CML
Contributor
back in the day, when men were men and creatures were shit, control ruled magic like the dragon king ruled westeros. it was 'interactive' in the sense that big brother was 'interactive' with winston smith, or an autistic person is 'interactive' with you on a date: the blue mages may not have done much, but you sure as hell weren't going to, either.
'no.'
this was neither fun nor all that profitable, so then they printed the creature. i guess its genesis could be traced back to onslaught block, and the creature's power peaked at alara block. along the way you got stuff that hybridized old archetypes with creatures, like the combo deck elves and the control deck faeries.
'quite the spec pick.'
in constructed control is in a bad place. in standard, esper and bant have been marginalized as players realize that their late-game plan is totally outclassed by, of all things, green-based value reanimator. in modern, the fair blue decks are trash -- and, as one combo gets banned every three months, that's one less reason to play them. in legacy, miracles is disappearing, and stoneblade has turned into esper stoneblade and then deathblade, as force of will decks with clocks like RUG and merfolk assume the 'combo-basher' role in the metagame...
'end of the line, hari seldon.'
There is ONE place where control is still king, though. vintage? well, maybe two. but i'm talking about CUBE.
Why is control so good in cube?
-people fuck up with their design and don't include enough fixing or make that fixing control-oriented (signets, bouncelands, mana rocks). the mana in cube is intrinsically hugely biased towards control.
-deeper card pool than aggro -- there are a zillion 4-mana draw spells with a decent VORP (even vs. JTMS!), but there's only one goblin guide
-highlander format: control runs naturally off a bunch of one-ofs. this is yet another reason i imagine jason has broken singleton.
-yet another design fuckup: people make their curves too damn high.
-raw power: nobody's gonna argue savannah lions is as good of a card as JTMS.
(and finally, we come to the topic for this post...)
-TOO MANY GODDAMN SWEEPERS
'the curve is too DAMN HIGH.'
sweepers are of course very powerful effects, but their power in constructed is tempered by their being 'dead' in control mirrors, or not great against a resolved thragtusk / angel of serenity / thrun, or what have you. in cube, though, everyone plays at least some dudes. so, what to do!
in an old cube article (for which i can't find the relevant image, which is broken in the original article) andy cooperfauss decried the huge amount of sweepers in the modo cube, and i strongly agree with his criticism. that cube design is hugely biased towards control already -- isn't it embarrassing enough that LSV is second-picking beacon of destruction in the world championships?
'slobad, i choose YOU!'
merely criticizing the modo cube isn't enough -- it's the easiest target since mark sanford -- so then we have to figure out how many sweepers we want in our own cubes, and also what they should do. i'll post my own configuration with some brief comments, then get out of the way. (for reference: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/114)
white
day of judgment, hallowed burial
the queen color of sweepers. 'destroy all creatures' and 'destroy all creatures -- with a twist' are the effects you'll most often see. owing to their high power curve and functional similarities, i only like a couple of these in cube at once. personally i like to rotate in and out sweepers. here are some other possibilities:
winds of rath, austere command, planar cleansing, martial coup
some cards i don't like: planar collapse, wrath of god (give regeneration a chance!)
blue
bounce. since blue is intrinsically a powerful color with a million other control elements, you don't need more than one of these.
like: cyclonic rift, evacuation
dislike: upheaval (jesus, upheaval)
black
conditional wraths and one wrath itself!
like: damnation, black sun's zenith, infest
dislike: massacre wurm, gloomdrifter
red
damage-based ground-pounders.
like: earthquake, mizzium mortars
dislike: rolling earthquake, volcanic fallout, slagstorm, bonfire of the damned, jokulhaups (you win if you have a walker, cool)
?: pyroclasm
green
nah.
multicolor
anything you want...
like: jund charm, pernicious deed, firespout
dislike: supreme verdict, merciless eviction
colorless
indiscriminate and slow and conditional.
like: nevinyrral's disk, engineered explosives
dislike: all is dust
conclusion: i have a 405 and roughly 10 sweepers. for concentration, somewhere in the 2%-3% range is probably right. for functionality, i like to have a range of different effects at different CMCs, similar to how black will have a 'removal curve' (conditional at 1, doom blade at 2, doom blade plus at 3, 2-for-1's at 4, etc.)
swingy effects can be fun, but use them sparingly. otherwise we end up with old-school control or (even worse) EDH! and that kind of interaction is no interaction at all.
post your favorite sweepers and the reasons i'm wrong about them here!
'no.'
this was neither fun nor all that profitable, so then they printed the creature. i guess its genesis could be traced back to onslaught block, and the creature's power peaked at alara block. along the way you got stuff that hybridized old archetypes with creatures, like the combo deck elves and the control deck faeries.
'quite the spec pick.'
in constructed control is in a bad place. in standard, esper and bant have been marginalized as players realize that their late-game plan is totally outclassed by, of all things, green-based value reanimator. in modern, the fair blue decks are trash -- and, as one combo gets banned every three months, that's one less reason to play them. in legacy, miracles is disappearing, and stoneblade has turned into esper stoneblade and then deathblade, as force of will decks with clocks like RUG and merfolk assume the 'combo-basher' role in the metagame...
'end of the line, hari seldon.'
There is ONE place where control is still king, though. vintage? well, maybe two. but i'm talking about CUBE.
Why is control so good in cube?
-people fuck up with their design and don't include enough fixing or make that fixing control-oriented (signets, bouncelands, mana rocks). the mana in cube is intrinsically hugely biased towards control.
-deeper card pool than aggro -- there are a zillion 4-mana draw spells with a decent VORP (even vs. JTMS!), but there's only one goblin guide
-highlander format: control runs naturally off a bunch of one-ofs. this is yet another reason i imagine jason has broken singleton.
-yet another design fuckup: people make their curves too damn high.
-raw power: nobody's gonna argue savannah lions is as good of a card as JTMS.
(and finally, we come to the topic for this post...)
-TOO MANY GODDAMN SWEEPERS
'the curve is too DAMN HIGH.'
sweepers are of course very powerful effects, but their power in constructed is tempered by their being 'dead' in control mirrors, or not great against a resolved thragtusk / angel of serenity / thrun, or what have you. in cube, though, everyone plays at least some dudes. so, what to do!
in an old cube article (for which i can't find the relevant image, which is broken in the original article) andy cooperfauss decried the huge amount of sweepers in the modo cube, and i strongly agree with his criticism. that cube design is hugely biased towards control already -- isn't it embarrassing enough that LSV is second-picking beacon of destruction in the world championships?
'slobad, i choose YOU!'
merely criticizing the modo cube isn't enough -- it's the easiest target since mark sanford -- so then we have to figure out how many sweepers we want in our own cubes, and also what they should do. i'll post my own configuration with some brief comments, then get out of the way. (for reference: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/114)
white
day of judgment, hallowed burial
the queen color of sweepers. 'destroy all creatures' and 'destroy all creatures -- with a twist' are the effects you'll most often see. owing to their high power curve and functional similarities, i only like a couple of these in cube at once. personally i like to rotate in and out sweepers. here are some other possibilities:
winds of rath, austere command, planar cleansing, martial coup
some cards i don't like: planar collapse, wrath of god (give regeneration a chance!)
blue
bounce. since blue is intrinsically a powerful color with a million other control elements, you don't need more than one of these.
like: cyclonic rift, evacuation
dislike: upheaval (jesus, upheaval)
black
conditional wraths and one wrath itself!
like: damnation, black sun's zenith, infest
dislike: massacre wurm, gloomdrifter
red
damage-based ground-pounders.
like: earthquake, mizzium mortars
dislike: rolling earthquake, volcanic fallout, slagstorm, bonfire of the damned, jokulhaups (you win if you have a walker, cool)
?: pyroclasm
green
nah.
multicolor
anything you want...
like: jund charm, pernicious deed, firespout
dislike: supreme verdict, merciless eviction
colorless
indiscriminate and slow and conditional.
like: nevinyrral's disk, engineered explosives
dislike: all is dust
conclusion: i have a 405 and roughly 10 sweepers. for concentration, somewhere in the 2%-3% range is probably right. for functionality, i like to have a range of different effects at different CMCs, similar to how black will have a 'removal curve' (conditional at 1, doom blade at 2, doom blade plus at 3, 2-for-1's at 4, etc.)
swingy effects can be fun, but use them sparingly. otherwise we end up with old-school control or (even worse) EDH! and that kind of interaction is no interaction at all.
post your favorite sweepers and the reasons i'm wrong about them here!
