The MageLaughlin Group, s2e3

*Harsh light shines from overhead lamps, illuminating a featureless room. Despite their best attempts to break me, the chaos of SPAMTON fills me with DETERMINATION*

I really liked the deeper cuts like Tom Bombadil and Bree! I think you can definitely see how much effort they put into the story links and the ~Lore~. 

Ya'know, I just wish they could put this much effort into their own IP, but eh.

Intercom voice: D-3527-jA β, if you do not provide your answer by midnight tonight, UTC, we will be forced to apply punishments.

Hey, I was supposed to get a whole card and fancy mechanics and everything but apparently I got left behind in the trash with Zephyr Masters 2077 or something like that. So now I spend my days just running and ruining sketchy overlordships. Like this one!



Make him Kappa. He's Kappa now. Hey, say something, prisoner-guy.





You still have to adapt something properly for it to be well received. If Secret Lair: Street Fighter was just a bunch of vanillas I don't think it'd be nearly as exciting for example.

It'd be ideal if WoTC could work on their own story better - I'm also trying to point out that their ability to adapt a good story doesn't seem to have been lost, only their ability to write a good story.

Intercom voice: D-3527-jA λ, your response?

Well, as the resident rabid, bomb-throwing, filthy Socialist, I feel like we need to address the fascistic white supremacist elephant in the room.

Intercom voice: Please just ignore SCP-████, it's the only way to keep it contained.

No, not that one, the other fascistic white supremacist elephant in the room.

Intercom voice: Wait, there's two of them now?  Why can't I see it?!  INITIATE EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN PROCEDURES!!!

Dudes, belay that order, it's a figure of speech referring to the rampant racism of the social mediasphere getting all butthurt about Aragorn being black.

Intercom voice: Shit, he's right.  Cancel the lockdown, everyone at ease.  Do go on, λ.

I remember PowrDragn saying in an episode of Magic Mics a few weeks ago that someone on twitter told him "Well, we're just sick and tired of hearing from you people."  Leaving aside my mental tangent¹, I'm shocked but not surprised that even now, some racist feels that both that language and attitude are ok at all, mush less to say right to the face of a member of that group².  trump has done so much to set back everything to the bad old days of the 50s; he's like a "GIFT[/urk]" that keeps on "giving".

That aside, I must confess that I'm not all that familiar with Tolkien.  I mean, sure, there was that puppet show of The Hobbit I saw at a school auditorium when I was about 12 or so, and of course I saw Peter Jackson's masterwork (including the Special Extended Editions), and I did see the first film of The Hobbit trilogy (in 3D, 48fps, 5K resolution, no less), but other than that, I'm not too familiar.  I know my mom has read almost all of Tolkien, and she keeps trying to get me to read his work as well, but I don't know.  I don't really have much time for reading lately.  Anyway, from what I've seen, WotC has been fairly faithful to the source material.  I tried getting the biggest Tolkien fan I know about, Stephen Colbert, to weigh in, but I haven't heard back from him.

Now can you please stop blasting whatever that so-called "music" is?!  My ears are starting to hurt.

Intercom voice: Very well.  Here's something else.

You cruel, sick, twisted bastards!  How are you not suffering from this torture?!

Intercom voice: That's classified.  "How are we not suffering from this torture?"  "Fucked if I know!"  λ, β, ζ, and 𐤎, please answer the following Question: You've been tasked by R&D to make a control archetype that's fun to play with and against. What is your solution?





¹Another weird thing my brain does is obsess for years (you don't say?) over rewriting scenes to remove conflict, or "improve" it in some other way.  F'rinstance, this scene had my brain making Charlie say "your company" right from the beginning.  Would that have actually made anything better?  Well, for one thing, that scene wouldn't have even been anything, and the entirety of the rest of the movie might not have even happened, depriving us of quite possibly the funniest scene in the entire movie.

²Should I be worried that I sound racist for using such broadly vague phrasing?

I expected our „hosts“ to shut down my request – but not to completely ignore it. Great, now I feel as ignored as Vivien by the community when she first got printed.. Was this intentional? To make me feel a different kind of let down rather that what was to be expected?

• 

OK, let's get the obvious issue out of the way first: Magic has a diverse playerbase and it's therefore impossible to please everyone at the same time.

With that in mind, I definitely agree with D-3527-jA ζ about Control being an important part of the Magic metagame – though despite me personally finding Combo decks much more annoying to play against for the most part (I hate it when decks just end the game out of the blue) I know many players dislike Control more than anything else.

WotC already moved away from Stax and LD approaches for the most part to reign in deck styles that would completely stop one player from participating in the game. Generally speaking, I think Control decks tends to get the most critism when they're too one-minded, aka decks that counter every single spell, make you discard your entire hand constantly, or similar – whereas decks that require a combination of tools tends to lead to different games and therefore can be more interesting.

Also I think one of the big issues for many is when the Control deck obviously has a firm grip on the game, but cannot bring it to a close (unless the opponent is so annoyed they simply give up just to end it) – so I think having proper and efficient finishers is important to keep Control as fun as possible.

I personally think the main problem with control is the lack of interactivity. It's no fun playing if your opponent doesn't let you, is it?

So my solution would be to add interactions that let you slip your way past restrictions. Off the top of my head maybe something like-

Devil's Rebuke
instant -

Target player names a card, then reveal your hand. Counter target spell owned by that player if the named card is not in your hand.

Although, I don't think mill is salvageable. That stuffs evil.

Intercom voice: D-3527-jA λ, you are dangerously close to being assigned to 110-Montauk duties.

I just needed some time to gather my thoughts.  As I've said numerous times before here and elsewhere¹, the guiding principle of R&D shouldn't be "Is this fun?", so much as "Is this fun to play against?", and "If it's fun to play against the first X times, is it still fun to play against the next 500 times?"  If the answer to either (or, even worse, both) the latter two questions is no, then at the very least, some serious reworking needs to be done, if not a complete and total scrapping of the card in favor of something that actually is fun to play against for any extended series of games.

A perfect example would be Hullbreaker Horror.  The Alchemy version did an okay job of waving the Nerf Bat in its general direction, but as you can prolly tell from my snarking, didn't do nearly enough to actually balance it.  If it were up to me, it'd be a 7/6 whose truggered ability's modes could only target spells or permanents with the same mana value as the triggering spell.  Likewise, Dream Trawler should've never had the hexproof-granting ability, as the extra card draw it causes on attack IS all the protection it needed, as you're constantly drawing more potential countermagic.

My own philosophy in re Control is more "One vital spell, artfully applied as a fulcrum", as opposed to SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMM!!!one²  Sublime Epiphany, then, is my idea of a perfect counterspell, as it can't be run out so soon due to its 6mv, meaning that your early plays are safe; but even with such a high mana value, you're still getting quite a lot, with amazing situational flexibility.  Because of that flexibility, there have been countless times where that one spell wins me the game, usually through a concession.  A lot of assholic players love to dish it out, but they can't seem to take it.

Another facet of my philosophy of Control is winning via much, much weaker decks.  Real David vs. Goliath stuff, where the only way I can win is to tax my brain almost beyond the breaking point.  I mean, just look at my decks!  Even the most Controlling ones are woefully underpowered when compared to the rest of the meta, and usually fold almost immediately to most of what's out there.

I guess WotC is moving slightly towards how I would handle Control with the recent desparking of most of the planeswalkers (and how log do we all think that shit'll last?), but again, fucking Ashy Larry still isn't one of those desparked 'walkers, so what the fuck are they even doing?!!

Anyway, I'm sure we'll have more ground to cover soon, so ask your next Question, strange, autotuned, disembodied voice.

Intercom voice: Very well, switching enhanced interrogation audio, and quit leaning on the fourth wall!  Tell us what you'd do to limit control cards that WoTC would never do.





¹And jesusfuck, the search function of this here forum is a bit of a mess!

²I wanted to link to a comic I saw years ago on 1d4chan.org that showed the TF2 Demoman in place of William Wallace at the climax of Braveheart, with the inquisition insisting that he admit that his character was OP and completely inbalanced, and his final word not being "FREEEEEEEEDDOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!" but, well, I said it just before this aside.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to find that cimic anywhere anymore.

Hey, mysterious intercom voice, could you pass this message along to ZephyrPhantom ?  "In my saltier moments, I consider any deck that runs more removal than I do to be Control.  I realize that this is a very solipsistic way of thinking about things, and is therefore extremely untenable, but you try not being salty after three straight matches of the shuffler fucking you over via landscrew, then pairing you against three different decks that all run the same flavors of bullshit.

I just wonder where are all the Social Gamer Timmies & Tammies.  I can't be the only one.  I can't be the only one who builds decks with the guiding principal of "Never build a deck that you wouldn't want to play against, and never run cards that you wouldn't want to play against."  It's statistically impossible that Arena is populated by ONLY Spikes whose only goal is to win at any cost, using whatever is most powerful and best increases the chances of winning, and me.

Intercom voice: I told you, D-3527-jA λ, that for the duration, you all are to refer to each other, and be referred to, by the designations we provided you all.  Do you wish to be transferred to110-Montauk duty?

No, no, I'll be good.

Intercom voice: Then please follow directions.

Fine.  Hey, mysterious intercom voice, could you pass this message along to D-3527-jA ζ?

Intercom voice: I'll make sure they get it.

The first example sounds less like a control problem and more like a player problem - I mentioned above how packing lots of counterspells but no finisher is a rookie mistake since someone might play it out, and you can find some similar examples of where being 'sensible' with removal is important like in EDH, where the one instance in which Mass LD is considered okay is usually if it's accompanied by some big creature or similar that will finish the game in the next turn or so. I can't say much more since I haven't experienced this very often, but I do agree that recklessly removing everything is a great way to fall for plays where someone casts a weaker spell first (and this is why doing so is encouraged as a good play pattern).

Not sure I follow the second example though, because a creature like that can potentially win the game if left unchecked - in a 1v1 without any other social hangups I think most people would opt to kill the potential card advantage 5/5 for 3. What you're saying here feels like it's a lot more fit for social multiplayer formats like EDH, where allowing people to do their flashy thing and have fun is considered more important than who wins.

Here you go.  Start at the beginning.

While I'm not 100% sure when that is in relation to my current location, I'm ready to respond right now, so I still should be in time

I'd love to claim being late with my response due to me having watched Maze Runner vigorously these past few days (to maybe or maybe not prepare myself for the upcoming future ), but in reality I really just don't now how to respond to this one.

The previous questoin was a bit tricky, but here I just don't really have an answer since I don't honestly think control cards need to be more restricted as a whole (single card outliers might obviously occurr - but this is true for all playstiles) other than what WotC already does for quite some time..

I'm not a big fan of completely ignoring the main question and just going "all-in" on the side discussion, but that's honestly the only thing I can offer for this one, sry..


Nah, that card is fine after you've seen Tidespout Tyrant remove entire mana bases


The thing is though, answers need to be cheaper than threats since they are reactive spells. I'd never even consider Sublime Epiphany as a counterspell in the first place to be honest, it's a value-based spell finisher much more akin to Sphinx's Revelation.


But this is where you really lose me. Sure, at three mana it's not as overpowered as the original, but it's still the Exploration ability giving the dino it's power - and only to a much, much lesser degree the basically vanilla 5/5 body it can offer at some point. On the contrary, this one need to be removed as soon as possible - the longer it sits on the board the less use it offers at all (since at some point a player wo't have nonstop two lands in hand) and by the time you have the City's Blessing I'd argue the card is mostly unimportant anyway..

Generally speaking, the two of us already had this discussion in the past already, yeah Your definition of Control definitely is wider than mine for example as well. And yeah, Arena definitely doesn't help there when you have some pet peeves - since back when I played it, I did indeed also often feel like many players often just netdecked one of the obvious powerhouses to grind some daylies..



That is indeed something I'd agree with. Also, especially after reading the recent announcement, I'd add the willingness to ban new cards despite them being what currently still sells packs..

Hey, a new soylent green smoothie! Love these things...
Hey, Mr. Pie-Alpha-Sigma-Delta-Joker sdfkjgh , we doing the next question then? I'm a poor single mother who needs to feed her elder-spawn-babies!

You can tell none of that last one was true just because of who said it.

I feel like I got these big takeaways from your response:

1) You think Planeswalkers being control friendly are a big part of the problem. I just want to point out, if an enchantment or artifact had all of Teferi, Time Raveler's abilities, it'd have roughly the same net effect, maybe even worse because you can't even attack it. Jace, the Mind Sculptor and The One Ring are extremely similar cards in terms of role, for that matter (for the sake of this bigger picture argument, I know if you get down to exact details they are not and The One Ring is actually better than Jace currently, if anything.)

Most of the PWs you linked aren't great examples, for that matter:
- Jiang and Arlinn are so bad they only top 8'd in Standard once while they were legal. Ellywick didn't even get that far. At least link something creature or combo oriented like Garruk Wildspeaker or Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast.
- Do you know what Teyo and Kasmina were great in? I'll give you hint, one is used to block creatures that are otherwise dealt with with lots of boardwipes and spot removal, and the other explicitly protects the finisher of "lots of little creatures" in a strategy that keeps the board clean with lots of removal and counterspells... Your argument about Planeswalkers only shows that we can ignore that point and focus entirely on the argument about removal (which I start responding to below). (Unless you're telling me Artifacts and Enchantments also need to be completely neutered?)

I was going to make a deck myself to turn this into a whole bar Brawl, but these good ol' competitive players have done it for us! You only need to replace the single The Royal Scions!

2) "The whole idea is to bake in some holes in every strategy, because currently, Control as a whole has none." But...there is a hole in Control's strategy. It has to play the long game until it can resolve a finisher, and actively wants to create game states where nothing is being accomplished every turn until it can do that. That means aggro decks that quickly spawn more creatures than Control decks can deal with wreck them - for example, an early Crashing Footfalls off Shardless Agent is three creatures off one card.

With the whole limiting of single target only or boardwipes only concept - you talk like Control decks will always have the exact removal they need to deal with situations like that, which is also not logically true. For control players, some of your removal must be expensive boardwipes (otherwise you lose to go-wide aggro decks), and some of your removal must be single target counterspells or removal (otherwise you lose to big cheap threats that are 2-3 mana like Tarmogoyf that come down faster than you can boardwipe).

That means there will always be situations where the control player "draws the wrong half of the deck" and then have to deal the situation I mentioned by using Fatal Push or Solitude on only one Rhino token - leaving 6 power left on the board they have yet to deal with.

3) "personal banlists" - You mean, like the one that are in the descriptions of MTGO match rooms that say things like "No blue, no elves, <etc...>"? I hate to break it to you, but that would just result in lots of rooms where people ban everything they lose to - must like it already has in the past. Again, this is something that works a lot better in Commander where the goal isn't to win and making sure everyone "does their thing" is more important - in fact, it's a literal part of Rule 0. I'm not going to tell you to change the way you play, since you clearly enjoy it, but if you're gonna haul us into a virtual SCP-filled prison where I have to put up with this Nigerian prince demon scammer, I will tell you that you're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.


Hey, I am a PROUD Doge investor, thank you very much. Now do you want to buy some virtual GooseNuggetsTM? 100% safe on the SphereRopes.

...case in point.

---

1) Yes, by getting rid of all removal or neutering removal down to the point it's useless.

To respond to the other solution you brought up - making removal dependent on creatures just means control would pivot to finding the most control-favoring creatures possible and then run creature-based removal. Fog Bank and Bone Shards, here I come!

2) No - see my points about what happens when games have no removal and if we're supposed to consider Rakdos Scam removal. If removal is good enough, someone will always create a control deck, and it doesn't necessarily even have to include a single counterspell in it, to try and police combo decks in the combo > aggro > control > combo dynamic. Without it fast combo will inevitably run rampant - unless it's banned out too, I suppose, leaving only big walls of creatures staring each other down on the battlefield.


I mean, -surely- there's some unspoken hell where it works, right? Force 'em to brawl! Make everyone bleed to death!

That's one way to do it, to be honest. Forcing everything to attack would prevent board states from gumming up and make people consider creatures more carefully. The flipside of this is that now X/1 creatures are essentially removal and the whole cycle starts all over again.