General Archetype Support

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Yeah, I love miracles because its basically a super powered version of weissman's The Deck, but it would be tricky to bring over to cube, and maybe not desirable. The original Deck had a soft lock in the form of moat and disrupting scepter, and the actual kill wasn't really important by the time it came down.

I honestly don't know a lot about stoneblade.

How do we reward having people hold up mana for removal and counterspells?
 
Well, you get more information by playing your spells as late into a turn as you can (ie play your t3 spell and the end off opponents t3). If the control player didn't need to play an answer they should have the ability to get more cards and/or card quality yeah?
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Yeah I think so. Its kind of brutal letting all of that mana go to waste if they don't have something to do.

If they don't have stuff on the board, I think you're happy. If they do, doom blade it :p

but hey cheap instant speed card draw is a nice thing to do if they don't do anything worth countering
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, I love miracles because its basically a super powered version of weissman's The Deck, but it would be tricky to bring over to cube, and maybe not desirable. The original Deck had a soft lock in the form of moat and disrupting scepter, and the actual kill wasn't really important by the time it came down.

I honestly don't know a lot about stoneblade.

How do we reward having people hold up mana for removal and counterspells?

Give them conditional 2 for 1 counters and instant speed removal that allows them to get card advantage in certain situations. Getting CA off of Complicate feels amazing.
 
The traditional reward was surely End Of Turn: Fact Or Fiction, You Lose?

I have to confess I'm a bit confused by the conversation here. When playing the MODO cube, UW control is one of my goto decks. The important part of the deck is the answer suite, particularly counters / wraths / exile of permanents, and plenty of draw, preferably instant speed, with an arbitrary win condition that can be anything from a late-game Entreat the Angels for a massive amount to a planeswalker ultimate to Mulldrifter / Venser / Glen Elendra beatdown - the latter carried out by almost entirely incidental creatures stapled to effects a control deck wants. Obviously it can't be draw-go all game, but the aim's usually to wrath with a spare answer and a couple of counterspells to move the game into territory ruled by pure card advantage.

The existence of planeswalkers makes it preferable to run some creatures, because wraths don't deal with them, but the creatures control plays are draw spells and counterspells stapled to a body. Gurmag Angler and Delver are aggro-control creatures, efficient cheap beaters. Sea Gate Oracle and Mulldrifter are purer control creatures, there more to chump than close the game out, but capable of the latter once things are in hand. Vedalken Shackles and Control Magic give you as pure a control creature as exists: one that started on the other side of the table.

Control loves wraths because its creatures don't matter. Control likes big draw spells because it plans to use them against a mostly clear board, but it prefers instant speed ones. Control will play pretty much every counterspell it can. Control doesn't really worry about other decks picking up its win conditions, because once the game's locked up, any creature at all can finish it - the inevitability is baked into the answer suite and the draw spells. Control is resigned to having to fight over Oblivion Ring and friends, and artifact ramp, and planeswalkers.

Control decks of this nature have a harder time against non-creature threats than creature threats: planeswalkers, enchantments like Assemble the Legion or Sulfuric Vortex, artifacts like Shrine of Burning Rage. These make Oblivion Ring, Banishing Light, Detention Sphere, Council's Judgement, Vindicate, Utter End and Unexpectedly Absent fantastic picks, and I want to snag at least a couple when building an Esper or UW control deck.
 
I honestly don't know a lot about stoneblade.

How do we reward having people hold up mana for removal and counterspells?

I agree with JW but think flash creatures are an important piece of the puzzle as well. Since the lower-powered flash creatures by and large suck, it comes into it more when you're getting to include guys like Venser or Clique I think?

Stoneblade is a deck that packs spot removal, a flexible counter suite, and gains card advantage with cantrips, SFM, Jace and Lingering Souls. Shaheen Soorani was the deck's champion for a bit and advocates Lingering Souls over True-Name Nemesis, I think he's right (and you can always suit up Clique too). Right now Shardless BUG is keeping it down, because they trade better 1-for-1 and get Ancestral Vision to reload. If you know the deck and tweak it for your meta you're on probably 50% odds against the field, which is comforting in a format as diverse as legacy.
 
Backing up a bit...
<excellent wall of text>
Your aim as a designer is to able to look at what each archetype does and ask, "What does this other archetype do against it?" If the answer is "lose" or "pray to topdeck a specific card", there is work to be done with regard to how those archetypes relate, because neither of those are qualities of fulfilling games.

TL;DR, Aggro/Midrange/Control shouldn't be Rock/Paper/Scissors, it should be Protoss/Terran/Zerg.

What are some interesting creatures for control that don't fit as well in midrange and aren't simply blockers? For example: Masticore

I like Ludevic's Test Subject as an interactive win-con for control that creates interesting decisions and rewards doesn't punish the control player for having counter mana up. Azure Mage is also interesting as another instant-speed mana sink... are there more things like this at a higher power level?

---

As a thought exercise, what would it take to make a "pure" draw-go style control deck happen in cube? Double up on Vendilion Clique for it's disruption and pressure vs. planeswalkers at instant speed, along with instant card draw/filter (more Thirst For Knowledge / FoF / Sphinx's Rev) and more counterspells in the draft pool? Basically replace sorceries with instants, double up where needed?
 
As a thought exercise, what would it take to make a "pure" draw-go style control deck happen in cube? Double up on Vendilion Clique for it's disruption and pressure vs. planeswalkers at instant speed, along with instant card draw/filter (more Thirst For Knowledge / FoF / Sphinx's Rev) and more counterspells in the draft pool? Basically replace sorceries with instants, double up where needed?

Personally, I don't think I really want "pure" draw-go decks to be a thing. I want control decks to feel compelled to commit some resources to the board that can be interacted with.

I definitely like the idea of utility-land mana sinks. How about increasing the number of artifacts and enchantments that support control? They synergize well with wraths, can act as mana sinks, and can be dealt with by the opponent if they have the right tools.



I know there's a ton of other stuff that I'm not thinking of. Hopefully some non-UW options.

What are some other sweet non-creature mana sinks for control?

Edit:
 
Maybe. Can we make trading post really really attractive to begin with? I know you people have had fun with it but I didn't include it in my recent 360 because I sort of didn't feel like I had enough artifacts to recur with it. That got me thinking, maybe we should start digging in those old artifact / enchantment theme threads for cards we could give control / noncreature decks?
 
Trading Post is cool if you can assemble a fun little loop, but it is durdly as hell. I play it every now and then in EDH decks, but that's only because you have a ton of set-up time. You'll need a slower, lower-powered environment to really get it to work. T4 is too big in my Cube, it's when the heavy hitters start coming out, and I don't think most decks can afford to take a whole turn off with a do-nothing artifact that isn't too easy to abuse.
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Maybe. Can we make trading post really really attractive to begin with? I know you people have had fun with it but I didn't include it in my recent 360 because I sort of didn't feel like I had enough artifacts to recur with it. That got me thinking, maybe we should start digging in those old artifact / enchantment theme threads for cards we could give control / noncreature decks?

Trading post is the slowest. I could barely get people to want 1, much less want multiples. Even our local player who ran 4x trading post in Standard had the slowest, durdliest deck. It's not the type of thing I personally want to promote.
 

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
Trading post is the slowest. I could barely get people to want 1, much less want multiples. Even our local player who ran 4x trading post in Standard had the slowest, durdliest deck. It's not the type of thing I personally want to promote.

I think I've said this somewhere else, but what if we sharpied it to 3 mana? I know it doesn't work in your cube.
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I think I've said this somewhere else, but what if we sharpied it to 3 mana? I know it doesn't work in your cube.

I think the better answer is to sharpie the activation costs to {0} (and tap). Bigger question: what are we trying to achieve with Trading Post? Just a pet value engine?
 
I think the better answer is to sharpie the activation costs to {0} (and tap). Bigger question: what are we trying to achieve with Trading Post? Just a pet value engine?

An efficient way for control or midrange players to convert resources at instant speed, between four types. I really do think Bow of Nylea does it better. (ps the four abilities are the four seasons i'm tired of people pretending they don't get it)

e: the 4x Trading Post deck I played in RTR-THS standard was super durdly as well and i think only worked because it was also a 4x Young Pyromancer deck. lots of fun though!
 
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