Why force cards into decks?

[Helle]

Goblin Guide helps a lot against control. Many aggro decks focus on fast beatdown and win before the more controlish decks can stabalize and turn the tables. If youre beginning with Goblin Guide, it can even happen that the control player has to discard the additional drawn land, because of not having a 1cc spell.

Even if your opponent is beginning, Goblin Guide can deal 6 damage before youre opponent is able to cast a Wrath. Thats quite impressive for a single card. If you got another creature and manage to slow your opponent with Wasteland you got good chances of winning the game.

Wizards is unfortunatly weakening control more and more. Even the above-mentioned Cryptic Command is even stronger, if youre playing some creatures (like faeries or merfolk).

[Mythrandir]

Yeap, agree 100% with you. the problem is creatures are becoming more and more efficient, as oppose to anti-creature or other good control stuff.

They could have easily made 2 of WWK cards into good control cards without breaking any format, IMO.

[GoblinPiledriver]

the problem is creatures are becoming more and more efficient, as oppose to anti-creature or other good control stuff.

Hmm..  interesting point,
yeah creature have become more efficient as they were before. But this is not a problem (matter) of aggro vs control. This is just that creatures are now bigger than before.
Dan aka Blasty said that in early times there were creatures like Gray Ogre and spells like Demonic Tutor, Mana Drain and Force of Will.
When WOTC prints now  better creatures they just try to balance it. Maybe it's not really good that this happens, but it's fact.
And when you take a look in the HLL or tournaments in Germany you will see that aggro is not dominating. There is a balance between aggro, midrange and control decks.
The only thing that changes is that control decks are now playing creatures, not like in the early days of magic.


One point had really taken a change, today WOTC thinks that a Counterspell should cost 3 and had to be called Cancel. Wizards had made a survey  and a leading article(on their website) to this issue.
For this topic Wizards had printed Cancel in following editions:Time Spiral, Tenth Edition, Shards of Alara, Magic 2010, Magic Player Rewards, Zendikar.
In every stand alone and core edition they printed it, and the best because Player loved Cancel they printed it textless for the MPR.
After they realized that Blue had become weaker they announced `good blue cards` in Worldwake.


Here are the good blue cards in WWK:(order by strenght)
Jace the Mind Scupltor, Creeping Tarpit, Celestial Colonade, Sejiri Merfolk, Dispel, Thada Adel Acquisitor, Wind Zendikon, Voyager Drake

Jace is the best blue planeswalker, and good enough to be compared to Garruk Wildspeaker and Elspeth 

The 2 blue Manlands are the best in there cycle.

Sejiri Merfolk is as strong as Knight of the Meadowgrain.

Dispel is a efficient counter.


I had made a tabel to show that in the last 10 editions there were cards for aggro and for control, to demonstrate my point mentioned above that WOTC had strenghted the creatures not aggro against controll.

                             AGGRO                           CONTROL

WWK                Loam Lion                            Dragonmaster Outcast

ZEN          Goblin Guide, Steppe Lynx        Day of Judgement, Grazing Gladehart       

M10              Elite Vanguard                         Baneslayer Angel, Harms Way

ARB             Bloodbraid Elf                          Knight of the Reliquary

CFX            Hellspark Elemental                  Path to Exile, Martial Cup

ALA          Wooly Thoctar , Blightning          Empyrial Archangel, Jund Charm

EVE           Figure of Destiny                         Glen Elendra Archmage

SHD             Inkfanthom Infiltrator                   Firespout

MTD         Mutavault , Bitterblossom            Vendillion Clique

LOR             Doran , t.S.T.                             Brion Stoutarm, Cryptic Command

[derStefan82]

Really good post Goblinpiledriver. In my mind this describes the actual gameplay best. The format is really balanced at the moment and you got
bombs on both sides. Even if the creatures get bigger and bigger for lower costs, there is still a way to handle it. The only matter
are the planeswalkers which are even better in creature decks cause of the creature-walls protecting them (if you left out stax).

[Sturmgott]

yeah creature have become more efficient as they were before. But this is not a problem (matter) of aggro vs control. This is just that creatures are now bigger than before.

No, it is not only a question of size vs. cost! The problem rather is that WotC prints cards nowadays like Qasali Pridemage, Ronom Unicorn, Kami of Ancient Law, Trygon Predator, Glen Elendra Archmage, Aven Mindcensor, Kitchen Finks, Noble Hierarch, Tin Street Hooligan PLUS cards like Tarmogoyf, Watchwolf, Wild Nacatl, Rip-Clan Thrasher, Wooly Thoctar, Doran, Boggart Ram Rang, Cerodon Yearling, Bloodbraid Elf, Scab-Clan Mauler, Bunring-Tree Shaman, Wild Mongrel, Goblin Guide, Tattermunge Maniac.

In former times as a player of creatures you had the choice between a creature either having useful abilities, OR a good P/T-cost-relation. Nowadays you simply get both. There is no necessity to put a Disenchant into your aggro deck since your powerful creatures can do this way better without slowing your hands when not needed.

Dan aka Blasty said that in early times there were creatures like Gray Ogre and spells like Demonic Tutor, Mana Drain and Force of Will.

Come on, this is just like saying "In former times there were control cards like Venarian Gold, Guardian Angel and creatures like Kird Ape, Savannah Lions and Serendib Efreet". The next problem is that WotC introduced new card types the past years, namely "Equipment" and "Planeswalker". Both are by concept and by nature best in heavily creature-based decks, I guess I don't need to explain why. The best Planeswalkers are not only still there, when Wrath of God clears the board. They have already increased their loyalty and either deliver constant refreshments like Elspeth, Garruk, or increased damage like Elspeth, Ajani Goldmane, Sarkhan Vol, or they keep the most important permanent tapped. And while getting closer to their mostly game-winning ultimate abilities (see, Sarkhan Vol, Garruk, Ajani Vengeant, Elspeth), they are also a card type permission-based control decks can not handle that easily because they normally can't attack the Planeswalkers. Equipments like SoFaI, Grafted Wargear, SoLaS, Bone Splitter make sure that even your mid- to lategame topdecked Llanowar Elf - which used to be a dead card in former times - is a threat to end the game in few turns.

The next problem is that the best countermagic these days also fits best in aggro-control decks that are able to put the control player under early pressure: Negate, Spell Pierce, Mana Tithe, Delay, Glen-Elendra, Venser. Formerly played counterspells like Dissipate, Hinder or even Dismiss are not playable any longer.

When WOTC prints now  better creatures they just try to balance it.

No, WotC forces control decks to be creature-based decks as well. This is why the best anti-aggro cards these days have a power and toughness (Magus of the Tabernacle, Wall of Reverence, Wall of Denial) or get Lifelink (Baneslayer Angel, ...).

[Mythrandir]

Nice post Goblinpiledriver, i agree with some of your points, but what i hate in WOTC is the pro-creature design they implemented, most of the power creep happens in creatures design.
Sturmgott sai it better:

In former times as a player of creatures you had the choice between a creature either having useful abilities, OR a good P/T-cost-relation. Nowadays you simply get both. There is no necessity to put a Disenchant into your aggro deck since your powerful creatures can do this way better without slowing your hands when not needed.

So, so true!
Now we have control decks that have loads of cheap creatures: they run goyf (ok, this one was a design mistake), they run doran, they run pridemages, they run aven mindcensor, etc, etc. I, as a control player sometimes kill my opponent very, very early on and this for me is a bit weird in terms of control deckbuilding/playing. Because without these early creatures they (control decks) have a lot more difficult in dealing with aggro/creature rushs. They gave us another wog (JoD) but they also gave us another/better aggro-creature (goblin guide)

And i agree. empyrial archangel is definitely a control card (how i'd love to be able to play with this one), brion is a control card, martial coup is a control card, but they are just too slow vs most aggro decks.

They upgraded creatures, we first started with jackap pup or savanah lions, now we have goblin guide and loam lion. we started with moat, wog, the abyss, tabernacle, we now have JoD, magus of the tabernacle.. See the pattern, better creatures, worse "anti-creature" spells.
The fact that WOTC thinks lightning bolt is perfectly reprintable, but not counterspell, also supports their fear of unleashing control decks. The last deck that consistently ran counterspells (and yes, i know control decks aren't just counterspells) was a deck full of creatures (faeries...) The WWK blue trap, permafrost, is yet another example of their fear of anti-creature startegies.
I'm not saying they should make hoser-creature every set,but c'mon.

It's not that the meta is unbalanced the only problem i see is every set we have powerful creatures and less anti-creature strategies

[Dreamer]

I don't mind there being control creatures at all, but the overt push so that practically every deck includes a lot of creatures is, in a way, annoying. As is Cancel. I so want to stop that card from seeing print.

[Mythrandir]

As is Cancel. I so want to stop that card from seeing print.

Lol, i think they believe if we see that card in every set we'll eventually play it, but oh, boy, are they so wrong. lol

Perhaps the Eldrazi will bring us some non-creature-control goodness. fingers crossed

[coldcrow]

Well said, Sturmgott.

I don't think our format is too balanced at the moment, which has nothing to do with the policies of the council, no, more with the aformentioned printings of powerful creatures.
In fact almost all decks I encountered lately are either pure aggro of different kinds (WR,GR,Zoo,BR,sligh) and survival-based aggro/control. I would really like to see a resurgence of (almost) creatureless Control or Combination decks, but I don't think that will happen.