5 ms·

This is nowhere near the brainiest Magic has ever been. I've been playing almost since the beginning and it's been disappointing to see how the game has been si

This is nowhere near the brainiest Magic has ever been. I've been playing almost since the beginning and it's been disappointing to see how the game has been simplified. It seems like all competitive standard decks now are creature decks, which is a shame because control and combo decks used to be a huge part of the meta game and required a lot of skill to pilot. I think Wizards deliberately eliminated combo and control decks because they often left the opponent (especially new players) with little to do if they were losing. Whereas when two players are playing creature decks, both players (even new, losing players) will get to play some cards, do some attacking/blocking, etc. This makes the game much more exciting for new players, which ensures that they will keep playing. If you want to see some really brainy decks have a look at Cadaverous Bloom (called Pro's Bloom below) https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/evolution-of-magic-banned-and-restricted-combo-winter https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/evolution-of-magic-bann... Also have a look at the Bargin deck below: http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=967 http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=967 Other interesting decks I encountered over the years: Wildfire https://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=sb20010619a https://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=sb20010619a Nether Go https://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=sb20010212a https://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=sb20010212a Forbidden Pheonix http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/forbidden-phoenix/ http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/forbidden-phoenix/ Mono-Blue Stasis https://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=GPTAIPEI00/d1stand https://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=GPTAIPEI00/d... And any of the combo winter decks (Grim Jar, Illusions Donate, Tolarian Academy, etc.) Also Mythic Rares are super lame. It's a return to the days when you needed the "Power 9" (actually Power 10 when you include Library pf Alexandria") to be competitive.

blatant 10y ago
Are there any other games that are "Brainier" than Magic?
- touchofevil 10y ago
  I got hooked on Magic early and didn't feel much need to branch out to other games. I did play a bit of Texas Hold'em later and thought that was okay. A lot of people in comic shops (where Magic is played) play WarHammer 40K and Settlers of Catan, so you could have a look at those games.
- Pinckney 10y ago
  Netrunner is very interactive.
- rkowalick 10y ago
  Contract Bridge is a lot of fun, but definitely not as popular in the US as it used to be.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  Lots. Try 1830 and its million variants.
- acedinlowball 10y ago
  Doomtown
MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
I've been playing since Ice Age, and my first competitive deck was Enchantress combo, so I totally feel you regarding mourning the relative power decrease of combo (and hard control) as archetypes. But you do spell out the exact reasoning for this, and I'm inclined to agree with Wizard's decision making here. I play mostly Modern and Legacy nowadays, in part because I prefer the older, more complex interaction heavy style of Magic, but even as an old hand I can appreciate how frustrating it is to lose to a hard control lock or a combo with which you have no way to interact. By allowing players to choose that play style, the game designers are basically saying, it's okay if there are (possibly a lot of) games of Magic in which one party has zero fun. Which is fine for some players, and you can still get that experience by playing older formats, but you have to agree that this is an unsaleable philosophy for a modern, mass-market game produced by a public company.
- touchofevil 10y ago
  Agreed. I think Wizards made the right call for Standard in terms of attracting and retaining new players. It's good to hear from another person who got in around Ice Age (same here) and enjoyed the complexities of that era of Magic deck building. I think Magic appealed to the "mad inventor" side of my personality, which is why I miss the more diverse possibilities (hard control & combo) that used to exist in Standard. And I remember the Enchantress combo deck! Good stuff!
- pcmaffey 10y ago
  At the same time, completely locking down your opponent is the most fun way to win.
sqeaky 10y ago
Ex-Power Artifact, Ex-Academy, Ex-Oath-Combo, Ex-Enchantress and Active Legacy Splinter Twin combo player here. I really don't see how actually interacting with your opponent is less "brainy" than comboing out. Building a combo deck to win turn 1 reliably is not as difficult as actually interacting with your opponent and forcing them into submission. To win with a good combo, just assemble the deck with dollars and learn to pilot it on its own in a vacuum and tada you can win all kinds of tournaments at the local game store. Its not hard, its just a formula. If a format is balanced enough that there are no instant win combos available then players, regardless of wealth, actually need to deal with interaction. I think this is a good thing. I shouldn't just win by showing up because I can put any card I want in any deck. Currently this is the state of EDH for me.
- touchofevil 10y ago
  I do somewhat agree with you from a playing standpoint. I often gravitated to combo or control because I didn't want to deal with doing the math on attacking / blocking as it could lead to some awfully complicated interactions. But there were definitely difficult decisions to be made when playing combo or control, since you'd often be facing aggressive decks that put you on a clock. But mainly, I found the deck building and meta game more interesting when combo, control, and creature based decks were all available to players. Personally, I just always thought it was really interesting when a deck would try to do something like generate infinite (or near-infinite) mana in order to "go off". That is an aspect of Magic that I found unique, since most games are so tightly controlled that there isn't possibility of finding an interaction that is "broken", as we used to call it, and can be exploited to create scenarios that are outside of what the game designers possibly intended.
  - sqeaky 10y ago
    From a metagame and game balance perspective Control and combo are totally different, unless they are mingled in the same deck. In a typical Academy deck (pure combo) you just built a 56 card combo deck and slammed in 4 force of wills for protection. A game will another is only slightly harder to win than a game against a goldfish. If the metagame decisions around your control go beyond "How do I defeat the one thing that stops me" you probably weren't playing an optimal version of that deck. Academy decks should be winning before turn 3 100% of the time. Someone mentioned Prosbloom, I was under the impression it won 3 or 4 with a city of solitude in play. Pretty much the only question you need to ask about that metagame is "How do deal with someone stopping my turn 2 squandered resources?". Versions dealt with that with copious use of 4x enlightened tutor and 4x vampiric tutor, not a real metagame choice. In Illusions/Donate (combo/control) you build and play a blue/white control deck with a win condition that sometimes saves you the hassle of having to interact. You are still playing a two player game with removal and sometimes even creatures, but your wins come in fast from nowhere. There were several ways to interfere because the win could come well after control was seized or sometimes just before the aggro player attempts to win. Try pulling off anything of that consistency when you cannot run duplicates of your combos and need to run 100 cards. This is what EDH looks like. Actual thought on deck design because you can't easily build a well oiled machine from cookie cutter parts. When running it feels like trying to win a race while building the racecar from secondhand parts. There is immense challenge and complex decisions. The combo decks look totally different and barring an extreme outliers (Arcum Dagson and Narset) it is nearly impossible to build a deck that wins consistently without actual board interaction.

blatant 10y ago

Are there any other games that are "Brainier" than Magic?

touchofevil 10y ago
I got hooked on Magic early and didn't feel much need to branch out to other games. I did play a bit of Texas Hold'em later and thought that was okay. A lot of people in comic shops (where Magic is played) play WarHammer 40K and Settlers of Catan, so you could have a look at those games.
Pinckney 10y ago
Netrunner is very interactive.
rkowalick 10y ago
Contract Bridge is a lot of fun, but definitely not as popular in the US as it used to be.
pessimizer 10y ago
Lots. Try 1830 and its million variants.
acedinlowball 10y ago
Doomtown

MaxfordAndSons 10y ago

I've been playing since Ice Age, and my first competitive deck was Enchantress combo, so I totally feel you regarding mourning the relative power decrease of combo (and hard control) as archetypes. But you do spell out the exact reasoning for this, and I'm inclined to agree with Wizard's decision making here. I play mostly Modern and Legacy nowadays, in part because I prefer the older, more complex interaction heavy style of Magic, but even as an old hand I can appreciate how frustrating it is to lose to a hard control lock or a combo with which you have no way to interact. By allowing players to choose that play style, the game designers are basically saying, it's okay if there are (possibly a lot of) games of Magic in which one party has zero fun. Which is fine for some players, and you can still get that experience by playing older formats, but you have to agree that this is an unsaleable philosophy for a modern, mass-market game produced by a public company.

touchofevil 10y ago
Agreed. I think Wizards made the right call for Standard in terms of attracting and retaining new players. It's good to hear from another person who got in around Ice Age (same here) and enjoyed the complexities of that era of Magic deck building. I think Magic appealed to the "mad inventor" side of my personality, which is why I miss the more diverse possibilities (hard control & combo) that used to exist in Standard. And I remember the Enchantress combo deck! Good stuff!
pcmaffey 10y ago
At the same time, completely locking down your opponent is the most fun way to win.

sqeaky 10y ago

Ex-Power Artifact, Ex-Academy, Ex-Oath-Combo, Ex-Enchantress and Active Legacy Splinter Twin combo player here. I really don't see how actually interacting with your opponent is less "brainy" than comboing out. Building a combo deck to win turn 1 reliably is not as difficult as actually interacting with your opponent and forcing them into submission. To win with a good combo, just assemble the deck with dollars and learn to pilot it on its own in a vacuum and tada you can win all kinds of tournaments at the local game store. Its not hard, its just a formula. If a format is balanced enough that there are no instant win combos available then players, regardless of wealth, actually need to deal with interaction. I think this is a good thing. I shouldn't just win by showing up because I can put any card I want in any deck. Currently this is the state of EDH for me.

touchofevil 10y ago
I do somewhat agree with you from a playing standpoint. I often gravitated to combo or control because I didn't want to deal with doing the math on attacking / blocking as it could lead to some awfully complicated interactions. But there were definitely difficult decisions to be made when playing combo or control, since you'd often be facing aggressive decks that put you on a clock. But mainly, I found the deck building and meta game more interesting when combo, control, and creature based decks were all available to players. Personally, I just always thought it was really interesting when a deck would try to do something like generate infinite (or near-infinite) mana in order to "go off". That is an aspect of Magic that I found unique, since most games are so tightly controlled that there isn't possibility of finding an interaction that is "broken", as we used to call it, and can be exploited to create scenarios that are outside of what the game designers possibly intended.
- sqeaky 10y ago
  From a metagame and game balance perspective Control and combo are totally different, unless they are mingled in the same deck. In a typical Academy deck (pure combo) you just built a 56 card combo deck and slammed in 4 force of wills for protection. A game will another is only slightly harder to win than a game against a goldfish. If the metagame decisions around your control go beyond "How do I defeat the one thing that stops me" you probably weren't playing an optimal version of that deck. Academy decks should be winning before turn 3 100% of the time. Someone mentioned Prosbloom, I was under the impression it won 3 or 4 with a city of solitude in play. Pretty much the only question you need to ask about that metagame is "How do deal with someone stopping my turn 2 squandered resources?". Versions dealt with that with copious use of 4x enlightened tutor and 4x vampiric tutor, not a real metagame choice. In Illusions/Donate (combo/control) you build and play a blue/white control deck with a win condition that sometimes saves you the hassle of having to interact. You are still playing a two player game with removal and sometimes even creatures, but your wins come in fast from nowhere. There were several ways to interfere because the win could come well after control was seized or sometimes just before the aggro player attempts to win. Try pulling off anything of that consistency when you cannot run duplicates of your combos and need to run 100 cards. This is what EDH looks like. Actual thought on deck design because you can't easily build a well oiled machine from cookie cutter parts. When running it feels like trying to win a race while building the racecar from secondhand parts. There is immense challenge and complex decisions. The combo decks look totally different and barring an extreme outliers (Arcum Dagson and Narset) it is nearly impossible to build a deck that wins consistently without actual board interaction.