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Someone's opinion that midrange is bad has no bearing on me getting snarled at when I asked how to deckbuild.
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Sep 12, 2020 12:03
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Baron Porkface posted:Or maybe I didn't read 10 billion pages of this thread in order to have permission to post here. Please ignore the shrieking baboons. Basically a new set comes out in a week with very unique and powerful looking cards look to somewhat dramatically shake things up across all formats. I would look up recent events for those formats on MTGtop8 or something to get an existing idea of what archetypes are currently popular, but Standard, Pioneer and Historic are going to look extremely different very soon. Also Mid-Range isn’t an archetype, it’s just a style of deck that favors medium-to-large creatures and interaction over small creatures and burn spells (Aggro) or disruptive spell and removal decks that only have a small handful of large threats (Control)
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Sep 12, 2020 12:36
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never stop being unwelcoming, magic thread
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Sep 12, 2020 12:42
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Bust Rodd posted:Please ignore the shrieking baboons. I'm more interested in what the actual principles of deck building are than the present top decks.
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Sep 12, 2020 12:50
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Baron Porkface posted:I'm more interested in what the actual principles of deck building are than the present top decks. Essentially you pick the cards you’d like to win with, then you pick the colors that support that plan, then you pick out the cards that you want to play, then you build the mana base to make it all work. If you want to try to win as fast as possible, you want an aggressive or Aggro deck that runs 22-23 lands and bunch of cheap, aggressive creatures that push lots of damage across the table, with efficient spot removal or direct damage spells to clear the blockers out of the way. If you want to drag the game out forever until you’ve assured victory, slower decks with between 23-27 lands tend to use way, way more removal and counterspells and focus more on a small handful of threats. All of that could change next week, because the line between spells and lands has always been the most fundamental deck building restriction in Magic and now spells can also be lands, so it’s really up to the pro-brewers now to see what does or doesn’t change.
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Sep 12, 2020 13:00
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Baron Porkface posted:I'm more interested in what the actual principles of deck building are than the present top decks. Not trying to be rude but this is an extremely vague question about an extremely complex topic, it's like going into a thread about basketball and asking people to tell you how to play defense. People aren't answering you because there's hundreds of pages that could be written about the topic and its not clear which parts of that would be relevant for what your looking for Are you looking for a basic primer or do you have a question about something specific? What is your current skill level? What are your goals? Is there any particular part of building a deck that you're struggling to understand? little munchkin fucked around with this message at 13:05 on Sep 12, 2020 |
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Sep 12, 2020 13:01
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Baron Porkface posted:I'm more interested in what the actual principles of deck building are than the present top decks. Aggro focussed on small creatures, cheap spells, and a low land count. You'd typically try to take advantage of slower decks by dealing them lots of damage in the early turns before they could mobilise their later threats. Burn (aka RDW, red deck wins), white weenie, etc are good examples of this. Aggro beats control but loses to combo. Combo is a deck built around a two or three card combination which wins the game on the spot. Splinter Twin (Pestermite + Splinter Twin) was the most notorious example of this and ruled modern for a while until it was banned. Beats aggro (the combo comes out faster) but loses to control (combo is easily disrupted). Control uses board wipes, removal, counterspells etc to remove threats. Typically slow but if the game lasts long they tend to win. Beats combo (disrupts their key pieces), loses to aggro (can't clear their threats in time). You also have playstyles that fall within these, i.e. aggro-combo, combo-control, etc. But those three archetypes are the classic triangle that Magic metagames historically have revolved around. Midrange is a style of deck that emerged in the past few years (although arguably Jund and The Rock are historical forebears). The reign of midrange was I think around Khans block, where Siege Rhinos ruled the roost. They are sort of aggro-control, they focus on playing threats around 4 or 5 cmc and protecting them and removing opposing threats. When this archetype dominates games tend to drag on as they can't win quickly, which is why people in this thread aren't fans.
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Sep 12, 2020 13:13
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Lancelot posted:Midrange is a style of deck that emerged in the past few years (although arguably Jund and The Rock are historical forebears). The reign of midrange was I think around Khans block, where Siege Rhinos ruled the roost. This part is inaccurate. I can distinctly remember midrange decks being a part of lots of older metas. Cards like Spiritmonger and Pernicious Deed for example were the backbones of midrange or “The Rock” style decks. Doran the Seige Tower, Thoughtseize, Tarmogoyf, and Garruk Wildspeaker was a loving horrifying deck to have to play against.
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Sep 12, 2020 13:19
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little munchkin posted:Are you looking for a basic primer or do you have a question about something specific? What is your current skill level? What are your goals? Is there any particular part of building a deck that you're struggling to understand? I play causal Modern decks in the MTGO open room and Standard on the non-tournament rooms in arena. I almost always end up building combo or weenie decks, and have never built tempo or midrange. I'm particularly interested in what I should look for in my 1-3 slots since midrange apparently holds off on creatures until 4-5.
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Sep 12, 2020 13:21
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Baron Porkface posted:I'm particularly interested in what I should look for in my 1-3 slots since midrange apparently holds off on creatures until 4-5. This is just flat out false. Tons of midrange decks play creatures on turns 2 or 3. This is kind of another part of the issue here. “Midrange” as a concept kind of only exists because we need a word for decks that don’t fall cleanly into one of the more rigid archetypes; control, aggro, or combo. Because of that they encompass a huge range of builds, which can be “almost” aggro, or “almost control” and as you probably imagine those decks are going to be built wildly differently. Paul Zuvella fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Sep 12, 2020 |
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Sep 12, 2020 13:23
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That’s where you play your hand disruption and spot removal and Uro
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Sep 12, 2020 13:24
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Bust Rodd posted:This part is inaccurate. I can distinctly remember midrange decks being a part of lots of older metas. Cards like Spiritmonger and Pernicious Deed for example were the backbones of midrange or “The Rock” style decks. Doran the Seige Tower, Thoughtseize, Tarmogoyf, and Garruk Wildspeaker was a loving horrifying deck to have to play against. I agree! I cited The Rock in the bit you quoted! I don't think they were called midrange until the Siege Rhino era though.
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Sep 12, 2020 13:25
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Haven't True Control permission decks been not a thing in Standard for a long time, and maybe pioneer too?
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Sep 12, 2020 13:32
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Baron Porkface posted:I play causal Modern decks in the MTGO open room and Standard on the non-tournament rooms in arena. I almost always end up building combo or weenie decks, and have never built tempo or midrange. I'm particularly interested in what I should look for in my 1-3 slots since midrange apparently holds off on creatures until 4-5. Okay so the post you're referring to that says midrange is about holding off and playing really good high cost creatures is wrong. Well more outdated than wrong not still not helpful. Midrange is about playing a deck synergizes high value cards (as in extremely strong effects at a low cost), usually centered around some alternate win condition. There's even a interstitial "tip" which lays this out in Arena and I think you can find all those tips somewhere in the game. Right now midrange would best describe the Collected Company/Bolas' Citadel decks or the various Sacrifice decks running Priest of Forgotten Gods, Mayhem Devil, etc. Neither of those decks run creatures that cost more than three mana.These are midrange decks, in that they have a plan that involves early set up (playing mana dorks or expendable creatures with useful ETB effects) to lock down the board for their endgame. But because these are creature based decks they can also just run you over in some cases. There are a few midrange decks that run high cost guys (Temur Elementals comes to mind) but I wouldn't call that one of the better ones at the moment. Midrange is just a broad catchall for decks that utilize a bit of the other archetypes to do something really strong. They're the Swiss army knife of decks. If you really want to get up to speed, I would recommend starting here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-digital/magic-gathering-arena-starter-guide-2020-01-17 Several solid websites with deck building resources and explainers aimed at new players are linked right in the first half, along with some good general advice throughout. The general vibe in this thread is going to be grouchy because MTG players are miserable nerds by and large (myself included) but once you have a better grasp on the fundamentals and what you're going for come back and post your decklist and we'll be happy to help out. Baron Porkface posted:Haven't True Control permission decks been not a thing in Standard for a long time, and maybe pioneer too? Yes but that was mostly because of T3feri. He's gone now so draw-go control decks are coming back into vogue again. Mat Cauthon fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Sep 12, 2020 |
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Sep 12, 2020 13:39
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Baron Porkface posted:Haven't True Control permission decks been not a thing in Standard for a long time, and maybe pioneer too? Depends on your definition of "a long time". Basically bullshit 2019/2020 MTG killed control but I would consider UW Approach a proper control deck in 2018 Standard.
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Sep 12, 2020 13:40
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Katana Gomai posted:Depends on your definition of "a long time". Basically bullshit 2019/2020 MTG killed control but I would consider UW Approach a proper control deck in 2018 Standard. not even that far back, Esper Draw-Go control was a the 2nd or 3rd best deck in standard in early 2019.
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Sep 12, 2020 13:48
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"Control" encompasses a wide variety of things, too. Like, sure, draw-go control might not have been a thing in the past few months, but tapout control decks with draw, discard, sweepers, removal, and some high-end win conditions were going strong even in the t3feri era. (Teferi was in fact great for that, because once you had one down you could play your tapout control game on your opponent's turn, and unlike a counterspell-based plan you didn't get completely wrecked if one resolved on the opposite side of the table).
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Sep 12, 2020 14:06
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any control deck that is less slow and durdly than rtr-ths' elixir of immortality deck gets called 'midrange' by a subset of control players. you know, the sort of people who will attempt to play draw-go control no matter how bad it is in the format and bitch endlessly about aetherling not being a good enough win condition or how it's good that 5 mana teferi can tuck himself, actually. the reality is that formats run a spectrum between goblin guide and elixir of immortality, with uro in the middle, and we are at uro right now. this is what peak midrange looks like. you may not like it, but it's the truth.
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Sep 12, 2020 14:23
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Has there been a deck tech for the monoblack Gift deck Matt Nass is playing? Mostly want a sideboard guide.
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Sep 12, 2020 15:09
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Baron Porkface posted:Haven't True Control permission decks been not a thing in Standard for a long time, and maybe pioneer too? Whether or not there is a critical mass of cheap counterspells and flash threats has never stopped people from trying to jam UW control in every format all the time, and you can find lists like that from even earlier this year. I personally just lost to a UW deck in historic that countered 3 of my spells, weather the board, and then just cast back to back Approach of the 2nd Sun. Twitter sucks for many things but one of the good things it’s for is getting insight into the art of MtG and how the artists come up with cool stuff https://twitter.com/daarkenart/status/1304430221534269441?s=21 This poo poo is berserk
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Sep 12, 2020 15:31
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Maybe when a new face appears in this thread treat their question as legitimate instead of instantly swinging to "it's a troll." Midrange is my favorite archetype, because I'm a sucker for gradual card advantage and love cards like Tireless Tracker and Seasoned Pyromancer. Couple this with hand disruption or counter magic, and you are going to have a good time. Don't play midrange if you want to just play BO1 though, because your strength is in your sideboard.
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Sep 12, 2020 15:41
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DangerDongs posted:Maybe when a new face appears in this thread treat their question as legitimate instead of instantly swinging to "it's a troll."
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Sep 12, 2020 15:42
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Yawgmoth posted:Maybe a new person in the thread should read the past page or two before asking an incredibly vague question. lmao yeah it’s so inconvenient to just answer a question lol! Don’t they know we’re important people who don’t have time to go responding to questions all time, and this thread is just SO FLOODED with new players every day how could we EVER keep up lol Jesus Christ lmao it’s a game about wizards and elves, how can anyone be this much of a pri *YAWGMOTH* Oh well I guess that’s appropriate
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Sep 12, 2020 15:44
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Yawgmoth posted:Maybe a new person in the thread should read the past page or two before asking an incredibly vague question. I don't want to derail too much longer, but if you are inexperienced in something you may not know that your question is vague. You can let them know they are being to vague and why without driving what could be one of the few nice faces in this thread away. Edit: his entire identity isn't magic btw, like yours....
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Sep 12, 2020 15:53
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Yawgmoth posted:Maybe a new person in the thread should read the past page or two before asking an incredibly vague question. The fact that some people were arguing about midrange a page ago does not mean it is inappropriate to ask about midrange. There is something seriously wrong about how people behave in this thread. DangerDongs posted:I don't want to derail too much longer, but if you are inexperienced in something you may not know that your question is vague. It isn't even a vague question. It was yes or no.
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Sep 12, 2020 15:53
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Baron Porkface posted:Haven't True Control permission decks been not a thing in Standard for a long time, and maybe pioneer too? There was a period of a couple of years starting from about the end of RTR-Theros to maybe Amonkhet or Dominaria where control was pretty dang bad. A lot of the reason for that came from answers becoming very constrained (I think there was a time where Duress wasn’t even in the format as disruption!)
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Sep 12, 2020 15:58
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Bust Rodd posted:This part is inaccurate. I can distinctly remember midrange decks being a part of lots of older metas. Cards like Spiritmonger and Pernicious Deed for example were the backbones of midrange or “The Rock” style decks. Doran the Seige Tower, Thoughtseize, Tarmogoyf, and Garruk Wildspeaker was a loving horrifying deck to have to play against.
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Sep 12, 2020 16:01
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80s James Hetfield posted:Lol yes, yesterday I got so mad and started screaming like a lunatic and my dog got scared and left the room and went upstairs, haha. Y'all might have some deeper issues
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Sep 12, 2020 16:01
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RC Cola posted:Y'all might have some deeper issues We know; we are currently trying to work through them right now as a thread.
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Sep 12, 2020 16:04
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I love midrange but hate Uro and Nissa
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Sep 12, 2020 16:05
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Nissa would be fair if she cost GGGGG
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Sep 12, 2020 16:07
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Uro is a wonky rear end card and in the running for the most ridiculous card printed this year. I look forward to seeing what 2021’s 1UG overlord of formats will be
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Sep 12, 2020 16:08
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TheKingofSprings posted:Uro is a wonky rear end card and in the running for the most ridiculous card printed this year. Also Uro since they won't ban him until 3 weeks before rotation.
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Sep 12, 2020 16:17
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Is Uro like tarmogoyf in that it improves any deck that has a color match?
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Sep 12, 2020 16:20
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Baron Porkface posted:Is Uro like tarmogoyf in that it improves any deck that has a color match? pretty much. I tossed one in to a mutate deck just for fun and my opponent scooped their mono-u mill deck after the first mill included Uro. It's a pain in the rear end in multiple dimensions.
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Sep 12, 2020 16:26
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TheKingofSprings posted:Uro is a wonky rear end card and in the running for the most ridiculous card printed this year. 
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Sep 12, 2020 16:28
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Midrange is just a deck that plays like control versus aggro decks and aggro versus control matchups. It's... in the middle of the speed vs. value spectrum.
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Sep 12, 2020 16:30
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Infinite Karma posted:Midrange is just a deck that plays like control versus aggro decks and aggro versus control matchups. It's... in the middle of the speed vs. value spectrum. So in the mid-range between aggro and control then  Meanwhile no one is talking about the best kind of deck, Prison! Every time a Smokestack is sleeved up, Ken Nagle cries.
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Sep 12, 2020 16:33
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Baron Porkface posted:Is Uro like tarmogoyf in that it improves any deck that has a color match?
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Sep 12, 2020 16:36
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Shrecknet posted:its not even the most ridiculous card with a three letter name that ends in "o" printed this year. Excited for the breakout planeswalker of 2021, Olo. Speaking of bullshit, I've been loving around with a UWG Teferi proliferate deck. It's a trash pile, but occasionally dropping 4 loyalty on Teferi Master of Time in a single turn feels good.
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Sep 12, 2020 16:37
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