nowhere. Belcher, TES, ANT and even Show and Tell to an extent are usually considered 'unfair'. If you don't know what you're up against or don't have a specific answer, you're probably going to get stomped.
There is no truly "unfair" deck or card. The cards are all designed to be balanced, and a metric ton of playtesting goes into making that happen before the final print, but players will always find some combination of cards that works really well. "Unfair" cards and decks are just the result of someone finding a card or combo that is just slightly more powerful than another based on how many answers the format has, or how soon it can be played compared to similar alternatives.
I've heard of "unfair" decks recently to mean Combo. Because Combo decks usually forego the "normal" attack steps, it is tougher to calculate when they will go off. This is the definition of unfair.
When I play Imperial Painter, it is called an unfair deck. People always ask me am I going for my turn 1 Blood Moon? When I play Shardless BUG, they call that fair, even if Shardless Agent cascades into Ancestral Vision. I just don't get it. Since when is only Combo the "unfair" strategy to win?
Combo is my preferred strategy. I want to care less about combat, creatures, and combat damage.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Combo is my preferred strategy. I want to care less about combat, creatures, and combat damage.
Nice pick for a screen name then, haha. Then again Food Chain was a combo deck, even if it needed the attack phase to go lethal most of the time.
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"Fair" in this context usually isn't the generally understood "oh, that wasn't FAIR" sense... it has nothing to do with a value judgment, either about the player or about the actual power level of the deck.
Rather, a "fair" deck is one that plays creatures and creature-oriented permanents, tries to win with them usually via attacking, and tries to interact with opposing creatures and creature-oriented permanents (and, these days, planeswalkers), vs. a deck that tries to win entirely via some other axis.
So Eggs and storm decks are clearly unfair. Delver and Jund decks are clearly fair, even when they are format-definingly powerful.
Something that's at least somewhat interesting, albeit purely a semantic debate, is to discuss where the borderline really is. Is Modern Infect a fair deck? Bant hexproof? is a deck with 40 burn spells and 20 lands a fair deck? What if it's 30 burn spells and 10 efficient 1-drop creatures? Etc.
Fair decks play inside the box, even if the power level is high, while unfair decks do their best to ignore the rules. Normally an Unfair deck tries to mix cards together to accomplish something more than the cards individual mana cost.
A deck like Jund is a fair deck. It draws it's card. It taps some mana. It kills something or plays a threat. It's power level his high, but it does things inside the box of "What Magic is". Even a card like Bloodbraid Elf doesn't seem unfair, because while you get a free card, it's random and low costing.
And Unfair deck tries to skirt the rules of Magic and win on a different axis. Something like Hypergenesis. You blink and your opponent has 3 tapped lands and 45 mana worth of guys on the field. It's has done it's job and broken the "I pay 3 mana, I get a 3 mana effect" rule. Now the effect is symmetrical, but if your opponent isn't set up to take advantage, you have even pushed even further ahead on mana.
There is an unwritten rule, especially in limited games, where whoever spends the most mana wins. Because cards are priced remotely correctly, the slightly weaker cards will eventually balance out with the stronger ones.
So most unfair decks are combo decks because they look to either spend the most mana quickly, or somehow make their investment worth more than intended. A deck like Show and Tell spend 15 mana on turn 3, even if it only looks like they are paying 3. Storm might tap 2 lands, but count up all the rituals and see how much they spend for the desired effect.
Now, especially in legacy and vintage, there are fair decks that attempt to cripple unfair decks by making them play fairly. A deck like Death and Taxes might restrict it's opponent to one card per turn, or maybe turn off their ability to make extra mana. A stompy deck might force them to pay 3 for everything instead of the normal cheap prices.
A deck like Jund is a fair deck. It draws it's card. It taps some mana. It kills something or plays a threat. It's power level his high, but it does things inside the box of "What Magic is". Even a card like Bloodbraid Elf doesn't seem unfair, because while you get a free card, it's random and low costing.
... "what Magic is" ????? I guess thats the problem. For many players (me included) this too:
And Unfair deck tries to skirt the rules of Magic and win on a different axis. Something like Hypergenesis. You blink and your opponent has 3 tapped lands and 45 mana worth of guys on the field. It's has done it's job and broken the "I pay 3 mana, I get a 3 mana effect" rule. Now the effect is symmetrical, but if your opponent isn't set up to take advantage, you have even pushed even further ahead on mana.
is magic.
Thats whats magical about this game for me. Obviously I disagree with the whole fair/unfair labels
I think it's silly for people to label decks "unfair". If it's legal in the format...then by definition it's fair.
When people say "unfair" usually they mean something along the lines of using a card in ways that it clearly was not meant to be used when it was printed. Examples include things like the storm mechanic, or using Cloud of Faeries to continually untap Cloudposts.
Yeah, it's a little silly. To me, "fair" simply means "not combo."
I could follow the logic of doing something other than the intention of the card, although to be honest most of the time that means a combo. In the case of storm specifically, what it does is EXACTLY what was intended.
Fair decks employ threats that are answered by typically maindecked cards that you would find in a limited environment (creature removal, enchantment removal, opposing giant creatures, etc...) Unfair decks fight you on an axis that require you to play cards specifically to beat them (dredge, reanimator strategies, most combo decks, turn 3 aggro, etc...)
IMO the term has nothing to do with power level. Mill is an unfair deck. Alara Jund is a fair one.
Surprised that Dredge has not been mentioned at all. Its kind of a cluster**** of things that exist in magic that somehow work exceedingly well together but it really doesn't play magic.
To me unfair is a deck that has little to no ways to stop it from doing what it does. Dregde use to be a deck like this and Wotc has made it perfectly clear they do not like graveyard based strategies. Just look at all the hate we have now.
Another thing that may be considered unfair by some is a strategy that allows a player to dictate the out come of a match with no one actually winning a game. I understand its control the decks, but there are control decks that have areas that can be attacked, and those that are impossible to crack.
I think mechanics are more fair and unfair though then the decks that use them. The mechanics of cascade, miracle, and dredge lead to what is considered unfair decks.
If an entire format has to play a certain color or a specific card to defend against 1 deck, more then likely that deck will be seen as unfair.
Magic has multiple forms of interaction. You can interact with your opponent in your hands, the stack, the battlefield, the graveyards, your libraries, etc.
Whenever I see someone mention fair and unfair, the fair decks are almost always ones that do not interact on almost all of these options, normally only interacting in the battlefield using creaturers.
The decks people seem to claim are "Unfair" are the ones that you need to interact with in a different manner then creaturers.
Basically people have reduced their thinking about magic to a subset of the interactions the game actually includes, and complain that any deck that goes outside that subset is unfair. It is made worse because Wizards designes standard around that subset, with little support for the rest of the game, and this re-enforces peoples false view of what a Magic game is. I have run into to many people who think it is OK to play nothing but creaturers and support spells. with no real disruption/removal effects. Or people who think that Magic has always been a creature based game when for years creatures were not the focus of most decks, as opposed to almost all the decks in standard like today. I mean look at Alpha/Beta, it is just under 1/3rd creaturers.
For years Duress was a good and playable card because pretty much every deck ran enough targets that for you to to get use out of it. For the last year it was unplayable because there were to many spells with bodies as opposed to actual spells.
In Legacy you need to be prepared for the full spectrum of the game or you will loose to many games because you failed to interact. Turn 1 kills exist, but are rare, and pretty much every deck type has options to interact with every other deck type. It is just weither or not you chose to use them. This is why I like the format, it is the only one where you still have to play the full game.
Jund, Esper Control, Shardless BUG, RUG Delver, Maverick = Fair; they win through little bits of advantage and often kill you by beating face with the most efficient creatures and spells in the game.
Sneak & Show, Dredge, Reanimator, Storm Combo = Unfair; they win through exploiting the mechanics of cards to do something ridiculous that you would not normally be able to do, like cheating in an Emrakul turn 2 or playing Tendrils with a storm count of 11.
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I want to point out that it is very likely that I will not change my position in this regard, since I am known to be stubborn when retaining my interpretations, but I would like to at least understand what people are talking about when they say things like "mid-range tends to do well against fair decks", or something like that (I made that up).
Note: I am not talking about relative power level. If two players are playing with the Legacy card pool and one is playing casual WB Clerics and the other is playing with a tuned Death & Taxes deck then there is certainly a fairness disparity between the decks when it comes to advantage. That is different than what I am asking about.
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No one is saying anything is illegal.
edit: When people say midrange decks play well against "fair" decks, they're just taking about the expected power level of cards on a curve, usually involving 1-for-1 trades. "Unfair" decks may stall and set up for a turn or 2 and then just explode the next.
Thread | Draft
When people say "unfair" usually they mean something along the lines of using a card in ways that it clearly was not meant to be used when it was printed. Examples include things like the storm mechanic, or using Cloud of Faeries to continually untap Cloudposts.
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I didn't want to play that deck, I loved my UB control deck, it was the perfect draw-go deck, IMO. But I couldn't best cawgo. So I had to switch.
Cawgo was absolutely unbeatable by anything but cawgo and super super fast decks like WW/GW quest decks, and even then those matchups were at best a coinflip.
Cawgo is the absolute standard for what an 'unfair' deck is. Same for the old ravaged affinity, you ether played affinity or you played tooth and nail because it had a 50% against affinity.
A fair deck is something more like delver, but even then most people thought delver was unfair. It eaked out small advantages and if it lost tempo it lost the game.
A fair deck is a deck without any creatures you can't deal with, that doesn't do anything ridiculous too fast, that isn't able to just demolish you without you seeing it coming.
Really, it's hard to define any deck specifically as fair. It doesn't have anything to do with money, it would be more about win percentage and interactions.
Most people would never consider a control deck as fair, though I don't think that's true. I think there's probably some that are and some that aren't.
Well, if Storm was not meant to be used during a turn where you cast a lot of spells then what was it supposed to be used for? I think I see what you are trying to say though, kind of like how Gifts Ungiven is used in Modern to grab only the cards you want in the graveyard?
CawGo in Standard was a broken deck (or at least arguably so) due to the control that Jace gave it. Once Jace went away then it was perfectly manageable. Are you contending that unfair = broken? That is not how I have assumed it was being used.
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I think people use the term very loosely and mean different things at different times.
Sometimes, people absolutely are just referring to power level of a single card. If someone casts Sphinx's Revelation where x=10, some people will call that unfair.
Other times, people will call an entire deck unfair, like the GR monsters powered by Nykthos. When it can generate 20+ mana in a turn and draw 4+ cards a turn through planeswalkers, some people will say their midrange deck has a very bad match-up against it because it doesn't play fair.
But it's not just card drawing or combo decks either. When Hellrider was legal, the moment he dropped on turn 4, that was unfair.
In all cases, people are just referring to things that are 'very powerful', especially versus someone who's entire game plan is built around 1-for-1 trades. These unfair plays either go over the top (Sphinx's Revelation) or bypass it all completely (Hellrider).
edit: In general, I would say that combo decks are most unfair. Control decks are generally very fair with a few unfair/broken cards. Aggro decks are usually very fair, just very fast. And midrange decks are the most fair.
Again, I think it has to do with 1-for-1 trades.
If two midrange decks are paired against each other, even though there can be a series of actions and reactions in very tense games, when the stack is cleared, one player is usually slightly ahead and the other is slightly behind and the game continues. With unfair decks, when the stack is cleared, it's possible for someone to be way ahead and the game can be all but over.
Thread | Draft
"Unfair" means that the deck generally ignores the text on it's opponents cards unless it's some kind of specialized hate that the deck outright folds to.
Jund in Modern is a good example of a fair deck. It's grossly efficient, and dominant enough to frequently be the most played deck at high profile events, and it wins a lot, but it's fair.
Charbelcher in Legacy is a good example of an unfair deck. It's still very much a beatable deck, but it trys to go all in on a combo to kill you without interaction. It just turns the game into a check on whether you have some specialized answer to it, and how well you can time playing it.
From the above posts, I'd actually say caw blade falls under the category of "fair" decks. It's possible for cards that operate on a fair basis to be too good or unfun, but cawblade still kills you by tapping a few creatures at a time over some number of turns.
Fair decks aren't necessarily innocent and unfair decks aren't necessarily bad for the game. I think it's useful to have the words to broadly group the two different general approaches to winning the game.
People too often seem to just refer to things that kills their homebrew tribal deck as being "unfair." By some more conventional definitions of the word they might be right, especially if it's casual play. However, I think that if you're reading articles written by high profile players they tend to mean it more in terms of the way I described it above.
Sure, there are (apparent) reason's why these cards have not seen reprints, but you'll still come upon a casual player who will use them. Cards that slow you down tremendously, drag the game on, and are made for frustration purposes just kill the game. I usually scoop if a few turns go by in group games & no one has an answer.
No one wants a game to go 3 or 4 times longer than it should just because you're playing a control freak.
1. Free/cheap spells that are powerful/overpowered for their cost.
2. Relative lack of interactivity of the cards/deck, aka solitaire Magic.
3. Streamlined mechanics that are efficient beyond anything else available.
4. Density of cards with duplicate effects, ie deck full of Tutors/Draw/Burn.
There might be others but I'm tired so that's what I've got at the moment. You see most/all of these in combo decks which is usually the target for the unfair tag but it can be applied to aggro or control decks as well.
Sometimes it boils down to a single card, which are usually archetypes to build around like Bazaar of Baghdad, Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero, Gush, Goblin Lackey, Merchant Scroll, Flash, Survival of the Fittest, Dark Confidant and the like. Sometimes it's about the synergy of a deck within a format, Rebels.dec, pre ban Affinity, Goblins after Goblin Piledriver and Siege-Gang Commander came out, Bitterblossom Faeries.dec
Lack of interactivity is probably the biggest motivator of the unfair tag though. Storm decks, Voltaic Key /Time Vault, Mindslaver, 25counterspells.dec, Trinisphere. Basically decks that have you just sitting there doing nothing while your opponent looks at his hand and cards in play and there's no need for you to even be there.
Is this accurately unfair? Not under most forms as everything has a counter, everything can be beaten. The only case I'd agree with things being unfair is when a deck is so good that realistically you are forced to either play it or play a metagame hoser deck to beat it, as it was with Affinity before the banhammer hit. Unfair to me is when there's only two choices, deck A or anti deck A. Everything else can be answered, or if not then it just wasn't your luck. Blowouts happen, first turn kills happen, these are fine. What is unfair is really having no choice in what you can build as dictated by the card pool if you want to be competitive. This concern shrinks the less you care about being competitive but being competitive in a specific format should allow for more than 2 options one of which is just an anti 1st option.
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Most decks that are considered 'fair', just means that it plays an actual game of Magic. Generally, Control, Aggro and Midrange all fall under this category. You control the board, or you attack, and eventually you win or lose by getting beat over the face, whether it's from an Etched Champion, a Creeping Tar-Pit or a Tarmogoyf.
'Unfair' decks, however, are usually Combo decks. Decks that essentially just ignore the opponent and try to win explosively, and out of nowhere. Belcher, TES, ANT and even Show and Tell to an extent are usually considered 'unfair'. If you don't know what you're up against or don't have a specific answer, you're probably going to get stomped.
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"Fair cards" are "Fun cards" so they are legal.
When I play Imperial Painter, it is called an unfair deck. People always ask me am I going for my turn 1 Blood Moon? When I play Shardless BUG, they call that fair, even if Shardless Agent cascades into Ancestral Vision. I just don't get it. Since when is only Combo the "unfair" strategy to win?
Combo is my preferred strategy. I want to care less about combat, creatures, and combat damage.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Nice pick for a screen name then, haha. Then again Food Chain was a combo deck, even if it needed the attack phase to go lethal most of the time.
STRANGER: Indeed?
CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
STRANGER: I wear no mask.
CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!
Rather, a "fair" deck is one that plays creatures and creature-oriented permanents, tries to win with them usually via attacking, and tries to interact with opposing creatures and creature-oriented permanents (and, these days, planeswalkers), vs. a deck that tries to win entirely via some other axis.
So Eggs and storm decks are clearly unfair. Delver and Jund decks are clearly fair, even when they are format-definingly powerful.
Something that's at least somewhat interesting, albeit purely a semantic debate, is to discuss where the borderline really is. Is Modern Infect a fair deck? Bant hexproof? is a deck with 40 burn spells and 20 lands a fair deck? What if it's 30 burn spells and 10 efficient 1-drop creatures? Etc.
A deck like Jund is a fair deck. It draws it's card. It taps some mana. It kills something or plays a threat. It's power level his high, but it does things inside the box of "What Magic is". Even a card like Bloodbraid Elf doesn't seem unfair, because while you get a free card, it's random and low costing.
And Unfair deck tries to skirt the rules of Magic and win on a different axis. Something like Hypergenesis. You blink and your opponent has 3 tapped lands and 45 mana worth of guys on the field. It's has done it's job and broken the "I pay 3 mana, I get a 3 mana effect" rule. Now the effect is symmetrical, but if your opponent isn't set up to take advantage, you have even pushed even further ahead on mana.
There is an unwritten rule, especially in limited games, where whoever spends the most mana wins. Because cards are priced remotely correctly, the slightly weaker cards will eventually balance out with the stronger ones.
So most unfair decks are combo decks because they look to either spend the most mana quickly, or somehow make their investment worth more than intended. A deck like Show and Tell spend 15 mana on turn 3, even if it only looks like they are paying 3. Storm might tap 2 lands, but count up all the rituals and see how much they spend for the desired effect.
Now, especially in legacy and vintage, there are fair decks that attempt to cripple unfair decks by making them play fairly. A deck like Death and Taxes might restrict it's opponent to one card per turn, or maybe turn off their ability to make extra mana. A stompy deck might force them to pay 3 for everything instead of the normal cheap prices.
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"Sup dawg! I herd u like mountains so I equipped a mountain on your mountain so your can swing with land while you swing with land!"
... "what Magic is" ????? I guess thats the problem. For many players (me included) this too:
is magic.
Thats whats magical about this game for me. Obviously I disagree with the whole fair/unfair labels
Reality is but a perception of your being --
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For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside."
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Oooh Dicey:
[dice=1]100[/dice]
Yeah, it's a little silly. To me, "fair" simply means "not combo."
I could follow the logic of doing something other than the intention of the card, although to be honest most of the time that means a combo. In the case of storm specifically, what it does is EXACTLY what was intended.
IMO the term has nothing to do with power level. Mill is an unfair deck. Alara Jund is a fair one.
Another thing that may be considered unfair by some is a strategy that allows a player to dictate the out come of a match with no one actually winning a game. I understand its control the decks, but there are control decks that have areas that can be attacked, and those that are impossible to crack.
I think mechanics are more fair and unfair though then the decks that use them. The mechanics of cascade, miracle, and dredge lead to what is considered unfair decks.
If an entire format has to play a certain color or a specific card to defend against 1 deck, more then likely that deck will be seen as unfair.
Whenever I see someone mention fair and unfair, the fair decks are almost always ones that do not interact on almost all of these options, normally only interacting in the battlefield using creaturers.
The decks people seem to claim are "Unfair" are the ones that you need to interact with in a different manner then creaturers.
Basically people have reduced their thinking about magic to a subset of the interactions the game actually includes, and complain that any deck that goes outside that subset is unfair. It is made worse because Wizards designes standard around that subset, with little support for the rest of the game, and this re-enforces peoples false view of what a Magic game is. I have run into to many people who think it is OK to play nothing but creaturers and support spells. with no real disruption/removal effects. Or people who think that Magic has always been a creature based game when for years creatures were not the focus of most decks, as opposed to almost all the decks in standard like today. I mean look at Alpha/Beta, it is just under 1/3rd creaturers.
For years Duress was a good and playable card because pretty much every deck ran enough targets that for you to to get use out of it. For the last year it was unplayable because there were to many spells with bodies as opposed to actual spells.
In Legacy you need to be prepared for the full spectrum of the game or you will loose to many games because you failed to interact. Turn 1 kills exist, but are rare, and pretty much every deck type has options to interact with every other deck type. It is just weither or not you chose to use them. This is why I like the format, it is the only one where you still have to play the full game.
Sneak & Show, Dredge, Reanimator, Storm Combo = Unfair; they win through exploiting the mechanics of cards to do something ridiculous that you would not normally be able to do, like cheating in an Emrakul turn 2 or playing Tendrils with a storm count of 11.
EDH:
UR Niv-Mizzet's Madness
BGW Ghave's Garden
WUBRG Karona's Chaos
Retired: Too damn many to count
Vintage:
URWelder
WUBRG Dredge
Kitchen Table:
B Zombies in Your Head