Is a "late game" deck viable in modern?
Deck Help forum
Posted on June 26, 2017, 6:59 p.m. by Moremanaplz
So I am a relatively new player, having been brought to mtg by two of my friends. We've been building decks for kitchen-table play, and they strongly believe that the only viable way to build a deck is a deck with very close to 60 cards, and that comes out fast. Almost Every game they play against each other is over by turn 6 or so. Personally, I find higher cost decks including cards like dragons and eldrazi to be more fun. Am I wrong to build slower decks? Or is it just a difference in play-styles?
Edit: I've done some more research, and it seems both of them build aggro decks, and I'm aiming for control.
Control decks are definitely possible, but the big mana spells are often pretty bad. You need efficiently costed removal like Path to Exile, Fatal Push, or Lightning Bolt to clear away their threats. Sweepers like Wrath of God, Supreme Verdict, or Anger of the Gods also help at keeping the creatures clear. General value control decks often look something like these: Jeskai Control, by Ryoichi Tamada, Lightbringers, or Darkest Hours
Conversely, you can nullify their creatures in other ways like Ensnaring Bridge or Ghostly Prison. My personal favorite flavor of control is:
Lantern Control (Primer)
Modern
SCORE: 2 | 1 COMMENT | 246 VIEWS
June 26, 2017 8:09 p.m.
Control decks struggle in Modern and Legacy because of all the overpowered things other people are doing. That's what made the old Splinter Twin deck so strong. It was a counterspell deck that won instantly instead of slowly.
June 26, 2017 8:56 p.m.
You can also use a traditional Ninja Bear Delver deck if you want to win quickly
Heres my list:
18 Island
2 Mutavault
4 Cryptic Command
3 Vendilion Clique
4 Phantasmal Bear
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Delver of Secrets
1 Remand
3 Vapor Snag
4 Serum Visions
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Psionic Blast
2 Vedalken Shackles
June 26, 2017 9:25 p.m.
As some other people have pointed out, slow decks are generally at a disadvantage (I especially like MindAblaze's analogy).
The problem with the core of your dec kbeing big, expensive cards is that they very easily clog up your hand early game, and completely tapping out to play a big threat only to have your opponent pay 1 mana for a Path to Exile is a serious feels bad.
There are a few decks focused on getting down big creatures, but typically it's becuase they're either very focused on ramp, or are designed to cheat big creatures into play and the deck only runs 2-3 big creatures total.
June 27, 2017 1:05 a.m.
Well they are 100% right about 60 card decks.
Modern Ramp is lacking a lot of pieces and modern control has too few answers for the wide range of the format. Legacy might have more stuff you want such as Cloudpost
June 27, 2017 2:46 a.m.
it also depends on how you define a "control" deck. In Modern there's the Scapeshift deck, which usually wins on turn 7 or 8 by slamming a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and hitting them for 30 damage, but before that it's all counterspells and disruption.
June 27, 2017 10:19 a.m. Edited.
There's also the "Tron" deck (short for Voltron from the 80's cartoons because you have to assemble parts to make a big thing like the lion robots), it uses big mana to cast Karn Liberated and Wurmcoil Engine. That's called "tap out control".
It probably helps to focus less on the overall archetype and focus on cards and strategies that speak to you. You can add control elements to a midrange or aggro deck, like the version of Burn that uses Scrying Sheets for some late game card filtering. Storm decks often have Remand and a modicum of other counterspells to get them to turn 3 or 4 so they can combo off. There are Blue Black fairy decks out there, a sort of midrange control that uses cards like Bitterblossom, Vendilion Clique, and Spellstutter Sprite. That's probably the closest thing you'll find to a "big bad blue" deck in Modern, or "blue tron" which takes the Tron deck and adds blue for counterspells and Gifts Ungiven.
Certain archetypes can become unviable for long periods of time in Modern and Legacy. For awhile in Legacy, Blue-White turtle control was the best deck because of a unique confluence of powerful cards, specifically Sensei's Divining Top, Counterbalance, and Terminus. They had to ban Sensei's Divining Top because the deck was becoming too oppressive and stopping a number of other popular archetypes from being competitive. So now blue-white control is gone for awhile. But it will be back, as soon as something good enough to replace Sensei's Divining Top is printed or until people figure out how to make it work without the Top (believe me, they're already trying).
Think of it this way: Trying to force your own preferred archetype in a format where it's clearly not viable is like trying to swim against the current of the ocean. Better to "go with the flow" as it is. It's the same basic principle in Judo or Kung Fu. Don't fight against force, channel the force of your opponent, flow with it, and use it against them. That being said of course, if you think you have an idea that works, go for it. Somebody somewhere had to be the first guy to sleeve up Sensei's Divining Top and Counterbalance, and you never know unless you experiment and try. Better to experiment and fail than to have never tried at all.
June 27, 2017 10:38 a.m.
While I can't exactly vouch for how competitive it really is, a cool modern viable control deck that is well suited for newer players is Emeria Control. I'd highly recommend taking a look at the deck. There are many different takes on the deck, a lot of creative freedom, and you still get to play the awesome power that is Sun Titan, and it is affordable relative to other modern decks.
July 4, 2017 12:51 a.m.
Modern is designed to revolve around turn 4. Most of the aggro and combo decks flat-out win the game by then. However, if those decks haven't won by turn 4, it's usually because they ran out of resources. That's where slower control and midrange decks want to be. You don't have to win, you just have to not lose.
For example, Naya Burn relies on essentially winning with a starting hand of 2 lands and 5 burn spells. It then has to draw a 3rd. land and 2 other burn spells. If the Burn player draws too many lands and not the other burn spells, their opponent sits at 4 life and ends up winning. If they draw too many burn spells and not enough lands, they aren't fast enough as they only cast 1 spell a turn that deals 3 to 4 damage...meaning they won't win until turn 7 at the soonest.
So if you're the control player, you want to grind them out of cards until they're relying on drawing a win off the top of their deck. By killing their creatures, countering their burn cards, etc. they take longer to win, enough time for you to do something stupid, like playing Gideon Jura, Thundermaw Hellkite, or Tasigur, the Golden Fang. Maybe you just clock them a few times with a Faerie Conclave over 10 turns!
Furthermore, you have to understand how the aggro decks use their time. So in the case of the burn deck, the most damage a single spell of theirs can do is often Atarka's Command with Monastery Swiftspear. If you have a 4/4 to block the Monastery Swiftspear, you just need to stay above 3 life so you aren't damaged by Atarka's Command. Boros Charm does 4 damage, so being at 5 life puts you out of range.
A single lifegain card, like Timely Reinforcements, can end the game for the burn player once you have them playing off the top of their deck. If they could only get you to 5 life, and you go back up to 11, now they need to draw 3 Boros Charms off the top of their deck in order to win in the quickest way possible!
Slower decks are definitely viable in Modern. In fact, some of them are the top decks in the format. The key is to stabilize and get the situation under control so the faster decks are in a position where they have to have incredible draws or luck in order to win.
Here's a list of some of the slower decks in the format that regularly do well (some of which were mentioned by others above):
U/W Control
Mono-Blue Tron
Abzan Midrange
Lantern Control
Skred Red
RUG Scapeshift
R/G Ponza
B/G Tron
Patriot Gifts
Hopefully, this gives you some ideas on where to go.
What kind of decks specifically are your friends using? Affinity (artifact-based aggro)? Death's Shadow Zoo? Burn?
MindAblaze says... #2
The problem with control in modern is magic is kind of a Rock Paper Scissors game, and in Modern aggro is like...a boulder, and Control is one of those pairs of plastic Crayola scissors that barely cuts paper. Even the Paper decks are like, reinforced with boulders...
So if you're talking competitive modern, control is a different thing, one where 6 and 7 drops don't really exist. If you just want to play with friends at a more casual level, you'll have to communicate that to them.
June 26, 2017 7:56 p.m.