Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chandras!

[Rakaydos]

No doubt. It might just be because they’re what I face. But to sum it up:


Them multiple drawing then looking over the new cards as they decide what to discard every turn. The ability they have to set up a game stage as you watch cards just funnel about every round with little input from you.

And there is just little more disheartening seeing cards from your deck going straight to your graveyard.

But thankfully I can just leave a game when it gets to that point. Im just playing for fun. If it’s boring I can ditch.

Blue/White deserves everything that it lets happen to it. It's not a playstyle I enjoy, from either side.

I recently revamped my latest EDH deck, that now seems to be in the same power ballpark as 3 of my others.
The new one is a Nahiri, planeswalker/enchantment based soldier/lifegain deck. It used to be a Djeru "planeswalker tribal", but the deck was only really working when I had a few Espeths in play, so I redesigned it to focus on that.

My other ones are:
Paladia Mors, a heavy ramp and "double damage" voltron deck (that I sometimes play with The Ruiner, but usually use the classic Legends Paladia) Ramp hard, throw red/white AOE boardwipes with an empty board, and get a flying trample commander, then double damage (inquisitor's flail, Xenagos, Overblaze, ect) and give it double strike for instantly lethal commander damage. Also a few other heavy hitters, preferably indestructable, since the deck is designed to ramp to 8 mana insanely quickly.

Marrow Gnawer, an infinite-rats combo deck with a few options to turn infinite creatures and mana into a global win condition. typically an 8-9 turn goldfish if not disrupted, with a few ways to recover from disruption.

Arcades the Strategist, a Defender rush deck that's fast, but very vulnerable to disruption. Does use both Assault Formation and High Alert as alternatives if the commander is negated, but really needs the card draw off playing creatures. which it can also get from a few other options.

I also have 2 others, an ixalon block dino tribal, and a Wurm tribal that borrowed ideas from the Arcades deck, but uses a commander who gives a cost reduction to power 4+ creatures.Fun, but not on the level of those first 4. (still better on average than the original Djeru deck)

[Amechra]

Azorius is one of the more annoying combinations to face down in my opinion, since adding lifegain to card draw is incredibly annoying to deal with (Sphinx's Revelation defined a standard for a reason).

That being said... I think my biggest annoyance is that WotC has been giving my favorite color too much good stuff. I love playing Gx Ramp, and the fact that that particular strategy has gone from "Hey, I actually get to play my big spells before the game finishes!" to "I play my 7-drop on T3. Again." is infuriating. Like, I'm actually kinda embarrassed to say that I like playing Green at this point.

...

Speaking of Green, does anyone here like/play Oathbreaker? I've got a budget list headed by Nissa, Voice of Zendikar // Primal Growth that I like quite a bit. I haven't actually gotten to test it out against other people yet - stupid quarantine...

[Techwarrior]

As someone who has played a ton of U based control (mostly favoring UWx, but playing things like Grixis Shadow, Grixis Delver, and Temur Tower) I can understand the hate it gets from a base level when it is too good. Control decks in general are forced into playing terrible, slow, and monotonous win conditions. However, by the time the U based counterspell deck has gotten to it's win condition, it has already effectively won the game many turns ago when it's first or second Sphinx's Revelation resolved and now they have 7 cards to your 2 and a clean board state. A lot of people don't know when to concede against these styles of decks because they think that maybe they'll draw Goyf - Goyf - Lilliana of the Veil 15 turns in while their opponent has discarded answers to all of these cards to hand size. I use hyperbole and specific card names, but I hope most of the people here understand the general idea I'm trying to paint here.

Permission based decks emphasize what I consider to be the most fun parts of magic. I enjoy playing around things from my opponent, and having to make many meaningful decisions in what I'm going to do turn to turn. I love playing the matchups where both players are effectively top-decking for an answer to what's going on from the opponent's side of the board for multiple turns hoping that their 2/1 goes the distance versus the 3 power flyer.

Do I play my Lava Spikes and Rift Bolts into open mana, or do I wait to overload their mana with 5-6 spells at once?
Do I hold my Death's Shadow in hand, or do I wait to draw Stubborn Denial to go with it?
What turn do I go all-in with Infect versus my opponent based on the information I have?

--

There are two major issues that I find when seeing other players play control decks.

The first, and most annoying thing is play speed. If you take 2 minutes for every one of your turns, and 5 minutes to sideboard between games, then we have time to play 25 turns in a typical FNM or tournament setting. Most control decks do not have the speed to win or lose matches like this unless they literally fail to get off the ground. This is again mildly hyperbolic, but it's one of the things a lot of people mean when they say "I hate control."

The second thing I see that is most annoying is control players stalling the game when a path to victory is presented so that they can "keep winning." This also comes to effect when players refuse to put win conditions into their deck. Think of Standard when 5 mana Teferi ult was the go-to win condition. This mentality also presents in people's sideboarding. If you go into a match thinking "if I use this spell that exiles all his Teferi's then he can never win." You're going to lose to a secondary win condition because your sideboarding plan doesn't account for the control player's actual game plan, merely a (single) win condition.

A very good example of this mentality of anti-control players happened in my very first tournament. I took an Esper Control brew to a 10k right after Aether Revolt came out, and was faced against Melira combo in my third round. My opponent went "off" on about turn 8, gained infinite life, and made a board state of infinitely large creatures, then they asked me to concede and go to game 2. After my refusal, stating that I not only still could win, but felt favored to win game 1 given the fact that he had no hand and I had a sweeper while still having a 5 card hand afterwards, he proceeded to complain every single turn thereafter. My opponent slowplayed as hard as he could while failing to get docked for it by the judge. I showed my opponent that I could create an arbitrarily large amount of blockers for his creatures, and was able to remove all of his potentially threatening flyers, showing my opponent that he could no longer win. My opponent refused to concede the game at this point, hoping that I would fail to draw a removal spell for a Birds of Paradise that he could pump up later. Had my opponent conceded then, they might have won the match after sideboarding since we still had 40 minutes of the match. Instead I eventually naturally milled my opponent out in turns at the end of the round because of how slowly my opponent was playing the game. Is this my fault for playing a control deck, or my opponents fault for failing to concede when shown that he could no longer fail to lose the game we were playing?

--

All I'm trying to say is, do you really hate control decks, or do you hate the control players you typically play with? In my experience for most people they tend to hate the player, and not the deck. This of course assumes the deck itself isn't oppressive (again, think back to 5 mana Teferi standard).

[Dienekes]

Azorius is one of the more annoying combinations to face down in my opinion, since adding lifegain to card draw is incredibly annoying to deal with (Sphinx's Revelation defined a standard for a reason).

That being said... I think my biggest annoyance is that WotC has been giving my favorite color too much good stuff. I love playing Gx Ramp, and the fact that that particular strategy has gone from "Hey, I actually get to play my big spells before the game finishes!" to "I play my 7-drop on T3. Again." is infuriating. Like, I'm actually kinda embarrassed to say that I like playing Green at this point.

...

Speaking of Green, does anyone here like/play Oathbreaker? I've got a budget list headed by Nissa, Voice of Zendikar // Primal Growth that I like quite a bit. I haven't actually gotten to test it out against other people yet - stupid quarantine...

Yeah there are definite times where I saw the big green meanies coming out way quicker than I'm used to. Really had me missing my old beloved Terminate. But I have never been bored playing against the big scary monsters deck.

Is this my fault for playing a control deck, or my opponents fault for failing to concede when shown that he could no longer fail to lose the game we were playing?

Both. And also the designers of the game.

All I'm trying to say is, do you really hate control decks,

Yes.

or do you hate the control players you typically play with? In my experience for most people they tend to hate the player, and not the deck. This of course assumes the deck itself isn't oppressive (again, think back to 5 mana Teferi standard).

I am not qualified to say what is or is not oppressive or overpowered. I have not played since the Invasion Block and have only just restarted playing about a month ago. And honestly I don't think my loss rate against Blue control decks is even that bad. Maybe slightly below 50%, though I have not actually gone and tallied it up.

I can only how I feel playing the game and so far every time I see a Blue deck my response has been "Holy **** I am both bored and annoyed."

[Fable Wright]

A very good example of this mentality of anti-control players happened in my very first tournament. I took an Esper Control brew to a 10k right after Aether Revolt came out, and was faced against Melira combo in my third round. My opponent went "off" on about turn 8, gained infinite life, and made a board state of infinitely large creatures, then they asked me to concede and go to game 2. After my refusal, stating that I not only still could win, but felt favored to win game 1 given the fact that he had no hand and I had a sweeper while still having a 5 card hand afterwards, he proceeded to complain every single turn thereafter. My opponent slowplayed as hard as he could while failing to get docked for it by the judge. I showed my opponent that I could create an arbitrarily large amount of blockers for his creatures, and was able to remove all of his potentially threatening flyers, showing my opponent that he could no longer win. My opponent refused to concede the game at this point, hoping that I would fail to draw a removal spell for a Birds of Paradise that he could pump up later. Had my opponent conceded then, they might have won the match after sideboarding since we still had 40 minutes of the match. Instead I eventually naturally milled my opponent out in turns at the end of the round because of how slowly my opponent was playing the game. Is this my fault for playing a control deck, or my opponents fault for failing to concede when shown that he could no longer fail to lose the game we were playing?

I can only how I feel playing the game and so far every time I see a Blue deck my response has been "Holy **** I am both bored and annoyed."

Techwarrior, all I'm going to say is that if your preferred win condition is "Opponent picks up their cards and concedes because they can't win", then you're always going to alienate some portion of the player base. Especially (but by no means limited to) the new player portion that have trouble evaluating board state to determine that they can't win, or who want a visceral resolution to the game rather than an intellectual one.

Mind you, I like healthy control decks in the meta because dedicated combo decks are infinitely worse and I can accept scooping, but there's going to be people who just despise the control playstyle.

[Techwarrior]

That deck very much had a win condition, but the win condition was White Sun's Zenith and Celestial Colonnade when my opponent had already gained infinite life. I literally couldn't kill him in creature combat. Zenith spells shuffle back into your deck upon resolution so I was able to deck them for the win.

I never said my preferred win-con is "opponent concedes." My control decks have always had multiple win conditions, because I prefer to actually win the game after wresting control of the game. When UW(b) 5-man Teferi control was the big deck, I was playing Doom Whisperer and The Eldest Reborn as additional win cons in the main deck alongside the Teferi's. I was trying to get across the idea that people need to learn when to concede. Honestly, winning the game is a large part of the reason why I've largely switched to Jeskai Control instead of Esper in most cases. My favorite time in standard was Dynavolt tower because it was a card that simultaneously controlled the board and then won the game.

[Rakaydos]

I typically play Commander, and in the multiplayer format, bluewhite is very much about politics. My view isnt that it's too strong, it's exactly what I said- it "deserves anything it lets happen to it." Ignore the counterspell bluffing and the threats- either they counter it or they dont, and if they do they lose a counterspell that could be used on someone else. When they beg for aid to counterbalance a player who slipped through their control, let them handle it on their own. And so on.

[Eurus]

That deck very much had a win condition, but the win condition was White Sun's Zenith and Celestial Colonnade when my opponent had already gained infinite life. I literally couldn't kill him in creature combat. Zenith spells shuffle back into your deck upon resolution so I was able to deck them for the win.

I never said my preferred win-con is "opponent concedes." My control decks have always had multiple win conditions, because I prefer to actually win the game after wresting control of the game. When UW(b) 5-man Teferi control was the big deck, I was playing Doom Whisperer and The Eldest Reborn as additional win cons in the main deck alongside the Teferi's. I was trying to get across the idea that people need to learn when to concede. Honestly, winning the game is a large part of the reason why I've largely switched to Jeskai Control instead of Esper in most cases. My favorite time in standard was Dynavolt tower because it was a card that simultaneously controlled the board and then won the game.

Honestly, almost every control deck has some wincon faster than "wait for the opponent to draw 53 cards". You usually only run into that scenario against control if you're playing a slow deck and you manage to disrupt their win conditions but can't resolve any of your own. In which case you either lost the control-versus-control matchup, or you were playing some kind of slow "midrange" deck without a sufficiently focused game plan.

EDIT: Or you're up against Dominaria-Teferi when that was a thing, and you insist on playing out the game after every single one of your permanents has been exiled. That's also possible.

[zlefin]

has mtg arena fixed the bug with needing to validate every time it loads?

[Mystic Muse]

has mtg arena fixed the bug with needing to validate every time it loads?

Nope, it's doing it to me every time.

The loading times in general also seem to be worse and I'm still getting the rank change glitch.

[Amechra]

Honestly, almost every control deck has some wincon faster than "wait for the opponent to draw 53 cards".

I actually built a U/R control deck once that had decking out your opponent as a win condition...

It also ran a ton of symmetrical draw/wheels, and used Fevered Visions, Runeflare Trap, and Cerebral Vortex to burn people down as well. I converted it into a symmetrical-draw themed "draw two cards a turn" deck when Eldraine came out, which ended up making it actually playable.

[Androgeus]

So any thoughts here about the Walking Dead Secret Lair? It certainly seems to have the rest of the Magic community up in arms

[Shadow of the Sun]

So any thoughts here about the Walking Dead Secret Lair? It certainly seems to have the rest of the Magic community up in arms

I'm currently refusing to give WotC my money by buying sealed product as a response.

[Mystic Muse]

I'm currently refusing to give WotC my money by buying sealed product as a response.

I'm refusing to buy any cards from in print sets as a response.

If this is the track WotC is taking, they aren't getting any of my money.

[Emmerlaus]

So any thoughts here about the Walking Dead Secret Lair? It certainly seems to have the rest of the Magic community up in arms

If Im ever playing against one of those cards, that player become the Archnemesis of the table. I dont care if I lose the game anymore as long as they dont win.

However, guys, dont hesitate to buy cards from your local game stores. WotC should give them more love as well so at least it would be a good way to protest while still getting the cards you need!

[Mystic Muse]

If Im ever playing against one of those cards, that player become the Archnemesis of the table. I dont care if I lose the game anymore as long as they dont win.

However, guys, dont hesitate to buy cards from your local game stores. WotC should give them more love as well so at least it would be a good way to protest while still getting the cards you need!

The only places nearby that sell Magic cards are places I'm no longer willing to shop at.

One is screwing my friend over on his hours, so to hell with them (they are not having money issues, they're apparently doing better than ever.)

The other does not have cameras installed, and customers consistently get stuff stolen there. I've also heard from multiple people the guy who runs pokemon there shouldn't be allowed anywhere near children...

[LaZodiac]

If Im ever playing against one of those cards, that player become the Archnemesis of the table. I dont care if I lose the game anymore as long as they dont win.

Don't do this. This makes you the problem. It's needless and rude to people who have literally done nothing wrong.

[Dienekes]

So any thoughts here about the Walking Dead Secret Lair? It certainly seems to have the rest of the Magic community up in arms

Complete apathy.

As far as I can tell it’s an over expensive product designed for hardcore collectors and whales. I am neither of these. It does not relate to me, so why should I care about it?

[Eurus]

Complete apathy.

As far as I can tell it’s an over expensive product designed for hardcore collectors and whales. I am neither of these. It does not relate to me, so why should I care about it?

Not quite. Most of the Secret Lairs, yes. This Secret Lair? The cards are new/mechanically unique, and they're legal in Legacy and Commander.

This might or might not be relevant to you personally, but a lot of people are annoyed by this. Kinda reminds me of the Buy-A-Box promos.

[Dienekes]

Not quite. Most of the Secret Lairs, yes. This Secret Lair? The cards are new/mechanically unique, and they're legal in Legacy and Commander.

This might or might not be relevant to you personally, but a lot of people are annoyed by this. Kinda reminds me of the Buy-A-Box promos.

And if Rick decks become the dominant strategy that can’t be beat, I’ll get angry then. But until then, some cards that cost more than I’m willing to pay are in the game. That’s has always been true.

Now I’m not saying others can’t be angry. More power to them. I’m just not bothered.

[Tvtyrant]

And if Rick decks become the dominant strategy that can’t be beat, I’ll get angry then. But until then, some cards that cost more than I’m willing to pay are in the game. That’s has always been true.

Now I’m not saying others can’t be angry. More power to them. I’m just not bothered.

It would probably still be cheaper to buy these than an equivalent card on the secondary market. Other than being ugly these aren't really different from commander specific stuff.

[Emmerlaus]

The only places nearby that sell Magic cards are places I'm no longer willing to shop at.

One is screwing my friend over on his hours, so to hell with them (they are not having money issues, they're apparently doing better than ever.)

The other does not have cameras installed, and customers consistently get stuff stolen there. I've also heard from multiple people the guy who runs pokemon there shouldn't be allowed anywhere near children...

Then buy them online from a shop in your state? Just not directly from WotC?

Don't do this. This makes you the problem. It's needless and rude to people who have literally done nothing wrong.

I play with friends normally and they know my stance on it beforehand. They would know better then doing this. And as for tournaments, they did something wrong by buying those cards and inflating WotC money doing so. The only way we can make them understand is to NOT buy those product. So the only mercy those players will have in my book is that I will TELL them why Im doing this and my stance on this.

I play MTG for the fun of it, not for the competition. Tournaments are always local tournament for free with a remote chance to win a booster pack.

I just mentionned that at my table, playing thiose cards will be as rude as playing Mass Land Destruction or heavy Stax decks. Being focused and hated is something that can happen in COmmander if you dont follow the political rules at your table. This is just a new rule added on the top of it and its not a problematic one unless you are a hardcore collector or a whale.

EDIT: If Rick decks become problematic, I'll be sure to buy a Commander deck against them especially. Silent Arbiter, Crawlspace, Lightmite, etc. There is always a solution.

[mythmonster2]

Oh, it's Monday, so that means yet more Standard bans. Omnath's been erased from Arena, two weeks too late. Historic and Brawl can also breathe a bit easier. Thankfully, they did think ahead and banned Clover, since Adventures would absolutely have continued to dominate. They also hit Escape to the Wilds, which is a bit odd, but at this point, I'm fine with Ramp being hit from multiple angles.

[Eurus]

Oh, it's Monday, so that means yet more Standard bans. Omnath's been erased from Arena, two weeks too late. Historic and Brawl can also breathe a bit easier. Thankfully, they did think ahead and banned Clover, since Adventures would absolutely have continued to dominate. They also hit Escape to the Wilds, which is a bit odd, but at this point, I'm fine with Ramp being hit from multiple angles.

I'm a little surprised that they were willing to ban it at all while it's still in the most recent available set. That will, presumably, hurt pack sales. I hope it does hurt pack sales, tbh, because it's seriously egregious how they're printing incredibly busted stuff and relying on the bans to fix it eventually. The pace just keeps accelerating.

[zlefin]

I agree, having to do this level of banning is a sign of a deeply broken QA process. Considering how long the stretches were where they never had to ban a thing, it's clearly possible to do far better.

[LansXero]

I'm a little surprised that they were willing to ban it at all while it's still in the most recent available set. That will, presumably, hurt pack sales. I hope it does hurt pack sales, tbh, because it's seriously egregious how they're printing incredibly busted stuff and relying on the bans to fix it eventually. The pace just keeps accelerating.

I mean, you do realize WotC got their money months ago, right? At most, it'd screw over stores who have dead inventory or distributors getting stuck with their re-orders. Not saying it'll happen, but I dont see why you'd want people with no say in card design to get screwed

[Eurus]

I mean, you do realize WotC got their money months ago, right? At most, it'd screw over stores who have dead inventory or distributors getting stuck with their re-orders. Not saying it'll happen, but I dont see why you'd want people with no say in card design to get screwed

I get your point, if WotC runs MTG into the ground it'll hurt a lot of other businesses as well and that's not good. It's still entirely WotC's fault, and it's increasingly looking like that's what they're just gonna keep doing until they do ruin the brand and people stop buying cards.

[Amechra]

I feel like they just need to stop pushing Green so much. Seriously, if we look at the 10 cards that are currently banned in Standard, seven of them are Green.

I'm reminded of one of my former coworkers, who was convinced that Green was still the weakest color. He had stopped playing around the point when Caw-blade was the deck to beat, and so he never really adjusted to the new creature-focused meta that NWO design created.

[Dienekes]

I feel like they just need to stop pushing Green so much. Seriously, if we look at the 10 cards that are currently banned in Standard, seven of them are Green.

I'm reminded of one of my former coworkers, who was convinced that Green was still the weakest color. He had stopped playing around the point when Caw-blade was the deck to beat, and so he never really adjusted to the new creature-focused meta that NWO design created.

Again a reminder that I'm blatantly new here, so all my opinions should be taken with heaping tons of salt.

But I get the distinct impression that it's less Green is a problem and more the design goals of Zendikar Rising is a problem. Green gets consistent mana faster than everyone else and uses it to make big creatures. That's fine, and I don't think that alone is the worst thing ever. But ZR as far as I can tell is pushing land dropping to almost Mox-like levels (which I know aren't technically lands but they're functionally the same). I don't think Omnath would be unbalanced if it was -you know- difficult to drop more than one land a turn and late game you're expected to have none unless you just so happen to draw one. Maybe if you planned for it and built your deck around it, you could maybe get all of its abilities to trigger once per game and that would be about all your land ramp in one go.

But this set seems laser focused on dropping a ton of mana as quick as you can. And I think that sort of environment is prone to breaking things. Because back when I played before the most broken sets were always the one where it was made trivially easy to combo in a way that ignored or reduced mana cost. And since land destruction has also been dialed back significantly, getting more lands on the field is functionally the same as reducing mana costs or dropping Moxes.

[Amechra]

If you look at just ZNR, there are only 7 cards that let you put more than one land onto the battlefield in a given turn, and none of them are jaw-droppingly amazing at it (other than Ashaya). If you took Lotus Cobra out of the set, Omnath would be way less broken.

Part of the issue is that WotC has recently printed a bunch of spells that effectively double your mana, starting with Nissa, Who Shakes The World back in WAR. In a meta with those kinds of cards, Growth Spiral effects go from "decent" to "really good", and you have to keep an eye on anything that lets you get extra lands out.