No, it really wouldn't. The argument is based on dismissing the other player's goals and reasons for playing. Of course, without the other player, you don't have a game. Repeating a bad argument doesn't magically turn it into a good one, no matter how many people repeat it.
And how many posts complain about "mindless turn guys sideways" already? I see them every day.
You either missed the point or are intentionally ignoring it. You tried to claim that if players with counterspells and discard complain about aggressive creature decks and refuse to adapt, they are being immature. So what? THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN. Most control deck players try to pack answers for those creatures. Combo decks try to pack answers to hate or out speed them. It is more often than not the aggro or midrange player who responds with "I don't like combo, counterspells, or discard, I'm not playing against you." There is a difference between complaining about the amount of turn dudes sideways strategies, yet planning for them, and complaining about spells, yet not doing a thing about them.
The thing is, you can turn that argument right around: complaining about fast aggro decks that attempt to kill before T4 is childish and immature, it's a part of the game and people should just get over it and learn to play against aggro better? How about saying that the inability of someone to handle something as simple as a fast aggro deck in a card game, and the refusal to adapt to them, is just immature and I won't tolerate or respect the opinions of those who dislike it?
See how condescending and ridiculous that sounds?
See, this thread opened by asking why some players hate the disruption strategy. Which, I think, we answered. Now we're arguing about whether disruption is necessary or desirable, and I don't think anyone in the thread is saying it needs to be removed from the game. At worst, I personally claimed that it needs to be watched carefully, because it is powerful enough to completely take over the meta, but that that balance hasn't been breached. Remember, last time we got a meta heavy with tempo and a few powerful counters, Wizards decided we needed Cavern of Souls to counter it. I like the card, like that it exists, but even I'll admit that it's... not the best card ever made. it's too powerful and specifically targets one archetype and seems hamhanded, a sledgehammer of a card.
At any rate, though, the answer remains that different people have different goals. Different reasons to play. Disruption is something you should expect and prepare for if your goal is to win each game, but not everyone plays highly competitive decks. If your group plays them and enjoys the games that result, then there's nothing at all wrong with that. if the people you play with aren't in that competitive mindset, though, you run into friction. Even if someone's goal isn't to win each game, they are playing for some reason. Disruption in that environment just leaves hard feelings when Timmy gets his Stormtide Leviathan stripped away or countered every single game.
Finding opponents who share your goals goes a long way toward eliminating that friction. And yes, the answer is social, not mechanical. There is nothing you can do with the cards or the rules or the game to fix this: you just have to find players whose goals and expectations match your own.
It would have merit if you saw anywhere near the amount of complaining about creatures as you did about disruption.
Its because there just not very fun to play against they're uninteractive and make it so you can't play a very interesting game of magic, but I still love to play them.
These things are the very definition of interactive; what they're doing interacts with what you're doing.
It's one-sided "interactive"; you get to interact with them while they sit there and watch you play with both your deck and their deck.
Good games of Magic feel interactive on both sides of the table; both you and your opponent are able to make meaningful strategic choices. If a player's only choice is "Do I cast a spell and watch it get countered, or should I just sit here instead?", it's not going to be a fun game, no matter how "interactive" the other player feels it is.
An emblem that reads "0: Counter target spell" is also interactive, but no one's going to argue that leads to a fun game.
It's important to remember that good games of Magic involve both players feeling like they're able to meaningfully operate during the game. Lots of Control advocates dismiss other players as "whiners", but try to put yourself in their shoes. I'm not saying you can't play Control, or that you shouldn't play Control; I'm saying that you have to understand the reality that locking a player out of the game while you whittle them down with a 3/2 flyer over seven turns just isn't going to strike your opponents as a good time, even if they did get to cast seven kill spells that got countered in the meantime.
The question is: WHO has the responsibility to interact? All decks want to minimize the effect of the other deck while pushing through their own strategy. Yes, counters/discard do this by preventing their opponents from resolving key spells. However, let's not pretend that control decks are the only guilty party. Combo decks attempt to make their opponents cards not matter by going off before other decks can win with their own plan. Aggro decks try to outspeed the other decks by dropping threats before they can gain control of the game. Midrange decks attempt to invalidate weaker creatures in other decks.
Yes, counterspells and discard DO attempt to stop other decks from functioning as normal. However, let's not just blindly pretend that players playing creature decks are eagerly encouraging their opponents to execute their strategies exactly as planned.
The problem is that people think that creature on creature matchups should be the norm. Why? WHY do creatures bashing against each other have to be the norm? There are MANY strategies in mtg, but the stereotypical discard/counterspell hater does not accept that. Unlike any other "type" of player who acknowledges various other types of decks, they believe that THEIR strategy is how magic should work. The funny part is that those creature based decks traditionally have a GOOD matchup against control based strategies.
The problem is that excessively counterspell-heavy decks don't have a counter-strategy in most formats. Card power is too low, or effective answers (like Cavern of Souls) rotate out.
And frankly, based on the complaining about Cavern of Souls, I'm pretty sure Control players ALSO feel like "THEIR strategy is how Magic should work". The honest consensus was that anything that prevented a counterspell from working was inherently bad for the game. It seems a little odd to argue that and simultaneously complain that aggro players are the only uncreative thinkers in the game.
No one ever said counterspells shouldn't exist. What shouldn't exist is critical mass counterspells, where it's plausible that any relevant spell your opponent casts gets countered starting on turn two, while you beat them to death with a 3/2 or a 1/1 or simply let them deck themselves. That's what players hate, and that's what Wizards refuses to enable. The problem is that Control players can't seem to understand the difference between hating critical mass counterspells, and hating counterspells in general. (Again, based on Cavern of Souls, they also seem to hate anti-counter cards, but let's just leave that aside and charitably assume that Control players are okay with counterspells being prevented from resolving to some effect).
If a deck doesn't have an effective counter-strategy in some format, it ISN'T because of the card types in that deck. It is because the specific cards in that deck are too strong and/or the other available cards in that format are too weak. A counterspell isn't inherently stronger just because it is a counterspell. Mana cost, other cards in the deck, etc all matter. All of this is to say that if you think that a counterspell-heavy deck doesn't have an effective counter-strategy, it has nothing to do specifically with counterspells. You could replace it with anything else that happens to dominate a format.
As for the Cavern of Souls complaint, I don't think it had anything to do with it being good against counterspells. It had more to do with the overall power level of it. People just thought that it was extremely pushed. I'm sure you would have seen just as much complaining had it been a one mana 4/4 vanilla or a one mana Mana Drain. They didn't complain because they thought it was too strong against counterspells. They complained because they thought it was too strong.
There was another thing they didn't like about Cavern of Souls, and it was the official article that spoiled it. Have you read it? https://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/191
This is the article where they said that Mana Leak, the card that could be printed in Stronghold, 8th, 9th, and M11 suddenly was too powerful when it was in M12. Yes, Mana Leak which managed to not ravage the previous standards was suddenly the problem. It had nothing to do with also giving blue access to a 3/2 flyer for one mana, rebuy Snapcaster Mage, and Geist of Saint Traft when white was added. Let me give you a quote from the article:
But the reality (beyond the fact that you can prove mathematically that creatures were too weak for most of Magic's history, based on the number of turns it takes to resolve an average "goldfish" game state) is simply that spells are much more inherently powerful than creatures. Spells have haste, whereas creatures have "Suspend 1." Spells can only be interacted with for the moment they are on the stack, whereas creatures can be interacted with at sorcery speed.
Look, I know you don't actually believe the wild claims in most of the article (at least I hope you don't). I'm just bringing it up to show another reason for the Cavern of Souls hate. It wasn't about people disliking answers for counterspells. It was about the facepalm worthy reason for it.
Its because there just not very fun to play against they're uninteractive and make it so you can't play a very interesting game of magic, but I still love to play them.
These things are the very definition of interactive; what they're doing interacts with what you're doing.
It's one-sided "interactive"; you get to interact with them while they sit there and watch you play with both your deck and their deck.
Good games of Magic feel interactive on both sides of the table; both you and your opponent are able to make meaningful strategic choices. If a player's only choice is "Do I cast a spell and watch it get countered, or should I just sit here instead?", it's not going to be a fun game, no matter how "interactive" the other player feels it is.
An emblem that reads "0: Counter target spell" is also interactive, but no one's going to argue that leads to a fun game.
It's important to remember that good games of Magic involve both players feeling like they're able to meaningfully operate during the game. Lots of Control advocates dismiss other players as "whiners", but try to put yourself in their shoes. I'm not saying you can't play Control, or that you shouldn't play Control; I'm saying that you have to understand the reality that locking a player out of the game while you whittle them down with a 3/2 flyer over seven turns just isn't going to strike your opponents as a good time, even if they did get to cast seven kill spells that got countered in the meantime.
The question is: WHO has the responsibility to interact? All decks want to minimize the effect of the other deck while pushing through their own strategy. Yes, counters/discard do this by preventing their opponents from resolving key spells. However, let's not pretend that control decks are the only guilty party. Combo decks attempt to make their opponents cards not matter by going off before other decks can win with their own plan. Aggro decks try to outspeed the other decks by dropping threats before they can gain control of the game. Midrange decks attempt to invalidate weaker creatures in other decks.
Yes, counterspells and discard DO attempt to stop other decks from functioning as normal. However, let's not just blindly pretend that players playing creature decks are eagerly encouraging their opponents to execute their strategies exactly as planned.
The problem is that people think that creature on creature matchups should be the norm. Why? WHY do creatures bashing against each other have to be the norm? There are MANY strategies in mtg, but the stereotypical discard/counterspell hater does not accept that. Unlike any other "type" of player who acknowledges various other types of decks, they believe that THEIR strategy is how magic should work. The funny part is that those creature based decks traditionally have a GOOD matchup against control based strategies.
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You either missed the point or are intentionally ignoring it. You tried to claim that if players with counterspells and discard complain about aggressive creature decks and refuse to adapt, they are being immature. So what? THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN. Most control deck players try to pack answers for those creatures. Combo decks try to pack answers to hate or out speed them. It is more often than not the aggro or midrange player who responds with "I don't like combo, counterspells, or discard, I'm not playing against you." There is a difference between complaining about the amount of turn dudes sideways strategies, yet planning for them, and complaining about spells, yet not doing a thing about them.
It would have merit if you saw anywhere near the amount of complaining about creatures as you did about disruption.
If a deck doesn't have an effective counter-strategy in some format, it ISN'T because of the card types in that deck. It is because the specific cards in that deck are too strong and/or the other available cards in that format are too weak. A counterspell isn't inherently stronger just because it is a counterspell. Mana cost, other cards in the deck, etc all matter. All of this is to say that if you think that a counterspell-heavy deck doesn't have an effective counter-strategy, it has nothing to do specifically with counterspells. You could replace it with anything else that happens to dominate a format.
As for the Cavern of Souls complaint, I don't think it had anything to do with it being good against counterspells. It had more to do with the overall power level of it. People just thought that it was extremely pushed. I'm sure you would have seen just as much complaining had it been a one mana 4/4 vanilla or a one mana Mana Drain. They didn't complain because they thought it was too strong against counterspells. They complained because they thought it was too strong.
There was another thing they didn't like about Cavern of Souls, and it was the official article that spoiled it. Have you read it? https://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/191
This is the article where they said that Mana Leak, the card that could be printed in Stronghold, 8th, 9th, and M11 suddenly was too powerful when it was in M12. Yes, Mana Leak which managed to not ravage the previous standards was suddenly the problem. It had nothing to do with also giving blue access to a 3/2 flyer for one mana, rebuy Snapcaster Mage, and Geist of Saint Traft when white was added. Let me give you a quote from the article: Look, I know you don't actually believe the wild claims in most of the article (at least I hope you don't). I'm just bringing it up to show another reason for the Cavern of Souls hate. It wasn't about people disliking answers for counterspells. It was about the facepalm worthy reason for it.
The question is: WHO has the responsibility to interact? All decks want to minimize the effect of the other deck while pushing through their own strategy. Yes, counters/discard do this by preventing their opponents from resolving key spells. However, let's not pretend that control decks are the only guilty party. Combo decks attempt to make their opponents cards not matter by going off before other decks can win with their own plan. Aggro decks try to outspeed the other decks by dropping threats before they can gain control of the game. Midrange decks attempt to invalidate weaker creatures in other decks.
Yes, counterspells and discard DO attempt to stop other decks from functioning as normal. However, let's not just blindly pretend that players playing creature decks are eagerly encouraging their opponents to execute their strategies exactly as planned.
The problem is that people think that creature on creature matchups should be the norm. Why? WHY do creatures bashing against each other have to be the norm? There are MANY strategies in mtg, but the stereotypical discard/counterspell hater does not accept that. Unlike any other "type" of player who acknowledges various other types of decks, they believe that THEIR strategy is how magic should work. The funny part is that those creature based decks traditionally have a GOOD matchup against control based strategies.