Since legacy and standard are being referenced, and I'm being asked about the complexity level of commons, it seems I am going to have to elaborate a bit.
I've made the
NWO defense before, and don't want to come across as unfairly critical of it. Yes, it is true that in carefully curated standard formats their are examples of traditional control decks. It's also true that while NWO design is a term originally introduced by MARO to discuss the complexity level of commons, it also is commonly used to reference the more sweeping changes introduce to the game around the Lorwyn period, and that is the meaning I wish to attribute to it. Otherwise, we can just refer to it as "Modern era design" I suppose, but I don't want to get caught up in that particular semantics argument.
What has me interested right now is modern, and how abnormal it seems to me that some of these decks can be labeled as control decks: Grixis Control and the U/W sun titan decks in particular. This is because I find the good stuff problem in cube interesting, and while I like modern, a number of its top decks are really just good stuff decks (Jund, Junk, all the grixis decks), and the format seems to have provide some insight into why good stuff happen. These decks have different labels, but its hard not to view Grixis Control as just another good stuff deck, focused on an attrition game plan, that wants to pull ahead with value generation. Yes, there are differences, but the line between the two overlaps so much, that it seems to me those differences are swallowed up by the whole.
Now, yes, there are some more traditional control decks--which is a good thing--such as the UWR deck, which though it can change its strategic posture to a more tempoesque deck, still feels more like a traditional hard control deck. Whats the point of reference for a hard control deck? Brian Weissman's original deck: it plays a slow, answer focused game plan, and wins via card advantage. Traditionally, in magic those have been wrath effects or mass discard coupled with raw draw. Ideas of virtual card advantage are also very important to it. The more focused it is on controlling the game, the less and less victory conditions it has, and while it can change its strategic posture to be assertive (even the original deck would sometimes mana drain out a serra angel game 2 to take advantage of sb strategies) thats not its overall strategic plan.
And that type of deck provides a unique experience, and is fun to include in a format.
Now, if I'm a cube designer, and I'm having a hard time with people gravitating towards these good stuff midrange decks, maybe part of the problem is that my control strategies are a little weak, maybe thats because a lot of the tools that midrange and control decks are using are overlapping too much.
For example, whats the best finisher in a B/x control deck? Grave Titan. Whats the best finisher in a B/X midrange deck? Grave Titan. Planeswalkers provide a similar dilemma, as many of them both help stabilize a board while representing pressure in their own right, and given that many cubes provide plentiful tools to overwhelm a hard control deck's removal, it creates a vested interest in drafting these cards. In an individual, carefully curated, standard format (which is not a structure that I think is particularly analogous to cube), perhaps thragtusk on its own is fine, but many of our cubes are slanted towards the modern era, and include a broad spectrum of such cards, which means cards like thragtusk, kitchen finks, the titans, and all of the best planeswalkers potentially get to exist together in a format still offering only one copy of swords to plowshares, and one copy of path to exile (and a bunch of clunky 3cc multi-colored removal ugh). There are a lot of ways to overwhelm a control decks removal, which creates an incentive to be able to close games out faster, and what better way to do that than to run cards that both stabilize and assert pressure? Cards that happen to be popular with midrange players too...
I don't think this is even a particularly radical idea for the forum, so I'm a bit surprised at the push back, which I'm guessing is mostly my fault for hastily writing on the train. Lucre has been making mostly spot on posts about control's health for about a year now. Ahadaban posted in this thread that the distinction between stabilizer and finisher has been largely blurred, and he's right, and the two biggest culprits are two of his most hated cards: planeswalkers and titans.
Everyone has spruced up their aggro decks at this point, and I think its safe to talk a little bit more about making midrange and control feel like more like distinct and special decks. Control in particular I think could use some attention. Instead I'm being asked about draft commons.
