I know when I saw the spoilers for Amonkhet, I was excited for the potential of a slower, more grindy format than the prior block. Cycling and two pseudo-Flashback mechanics (Aftermath and Embalm) seemed to indicate that WotC planned for this format to go long, with these mechanics providing card flow and mana sinks to get players to the lategame and give them something to do when they arrive there. And the spoiler showed some powerful finishers at Common and Uncommon, so controlling players wouldn't need to open a bomb rare to justify playing the long game. It looked like a nice backswing of the pendulum.
Except that, by now, I'm certain we all know the Amonkhet couldn't be much further from the grindfest some anticipated. This is an incredibly aggressive format, that rewards attacking and punishes stumbles most harshly. You have to be prepared to interact with the board on turn 2, else you're liable to get run over. And even then, your interactions might not be that great.
Most of the "blame" for the format's speed lies at the feet of the Exert mechanic. On first glance, it's an interesting, elegant mechanic that should prompt a meaningful choice when swinging in with creatures that have the ability; Watchful Naga and Battlefield Scrounger are such cool designs. But upon further perusal, it's mostly used to make a ton of hyper-efficient beatsticks that attack through most of the defensive creatures in the format. Gust Walker, Hooded Brawler, Nef-Crop Entangler and the like are all passable creatures on their own that become A+ threats (for their mana costs) when you need them to be; they don't really have a downside.
Because of this, blocking is miserable in the format. Cards like Ancient Crab or Dune Beetle, clearly intended to hold the fort in the early game, are useless against many of the format's two and three drops (to say nothing of bigger beaters), while being abysmal threats themselves. And, in a similar situation to Landfallers in original Zendikar, your Exert creatures are much worse on the block than they are turning sideways. So unless you're packing a grip full of premium removal (e.g. Magma Spray or Compulsory Rest), your gameplan is going to be trying to aggro harder than your opponent.
It's sad, because Amonkhet looked to have some cool archetypes that are on the slower side. G/U ramp with haymakers that can cycle, a goofy B/G -1/-1 counters deck, U/B/x Cycling control, U/W tokens...all of them are prone to getting trampled by the median aggressive deck. At least Zombies can be a different spin on aggro.
And it didn't have to be this way. A few tweaks to the Exert creatures would have worked wonders. The change I'd make would be to cut a lot (or all) of the toughness boosts on Exert triggers. That way the mechanic still rewards aggression and can help an aggro deck push through and remain relevant, but other decks can contemplate trading off. Yeah, sure, cartouches and tricks would still bolster aggro strategies and make blocking tricky, but that's fair; that's how aggro has traditionally worked using "bad" cards to support a bunch of low-drops.
My confidence in WotC's ability to develop and balance sets for fun play experiences is dropping quickly. Perhaps the expedited release schedule they've adopted is spreading their human resources too thin, leaving the unable to give each set, each format the care required. I don't know if I'll be doing much more Amonkhet, which is unfortunate, given how decent it looked.
I agree. It's probably one of the least fun drafting environments I've experienced. I think the Magic Overlords have even admitted they made a mistake with how aggressive the format is.
Sadly, the League format of Magic Online seems to exacerbate the problem, because I feel like I'm always playing/playing against the same decks. In a fixed pod, at least there would be some variety, but in a league I can play three R/W Boros decks in a row, which is zero fun, and that seems to happen a lot. Then I feel bad the times that I am the Boros deck (or whatever other ultra aggressive deck it is).
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from Bateleur »
Ambush Krotiq makes me laugh so much. I keep rereading the card and it keeps not having Flash. In what sense is this an ambush again? I just have visions of this huge Krotiq poorly concealed in some bushes, feeling slightly sad that his carefully planned ambushes never seem to work.
We're not that far away from Battle for Zendikar and Eldritch Moon, which were glacial, so I think this is just a matter of the pendulum swinging back and forth.
and you know, i've been playing limitted less and less, too.
your (well written!) discussion on too-powerful threats and about curving out; it's not just relevant to spikes who feel rewarded for becoming more strategically better at the game. it's also relevant to casual johnny-timmies like myself who like to explore weird and varied experiences, and to goof around with the game.
(and for what it's worht, i had quit hearthstone after a month of playing, when it first came out, because drafting seemed to dependent on explosive draws. but then again, i was terrible at hearthstone; magic heuristics didn't trasnlate well for me there :P)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
----------------------------
Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul "no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
It's certainly true that if you stumble, you're just going to run over but that's more of a result of Wizards new 'creature combat' design philosophy rather than the exert mechanic.
I dunno, I think that something went very wrong with the implementation of Exert.
Their design philosophy regarding creature combat is that it should be the primary method of player interaction in matches of Limited Magic. To promote this end, they've weakened removal at common and uncommon, made it slower, more costly, and narrower from original Innistrad onwards. At the same time, combat tricks and auras have been powered up considerably and on-board synergy creatures have become a lot more numerous. In theory, this is a fine way to design the Limited aspect of Magic, placing a lot of emphasis on boardstate and the combat step.
In practice, it's been a crapshow more often than not. Too many abilities on creatures overpromote attacking, to the point where blocking, the primary means of interaction between creatures, is just a bad move in too many situations. Take Thriving creatures or most Exert dudes that pump themselves; if two players both curve into an identical creature, the player on the draw will never be able to even trade with their opponents beater, even before considering tricks. An exerted Hooded Brawler will eat a blocking one without trouble, and the same goes for Entanglers, Tah-Crop Elites, Thriving Rhinos, or any number of other cards. This discourages blocking, and stifles interaction.
That's bad news in a format designed around the combat step. That's Limited's jam; we're not having stack fights, Dredging through grave-hate, assembling prisons...we're having critters smack each other. Except when blocking is bad, it often becomes a race to see who curves out better and makes for boring, uninteractive games.
But blocking didn't need to be bad. Exert creatures could have been more fragile, had fewer toughness pumps, allowing players to at least attempt to block and trade. If Nef-Crop Entangler was only a 3/2 Trample after Exerting, defending players could try and trade that Tah-Crop Skirmisher off for it. Yeah, some damage tramples over and any trick will mostly invalidate the block, but that sounds like good, interactive Magic to me. There are choices, mindgames, strategy...not just shrugging your shoulders as overly pushed attackers crash in with no decent blocks available.
Compared to Kaladesh I think the format isn't all that aggressive.
I wasn't running 1-drops in Kaladesh but almost all of them are playable in Amonkhet. Sure, on-curve Freighter basically made you the beatdown no matter what your deck was drafted to do, but you aren't on the Festering Mummy and Sacred Cat beatdown plan backed up by white Cartouches and In Oketra's Name (full disclosure, I thought all these cards would be mediocre or outright garbage, bu am winning games with them). Most of my rounds are over in ~15b minutes or less and I've yet to have a match go to time.
As FTW mentions, there are plenty of viable slower decks but them being viable doesn't mean you can afford to play no cards until turn 4.
I feel like they're out there, but probably not in every pod. There are tons of great aggro cards at common and not so many good controlling cards. Drafting a good deck interested in the long game is going to hinge on opening solid Uncommons and Rares and hoping no-one else at the table is doing the same. Anecdotally, in all of my Amonkhet drafts, I don't think I've been in a seat that could have cobbled together a control deck.
White/Red as a color combination in Limited became extremly all-in attacking.
To make that a viable strategy it has to be pretty damn powerful to be able to overwhelm an opponent before they can put down otherwise stronger cards that stop the assault.
A newbie will be less likely to fully push this aggressive strategy, and they will build even worse defensive decks ; and mixing strategies results in even less focused decks and even more terrible results for that player.
----
Its somewhat of an dilemma that cannot be simply solved.
Exert as a mechanic could very easily work on attacking AND blocking (in which case it would need to tap the creature of course).
But they decided not to. Same deal for landfall, as it was a mechanic that promotes attacking, as you do not get the bonus on blocking.
In general, a lot of mechanics favor attacking and almost non promotes blocking.
A mechanic that only works on blocking would be less enjoyable, as the opponent will just avoid attacking and the mechanic never really has a chance to shine, and it will just result in players flooding the board and neither is able to attack.
What works is lifelink, as a matter to strike back against beatdown and still win the race, while both players are attacking. Amonkhet has a bunch of lifelink creatures especially in black to promote this and they are the best way to win against aggressive opponents (if you ever stick one that doesnt get killed).
Especially in draft its overall good to have aggressive decks, so slower decks have to play and be build with these in mind and pack answers instead of going even bigger and slower.
Amonkhet for sure favors the attackers, but it still has quite a lot of other mechanics and potential deck archetypes that make it a fun format to draft if all the people actually understand the format.
As FTW mentions, there are plenty of viable slower decks but them being viable doesn't mean you can afford to play no cards until turn 4.
I feel like they're out there, but probably not in every pod. There are tons of great aggro cards at common and not so many good controlling cards. Drafting a good deck interested in the long game is going to hinge on opening solid Uncommons and Rares and hoping no-one else at the table is doing the same. Anecdotally, in all of my Amonkhet drafts, I don't think I've been in a seat that could have cobbled together a control deck.
In any format most decks aren't in EVERY pod. Sure, some archetypes like RW aggro are deep enough in commons that maybe you could go into the draft knowing you're going to force it. For the most part drafting depends on what cards are opened and what other people pick. But I think at least one control deck is open more often than you guys give it credit for. I've 3-0'd with a few good control decks, lost to some good control decks, and watched friends 3-0 with good control decks.
Here are some control/lategame decks that I've seen do very well.
UR spells. Not the aggro version with Slither Blades and Nef-Crop Entanglers, but the 11-12 creature deck with Enigma Drake, Cryptic Serpent, counterspells, and other tricks. Enigma Drake is a house and the main signal, but with enough other flyers the deck is still viable without it.
UB cycling. This deck is best with multiple Shadowstorm Vizier and Ruthless Sniper. Without them, there's less incentive to be a cycling deck, but generic UB control still works. UB's defensive creatures always come around late, so you can prioritize good spells and flyers while still gumming up the ground on curve. It's funny when your Ancient Crab and Dune Beetle and Naga Oracle end up attacking... Get card advantage through Wander in Death and blue card draw.
GUx ramp. The funniest win condition for this is flying crocodile (Scaled Behemoth+Cartouche of Knowledge), but the deck is happy just ramping into anything with Naga Vitalists and Gift of Paradises, even just 5-drops and 7/7 wurms. This deck has great mana fixing and can greedily splash off-color bombs opened or Aftermath cards passed, which helps increase overall card quality. Approach of the Second Sun is also a thing. This deck can get lategame card advantage with Spring // Mind and Trial of Knowledge + Cartouches. Bounty of Luxa and Oracle's Vault add even more power and often wheel when no one else is GU ramp.
UW embalm flyers. Not the UW aggro deck with Slither Blades, but a deck that wants to trade off early Unwavering Initates and Labyrinth Guardians and Aven Initiates, then Embalm them later and win through grindy creature advantage. Aven Wind Guide and Angler Drake are amazing but not essential. This deck likes counterspells, removal, card draw, and common flyers.
GB -1/-1 counters. Hapatra, Vizier of Potions is the main reason to go into this archetype, followed by Decimator Beetle. Shrink/kill opponent's early threats, then beat down with big green creatures. Cartouche of Ambition is 1st pickable in this deck, and Cartouche of Strength works well too. Because of that, the red or blue Trials are worth splashing for and generate great card advantage.
blocking, the primary means of interaction between creatures, is just a bad move in too many situations. Take Thriving creatures or most Exert dudes that pump themselves; if two players both curve into an identical creature, the player on the draw will never be able to even trade with their opponents beater, even before considering tricks. An exerted Hooded Brawler will eat a blocking one without trouble, and the same goes for Entanglers, Tah-Crop Elites, Thriving Rhinos, or any number of other cards. This discourages blocking, and stifles interaction.
Not really. It just discourages blocking with an identical creature, not blocking in general. It means the days of Grizzly Bears running into Grizzly Bears are over. If you want to block, you have to draft creatures that are better at blocking. If you want to attack, you have to draft creatures that are better at attacking.
Hooded Brawler is harder to stop early without a trick. But it also can't attack the second time until turn 6 at the earliest, which gives you time to assemble a board. Two 2/3s or 2/4s hold it off well. They might have a trick, but if you have one too then you're coming out at parity. Soulstinger kills and holds off most early ground attackers if used properly. Pitiless Vizier with cycling support singlehandedly kills Brawler without even giving up a card. Sacred Cat blocks Brawler for FOUR turns and leaves you up 2 life. Spidery Grasp on even a bear blows out Brawler and most exert attackers. Or you can Magma Spray/Deem Worthy/Impeccable Timing/Splendid Agony in response to Exert, which shuts down most exert aggro creatures.
Defensive cards got worse and worse over time, while attacking is preferred in mechanics , the advantage of being the attacker is huge and got just bigger in the last bunch of sets.
Theres simply no mechanics that really favor the blocker, which would arguably just result in a format in which nobody attacks, as they hardly can risk it.
Especially Amonkhet could result in a heavy race situation, especially with lifelink involved, attacking is often better than staying behind. Being aggressive on your own is a good defense, as long as the opponent cannot risk attacking as they are dead on the counter-attack, the game evolves around who gets the hardest punch out the fastest (especially as removal can kill most bombs right now, theres almost no 5/5 sized dragon anymore, they are all shrinked to 4/4 and anything larger is tremendously expensive).
And most importantly, every color gets removal today. Green arguably gets the BEST removal in a set, which is super odd, as it formally didnt even get removal at all, now fight spells and direct damage from creatures are evergreen.
Also red got a lot stronger creatures. In the past red either had terrible goblins with some drawbacks, a bunch of huge red dragons at rare and some wonky 1 toughness attacking creatures, like Spark Elemental, Ball Lightning, with plenty of burn spells to back it up.
Today, red gets pretty beefy creatures, that easily rival green and often pack some extra form of evasion, in menace, which quickly became reds go to form of evasion, and it works especially well with removal to build your own "unblockable" creature or get a 2for1 out of your tricks.
Red/White as a color combination became the hyper aggressive one and they sticked with it since then.
Thats all not bad, but it kinda shifts all of the sets into a world in which attacking is all, if your deck is not attacking right away, you are in a disadvantage position and building decks that actually can survive the onslaught is much more difficult than building a more mindless attack each turn with everything.
i love to block so well that my opponents basically cannot get through, and mill my opponents out in this way. so there is that style of format.
then there is the format you describe where attacking is favoured.
is there something in between? why do i have such fond memories of Battle for Zendikar draft and Khans of Tarkir draft?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
----------------------------
Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul "no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
is there something in between? why do i have such fond memories of Battle for Zendikar draft and Khans of Tarkir draft?
These are sets that didnt have overly many strong 2 drops, but a ton of 3+ drops (especially with Morph) and pretty solid fatties at common (either Eldrazi, Allie synergy, or other means of comebacks).
In Amonkhet the 2 mana slot has some tremendously powerful cards that win on their own if you cannot stop them and powerful removal that will kill almost any fattie that isnt 5/5 and bigger (and a lot of cards are just 4/4 , even rares rarely get larger in Amonkhet).
Except that, by now, I'm certain we all know the Amonkhet couldn't be much further from the grindfest some anticipated. This is an incredibly aggressive format, that rewards attacking and punishes stumbles most harshly. You have to be prepared to interact with the board on turn 2, else you're liable to get run over. And even then, your interactions might not be that great.
Most of the "blame" for the format's speed lies at the feet of the Exert mechanic. On first glance, it's an interesting, elegant mechanic that should prompt a meaningful choice when swinging in with creatures that have the ability; Watchful Naga and Battlefield Scrounger are such cool designs. But upon further perusal, it's mostly used to make a ton of hyper-efficient beatsticks that attack through most of the defensive creatures in the format. Gust Walker, Hooded Brawler, Nef-Crop Entangler and the like are all passable creatures on their own that become A+ threats (for their mana costs) when you need them to be; they don't really have a downside.
Because of this, blocking is miserable in the format. Cards like Ancient Crab or Dune Beetle, clearly intended to hold the fort in the early game, are useless against many of the format's two and three drops (to say nothing of bigger beaters), while being abysmal threats themselves. And, in a similar situation to Landfallers in original Zendikar, your Exert creatures are much worse on the block than they are turning sideways. So unless you're packing a grip full of premium removal (e.g. Magma Spray or Compulsory Rest), your gameplan is going to be trying to aggro harder than your opponent.
It's sad, because Amonkhet looked to have some cool archetypes that are on the slower side. G/U ramp with haymakers that can cycle, a goofy B/G -1/-1 counters deck, U/B/x Cycling control, U/W tokens...all of them are prone to getting trampled by the median aggressive deck. At least Zombies can be a different spin on aggro.
And it didn't have to be this way. A few tweaks to the Exert creatures would have worked wonders. The change I'd make would be to cut a lot (or all) of the toughness boosts on Exert triggers. That way the mechanic still rewards aggression and can help an aggro deck push through and remain relevant, but other decks can contemplate trading off. Yeah, sure, cartouches and tricks would still bolster aggro strategies and make blocking tricky, but that's fair; that's how aggro has traditionally worked using "bad" cards to support a bunch of low-drops.
My confidence in WotC's ability to develop and balance sets for fun play experiences is dropping quickly. Perhaps the expedited release schedule they've adopted is spreading their human resources too thin, leaving the unable to give each set, each format the care required. I don't know if I'll be doing much more Amonkhet, which is unfortunate, given how decent it looked.
Sadly, the League format of Magic Online seems to exacerbate the problem, because I feel like I'm always playing/playing against the same decks. In a fixed pod, at least there would be some variety, but in a league I can play three R/W Boros decks in a row, which is zero fun, and that seems to happen a lot. Then I feel bad the times that I am the Boros deck (or whatever other ultra aggressive deck it is).
Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul
"no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin
He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
Pauper: Burn
Modern: Burn
Legacy: Burn
EDH: Marath, Will of the Wild - Ramp/Combo | Anafenza the Foremost - French | Uril, the Miststalker - Voltron | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury - Goodstuff
Ghost Council of Orzhov - Tokens | Lazav, Dimir Mastermind - Control | Isamaru, Hound of Konda - Tiny Leaders
your (well written!) discussion on too-powerful threats and about curving out; it's not just relevant to spikes who feel rewarded for becoming more strategically better at the game. it's also relevant to casual johnny-timmies like myself who like to explore weird and varied experiences, and to goof around with the game.
(and for what it's worht, i had quit hearthstone after a month of playing, when it first came out, because drafting seemed to dependent on explosive draws. but then again, i was terrible at hearthstone; magic heuristics didn't trasnlate well for me there :P)
Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul
"no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin
He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
I dunno, I think that something went very wrong with the implementation of Exert.
Their design philosophy regarding creature combat is that it should be the primary method of player interaction in matches of Limited Magic. To promote this end, they've weakened removal at common and uncommon, made it slower, more costly, and narrower from original Innistrad onwards. At the same time, combat tricks and auras have been powered up considerably and on-board synergy creatures have become a lot more numerous. In theory, this is a fine way to design the Limited aspect of Magic, placing a lot of emphasis on boardstate and the combat step.
In practice, it's been a crapshow more often than not. Too many abilities on creatures overpromote attacking, to the point where blocking, the primary means of interaction between creatures, is just a bad move in too many situations. Take Thriving creatures or most Exert dudes that pump themselves; if two players both curve into an identical creature, the player on the draw will never be able to even trade with their opponents beater, even before considering tricks. An exerted Hooded Brawler will eat a blocking one without trouble, and the same goes for Entanglers, Tah-Crop Elites, Thriving Rhinos, or any number of other cards. This discourages blocking, and stifles interaction.
That's bad news in a format designed around the combat step. That's Limited's jam; we're not having stack fights, Dredging through grave-hate, assembling prisons...we're having critters smack each other. Except when blocking is bad, it often becomes a race to see who curves out better and makes for boring, uninteractive games.
But blocking didn't need to be bad. Exert creatures could have been more fragile, had fewer toughness pumps, allowing players to at least attempt to block and trade. If Nef-Crop Entangler was only a 3/2 Trample after Exerting, defending players could try and trade that Tah-Crop Skirmisher off for it. Yeah, some damage tramples over and any trick will mostly invalidate the block, but that sounds like good, interactive Magic to me. There are choices, mindgames, strategy...not just shrugging your shoulders as overly pushed attackers crash in with no decent blocks available.
I wasn't running 1-drops in Kaladesh but almost all of them are playable in Amonkhet. Sure, on-curve Freighter basically made you the beatdown no matter what your deck was drafted to do, but you aren't on the Festering Mummy and Sacred Cat beatdown plan backed up by white Cartouches and In Oketra's Name (full disclosure, I thought all these cards would be mediocre or outright garbage, bu am winning games with them). Most of my rounds are over in ~15b minutes or less and I've yet to have a match go to time.
I feel like they're out there, but probably not in every pod. There are tons of great aggro cards at common and not so many good controlling cards. Drafting a good deck interested in the long game is going to hinge on opening solid Uncommons and Rares and hoping no-one else at the table is doing the same. Anecdotally, in all of my Amonkhet drafts, I don't think I've been in a seat that could have cobbled together a control deck.
To make that a viable strategy it has to be pretty damn powerful to be able to overwhelm an opponent before they can put down otherwise stronger cards that stop the assault.
A newbie will be less likely to fully push this aggressive strategy, and they will build even worse defensive decks ; and mixing strategies results in even less focused decks and even more terrible results for that player.
----
Its somewhat of an dilemma that cannot be simply solved.
Exert as a mechanic could very easily work on attacking AND blocking (in which case it would need to tap the creature of course).
But they decided not to. Same deal for landfall, as it was a mechanic that promotes attacking, as you do not get the bonus on blocking.
In general, a lot of mechanics favor attacking and almost non promotes blocking.
A mechanic that only works on blocking would be less enjoyable, as the opponent will just avoid attacking and the mechanic never really has a chance to shine, and it will just result in players flooding the board and neither is able to attack.
What works is lifelink, as a matter to strike back against beatdown and still win the race, while both players are attacking. Amonkhet has a bunch of lifelink creatures especially in black to promote this and they are the best way to win against aggressive opponents (if you ever stick one that doesnt get killed).
Especially in draft its overall good to have aggressive decks, so slower decks have to play and be build with these in mind and pack answers instead of going even bigger and slower.
Amonkhet for sure favors the attackers, but it still has quite a lot of other mechanics and potential deck archetypes that make it a fun format to draft if all the people actually understand the format.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
In any format most decks aren't in EVERY pod. Sure, some archetypes like RW aggro are deep enough in commons that maybe you could go into the draft knowing you're going to force it. For the most part drafting depends on what cards are opened and what other people pick. But I think at least one control deck is open more often than you guys give it credit for. I've 3-0'd with a few good control decks, lost to some good control decks, and watched friends 3-0 with good control decks.
Here are some control/lategame decks that I've seen do very well.
UR spells. Not the aggro version with Slither Blades and Nef-Crop Entanglers, but the 11-12 creature deck with Enigma Drake, Cryptic Serpent, counterspells, and other tricks. Enigma Drake is a house and the main signal, but with enough other flyers the deck is still viable without it.
UB cycling. This deck is best with multiple Shadowstorm Vizier and Ruthless Sniper. Without them, there's less incentive to be a cycling deck, but generic UB control still works. UB's defensive creatures always come around late, so you can prioritize good spells and flyers while still gumming up the ground on curve. It's funny when your Ancient Crab and Dune Beetle and Naga Oracle end up attacking... Get card advantage through Wander in Death and blue card draw.
GUx ramp. The funniest win condition for this is flying crocodile (Scaled Behemoth+Cartouche of Knowledge), but the deck is happy just ramping into anything with Naga Vitalists and Gift of Paradises, even just 5-drops and 7/7 wurms. This deck has great mana fixing and can greedily splash off-color bombs opened or Aftermath cards passed, which helps increase overall card quality. Approach of the Second Sun is also a thing. This deck can get lategame card advantage with Spring // Mind and Trial of Knowledge + Cartouches. Bounty of Luxa and Oracle's Vault add even more power and often wheel when no one else is GU ramp.
BW tokens. The deck needs uncommons, but there are interchangeable options. Make tokens with some combination of Oketra's Monument, Stir the Sands, Doomed Dissenter + recursion, Anointed Procession + embalm, Start // Finish, Supply Caravan, Cartouche of Solidarity, Regal Caracal, Oketra the True, Liliana's Mastery, Nest of Scarabs + Soulstingers and Splendid Agony, or even splashing green for Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons. However you get them, you go wide with tokens and gum up the ground. Annointer Priest gains you life to keep you alive. Then you overrun with Trial of Solidarity, In Oketra's Name, or Pursue Glory.
UW embalm flyers. Not the UW aggro deck with Slither Blades, but a deck that wants to trade off early Unwavering Initates and Labyrinth Guardians and Aven Initiates, then Embalm them later and win through grindy creature advantage. Aven Wind Guide and Angler Drake are amazing but not essential. This deck likes counterspells, removal, card draw, and common flyers.
GB -1/-1 counters. Hapatra, Vizier of Potions is the main reason to go into this archetype, followed by Decimator Beetle. Shrink/kill opponent's early threats, then beat down with big green creatures. Cartouche of Ambition is 1st pickable in this deck, and Cartouche of Strength works well too. Because of that, the red or blue Trials are worth splashing for and generate great card advantage.
GRx midrange. Play midrangey beef and trample through with Khenra Charioteer or Rhonas's Monument. The best control builds have the rares Sweltering Suns and/or Heaven // Earth to shut down the aggro decks.
I probably missed some niche builds too.
That's a lot of variety for slow decks. You don't just have to go RW aggro, RB aggro, RG aggro, RU aggro, UW aggro, WG aggro, or BW zombie aggro.
Not really. It just discourages blocking with an identical creature, not blocking in general. It means the days of Grizzly Bears running into Grizzly Bears are over. If you want to block, you have to draft creatures that are better at blocking. If you want to attack, you have to draft creatures that are better at attacking.
Nef-Crop Entangler and Hooded Brawler are just bad blockers. Instead of trying to block Nef-Crop with another Nef-Crop or even Tah-Crop Skirmisher, you can defend against it with Dune Beetle, Essence Scatter, Magma Spray, Splendid Agony, Cartouche of Ambition, Those Who Serve, Ancient Crab, Cartouche of Solidarity on something, Initiate's Companion, Pouncing Cheetah, Impeccable Timing, Festering Mummy, Supernatural Stamina on a blocker, or double blocking to 1-for-1. There are a lot of low-cost solutions at common. You just need to defend against it using one of the solutions, not another Entangler.
Hooded Brawler is harder to stop early without a trick. But it also can't attack the second time until turn 6 at the earliest, which gives you time to assemble a board. Two 2/3s or 2/4s hold it off well. They might have a trick, but if you have one too then you're coming out at parity. Soulstinger kills and holds off most early ground attackers if used properly. Pitiless Vizier with cycling support singlehandedly kills Brawler without even giving up a card. Sacred Cat blocks Brawler for FOUR turns and leaves you up 2 life. Spidery Grasp on even a bear blows out Brawler and most exert attackers. Or you can Magma Spray/Deem Worthy/Impeccable Timing/Splendid Agony in response to Exert, which shuts down most exert aggro creatures.
Theres simply no mechanics that really favor the blocker, which would arguably just result in a format in which nobody attacks, as they hardly can risk it.
Especially Amonkhet could result in a heavy race situation, especially with lifelink involved, attacking is often better than staying behind. Being aggressive on your own is a good defense, as long as the opponent cannot risk attacking as they are dead on the counter-attack, the game evolves around who gets the hardest punch out the fastest (especially as removal can kill most bombs right now, theres almost no 5/5 sized dragon anymore, they are all shrinked to 4/4 and anything larger is tremendously expensive).
And most importantly, every color gets removal today. Green arguably gets the BEST removal in a set, which is super odd, as it formally didnt even get removal at all, now fight spells and direct damage from creatures are evergreen.
Also red got a lot stronger creatures. In the past red either had terrible goblins with some drawbacks, a bunch of huge red dragons at rare and some wonky 1 toughness attacking creatures, like Spark Elemental, Ball Lightning, with plenty of burn spells to back it up.
Today, red gets pretty beefy creatures, that easily rival green and often pack some extra form of evasion, in menace, which quickly became reds go to form of evasion, and it works especially well with removal to build your own "unblockable" creature or get a 2for1 out of your tricks.
Red/White as a color combination became the hyper aggressive one and they sticked with it since then.
Thats all not bad, but it kinda shifts all of the sets into a world in which attacking is all, if your deck is not attacking right away, you are in a disadvantage position and building decks that actually can survive the onslaught is much more difficult than building a more mindless attack each turn with everything.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
then there is the format you describe where attacking is favoured.
is there something in between? why do i have such fond memories of Battle for Zendikar draft and Khans of Tarkir draft?
Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul
"no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin
He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
These are sets that didnt have overly many strong 2 drops, but a ton of 3+ drops (especially with Morph) and pretty solid fatties at common (either Eldrazi, Allie synergy, or other means of comebacks).
In Amonkhet the 2 mana slot has some tremendously powerful cards that win on their own if you cannot stop them and powerful removal that will kill almost any fattie that isnt 5/5 and bigger (and a lot of cards are just 4/4 , even rares rarely get larger in Amonkhet).
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮