Oversoul
The Tentacled One
In the Tendrils of Agony thread, Psarketos posed an interesting question about decks reacting to an opponent who doesn't aim for a kill condition, but instead uses an infinite combo to gain enough life to stay out of lethal range, uses cards to make the player hexproof, and uses some form of graveyard recursion to avoid decking. I came to the conclusion that it depends on the particular build the Storm player is using, because while outracing the "lockdown" would be the likeliest course of action, other options, such as disrupting components of the control engine while building up to a combo kill, outright controlling the board and keeping the lifegain from ever emerging, letting the lifegain happen, but then generating infinite storm count to supercede it, and using some other route to victory (poison counters, or perhaps Laboratory Maniac) are also possible.
It's come up before, but some of this, with the Magic theory development and teaching Psarketos has been involved in, uses Modern as a kind of baseline. The reasons for this haven't been discussed here, but I think I could guess some of them. Perhaps not. In any case, he said this...
There's a glib response to questions about Tendrils of Agony in the context of Modern deck opponents and my general lack of emphasis on Modern. Tendrils of Agony isn't legal in Modern. And out of the 24 other cards I posted for Magic Memories, neither are 21 of them. But if I'm being honest with myself, that sort of thing is really only a minor consideration. There's a lot more to it.
It's true that I don't play Modern and haven't built decks for the format. It's also true that I've ragged on the format for its ban list. So I'm sure that I've come across as very critical. I've softened a bit on this in recent years, but not because I think that the format has gotten better. It's because of what I've seen from the players. Modern is wildly popular among newer players, returning players, and even has its following among long-time player who prefer the pace of the environment. And I don't want to "yuck" other people's "yum." Especially not when I see how much Modern means to new and returning players, how it really gets them involved, motivates them. I think that's great. My problems with Modern have nothing to do with the players. In fact, they're really mostly the same problems I have with other formats. It's not specific to Modern. It's how WotC manages tournament gameplay in general. Modern just provides some highly visible examples of the symptoms. Modern isn't the cause...
It's come up before, but some of this, with the Magic theory development and teaching Psarketos has been involved in, uses Modern as a kind of baseline. The reasons for this haven't been discussed here, but I think I could guess some of them. Perhaps not. In any case, he said this...
Well, nothing wrong with not playing the Modern format, and I don't think that Psarketos thinks that there is, but I wanted to address it anyway, because it gets at the nature of formats and how important they are, providing an environment in which gameplay happens. Before I stalled on trying to submit new Comboist Manifesto articles, one of my most ambitious plans for it was a series tentatively labeled "Format Wars" in which I'd analyze the pros and cons of different formats, both officially sanctioned and community-led (this would be at least 15 articles, but probably more). That didn't happen last year and it didn't happen this year. I allow for the possibility that I might return to it at some point, but I have no plans for it anymore. Anyway, I do think about formats a lot.I have gathered that you are a not a Modern format player at heart, but I would be interested to see which line of attack your instincts would follow first. One of the kids is already designing a Revel in Riches deck, which pleases my love of alternate win conditions
There's a glib response to questions about Tendrils of Agony in the context of Modern deck opponents and my general lack of emphasis on Modern. Tendrils of Agony isn't legal in Modern. And out of the 24 other cards I posted for Magic Memories, neither are 21 of them. But if I'm being honest with myself, that sort of thing is really only a minor consideration. There's a lot more to it.
It's true that I don't play Modern and haven't built decks for the format. It's also true that I've ragged on the format for its ban list. So I'm sure that I've come across as very critical. I've softened a bit on this in recent years, but not because I think that the format has gotten better. It's because of what I've seen from the players. Modern is wildly popular among newer players, returning players, and even has its following among long-time player who prefer the pace of the environment. And I don't want to "yuck" other people's "yum." Especially not when I see how much Modern means to new and returning players, how it really gets them involved, motivates them. I think that's great. My problems with Modern have nothing to do with the players. In fact, they're really mostly the same problems I have with other formats. It's not specific to Modern. It's how WotC manages tournament gameplay in general. Modern just provides some highly visible examples of the symptoms. Modern isn't the cause...