The Wrath Effect: 5 Mana vs. 4
Standard forum
Posted on Sept. 3, 2014, 4:05 p.m. by TheAnnihilator
So, the next wrath effect is End Hostilities
, which really isn't new information for most.
My question is, what does this mean about the upcoming format? Yes, I know the format is supposed to slow down. Why couldn't aggro decks just outright beat control, though? They still have plenty one one-drops, and lots of untapped color fixing (Mana Confluence
, the painlands, and the fetches). In the current format, when it's control vs. aggro, it seems that you must wrath on turn four or lose. How can control stand another turn, when sometimes your opponent has lethal on board --- especially when the only two-mana removal post-rotation consists of Bile Blight
/Last Breath
/Reprisal
? (I know that there's probably more than that, but these spells seem to be the most competitive.)
The best answer I can come up with is to run defenders like Nyx-Fleece Ram
, Sylvan Caryatid
, and Courser of Kruphix
to stave off the first few turns. But at that point, would you wrath the board at all? You just lose all of your defenders, which I'd personally rather not do. Will End Hostilities
see any play?
Disclaimer: I realize that much of Khans is yet to be spoiled, but this is for the sake of analyzing what we have right now, and discussing it.
Additionally, there have been are will likely continue to be many times when wrathing the board is okay or beneficial to you even when you have invested 1-3 creatures into it. Remember, a big portion of playing control is about surviving until you can cast your haymaker. For this example, let's choose Elspeth, Sun's Champion .
If your aggro opponent spends the first 2-3 turns placing 3-5 creatures onto the battlefield, they've likely emptied most or all of their hand. They are looking to either have ended the game already or are looking to do so in the next couple turns, majorly with the resources they have scattered onto the playing field. In order to survive such a aggressive start, it's very likely that you'll need to be playing some defenders. Nyx-Fleece Ram is great as it blocks and gains a tiny bit of life to help offset the damage you cannot prevent. Let's say you place down 2-3 rams or other defenders and have survived due to that.
Now you find yourself with 5 mana and your wrath. In this situation, this may even be a 4 for 4. It might be a 5 for 4. It might be a 3 for 4. Either way, both players are losing a ton of cards at once. You may be thinking to yourself "well, why wouldn't I just continue to play defenders if that's the case?"
The difference is You have Elspeth, Sun's Champion
as your next play. Your opponent has Foundry Street Denizen
or Tormented Hero
as their next play. If you clear the board and have stayed at a reasonable life total due to your defenders, you don't actually need them anymore because every card you play from now on is going to impact the board state much more heavily than what the aggro player can muster. They don't suddenly pull out their own Elspeth once you get to 6 mana. Hell, they probably only have 2-3 mana of their own, anyway.
Resetting the board state in the mid-game favors the player with the higher-cmc spells as long their life total is not already incredibly low.
September 3, 2014 4:46 p.m.
Honestly I think a big part of this debate depends on how you look at the defenders you are playing. If you think about the natural progression of a lot of games you reaize that the later the game goes the less and less value pure defensive cards have. Defense is great and all but winning the game is important too.
So the way I feel about the defensive cards in control decks is this. They are only meant to stall to the point where your bombs take over the game. As such they lose a lot of their value in the late game when both players start jamming bigger and bigger threats that will out class your early walls. Besides our win cons should start taking over the game in the late game and otherwise making your opponents life miserable which again make your walls nothing more than a luxury. So in conclusion you shouldn't feel too bad about wrathing them away as they should have already survived their purpose and lost a lot of their value already. If the walls are still holding down the fort you can simply save he wrath for later until this is no longer the case.
September 3, 2014 4:48 p.m.
Drown in Sorrow and Anger of the Gods are both fast enough to keep Rabblemaster and friends in check. No need for walls, but they can't hurt.
People were complaining about Supreme Verdict way to much. I really enjoyed playing against both versions of Sphinx's Revelation, Innistrad-Ravnica and Ravnica-Theros. It's a different kind of matchup that can be lost due one bad decision.
September 3, 2014 5:10 p.m.
It's important to realize that we are only looking at one part of the Rock V Paper V Scissors equation....
End Hostilities may be slightly lack luster against a field of one drops, but those one drops look terrible against a field of Courser of Kruphix , Sylvan Caryatid , and Polukranos, World Eater , and End Hostilities is exactly what the doctor ordered when facing down a board of green midrange dudes.
It is true control decks can no longer rely upon a turn 4 wrath as there plan against aggro, but all that means is they will have to adapt. I cannot see the majority of control decks post rotation Not playing End Hostilities .
But I guess we'll have to wait and see.
September 3, 2014 5:39 p.m.
ItchiUchiha117 says... #7
Another point I feel should be made is to point to the wedge WotC has deemed the 'control oriented wedge': Abzan / WBG. They are going to have access to not only End Hostilities , but also Abzan Ascendancy and a lot of low mana creatures to gum up the ground. So, it might not even be a 3 for 2 or a 4 for 6 or anything like that. You might wipe the board leaving them with nothing and you with three creatures in the air. You'll also have access to Sorin, Solemn Visitor , which can help maintain a stable board state, and Ajani Steadfast , which can buff all of your tokens.
Basically, what I'm saying is, I'm really looking forward to playing Abzan superfriends.
September 3, 2014 7:09 p.m.
End Hostilities is a really bad board wipe, but that fact that Mono White receives a decent one, means that you don't have to play blue to use board wipes.
When Khans of Tarkir comes out, I feel WRB (Mardu) control will really be a thing, and a thing that's hard to beat.
September 3, 2014 8:05 p.m.
JonathanSamurai says... #9
As the main aggro player in a group that leans more to control, I can say that if you're dying turn four in standard, board wipe isn't your problem. There are many spells at different cmc that deal with turn 1-4 threats. Granted sometimes bad luck/draw gets you killed anyway. Mardu is supposed to be the aggro wedge and yet the aggro creatures spoiled so far are all 5 drops, so a 5 drop wipe isn't bad in a wedge block. Sure there will be cheaper cmc stuff, but you have to trust they balanced the set. The fact that it destroys attached permanents may also be why it's 5 instead of 4.
September 3, 2014 8:50 p.m.
After reading through the thread, a few things:
Defenders are good at stalling against aggro and a decent enough solution to having a Wrath of God on turn five instead of four. That's not the entire problem. The problem is those defenders are absolute garbage against other control decks and midrange. Nyx-Fleece Ram doesn't do anything against those decks, for example, wasting valuable mainboard space.
You're not always on the play. Being on the draw means your opponent gets to have a turn four before you. A five mana boardwipe means your opponent has already had their turn five to kill you. Sometimes, they can kill you on turn four, which is your turn three. That's why a turn four wipe has been in almost every Standard format throughout Magic's history. It's not that you might die on turn four, it's that you might die on your opponent's turn five.
This is going to be a format with Mistcutter Hydra , Xenagos, The Reveler , Stormbreath Dragon , Sorin, Solemn Visitor , and a host of token producers, creatures with haste, etc. A five mana wipe means some of these cards will have free reign while the control player scrambles to find Banishing Light , Hero's Downfall , etc. That means they get value up on the control player, because the control player isn't gaining card advantage.
I really didn't like how U/W/x Control dominated Standard for two years. I think the problems regarding format warping cards like Supreme Verdict had a lot to do with their prohibitive mana costs. I hope R&D knows what they're doing and I'm just being a Negative Nancy. But, Standard has been really bad the past few years with them not balancing archetypes well enough. This is especially true when they print too many value creatures and not enough ways to deal with them. That's why we end up with decks like Mono-Black Devotion or Junk Rites.
September 4, 2014 9 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #11
What happens if Bestow becomes a popular deck archetype. End Hostilities just got a whole lot more deadly. Then we have to consider Izzet Artifact and their new stuff like Ghostfire Blade , and many other equipments. End Hostilities isn't just a creature wipe, it's a permanent wipe.
Lightpulsar9 says... #2
Well control can still do what you said with running defenders.That just means cards like Athreos, God of Passage will be ran alongside them. (Just my two cents)
September 3, 2014 4:24 p.m.