Pattern Recognition #17 - ACC

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

16 February 2017

3977 views

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Pattern Recognition! I'm berryjon, your resident Old Fogey, Smart Ass and very experienced player. This series of articles is designed to educate, entertain and inform. Or at least waste five minutes of your time. Who knows?

Today's article comes from a request two weeks ago. Pheardemons said to me:

I also wanted to ask if you could possibly write an article on the difference in how decks can win between spells and creatures. I know that wizards will specifically push a certain archetype (control, aggro, ect) if they feel like it is underrepresented, also they will ban cards when one becomes overpowered. I've also heard rumors that wizards became somewhat upset with how modern was extremely low in creature decks that they made bannings in order to try and change that (there is some evidence in that with the new aggressive turn modern is in). However, different formats are definitely diverse in the fact of how they win. Legacy and Vintage are obviously extremely spell heavy as that was back when those spells weren't too overpowered, modern has become creature heavy but before the banning of splinter twin it was somewhat spell heavy, and standard obviously rotates depending on what is printed. I think an article talking about the design of cards that pushes support for spell or creature type decks, also the fact of the cards that were printed early in magic's history that supported either creature or spell heavy decks as well. I hope this all made sense.

Makes sense? No, not really. However, I did pull something out of all that, and that was the three major archetypes of deck. So, this article is going to be aimed at all the new players out there who are confused about why certain decks work the way that they do. And I hope that you not-so-new guys will still be able to learn a thing or two while you read.

So, let's begin.

There are three major archetypes of deck in Magic: the Gathering. An 'archetype' is a word used to describe an ideal example of a specific group, and in this case, there are three general types of decks that 99.99999% of all decks fall into. That last 0.000001% is what I like to call 'not trying to win in any way, shape or form'. These three are "Aggro", "Combo" and "Control". Let's go over these in alphabetical order.

"Aggro" is the archetype of aggression. But not the Archetype of Aggression. Or maybe it is...?

Anyway, aggression is, in general, the type of deck that moves fast, and hits faster. In terms of tempo, it is the one that tried to control it by preventing the opponent from gaining any traction.

... aaaand I just saw those faces that went confused when I mentioned tempo. I need to explain that before I go any further, don't I? Cool.

Tempo is confusing. Even I don't have a full grasp on it. What? I never said I was a perfect player! It can't be measured, but it can be recognized in its quantity. And there are two distinct kinds just to add even more confusion.

The first type is in the deck construction. It could even be a sub-archetype. A tempo deck is focused on gaining a lot of advantage in the early game by utilizing its resources effectively. It will try to trade X-for-1, draw more cards early on, filter its draws by using cards Preordain, play spells disruptive to the gameplan at key moments. A fair analog would be a fighting style that aims to take out the opponents balance.

This term game be used within the game as well. A deck that wants to gain tempo will trade its resources for non-apparent advantage, just for a TEMPOrary edge. For example, if you have 4/4 flier and the opponent has 2/5 flier. You cannot attack through that, but you use Bone Splinters to kill the flier. You just 2-4-1'd yourself, but you gained the ability to attack the opponents life total with a strong evasive beater.

This sort of Tempo is psychological in nature, and more in line with the player than the game. I'm not going to be talking about that for the most part.

Story time!

During the Aether Revolt pre-release, I got locked into a stalemate during my first round. I had won game 1 and Game two had been stabilized by the skin of my teeth. Neither me, nor my opponent could act without losing on the exchange, so we both were looking for a solution in our decks to give us the advantage. When the round was called, and our five turns were up, nothing had changed, and it was a draw (1-0-1 for me).

However, although nothing really happened, and we both knew that acting was the worst thing that could happen, for that 25 minutes, the tempo of the game was great! Neither of us wasted actions, and we kept the game moving, even though by the end, there were less than 15 cards in our decks. Between us. Great tempo, nothing happening. We both agreed that it was an excellent game, and it could have easilly gone either way had even one little thing gone differently.

On the other hand, you can have games where lots happens, but it's all spinning wheels and other allegories for going nowhere fast.

I don't have an example of that, sorry to say.

I reccomend reading this article for a more in-depth explanation.

Back to the deck types!

An Aggro deck seeks to set the tempo of the game, and prevent the opponent from getting their feet under them. They do this, not only through doing things faster, but also in disrupting the actions of the opponent, preventing them from responding to the Aggro deck.

Let me give you an example:

Generic RW Aggro:


Generic RW Aggro

Modern berryjon

901 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER


Now, this deck shows off a few of my biases with regards to Aggro decks. And some of these biases are the results of years of practice. First is that there is no card with a casting cost of over 4. This deck cannot afford to wait and have any dead draws or the inability to cast a new card or two each turn. To that end, over half the deck has a cost of 1 or 2, and the only cards above that are meant to be those that provide utility with important abilities (Trample or First Strike), or a massive boost to stats to push through whatever defences the enemy has with War Flare.

The mana base is thin, with a mere 18 lands (and I get nervous when I go under 21 on a good day), and no fancy tricks to it.

It's a lean, mean, fighting machine, and there is no room for error.

This is the essence of Aggro decks. They depend on the whole investiture in the now. They come out swinging for the opponent's life total, and they can't let up. I say my decks top out at a CMC of , because as I pointed out when I talked about board wipes, that's when they start to happen. And board wipes can set you back far more than your opponent. It has been said that Modern is a "4 Turn" format, in that games are usually decided by turn 4 or thereabouts. There's an article here on TappedOut describing this, but I can't find it at the time of this writing.

Aggro depends on dealing damage as effectively as possible, and to do that, you'll find that they tend to be heavy on the creatures. And what cards that aren't creatures or lands are either direct damage, or meant to augment or protect the creatures they do have.

Combo decks are the next part of this trifecta. Where Aggro decks have no distinct win condition, being full of potential conditions all over the place, Combo decks place their hopes on the interactions between cards to generate a result greater than the sum of their parts.

Let me show off an example, an older deck that was one of the first ones I transcribed to TappedOut:

To Infinity and Beyond:


To Infinity and Beyond

Modern berryjon

SCORE: 12 | 6 COMMENTS | 1575 VIEWS | IN 5 FOLDERS


This old-school deck of mine (and I really do mean old-school) is built around two three-card infinite combos to either do an arbitrary amount of damage or to mill an arbitrary amount of cards.

Combos usually consist of three parts, though this is not a hard-written rule. You have the trigger, which is, a card that starts off the combo. This is usually due to an "Enters the battlefield" ability, or an activated ability of some sort. The second part is the enabler. This is the card (or cards) that actually perform the combination itself. The outlet, which can overlap with the trigger or the enabler, is the card that represents the end state of the combo, performing what actions you set out to do.

Term definitions time again! An Infinite Combo is a self-sustaining loop of card interactions that, once started, can keep going forever without any external interaction. According to the rules, an Infinite Combo that cannot stop, and whose activating player declines to interrupt with an outlet - or cannot - results in the game being a draw. Unofficially, doing this is usually considered to be bad form, and the mark of a sore looser who has decided that a draw is better than a loss.

The term "an Arbitrary Large Amount" is the accepted way to describe that the combo has run through a sufficient amount of times that the controlling player can perform whatever actions they want. I remember way back when, probably around Fifth Edition, when Wizards tried to say that any infinite combo could only go on for, at most, 100 iterations, then the combo had to stop. It was a bad rules kludge, but it served to understate the point that after a certain point, the whole thing just becomes an exercise in bigger numbers that mean nothing.

Now, not all combos are infinite in nature. Any two or more cards that directly affect each other, such as Hedron Crab + Basic Lands, qualify as a combo. But there can be more advanced interactions. Say ... Hedron Crab + Fetch Land (like Polluted Delta) + Crucible of Worlds. In the former, it's a simple mechanical interaction that comes from Landfall and playing a land. In the latter, you use the fact that Crucible of Worlds can allow you to play your fetch lands from the graveyard - triggering the Landfall - then sacrificing the land for another land - triggering Landfall again. And you can do this each turn!

I encourage all of you to describe your favourite - or most despised - combo in the comments.

Now, back to the example at hand. The combos in this deck both depend on Enduring Renewal as the Enabler. The first combo has Wild Cantor as the Trigger, sacrificing itself for some mana. Enduring Renewal puts the creature back in your hand, and from there, Wild Cantor is re-cast, where it can sacrifice itself again to repeat the combo. The Outlet is Grapeshot, which has the keyword "Storm", which means the card repeats once for every time that a spell has been played this turn. And with an arbitrary amount of repeats, you can deal out an arbitrary large amount of damage.

The other combo once again depends on Enduring Renewal, except that this time the Trigger and the Outlet are on the same card - Grinding Station. This time, the enablers are two cards - Ornithopter and the Renewal itself. Grinding Station sacrifices the Ornithopter to mill three, the Ornithopter bounces back to your hand, where you recast it thanks to the casting cost of , which untaps the Grinding Station, and you're back to where you started - except your opponent is three cards short in their deck.

Combos are machines in a way, intricately interlocking cards that serve to win you the game, once the last piece is in play.

And now for Control.

Control.

Control.

I don't like Control. I try not to play it either. And I suspect that Wizards doesn't like Control either. You see, Control decks are less about winning, and more about making sure your opponent can't. Control decks are the decks of "NO", and meaning it.

So, why do I say that Wizards doesn't like it? Well, the answer to that is beacuse that they are, as a general rule, all about the negative interactions. They are not just about Negate-ing the opposition's cards, but doing it in such a manner that the opponent can't do what they came here to do - to play the game and have fun. An excellent control deck can prevent the opponent from doing anything, and who wants to be on the receiving end of that?

Many of my fellow Old Fogeys are now nodding in understanding. They remember the bad old days of Mono-Blue Wins. Counterspells for everything, and no ability to do anything. You want to know why my demo Aggro deck above is so heavily slanted toward the really low costs? Yes, I said it was to keep up the tempo, but it's also to be able to get something on the board and swinging before a Control deck can lock you down.

Demo Deck time. And I really hate myself for this, but you have to see:

Generic RW Control:


Generic RW Control

Modern berryjon

SCORE: 2 | 392 VIEWS | IN 2 FOLDERS


This deck is all about the Land Destruction. And it's no where near the top of the game when it comes to this archetype, I assure you. It was just me throwing together a deck list in about five minutes based on my experiences and knowledge about how the whole things works.

You see, this form of Control works by denying the player a critical resource - their lands. No lands, no spells, no chance to win. Heck, the only way to properly win in a more classical definition that isn't in the sideboard is to use Ajani Vengeant's -2 to dish out the hurt. The rest of this is effectively to stall out the game until you can convince the opponent to stop playing.

This is why I don't like control. It's a more direct means of punishing the player for playing the game, rather than giving them a chance to actually do things and respond.

Biases. Sleeve. I see you're good friends already.

One good thing about all this, is that there is no real defining colour-archetype association. Yes, I know that Blue is associated with Control. So is Black. So is Red. So is White. Heck, Green gets in on it, though only very tangentially. Aggro?

I built a mono-blue Aggro deck:


Can't Touch This!

Modern berryjon

SCORE: 5 | 7 COMMENTS | 1435 VIEWS | IN 4 FOLDERS



that used to be Standard Legal before Theros rotated out, and now I've been tweaking it to be more Modern-friendly.

I am very thankful for that.

You see, I very specifically chose those three archetype decks for a reason. They are all . The same colour combination goes all three ways, and that's all the evidence I need. It's when that stops being true that I know Magic is in trouble.

And each deck doesn't have to fit just one type exclusively. Aggro decks can splash a bit of control, like my example above. Control Decks may simply stall out the game until their Combo can go online. Combo decks may depend on Aggro to get the ball rolling. Who knows?

My reviewers wanted me to include a couple examples. Using Aggro-Control for instance, it can be divided into two major points. "Disruption" and "Midrange". Disruption uses destructive control - Lightning Bolt for example, to keep creatures out of the way of the attackers. "Midrage" uses control first to keep the board state stable before starting their aggressive moves.

I'm looking at you, every deck that played four of Seige Rhino.

Everyone has their preferences. I've made mine clear. And everyone finds something they play better than others. That's just the way people are. I will not tolerate anyone accusing another player of playing the game 'wrong' for simply being different.

Now where the hell did that soap box come from? And why am I standing on it? Excuse me while I destory bury this and make sure it doesn't regenerate. And come back next week when I talk about ... something. I don't know yet. Suggestions from the gallery?

And don't forget, I'm selling out! Or rather tapping out! https://www.patreon.com/PatternRecognition

This article is a follow-up to Pattern Recognition #16 - Nothing to Fear The next article in this series is Pattern Recognition #18 - A Purchased Rare

Boza says... #1

Idea for next week - underexplored keywords. There are a total of 5 cards with the keyword Epic, like on Eternal Dominion. Could these keywords be explored more in future sets, or was it a one time gimmick?

February 16, 2017 12:37 p.m.

berryjon says... #2

Boza: You have no idea how much I want to see Grandure reprinted.

February 16, 2017 12:50 p.m.

Calliber says... #3

How about talking about the layering rules in magic when it comes to abilities and creature P/T manipulation. Such as what happens when you hit an opponent with Polymorphist's Jest and they have creatures out that are being affected by enchantments, single aura's, and equipment or other global effects. Or when an equipment and an Aura are at odds with each other. And possible exploitation's of such interactions. From my understanding the ordering process is quite specific.

February 16, 2017 1:29 p.m.

Pheardemons says... #4

Heyy berryjon! Wow, thank you so much for using my confusing and nonsensical thoughts for an article. Just wanted to thank you, and of course mention one of my favorite combo pieces.

In my Rakdos the Defiler EDH deck (purely a rakdos Hate/Control deck) I love getting out Exquisite Blood and Heartless Hidetsugu. Granted, after the first time it worked, my playgroup doesn't allow me to keep both on the board anymore without me exhausting all of their resources beforehand, it nevertheless is a fun way for me to watch my opponent's life slowly drain from their eyes.

February 16, 2017 3:35 p.m.

catrule3564 says... #5

I second the suggestion for an article about layerering rules. Humility and Opalescence is a combination that I still cannot wrap my head around.

I dislike combo in general, but weird/janky combos are acceptable. My favorite is Griffin Canyon + Wind Zendikon + Trickery Charm. Wind Zendikon makes Griffin Canyon into a creature. Trickery Charm makes Griffin Canyon into a griffin, then it can tap to untap itself and give itself +1/+1 an arbitrarily large number of times.

February 16, 2017 7:22 p.m.

Holtzman says... #6

You could talk about the evolution of graveyard manipulation. Back in the day very few cards interacted with it.

Now you can use it as a bigger Hand.

February 16, 2017 9:35 p.m.

Cariddis says... #7

berryjon I just wanted to say that I really like your articles and I'm always looking forward to read the next one. It's always good to read stories and learn things from experienced players :)

May I ask you in your future articles some advice regarding deckbuilding? I'm a veteran EDH player, but I'm always eager to learn from others.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

February 17, 2017 4:16 a.m.

Argy says... #8

I don't have a problem with Control. I play it a bit myself and, when you play it quite a bit, you realise that it doesn't automatically have an answer for everything - it takes great skill and timing to pilot a Control deck.

I like reactive Control as opposed to proactive Control ie. instead of x.

When up against a Control deck I quite enjoy it. Again, I see that it will take good skill and timing to beat it.

People complain a lot about counter spells. I think they need to realise that there is little difference between a spell being countered, and a Creature being destroyed or exiled.

has to use what it has been given to protect itself, and what it has been given is a lot of counter spells.

What I hate playing against is combo decks.

I think that's because of my EDH playgroup, who almost exclusively try to win through combos.

If I know there is an infinite combo in Standard I consider it a point of honour to never be beaten by it.

I have exactly one deck with an infinite combo in it, so I guess you could say that is my favourite combo.

It is very simple - Conspiracy + Turntimber Ranger, choosing the Creature type Ally.

My favourite deck archetype is Aggro. Specifically Aggro.

A lot of people don't realise that can work really well in an Aggro deck, especially with all its unblockable Creatures.

One of the best Aggro decks I have made is Monothopters [Frontier].

It has a few counter spells in it, but mostly tries to win by hitting the Opponent hard and fast.

February 17, 2017 10:10 a.m.

TheRedGoat says... #9

Most degenerate combo I've ever seen? An Elf ball player abusing The Emrakul shuffle effect and Survival of the Fittest interactions to get infinite turns. This was in a "casual" game of EDH mind you so it was "legal", but no less evil to pull off on god damn turn three.

Sad part is this same player player uber fast like this is why I quit Yugioh a while back and swapped to MTG where I thought I could avoid that type of thing.

Which, I kinda do if only in how there's a thousand other ways to play Magic and still win, so not everyone is playing that fast.

February 17, 2017 10:28 a.m.

kobold_koenig says... #10

Hi, berryjon. First of all, I would like you to know that I appreciate the time and energy that you put into posting these articles, as I have been enjoying them immensely.

On to your point regarding combo: I tend to stay away from infinite-combo in my playgroup since we're all rather casual, but one of my favourite (semi) infinite interactions involves King Macar, the Gold-Cursed and Aura of Dominion. In particular, it just feels right for a King to have an "Aura of Dominion".

Once you have the Aura on the King, all you need to do is spend from an existing mana-source to start the combo. You pay for the Aura ability cost as well as tap the King (being the "untapped creature you control"), which allows the Aura to untap him. This lets his "Inspired" ability kick-in, and he can exile a creature as well as create "a colorless artifact token named Gold. It has "Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool."... By sacrificing the artifact to create mana for the the Aura cost, as well as tapping the King, the cycle begins again and continues until you wish to stop exiling creatures!

I've never gone much further than that with the interaction (and never tried it outside of a casual setting, so I hope I am doing it right), but I'm sure there are some utterly degenerate things out there that can be taken advantage of regarding the "Gold" artifact tokens and permanents entering/leaving the battlefield.

Once again, thank you for the articles.

February 17, 2017 9:03 p.m.

MoJoMiXuP says... #11

Suggestion for next week - the history of unbanning in magic. There's always so much attention for what's taken off a list, but what about when things come back? For example, has anything ever been unbanned in commander? I don't know, but I hope you do...

February 17, 2017 9:55 p.m.

Ashlings of Eden is an aggro-based combo deck trying to get Nova Chaser out via Incandescent Soulstoke and combining that with either Assault Strobe and/or Fling. Using Smokebraider to activate Soulstoke allows you to do both. T4 win, but very much a glass cannon.

Favorite aggro deck is Samurai Glory which is pure white weenie.

I don't have any control decks, mostly aggro with control elements.

Also, how would you characterize burn decks? I have a nearly creatureless list, only creature is Eidolon of the Great Revel.

February 17, 2017 11:42 p.m.

buildingadeck says... #13

Burn decks are just more spell-based aggro.

My favorite infinite combo is Seasons Past + Omniscience + Dark Petition + Reality Shift right now. The most fun way to win with my Tasigur EDH deck.

Control decks are not about just saying no. At least, not contemporary control decks. Most control decks now have cards that interact with opponents' spells, aiming to stabilize around Turn 4 in Modern (T4 Format) with something like Anger of the Gods, Wrath of God, etc. In modern, many control decks seek to win via card advantage engines like Nahiri or Tasigur. This is in part because WotC is pushing away from traditional control decks that truly just wear your opponent down and win with Celestial Colonnade beats. Nonetheless, control is about saying no until it can win, not just saying no and hoping for a concession.

February 19, 2017 11:06 a.m.

square711 says... #14

My favorite combo is Living Lore + Cruel Ultimatum (with something like Heartless Summoning or Mass Hysteria so you're ready to swing every turn). Is there a worse fate for a MtG player than being on the receiving end of a Cruel Ultimatum every turn? I don't think so. (Well, maybe watching a Soul Sisters mirror match, but never mind)

That said, I have this little combo deck I call "bye bye land", which uses Devastating Summons + Howl of the Horde to generate six huge tokens (which is usually more than most decks can deal with) after swinging with Sakura-Tribe Elder or Coiling Oracle and it's probably the most fun combo to pull off, because most people don't understand why I'm swinging with a 1/1 weenie against their untapped 4/5 beatstick, until they see me play Howl and go "oh shit WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS ISN'T SCAPESHIFT". (one guy even tried to Slaughter Games the Scapeshifts out of my deck, only to realize there were none hahahaha)

February 19, 2017 11:18 a.m.

Winterblast says... #15

My preferred archetype is definitely control, especially proactive control, which keeps the opponent(s) from playing at all or disables certain actions/card functions permanently, instead of just reacting to their spells. Actually these strategies always require some "combos", not in the form of recurring actions but rather as a permanent lock. At the moment I'm playing mostly commander and that strategy is imo the best to keep people from randomly ending games with some out of the blue combo in a generic midrange aggro deck (Tooth and Nail for example), which requires no skill or even thinking, given you have enough mana and luck of the draw.

One of my favourite combos at the moment is Mechanized Production and Tangle Wire (or Sphere of Resistance, Lodestone Golem, Thorn of Amethyst...). It basically slows down the game long enough to win with the alternative win condition of the enchantment.

Smokestack and Sundial of the Infinite is an all time favourite for me: add a counter, pass the turn before second ability resolves - everyone else sacrifices more each turn and draws cards, thus milling themselves.

Another combo I like very much is Humility and Moat, which I use in Augustin's $t4ks (2017 version). Elspeth, Knight-Errant turns the board state in your favour then, because you can fly over the moat and/or keep producing generic 1/1 creatures.

Also much fun to play is Mycosynth Lattice and Vandalblast. That's only a one time combo but as it destroys ALL permanents of all opponents, including lands...that's worth it.

The complicated Aluren combo (Imperial Recruiter/Recruiter of the Guard, Dream Stalker/Whitemane Lion, Cavern Harpy, Parasitic Strix) is great to play and also hard to disrupt. Fits in every 4 or 5 colour commander deck...

I'm currently thinking about making something with Mycosynth Lattice and Titania's Song and maybe Null Rod and March of the Machines but I need to study the layers better before I make that happen. An article about the layers would be greatly appreciated! There are quite a few card interactions that seemingly disable each other but still have a certain effect because of the layers...to know more about how this works in practice would be good in order to build an awesome combo/control deck. Especially in commander it would be cool to create a board state in which people have to hit each other with vanilla creatures while all mana sources are completely disabled or something like that, haha.

February 20, 2017 8:10 a.m.

killroy726 says... #16

you said to post combos, so ill just post the deck that has all that I use: The mighty-est of pillow forts! its a control/combo deck

February 20, 2017 7:16 p.m.

TheRedGoat says... #17

@Winterblast Your last card pairings doesn't need the creature creating pieces. If you do those while everything is an artifact then lands will just die as a state-based action being 0/0 creatures. Null Rod and Mycosynth Lattice works just the same if you used Stony Silence. Nobody would have mana anymore and would be left to whatever creatures they had on the board/what they can free cast in their hands/graves.

Also, if you really do try to pull of that particular combo, then, and I'm not joking here, you're an evil heartless b#$%@& and shouldn't play magic that way. I know its in the game for people to do potentially, but that's the stuff that kills the will to play the game ever. Don't do that to people please.

February 21, 2017 9:58 a.m.

Winterblast says... #18

TheRedGoat I know that the mana lock can be done with two cards, titanias song would just give everyone some additional vanilla creatures for tactical beatdown in the multiplayer round, lol.

It depends on whom you play with, but we've already had an early game Zur's Weirding, which left everyone at zero cards in hand after some wheel effect (not a draw7 but draw nothing then) and some other pretty chaotic global locks...I wouldn't want to play these games every week but once in a while it's fun. And I think the player who traded me his titanias song is expecting me to build a weird deck with it, because we've already been discussing the potential locks while trading.

February 21, 2017 10:47 a.m.

TheRedGoat says... #19

I've actually got the weirding card but I've never used it myself. And personally speaking I'd only ever have a problem with the null rod or stony silence lock and not the forced creatures aspect. Not being able to play magic because of magic is a huge dick move to me so sorry if I came across a bit angry.

February 21, 2017 9:12 p.m.

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