MTG Salvation

As for metrics, I think using high level tournament results to determine the strength of a color in a given format at a given time is an excellent method. It takes the opinion out of the equation, because what actually works is what rises to the top.

Hmm... results based determination. I guess that makes sense. It doesn't mean thats ALWAYS going to be the case... in MTG however, I think that it IS always the case. So I'm going to say after reading 10 pages of this.
I'm going to disagree with Exodite. If were making a "Proof is in the pudding" argument he is so very wrong, I suppose.

2 things though.

1) Blue in standard. . . the "Its weak" crowd, after watching that mono u vs mono u match and still saying "Its weak" makes me think that what you're really saying is that DRAW-Go is weak. I mean am I mistaken?
If "U" is weak the argument boils down to "I want counterspell, JTMSand ponder!" then your need to re-evaulate "U" as a whole.
You have to be able to accept the change that U is NOT synonymous with draw go. You'll then realize how good it really is.

My question to you guys is this? What do you WANT it to have to make it "good enough" for your taste? Help me understand whats missing, cause I don't think it could get much better (within reason)

2. And MORE importantly to the thread. . .

... anyone. . . anyone! Please tell me what the hell G/W is supposed to be DOING if not playing creatures that deliver card advantage?!

I mean as a color they generally are denied the magic words: Draw A CARD.

Also they get a very limited amount of removal.

AND the non creature spells they get are generally pretty piss-poor, UNLESS its a spell that's a creature.

So for the people who have an issue w/GW~Pushed cards. . .

A:What do you expect them to have? Back to Craw worms?
B: Is it that you just feel its only right to win the match vs G/W with turn 4 wrath effect every time?

No, GW is where it needs to be to even ATTEMPT to be viable. . . in fact it would actually have to be a few cards better to really get there. So yeah, whats so wrong about Selesnya being "good"?

Quote from zaj56

Dude lie to yourself all you want. Whatever makes u feel better at night.
If your any good at magic you can master rdw. Its not hard. You ever hear the phrase You can'tpolish a turd? Well You cant write a paragraph about rdw and prove that its not a monkey deck. Its a monkey deck.

ALSO the op was about mtgo. So dont lecture me about expense bc u have no idea about the metagame on mtgo. Expense has everything to do with it.

anndd... you're sounding like an idiot.
Not that you are but, you obviously don't respect it as a deck. It sounds like you're actually just being ignorant, I"m not sure if its willful ignorance or genuine. Your assertion that its a monkey deck though is pretty telling of a lack of skill on your behalf... if you can't tell the difference between patrick sullivan or dave price playing red deck wins and random kid at your fhm then more the fool you. I imagine to you its all the same if you're getting burned out and losing. . . but its different.
Still this is too much like "arguing with fools" so I'm done talking to you about it.

I'm just glad it doesn't cost 3 or exist as a 3/4 or whatever.

Its solid but not overwhelming. So I'm gonna give it a thumbs up.

Quote from DTG99

Thragtusk, definitely Thragtusk. I'm 6 months too late you say? Thragtusk isn't that great you say? Poppycock.

Sarcasm... lol.

As a person who fielded R(x) aggro from the beginning. . . there have been moments that I wanted the thrag banned. In the end however...

I love that he exists. Why?

Because he exerts his force in all directions equally. No one gets a pass on thragtusk. Not aggro, not control, not tempo, or random combo decks that show up (perse).
I love him because he can't be just "bounced" away efficiently. Basically, while I play R(x) primarily, I've him for his impact vs control.

He's the entire reason for midrange decks to exist, and I would love to see him for another season, personally.
Obviously, not going to happen... but still it was a great card.

Aside from obvious good stuff.
This is one of the best standards ever. Nothing is ban worthy.
Most of the people wanting bans, are wanting because of something that works well against "Them".

Nothing's dominating, so nothing needs banned.

Quote from Alexander of Future Ruins

I don't abbreviate the word in the same way that you do, chill out. Also you'd be unhappy too if they were purposely wrecking your archetype.

Next set let's print Mana drain and Balance, but you get Grizzly Bears as the best creature, but don't voice your opinion at that, you should learn to adapt and play dem grizzy bears like a pro.

I just... I just want everyone to pause for a second and realize that this literally happened. That was the actual state of magic up until about 5 or 6th edition not sure which. That was a real thing 21 green creatures in a set, in the same set as balance and mana drain.
So over the years I've learned to appreciate the various types of decks that have existed and come to prominence.

If you're a control player... things are harder now... and really well the SHOULD be harder than they were before. Basically, because as is mentioned in this thread. . . I REALLY sounds like you're saying.

"I want to win the game at wrath effect vs aggro" that is the most mindless play EVER. . . in an environment where there's mostly cards of the creatures are of grizzly bear strength.
So is the idea that lets say "I" as a control player am "supposed to win on strength of my cards!" well that rubric has to change for the good of magic.

There has to be diversity in the decks or the game will eventually cease to be. The main thing that hoses control, and what no one has really said in this thread is "card advantage".
To make the game balanced for all colors wizards had to create some kind of card advantage across the colors.
Further, since they couldn't take the magic words: "Draw a card"
and but them in every color, they've found appropriate and diverse ways to balance and spread card advantage around.

There are many lines of conversation in this thread so I'm gonna wrap it up.

This is the best environment with the MOST amount of competitive deck types magic has ever seen.
Control takes skill, aggro takes skill, Midrange... ugh. It takes skill as much as I hate to say it. It does because the "degenerate" (yet skilled) jund player has just as much to worry about from a skilled aggro player as he does from a
control player, as he does from some one still playing humanimator combo.

If you're look at the other archtypes and "they're really hosing us!" understand that aggro players have felt that way too.

This is just like how Resto + Healer + Thragtusk completely and utterly killed Aggro forever.

Anyone else remember that?

No?

Oh well then... nevermind.

I remember that. I remember working hard with you guys when we couldn't even get Mono-red in the competitive forums back in RTR (I remember arguing with you when you told me "vexing devil sucks" think and adapt! you were so spot on.)

Thing is... we DIDN'T have BTE pre-gatecrash, we sure as hell didn't have Boros Reckoner (a card many of us STILL don't maindeck).
We knuckled down tried hard with the tools we had, and tried every iteration and found what works in the environment.

That was not easy but it was fulfilling, I challenge the control player's who are complaining to go to the forums of the control deck they want to play and make it happen.
Today on Cockatrice I played against and AWESOME control player, we were testing pregatecrash standard, and he was playing American Control.
It had turn and burn verdicts, terminus and detention spheres, had pillar of flame, both charms and and sphinxes, and syncopate/dissapate, I was really impressed with cause it was totally draw go, he killed me and my voice of resurgence deck like it was his birthright.

If you look at the cards aggro is getting and feel slighted, you really just need to get with the guys who are WINNING right now. and try harder.

Quote from TheScale

Guys, everyone know countering creatures and casting noncreature spells is too strong!
/sarcasm

But seriously, I'd like to be able to play a control deck and not just a flash deck with 4x revelation jammed into it :/

Forgive me, I don't meant to be rude. . . but is there something written somewhere that "Control = creatureless"?

That selesnya card... its uhm... its kind of obnoxious.
This standard is really pigeon-holed towards creatures.

voted White, but at this point, anything but Red is good. I swear, I've read so many posts about people wanting a red enchantment to do un-Red things, like card advantage and even countering, it was making me sick...

Black definitely has a lot of potential for a powerful build-around-me enchantment!

My feelings exactly.
I like Red and agree it needs a power-up,
but *not* at the expense of the Color Pie.

I was wanting u, but b is fine with me... lots of design space.

Lots of stuff has been said between now, and the second and 3rd post of this thread... but these too comments have irked the hell out of me for a day now.
People, want red to do "un-red" things because the color pie is unbalanced...

So basically you're going to hear that because red needs another slice. They're really good at doing 1 think *damage, but bad at everything else, extremely limiting for a color. Playable acceleration is in green, and red gets burst acceleration, but too good burst acceleration gets to be combo engines... and Red Land D is poo-poo'ed as a concept by too many people to expect to have a good spell much less a great 1.

So yeah expect people to want red to do "new" and exiting things especially since ALL the colors get some kind of card advantage standard (Standard being the future of match is some ways) being the color dominated by value and most people playing that format people want diversity in the color pie.

That way everyone can enjoy magic.

Cool of you to say that. I'm pretty sure that's it. I'm sure the aggro players no wait.... I"m sure the MIDRANGE players have had kinda crappy lives for most of the existence of magic.

The entire of my first last post was the on the last page, but the gist of it was this.
All this complaining by players saying essentially "my favorite archetype is too weaK" is pretty much the definition of entitlement and whining.
MOREOVER, its ridiculous because we clearly see that Esper Control, Bant wolf run, and even the Superfriends are winning tourneys.


The irony of this is that the people complaining about magic no longer being about skill are basically just highlighting a personal lack of skill, because people are using the same inputs as you and getting awesome results.

I play a bit of everything but I'm personally impressed with the strength of esper control.

Having more unconditional answers, would only make things more easy when in honesty we live in a time were for the first time in magic...

You can "BASICALLY" play any archetype you want and go win a ptq. Props to the guy who won with that U/G delver deck btw. . . It doesnt' feel super powerful to me, so it's a testament to his piloting skills, and moreso? His ability to read the environment.

As far as "U" being to weak... well I'm pretty sure that "B" is relegated to being the weakest color, overall.
Lacking bot value creature, and lacking good spells.

Black, not blue is the color that needs the most love.
Counterspells be damned, right now I'm like loving the idea of a neckrataal or even better a skinrender.
Overwhelmingly the black player though seem to be too busy brewing to complain about what they lack.

Quote from Go.dec

Interesting theory, but Netherhaups was never really that good, neither was Machinehead.

You're forgetting how good Rebels was during that era. When 7th came in and the three flavors of Opposition popped up then Machinehead became a good meta deck.

I found Netherhaups was actually really VERY good every time I played against it, but we'd be splitting hairs there honestly lets skip that.
I do yield that opposition, was a deck that allowed for machinehead to win. Fair enough. None of that is the actual point though, forgive me. I didn't post that to argue magic history (and to be honest I did that from memory so you likely have the edge on me).

My theory (even if it is a bit of historically) is that in the history of magic there will be many times when really very awesome decks don't get played because of lack of attention, or popularity.
We're not even talking difficulty of play but just exposure.

Junkrites for example: as the op implies: Pre-GTC I personally played against all of 1 deck that used Craterhoof and rites.
I remember I won game 1 not knowing what he was doing (I was playing R/x)
He CRUSHED me game 2 (sufficient lifegain was sufficient) with a damn Craterhoof to boot!
and game 3 I won curved out into double hellrider for the win.
He said he got mana screwed and I laughed and said something ABOUT how bad decks are always trying to hold themselves together with thragtusk (I just keep seeing that thrag being shoved into everydeck at the time).
Funny thing about that was, I was wrong, and a bit of a jerk for dismissing this deck out of hand because of 1 win. It was a deck, and a good deck then and now, people didn't play it though, because of popularity.
Now, metagame speaking it became even better.
Aggro is doing what it's supposed to do in everyway with this card pool.
and Junk rites is the near-king, if not the king of the value midrange decks.

Still though... why just now. People started to willing to turn their eyes to it, as a "thing". So it became a thing.

Well... maybe cause he's a "giant". It nothing for those dudes to throw rocks or whatever they do, but sure maybe he has go go gadget arms.

As for the vigilance/haste must attack each turn...
He can't have haste, he's perfectly midrange designed.

Its fairly obvious to say that they've pushed the midrange strategy as far as they can.
The situation is that they've created an aggro envoirn thats super strong which inherently hurts control (causing them to always have the right answer)
and they've created super resilient creatures.

He's a Larger cheaper, mid range creature friendly Kaervek, the merciless
I've never seen it more clear what they wanted for an environment as right now. I mean I'm an aggro player myself, but ... this guy.
I'm glad they're making cards like this, but damn if it doesn't feel somewhat contrived.
6 damage, huh. I suppose. Thalia, this guy...
I was irked about cavern of souls myself for a bit, but you know...
I guess it just the age of magic where the inner timmy gets to shine.

Wait...
Edit:

This is really broken. Like really. If this resolves your oopenent can not race you, cant beat it because it is huge and cant kill it because it will do heaps of damage. 6 damage is a lot.

I daresay you don't know what that word really means, but hey here, Zealous Conscripts has sent you friend request.

@Aggressive Fate: this is designed as a Midrange card not an aggro card. So I figured I'd clear that up as your strategy there is a bit off.
Its actually perfect for Midrange.dec who actually WANT to go to the late game as well. Just you know "strategy talk" since I see u in the R/x forums all the time nowdays. This will no be getting played in a deck that can in any means be considered aggro. Apologies I've misunderstood you though

All I read is "I wanna wipe the whole board by turn 4, all the time", which is not how this game should work necessarily. There are plenty of control decks out there - Bant, Esper, WUR. They are all great and competitive. Unlike previous control decks, you don't auto win the game by reaching 6 mana.

All this rant from control players comes from control players that don't want to use brains to play magic. Typical WU control (sweeper-counter-finisher) is easy to pilot and to win. That's the problem with old control decks, they took very little skill to play against aggro.

If you can't win in this meta playing control this is your own fault. Don't be mad because the truth is revealed.

Do control players seriously need to rant every spoiler season? Legion's Initiative isn't half as good as you said it to be. For starters, it's a telegraphed Ghostway. You see it come. It hits the table, you see it's there, so you can plan on work around it.

Secondly, you do realize that there are these things, called Oblivion Ring and Detention Sphere, right? They can exile Legion's Initiative when it comes down, since they won't burst it in they turn, but in response to a wrath.

Third, tempo and midrange are some kind of "beating" control, and they are Top 8 nowadays. Junk Reanimator, Jund Midrange, Bant Control, Naya Midrange, Esper Control...

Fourth, we do have Boros Charm, but I didn't hear the same whining from control players when Wizards printed Mana Leak in M12. It's our Mana Leak. Learn to play around Boros Charm just like Aggro players learnt to play around Mana Leak and stop being so hypocrital like "OMG DUDEZ THEY JUST PRINTED A MASS INDESTRUCTIBLE SPELL OMGOMG IT'S CONTROL'S DEMISE", while Mana Leak or some insane counterspell is just fine. Did you heard some doomsday prophecies from aggro players when Supreme Verdict, Thragtusk, Sphinx's Revelation, Terminus and Obzedat, Ghost Council were printed? Me neither.

The format is not allowed to play now Counter-Control, as it actually takes less brain than to pilot an aggro deck: counter everything then drop a big dude, protect it, win. Instead, there are the builds with creatures that you said "aren't control" that actually require more skill than a pure draw-go control.

Also, for the fact, here's a list of the sweepers that you can run at the moment:

- Supreme Verdict
- Divine Reckoning
- Killing Wave
- Barter in Blood
- Rolling Temblor
- Overloaded Mizzium Mortars
- Overloaded Cyclonic Rift
- Merciless Eviction
- Terminus

And only two "Control hosers" in the form of Boros Charm and Legion's Initiative, which players won't run as 8-of. It's even funnier, because half of the removal I listed play under Boros Charm's indestructible clause.

God damn, Control players are ceirtainly spoiled nowadays.

Reasons why the OP is wrong:

1. This is one of the most diverse Standard formats ever. It's not that midrange, aggro, and control are all viable. It's that we have MULTIPLE different lists for each archetype. There are at least 7 different aggro decks (Mono Red, Mono Red + Rancor and Boar, RG, Naya Blitz, Jund Aggro, BUG Aggro and RB Zombies/Rakdos), countless midrange strategies (Jund, Junk, Naya, Bant, Aristocrats), tempo/control (URW) and *gasp* true control (Esper/Turbo Fog). These two bring us to...

2. Mill is legit. For maybe the first time ever, a control deck exists that wins solely on the back of milling: Esper Control wins with Drownyard and Jace. Right in the format with Burning-Tree Emissary, Rancor, Boar and Reckoner, you have control decks that don't need Baneslayer Angel-like creatures to survive. That's pretty significant.

3. We have various different counterspells, just not Mana Leak. Syncopate is actually legit in the format, just underplayed. And the kind of decks Legion's Initiative would go in are EXACTLY the kind of decks Syncopate would shine against, because they have to use all their mana in each of their turns optimally, and Legion's Initiative is pretty bad alongside Cavern of Souls, meaning they would have to choose one path. Initiative isn't even playable in Naya Blitz as of now - look at their manabase.

4. More about Initiative: guess what's the one color combination that is lacking a Tier 1 aggro deck? That's right, Boros. Legion's Initiative might be strong enough to make it appear, but 1. that is not 100% sure as of yet and 2. Legion's Initiative comes with some serious drawbacks: if you deck is not made of mainly Red/x drops, it's basically a "Seal of one side of Boros Charm", which is pretty terrible, and the RW cost to cast and activate is not going to be easy to fit in your deck. Cavern of Souls is more important, I think.

5. Even if Initiative does see play, you can just *gasp* answer it? Last time I checked, Oblivion Ring and Detention Sphere are cards. If your opponent cast Initiative on turn 2 instead of a creature, you are basically very happy that they hurt their own development, and you can deal with it through Ring/Sphere before they deploy enough creatures. Or, let's say they went turn 1 creature, turn 2 creature, turn 3 creature on the play (so that you can't Supreme after their turn 3) and Initiative on turn 4. Well, that just means that, instead of using Supreme first and other weapons second, you use spot removal at EOT, leaving them with only 2 guys, play your 4th land and pass with Restoration Angel/permission mana up. Now they have only 2 guys in play, and if they want to keep Initiative online, they need to leave RW up EVERY SINGLE TURN. That means you get more opportunities to safely play other cards and keep dealing with them.

--

The reason Control players have been whining is that we have been spoiled by the past, where a turn 4 Wrath of God was just Game. Over. We could durdle on turns 1-3, we could cast Brainstorm/Impulse/Whatever, they would play mediocre creatures (some creatures in the past were strong, but most were garbage compared to now. Man o War was an aggro staple, Aether Adept barely sees any play when it's legal nowadays) that were just cold to Wrath, and then the control player would drop ANYTHING and it was GG. Serra Angel and won the first Worlds, for crying out loud, because of how ridiculous the spells were (Recall? Control Magic? Stasis?) and how terrible most creatures were.

Now, a Wrath of God effect is just part of the equation. It's still going to be pretty good against aggro, just don't expect that it will win on the spot on turn 4 with no answers from the aggro side. But Control still has some amazing weapons: Snapcaster Mage + whatever spell, Sphinx's Revelation, the best Angel ever in Restoration Angel, Diabolic Edict is basically back (Devour Flesh), Detention Sphere is O-Ring on steroids against aggro (specially ones playing BT Emissary), and much, much more.

Legion's Initiative won't kill Control, just like nothing in the past did. Didn't UB Control win worlds like just yesterday?

Really, just relax. And if Legion's Initiative is indeed giving you nightmares, I suggest you look at the DGM card that is TRULY going to be a nightmare for Control: Voice of Resurgence. Initiative won't do 20% of what this GW drop will do to the format.

Quote from midnight_v

Okay. The problem with that is for the bulk of magic its been the OPPOSITE with the focus being on playig INTO blues strength over, over, over, over, and over again.
1. It can honestly stand to "sit a few out", thank god Wotc obviously agree's with me on at least that point.
2. Having the other colors be strong as blue might actually make the game actually balanced between all the styles instead of it coming down to the inevitable combo, or control winning it all at the end of the season... sooo many end of season wins are from either control or combo especially at the pro level. It give the illusion that to be "PRO" = "Control" but honestly, its an illusion because in many ways its just about using the strongest cards.
Aggro, and moreso... MIDRANGE deserve some years to be equal to the bully on the block, but.. Magic is change -Jodah



I'm not trying to get in the same boat as tomthumb as he says a lot of things I think are pretty ridiculous and narrow-minded...
However... he's right about that, its not selfish at all. It really reasonable.
It as reasonable as all those people who take the time to point out:
"Wotc is a company. Them doing things that make money is what they're SUPPOSED to do"
So a consumer saying and believing things like that AREN'T being selfish, but practical. "Spending my money on things that I want..." is what consumers are supposed to do.
So voting with your dollars is the best thing you can do. I'd be super impressed if the control players boycotted or something and made the sales drop, so wizards changed policy... I wouldn't participate in it but I'd be pretty damned impressed.
Still people come here complain, and then endure through sets they hate, or quit individually, and comeback later...or whatever but its not enough to hurt wotc into changing.
Lastly... I think all those control people are ACTUALLY blowing it all out of proportion. Learn to play esper, your control deck right now. Its good and if MORE people played it? It'd have more winning big matches. Everyone though doesn't like that style of play. "True Control" w/e that might mean to you.

Midnight's right. I'm a hardcore control player and they've totally nerfed blue and you know what? It's about time. For years there would be really cool spells coming out and you know what people would say? Too much mana, it'll just get countered. And it was true. All the really fun looking cards were worthless because by that time the control player had already stabilized, got card advantage and would never allow you to play said really cool card.

Now those cards are finally seeing play and I'm happy for that. Control has morphed. It's no longer so much about counterspells, it's about killing everything that moves or finding an answer for it.

The problem recently has been that there have been jack for kill spells and every match has turned into turn sideways, reduce life totals. That's the pendulum swinging a wee bit too far the other way. All those cool cards? The weenie decks killed you before you got to play them. Same result, different means.

It seems Wizards is giving us some decent means to handle weenie decks and now they're giving us means to handle midrange too. All without resorting to counterspell decks and the old Draw Go formula. This is why I think Magic is becoming better than ever.

Quote from Voxxen

I feel like if anyone is a legitimate spike they're more likely to be whining about how this is -too- good. I know I was hoping that DGM would stop punching control in the groin, but apparently I was wrong. Hoorah for at least another 3 months of boring non-interactive standard. :/

Good lord I hope they've got a Counterspell and Path to Exile reprint to surprise us with.

I'm...getting tired of this. Not just the superiour attitude of people who identify themselves as control players, but referring to aggro as "non-interactive?" Combo is non-interactive. The only way aggro can be non-interactive is if they're playing creatures and attacking with them and you have nothing to block with. If this is the case, you're doing control wrong to begin with and deserve exactly what you get. If you're countering creatures, you're interacting. If you're killing their creatures, you're interacting. If you're having to make blocking decisions, you're interacting.

Please, folks. Respect third grade English. Thank you.

A lot of this complaining seems to be players who like blue complaining that their decks aren't giving them the consistency that they're used to. I can appreciate that without the power cards that blue normally has you're losing reliability, but you need to understand that you're just ending up in the position that every other colour is always in. I feel that in that context, the complaints are pretty unjustified.

Just because your deck has some bad matchups doesn't reflect poorly on the healthy of the format. It is metagaming to make a choice to position a deck relative to the field to gain an edge. There is a different sort of metagaming (and much more involved) than just filing your sideboard with 'anti-deck X' cards.