Pattern Recognition #17 - ACC

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

16 February 2017

4001 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

905 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 | 1592 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 | 1439 VIEWS | IN 3 FOLDERS

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