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Thoughts about the current HL-Situation

Started by LasH, 06-01-2013, 11:51:52 AM

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LasH

I wanted to share some of my thoughts about the current meta.

Mulligan:


I think the spoil-mulligan needs a review. The majority liked the introduction back in the year 2006/2007 (myself included). We had several issues in the past (for example: color-screw, not enough 1/2 to drops to have early interaction) that made this special rule pretty good for the format. I think things changed alot in magic in the last years.

So what crucial changed:

1) 10 fetchlands up from 5
2) much more 1/2 drops (for aggro (Many new 1 drop creatures for aggro/color fixing/ramp, and control got new tools(path, forked bolt, ponder-preordrain, probe etc)

Why i dont like the mulligan anymore:

We had a discussion about banning the fetchlands. I think changing the spoil mulligan back to the roots would solve this issue. Lets be honest. Actually you can build a 4c deck (with a good manacurve on spells) and only run 30 lands. 10 fetchlands with the spoil mulligan generate this advantage. You could never run such a small manabase without the spoil mulligan. The spoil mulligan generates nearly a constant 1 drop mana elf nowadays because so many of them got printed.

Not having the perfect manabase or drops is part of magic. Mana-screw and taking a mulligan to 6 is part of magic. Having a 5cc spell on your starthand is part of magic if you choose to play these cards. Miracle cards got printed and get absurdly strong with spoil-mulligan (even if only 4 r playble). A special mulligan rule only for this format is strange. No other format is changing the basic concept of the game (mulligan and life (lets ignore EDH :P).

To many cards got printed to help avoiding those situations. It should be about deck building to prevent you from colorscrew and high cc spells not about abusing the spoil mulligan.

So i think it would be time to check if the spoil mulligan is really necessary nowdays.

Combo decks in general:


I wanna talk about the 2 playable combo decks right now: Cephalid combo and storm.

In general: Combo decks cant get the hate they get in each other format because of no sidebord. You cannot run to much graveyard removal maindeck because its pretty bad in other matchups. Thats the reason control deck's cant handle combo decks in highlander like they do in other formats.

Cephalid combo

It is okay to have a 2 card combo deck that straight ends the game by activation. I absoluty don't like a _1_ card combo in this format (playing hermit druid-activate-end the game). I vote for a ban of hermit druid. This format should only allow to run 2 card combos. It feels wrong to force decks to have extremly fast creature-removal on each hand to handle the druid. By banning the druid the combo does still work by cephalid+x and mesmeric orb - basalth monolith, but there would not be a 2 drop creature in the format that wins the game by itself. Futhermore decks can handle the combo by creature removal, grave removal or artifact removal and simply have more time to get those (1 turn is crucial here).


Storm Combo


Tps dominated the format back in 2004 according to this forum. Thats why the council banned cards like yawgmoth's will, LED. I dont know why the council decided to bring this deck back to the format. First of all, the deck is very fast, in some situations hard to play, but - very constant and fast (turn 3/4 kills possible). On the other hand its very slow (time based) and only 1 player is playing once he started the combo (it can take up to 10-15min until he finally kills you, while you watch him playing). Only experienced players can pilot this deck to a top 8. But they will do, because its so hard to interrupt this deck (discard/counter is a must have, grave removal helps alot but both of them don't prevent the tps deck to start the combo the turn after). I vote for a ban of yawgmoth's will or past in flames. These cards give the deck the boost (and reduce the effect of counter/discard) and 2 of this kind make it so much more constant. Both dont get played in any other list.

I can see these deck still exisiting but they need to get slower and easier to disrupt.

About the ban-list:

For april i vote to ban:

-Past in flames or Y-Will
-Hermit druid
-Stoneforge mystic
-natural order
-mana drain

Reasons for the other 3 cards got discussed enough. All of these cards are ridiculous in their effect. Pls stop thinking the banned list needs to be as short as possible. SFM is banned in each other format for a reason. The right cards need to get banned and they are not.

Discuss  :)

ChristophO


Both Cephalid and TPS have serious trouble with the all out aggro decks in the format. Cephalid because their kill condition is killed over and over again. TPS simply has trouble goldfishing against the clock of say mono red burn.

I strongly agree on the spoils mulligan though. The spoils mulligan is warping the deck building process. Mana bases and spell selections are built with the spoils mulligan in mind. Almost every single HL Deck plays way to few lands compared with other formats. People do not use the spoil mulligan to fix their terrible draws, they take the mulligan into account and abuse the system. Staxx is one of the biggest offenders in that regard agressively mulling lots of card routinely in almost every game to get the necessary amount of ramp spells (Signets). The midrange decks use the spoils mulligan to improve their curving out which really hurts the aggro decks in the format.

If we want a rule to prevent losses from bad luck a free normal mulligan once per game or match like in Two headed giant sealed etc. might be more than enough.

card banning Cephalid:
The biggest offender in the Cephalid deck is Dread return, because it enables the kill after self milling without needing mana. I really dont like Cephalid because it feels like the Belcher deck of the format but I believe this is my personal opinion. The deck has trouble with both grave hate and creature removal in addition to counterspells and discard and the 4c mana base, so I believe all decks can interact if they want.

card banning TPS:
As long as balance stays banned this deck is fine. Goldfishing aggro is extemely tough and winning without the graveyard is tough, too, especially without the grave yard. Christoph Alsheimer is on of the very best legacy Doomsday players we have in Germany, a deck which is ridiculously hard to play. Also TPS never ever dominated in 2004. A couple of people in high places could not win against it with their pet decks and so some cards in it were banned according to a friend who Top 8ed one GP with TPS a couple of years ago. The ban which hurt the deck most back then was acutally the banning of Balance because it was such an unfair aggro stopper. We have seen a single player win the GP with a "new" deck. Why are we already talking about bannings? Let's see if that result can be duplicated by a different player after searching for weak spots in the new TPS list.

unfair card banning:
Na, those cards are mostly fine. They are very powerful but imo not banworthy.   



Maqi

#2
Hey LasH,

some food for thought:

Quote from: LasH on 06-01-2013, 11:51:52 AM
Not having the perfect manabase or drops is part of magic. Mana-screw and taking a mulligan to 6 is part of magic.
True, but one could argue that this is an actual flaw in Magic's game design. Coming from a "fun vs. unfun"-point of view, screw or flood scenarios should be avoided if possible. Compare this to other TCG's that allow you to play your cards as a ressource or as a spell.

In this regard, isn't the spoils mulligan an improvement to the initial game design?


[...] A special mulligan rule only for this format is strange. No other format is changing the basic concept of the game (mulligan and life (lets ignore EDH :P).

Why ignore EDH? Why is it strange? Gaming should be fun, right? EDH, as a casual game, is especially catered towards a non-competitive audience. One could say it is therefore optimized in regards to the fun-aspect. EDH has a spoils mulligan because games become more fun when you can actually cast spells. Our HL-format is quite comparable to EDH rules-wise. So why then shoudn't HL have a spoils mulligan and be more fun also?

To many cards got printed to help avoiding those situations. It should be about deck building to prevent you from colorscrew and high cc spells not about abusing the spoil mulligan.

Building a Magic deck is a lot about calculating probabilities. The spoils mulligan allows for less lands because the probability of having enough/the right lands in your starting hand increases. Agreed. Why is this a bad thing? It's just different.


I get your points and I think they are mostly valid. However, I do not draw the same conclusions. I actually like HL better with a spoils mulligan than without one - just for the very reasons that you criticize. ;)

Madsam

My two cents about your post:

Mulligan
I really don't think the spoils mulligan is a problem in this format.
Your example (Staxx) is really not viable, cause if this deck would be so strong, why don't we see any top x lists? Of course they want to fix their mana with the mulligan, but that's what other decks do as well.
Midrange wants to curve out, that is true, but each red or black containing deck kills the 1 mana dork instantly. Also there is always the possibility of Mental Misstep for control or other midrange decks to handle it. If the midrange deck relies on that llanowar elf (or whatever), there is a high possibility that you can screw him by removing it.

Combo Decks:
The amount of combo decks is really increasing since the last few months, and I really don't like it either. The only thing that disturbs me is, that we don't see that many combo decks in the top spots of tournaments (if you compare it to midrange or aggro decks) Also you also mention only two kinds of combo decks, but there are so many other combos, that could be/are viable if more players would pilot them. One of my friends is playing a quite interesting hermit druid variant which is really hard to defeat but also really hard to be piloted. Since he didn't show up at the HL Grand Prix (and no other tournaments as well) it is really hard to determine the power of the deck.
The one thing that enables those combo decks is the amount of tutors which are allowed to be played in this format.

Ban list options:
The cards you mentioned are quite powerful, I agree. Mana Drain is really not banworthy, because we are able to play only one copy of it and so there is no way to ensure a proper use of the mana you are gaining from it. Of course there is always the possibility to get enough mana to play something unfair like Primeval Titan or a strong planeswalker quite early in the game, but you shouldnt always play your 3 or 4 drop when there are two untapped islands on the other side of the board...
Hermit Druid on the other hand is really good enabler for combos and is really easy to find. Most combo decks have so many tutors for it, that it's most definately on the board round 3 or 4 (round 2 if you have worldly). You can really argue about the banworthyness of the card, because if it is getting banned, so many combo decks would fall out of the format.
Natural Order and Stoneforge Mythic should be banned imho, cause those cards are really in every midrange deck and always hit hard if they resolve (and stay in case of SFM)
Y-Will and Past in Flames shouldn't be banned, because the amount of storm combo decks is not that high and also are really hard to play.
What I really like to see banned is Oath of Druids. At the Hl GP there are 3 decks that use it in the top 10 (The winners list, 5th place and 10th place, while 5th and 10th place are even the exact same decks) and it is like Hermit Druid really easy to find, but since it is an enchantment, it is not as easy to handle as Hermit Druid.

On what I agree with you is that the ban list shouldnt be as short as it is now. There is always a possibility to ban more cards to change the metagame drastically. But I fear, if all those cards mentioned above are banned, aggro decks would become even more dominant as they are now. Mono white and mono red have incredible curve and stability and we hardly see any top x list without one of those decks.

So, wrote enough, hope I could make it understandable what I mean :p
Greetings,
Madsam

ChristophO

@Mudsam
Mulligan:
I think you misunderstood me. I am convinced aggro loses the most if all decks in the format have acess to the spoiler mulligan because their curve fixing is impacted the least (aggro has the both the lowest curve AND the smallest amount of reactionary cards). I do not like this impact of the mulligan on the game. Staxx also is an extremely expensive deck keeping numbers low (I played without workshop for example).

Staxx example:
This is how I played to 5-2 finish with my staxx deck (containing 32 lands and ~15 mana artifacts) at the end of the year tournament:
Game 1:
draw 7:
If there is a artifact piece with cmc = 2 + enough lands + bomb spell (jace, humility etc.) -> pick one bomb spell to keep, mull the rest (maybe one in 3 games this happens),
Else keep 1 or 2 lands, mull the rest.
Games where I know deck of my opponent:
draw 7:
If there is a artifact piece with cmc = 2 -> pick one bomb spell to keep, mull the rest (maybe one in 3 games this happens),
Else keep 1 or 2 lands, mull the rest or keep bomb for matchup, too.

This way I can fix my ramp deck to actually draw ramp at the beginning of the game (starting hand) and unfair bomb spells later. I did not use the spoiler mulligan at all to prevent bad hands but simply abused it. I finished 5-2 losing against Angry Hermit (which is a bad MU if he fast enough) and against 4c blood aggro because I did not find a Wrath both games (playing 5 or so and seeing a LOT of cards due to Brainstorm + Ponder + shuffle effects in between). You simply can not do this with Mono Red deck wins. There you will ship the one excess land or the second two drop, or the 4cmc bomb because you have a land light hand and that's it, while playing a couple lands fewer than you should without the spoiler mulligan rule. The spoiler mulligan makes the format a lot faster and gives incentitives to build terrible mana bases which can only be negated by the spoils mulligan and leads the whole situation into absurditiy, because many spoil mulligans would not even have to be taken if people were registering the proper amount of mana sources in the first place.  

combo decks:
The tutors make combo decks more consistent. Of course consistency is also an important power metric. But the most powerful plays acutally happen without tutoring. I much rather play against consistent decks with a little lower power (e.g. Angry hermit without Dread return but all current tutors plus unburial rites) rather then Current Hermit build without 4 of the ~10 played tutors right now even though the first deck would probably still be the tougher opponent. This also why I really hate Workshop + Trinisphere unbanned at the same time.


@Maqi:
You are arguing for the spoils mulligan because it leads to games that make more fun (on which I do not even agree). You do realize that we are playing a format where all the old school griefer cards are allowed right? Try playing Winter Orb at the kitchen table. A lot of people will get really mad at you. The council ist not arguing consistently (what do you really want?). I you want more "fun" than that is okay, get rid of the unfun stuff. If you want a competitive format get rid of the uneeded Spoiler rule and fix the ban list. I do not see huge glaring offenders there, some cards are obviously stronger than others, but this is okay in my eyes. What I really dislike is the inconsistency (Natural Order ub, Tinker b; Wordly tutor ub, Mystical Tutor b; etc.). The unbannings of the last couple seasons have really pushed the power level of the format upwards, and I do not believe this has been to the improvement of "fun" in games. What is "fun" about Workshop + Trinisphere or dieing T3 against hermit druid + FoW back up. What has ever been fun about Winter Orb, Back to Basics (or Stasis a card that is luckily not playable in Highlander)?

Maqi

#5
@ChristophO

You wrote:

Quote
...because many spoil mulligans would not even have to be taken if people were registering the proper amount of mana sources in the first place.  
In my opinion, this is a misconception that many opponents of the spoils mulligan use. In a world with a spoils mulligan, 32 lands in a Staxx deck might just be the proper amount of lands. People seem to cling to some form of common traditional magic wisdom (e. g. your deck needs to have approximately 40% lands to be built correctly. HL players do not need that much lands. Is this right or wrong? Again, it's just different.

QuoteThis way I can fix my ramp deck to actually draw ramp at the beginning of the game (starting hand) and unfair bomb spells later.
Is it bad that ramp as an archetype is more viable in HL than in other formats? I personally like it.

Quote
The council ist not arguing consistently (what do you really want?). I you want more "fun" than that is okay, get rid of the unfun stuff. If you want a competitive format get rid of the uneeded Spoiler rule and fix the ban list.
I think we need to separate two things from each other which always appear together and intermixed in these discussions: On the one hand, there's the spoils mulligan. On the other, there's the banned list.

Both have relatively little to do with each other (except in the case of spoiling for specific cards).

Mulligan: I already stated my opinion on the spoils mulligan. I feel that it is more fun with than without it (screw/flood scenarios). Additionally, I fear that decks might get less diverse, should we get rid of the spoils mulligan since you have to play more lands and less spells. Therefore spell selection gets more strict.

Banned list: I once was a proponent of the following credo: If the format is healthy (read: diverse), cut the banned list as much as you can. Continue cutting as long as the format stays diverse (read: You can play whatever you want and be succesful).
I since deviated from that point of view. Now I think that banning unfun/unfair cards is correct - even if the format is healthy.

At the moment we have this very situation. The results of the last big tournament in Hanau suggest a very healthy metagame. Nevertheless there are some overpowered and/or unfun cards which are not banned. They probably should be banned because they have the potential of just winning a game at random, of dominating games in a specific way (unique to each card) and generally lead to non-interactive and unfun game states. This list includes cards such as

(1st Rank)
Natural Order
Oath of Druids
Mishra's Workshop
Mana Drain
Hermit Druid
The Tabernacle at the Pendrell Vale


(2nd Rank)
Stoneforge Mystic
Yawgmoth's Will


But also cards such as

Shahrazad
Black Vise
Blood Moon
Back to Basics
Price of Progress


Should we ban those cards? Maybe. I can only speak for myself though and since the HL-council is democratic in nature there might never be a situation where all of us are of uniform opinion.



Madsam

ChristophO
Aggro decks don't need spoiler mulligan, because they are consistent. Midrange, Combo and Control Decks need the spoiler mulligan because they are less consistent/inconsisten (Depending on the deck itself). If the spoiler mulligan is removed, only aggro improves, so ask yourself: Does aggro really need improvement? The whole metagame is flooded with it aggrodecks or very agressive midrange decks like Naya, I really don't want to see a meta in which aggro is even more favored than now.
I think the spoiler mulligan enables a more diverse meta, because the consitency of many decks is increased, which would otherwise less or not be viable in this format.

LasH

Quote from: ChristophO on 06-01-2013, 12:36:54 PM
Both Cephalid and TPS have serious trouble with the all out aggro decks in the format. Cephalid because their kill condition is killed over and over again. TPS simply has trouble goldfishing against the clock of say mono red burn.

But i was talking about the control decks in the first place. I know that RDW has a proper mu vs the hermit combo. I know control its alrdy a rare archetype, but it still exists.
For now control decks got such nice prints to get back to the road (supreme verdict, terminus, entreat, consecrated sphinx etc). Not that it is still hard to beat aggro, now you need additional slots vs storm/combo. Aggro decks are not that much troubled by the current unbannings. They play the same strategy and have a clock. This in mind, does it mean if i wanna successfully play a tournament i have to choose aggro because these decks dont lose to combo as much? Classic UW has 3 early answers (if no early counter) to a 2 turn hermit, while rdw has about 15?

Quote from: Maqi on 06-01-2013, 01:26:48 PM
Why ignore EDH?

Because our format is supposed to be more competive? If u wanna play 12cc spells each game edh is your choice.

Quote from: Madsam on 06-01-2013, 04:29:39 PM
Y-Will and Past in Flames shouldn't be banned, because the amount of storm combo decks is not that high and also are really hard to play.

One of them should be banned. Not both. The amount of the combo decks is not an indicator for an overpowered archetype. Exspecially since the majority of the community doesn't like combo decks. (Neither do they like counterdecks).

Quote from: ChristophO on 06-01-2013, 05:48:29 PM
What I really dislike is the inconsistency (Natural Order ub, Tinker b; Wordly tutor ub, Mystical Tutor b; etc.).

I agree.

1) I really would like to know why the hermit combo is ok but the slower combo painter servant + grindstone isn't.

2) Same for Natural order and Tinker

3) The 1 mana tutors from mirage are all imbalanced. They don't belong in a healthy environment. Either unban all (which i heavy dislike, or ban all).

For each unban currently, the powerlvl is increasing ALOT. I dont see any healthy changes due to the new unbannings. Games are just more unfun. (playing vs combo IS unfun at least for me.) Playing vs t1 trinisphere IS unfun.

Quote from: Maqi on 06-01-2013, 06:53:52 PM
Should we ban those cards? Maybe. I can only speak for myself though and since the HL-council is democratic in nature there might never be a situation where all of us are of uniform opinion.

I would seperate them into these categories:

Hard win:

NO, Hermit druid, Stoneforge, Y-will

NO is an autopilot (such as tinker). Have the removal or die. Even if you have the removal you alrdy have ressource disadvantage. Same goes for hermit - kill or die.

Hard counter:
Oath, tabernacle, black vise, b2b, blood moon, pop.

They strongly punish different archetypes. These cards are essential to keep the balance. All of these cards have hard disadvantages (because you need to build around them).
And btw black vise is pretty often a dead card (--> situational)

Ramp: Workshop, Drain

I dont see the imbalance in workshop. In my opinion there is only a single artifact out there which is so undercosted to make the shop broken and thats trinisphere. All other artifacts are still fair compared to the undercoast creatures nowdays. Even if u pull out an early wurmcoil decks can handle it. Futhermore you have to build around it so much. Ive seen list running 15 artifacts playing workshop. You will have a dead land drop to often.

Drain on the other hand is again an autoinclude. No need to build around and thats a huge difference for me. What did tabris say in his last video? (something like: playing doran and manadrain in one deck-...) Think about it.

Quote from: Madsam on 06-01-2013, 09:04:10 PM
ChristophO
Aggro decks don't need spoiler mulligan, because they are consistent. Midrange, Combo and Control Decks need the spoiler mulligan because they are less consistent/inconsisten (Depending on the deck itself). If the spoiler mulligan is removed, only aggro improves, so ask yourself: Does aggro really need improvement? The whole metagame is flooded with it aggrodecks or very agressive midrange decks like Naya, I really don't want to see a meta in which aggro is even more favored than now.
I think the spoiler mulligan enables a more diverse meta, because the consitency of many decks is increased, which would otherwise less or not be viable in this format.

I loled. I started the whole discussion about the mulligan because the aggro decks abuse it at most. Able to run 25-30 lands in 3-4c, something a control deck cannot.

Madsam

#8
Quote from: LasH on 06-01-2013, 09:22:30 PM
Hard counter:
Oath, tabernacle, black vise, b2b, blood moon, pop.

They strongly punish different archetypes. These cards are essential to keep the balance. All of these cards have hard disadvantages (because you need to build around them).

Oath is unlike Tabernacle no answer, but an enabler, which is much worse. It enables you either to have a giant monster with tentacles on your side of the board or your whole deck is in the gy, which is used like Druid as a combo enabler. It is just a control deck with 4 creatures and tons of tutors and disruption. The power of a turn 2 Oath cannot be denied. Else you could argue that NO does the same but worse because of 4 mana, you have to sac a creature which also has to be green and you are restricted to find green creatures. I think these conditions are much worse than just: The opponent has to have one creature on the board. If they dont have any creatures on the board, why should the oath player care? No pressure is always good. The only decks that don't have creatures is PW Staxx, Storm Combo and Oath itself (maybe I forgot one, but don't remember any else). Even "normal" control decks have some creatures that want to be on the board early.


Quote from: LasH on 06-01-2013, 09:22:30 PM
Quote from: Madsam on 06-01-2013, 09:04:10 PM
ChristophO
Aggro decks don't need spoiler mulligan, because they are consistent. Midrange, Combo and Control Decks need the spoiler mulligan because they are less consistent/inconsisten (Depending on the deck itself). If the spoiler mulligan is removed, only aggro improves, so ask yourself: Does aggro really need improvement? The whole metagame is flooded with it aggrodecks or very agressive midrange decks like Naya, I really don't want to see a meta in which aggro is even more favored than now.
I think the spoiler mulligan enables a more diverse meta, because the consitency of many decks is increased, which would otherwise less or not be viable in this format.

I loled. I started the whole discussion about the mulligan because the aggro decks abuse it at most. Able to run 25-30 lands in 3-4c, something a control deck cannot.


yeah, they abuse it the most, but need it the least, read again, nothing else stated.

ChristophO

@Musdam
The petential consistency gains are sacrificed for additional spell slots, though. To achieve consistency it would be better to just use a free normal mulligan once per match like 2 headed giant has it. This would have no influence on deckbuilding. During the GP I played against 0 aggro decks (RDW; Boros; Mono White) but against a ton of aggro control decks (some obv. less controling than others), 1 combo deck (angry hermit) and two control decks (1 UBG Oath, 1 Staxx). The Top 8 seems to reflect this. I also dislike playing RDW myself, but those decks really can be hated easisly with additional life gain cards, and I actually made some Deck building card choices to reflect that as many other players do to. The trick will always be to have good match up against many different decks of course which is a lot tougher.

@Maqi
Obv. playing less lands is correct with the spoils mulligan in place because it leads to more powerful starting hands and more powerful topdecks (less lands drawn). But building the deck in this way defeats why the spoils mulligan was introduced in the first place: to prevent bad starting hands where you flood out! Instead people abuse the spoils mulligan like I described how I did it. And then you do not have a system in place where starting hands are less likely to result in shit but rather just have more powerful hands where things still can go wrong. Even worse, you will have to mulligan sometimes even after spoiling further wideneing the gap between a spoiled 7 keep and a mull to 6 without spoiling. And this can always happen. Imagine spoiling two cards and keeping 2 lands a 4 drop and a two drop and drawing three more lands. You will already have to mull that with most decks.

Regarding your list:
I can understand why those cards are listed there, but we should really move away from "card abc is overpowered! ban it" and talk more about the underlying reason. This is pretty easy for most cards, for example not being able to untap your lands/only one land is a really bad feeling game play situation that many people do not like to be in. You also have to suffer through a long game till you are finally allowed to die etc. . Once you collect those reasons you can actually group cards and decide wether to axe them to create some form of consistency. I did some bigger write-up regarding consistency about tutors already in this topic: http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=850.0

@Lash:
Oh come on. You are playing staxx at least 3 out of 4 times online. You plan to go over the top against 4c midrange decks. Of course you have trouble against RDW and fast combo. This is a result of your deck choice. This also shows in your discussion about Drain. Drain is not that awesome in Patrick's 2nd place 4 color deck when compared to staxx where it will really ramp you. You also do not have to play big spells into UU of your opponent every chance you get. But yeah, Drain is still powerful of course. But it loses a lot of power if you do not play Wurmcoil, Gilded Lotus etc. together with it but Doran ;-). Then you can play Jace on T3 instead of T4. Not necessarily too powerful I think.


@what else needs to be done:
The Forum also still needs to be severly unclutterd (less sub forums). I have asked for that in some sub forum but can actually not refind my post. The "request a sub forum" subforum acutally has 4 posts in 6 years or so.  

   


LasH

#10
Quote from: ChristophO on 06-01-2013, 09:53:28 PM
@Lash:
Oh come on. You are playing staxx at least 3 out of 4 times online. You plan to go over the top against 4c midrange decks. Of course you have trouble against RDW and fast combo. This is a result of your deck choice. This also shows in your discussion about Drain. Drain is not that awesome in Patrick's 2nd place 4 color deck when compared to staxx where it will really ramp you. You also do not have to play big spells into UU of your opponent every chance you get. But yeah, Drain is still powerful of course. But it loses a lot of power if you do not play Wurmcoil, Gilded Lotus etc. together with it but Doran ;-). Then you can play Jace on T3 instead of T4. Not necessarily too powerful I think.
Thats not really true. My last stax list is from the hl online cup 2011. And i kinda think that stax is not a viable choice and never will be. Btw rdw is one of the best stax mu' dont know why u bring this up?(Crumbling is kinda autowin). So is any storm combo deck because u kinda have big threats with nethervoid/trinisphere and armageddons. And i want drain out of the enviroment and punish my favorite deck the most accoriding to you? Does that make any sense? And trinisphere? I want a healthy meta no matter what cards need to see the banhammer for that.

Madsam

#11
woops, was kinda late editing my last post :p

Quote from: ChristophO on 06-01-2013, 09:53:28 PM
@Musdam
thats not my name :p


I don't think rdw would need to replace spells. Maybe they have to lower the curve a bit, but if you compare it to 60 card formats, most aggro decks play less lands than control or midrange decks, which is only partiaclly true for HL. From 35 with maze to 33 is not that much difference in 100 cards, but from 24 to 21 or even less in 60 cards is quite a difference...

ChristophO

Lash:
I did not say those things. I played agianst you quite a few times on cockatrice 2012 with you still sporting Staxx many times. I think you might be biased regarding Drain judging its power because of the Staxx experience with the card and I disagree about the need to nerf combo so control is better, which I think is the cliff notes of your second post in this thread. I made fun about this because I feel Staxx is not control but rather ramp-combo Like Standard Valakut//P. Titan deck for example. And those kind of decks really have a softspot against blistering fast decks (via combo or burn etc.). Of course there are some tutor bullets in a Highlander deck like Crumbling Sanctuary - the card is awesome against RDW - if you can resolve it on time and if he does not have removal for it (which does not happen all to often admittedly but they do play both Pillage and Smash to Smithereens I believe). So this is why i made that "oh come on" comment. Control decks need to play a lot of cheap spot removal and need to have plan against planeswalkers and need answers for Graveyard/combo interactions to handel combo. That is the challenge of playing a truely controling deck. This can be done and has been done at the End of the year tournament: UR Control in top 8 as well as UBG Oath.

 

LasH

#13
Quote from: ChristophO on 06-01-2013, 10:31:08 PM
Lash:
I did not say those things. I played agianst you quite a few times on cockatrice 2012 with you still sporting Staxx many times. I think you might be biased regarding Drain judging its power because of the Staxx experience with the card and I disagree about the need to nerf combo so control is better, which I think is the cliff notes of your second post in this thread.

Dunno what you trying to imply here but its simply not true. I might have played coldcrows trading post list a few times but thats it. You could call that a semi"stax" list.

For me it doesnt matter if you hit mana drain for 2 or for 5 mana. To be really honest, mana drain was the LAST concern as i played stax. You get troubled by spells on legs like qasali pridemage&co. What bigger spells does your opp run which you r afraid of as stax player? I dont know any, bc you have more and better high cc spells and even big creatures should not be any problem for stax. Just because i played stax in the past doesnt make me to a biased stax only player and i never mentioned the deck in this post and i dont see any connection between my post and me as "stax player". As alrdy said: According to you my propositions are bad for stax (mulligan, drain) so stop insulting me with such a bs.

Quote from: ChristophO on 06-01-2013, 10:31:08 PM
Lash:
Control decks need to play a lot of cheap spot removal and need to have plan against planeswalkers and need answers for Graveyard/combo interactions to handel combo. That is the challenge of playing a truely controling deck.


EXACTLY

Quote from: ChristophO on 06-01-2013, 10:31:08 PM
This can be done and has been done at the End of the year tournament: UR Control in top 8 as well as UBG Oath.
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Quote from: Vazdru on 29-12-2012, 11:55:21 AM

Storm won vs UR-Control 2:0

22 years old Christoph Alsheimer from Fürth won with a quite innovative TPS.dec in his first Highlander Cup (GP)
he was faster than aggro and control decks were prepared to deal with creatures - so they often had some dead cards while playing vs TPS


Do you see that you are saying the contrary to what happend?

And one last quote that might give you a hint:

Quote from: Sturmgott on 08-02-2011, 02:03:22 AM
Combo and Control can NOT coexist as tier 1 in HL!

The years and all experience have clearly shown that rock-paper-scissors a.k.a. control-combo-aggro does NOT work in HL - simply because there's a) no sideboard in HL, b) too many different combo approaches out there (Aluren, Dreamhalls, Hulk-Flash, Angry Ghoul, Dragonstorm/TPS, Painter/Servant, Heartbeat, etc...). If all these were tier 1, or even close to tier 1, control decks CANNOT cover them all. How many cards do you want to play to battle all these approaches? And if you do, either your control matchup will be horrible or you'll simply lose against any aggressive deck. This is easy to understand!


Maqi

There's one thing that i really like to state here.

Tinker is much more broken than Natural Order. I don't know how one could think otherwise.

Turn 1: Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors, Mox Diamond, Tinker => Blightsteel Colossus
Turn 1: Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors, Signet; Turn 2: Tinker => Sundering Titan (killing their land), 2nd land drop

In the early game vs. Mono Red tinker for Crumbling Sanctuary
In the early game vs. any deck getting Staff of Nin
In combo decks getting Memory Jar for 3 mana...

Getting any kind of Equipment
Getting Winter Orb
Getting Phyrexian Metamoprh
Getting Mindslaver
...

Tinker is much faster and more flexible than Natural Order.

The only thing that goes against it is that it's not as easily supported in the various types of 3-4 color green decks. And even there adjustments could be made => Plax Trinket Mage + Artifact Lands, run Aether Vial, run Mox Diamond, Baleful Strix, Shardless Agent etc.