The Reign Of The Battlefield

Lino Burgold

About Lino Burgold

Lino is the 2009 Rookie of the Year from Germany and he has a number of high-profile finishes under his belt:

• Level 6 Pro Players Club member
• Winner Grand Prix Hanover
• Two Grand Prix Top 8
• 32 Lifetime Pro Points

The Reign of the Battlefield

Magic is a complex game. And not just “pretty complex”, it is one of the most difficult, complex, and therefore also fun games in the world. For my part, I have yet to find a game that is more challenging on so many different levels. There is the game, the board and game interaction. The mind games, the bluffs, lies and tricks. The metagame and the deck building process. And, of course, the factor of luck, the ability to calculate risks with coincidence. This pretty much sums it up. These things can be found in other games as well, although I don’t think any other single game can muster all of them. For example, Poker has the mind games and bluffs, as well as the factor of luck to calculate with. This means that pretty much every part of the Poker game can be included in Magic and more, making Magic the more complex game. Obviously, those specific parts in Poker are a lot more important there than in Magic. Therefore, for example, a very good mathematician is a better Poker player than Magic player, if just for the fact of being a mathematician. Magic is more of an all-around game, forcing you to be good at all different levels, while also being forgiving sometimes if you may lack one skill. Of course, the most important and central part of Magic skill is, obviously, “playing good”. I want to discuss the factor of “playing good” in today’s article and how it might have changed in recent times.

Versions:
10th Edition (Foil)
Magic 2010 Core Set (Foil)
Ravnica (Foil)

A Million Parts

In terms of game play, not the single card makes the game complex. Mark Rosewater once said that he fears the “complexity creep” the most, it being the worst nemesis of the game. As a reaction, Wizards try to make easy and simple cards, creating the complexity rather through the interaction with other cards and decks. This is definitely the right way to go and is not what is making the game less skill-intensive. For example, one of the most challenging cards to play, ever, reads as simple as “Counter target spell”, while Warp World, although a pretty cool and definitely complex card, is not a remotely as relevant addition to the game.

I Summon a Creature

The game is always evolving, and one of the most important changes in the last years is the upgrade of the creature type as a whole. This was definitely an important step, as the previous dominance of spells was pretty overwhelming. Wizards was entering a complete new territory and like always when entering new lands, you tend to make mistakes more often. These mistakes are less obvious than in previous times. A broken combo card is a lot easier to spot than a creature. Creatures have a special status in the game because they’re creatures. For example, in Limited, bad creatures are to be preferred to bad spells. After all, they are still creatures. Who cares if Mindless Null is bad, as long as it beats your opponent up? Tanglesap though? Not so much… For constructed, the same works from the opposite direction. Who cares if Baneslayer Angel is good, if I can just destroy it? After all, it is still a creature. Since we already mentioned Baneslayer Angel, let me stay here for a moment. I want to make clear that I don’t see her as a problem, in contrary. It seems like it does what it is supposed to do very, very good.

Tap Eight Lands, Cast Avatar of Might!

Baneslayer Angel rewards you for playing expensive cards. Let’s do a quick experiment: It is turn five. You may cast any one spell that costs five or less. Obviously, this is completely dependant on the board situation, but let’s consider it in a vacuum for a second. So…which card do you pick? Probably, Baneslayer Angel. You could also say, “Ancestral Recall, keeping four mana open to counter my opponents’ threats”, but I guess we can all agree that Ancestral Recall is “a bit” over the edge. You might also opt for cards like Fact or Fiction or Tidings, but eventually, Baneslayer Angel is one of the top choices in this experiment. Even though it is a creature, with no protection whatsoever. Just for being plain and fat and game-ending. This is what you are supposed to get for five mana!

Tap Two Lands, Terminate Your Avatar

Baneslayer Angel is a pretty ambivalent card, being both good on its own and being bad on its own. Baneslayer Angel, unanswered, just ends the game in one to four attacks, depending on the matchup. However, it is an expensive spell that can easily be answered. While being an incredibly powerful card, it still needs stuff to work around. For example, in the current Standard, you cannot rely on a control deck that wins just by casting Baneslayer Angel and attacking. You have to put plenty of effort to make it stick. It is not worth casting a five mana spell if your opponent can just negate it with a pretty generic two mana spell. Not usually, that is. However, Baneslayer Angel is good enough to take the risk. It is a threat, and threats need answers. Baneslayer Angel demands one, instantly. Obviously, demanding an answer is not good if your opponent can present that answer on a too regular basis. Therefore, Baneslayer Angel needs a lot of support even though it is that powerful on its own. The big creatures really enhance the game play of Magic. The game now rewards decks for getting into the late game if they planned to get there, and punishes decks that try to avoid that. Cruel Ultimatum is another card in this category, although it is not a creature. If we do the same experiment again, with turn 7 and any spell that costs 7 or less is allowed, your answer is always “Cruel Ultimatum!”. It is hard to think of a spell that is more swinging than that. It doesn’t exactly win on the spot, but the rewards for getting there are pretty obvious.

This is definitely a change from before. Earlier, the “X or less”-experiment would probably often wind up with a cheaper card. By now, you get what you pay for.

Versions:
Zendikar (Foil)

Turn Two, Crack a Fetchland, Attack For Four

Big creatures are not the only cards that got improved during the last years. Small creatures got a lot better as well, especially in Zendikar, but also earlier with cards like Figure of Destiny. Let me say that this is not a problem per se, either. It obviously depends on the cards able to answer those early threats profitably. At the moment, there is no answer to early threats that could be considered “profitable” besides Day of Judgment, which is either too slow or not powerful enough, depending on the matchup. Terminating a Steppe Lynx after it has attacked once is not “profitable”. It might still be the best play, being able to bring you into later phases of the game, so I’m not saying it is bad – however, you didn’t get an edge, actually, you lost something. I’m not saying cheap creatures shouldn’t have an advantage, either. They are usually weak as soon as the game drags on longer, so having an edge in the early game seems adequate. The whole Boros Bushwhacker deck, for example, is incredibly fair on its own, but it is adding up.

Turn Three, Sprouting Thrinax. I Play Day of Judgment?

There are no wrong questions, only wrong answers. This is common knowledge among Magic strategy, and it was never more true than today. While the creatures became better, so did the removal, although not on the same level. Terminate, Putrefy, Maelstrom Pulse, Path to Exile, Lightning Bolt and even Celestial Purge are all very powerful removal spells, a lot more powerful than those of the past (yeah, I know, Terminate is a reprint). However, did they become stronger just as much as creatures did? Even if they did, there is still a power deficit. This may or may not have existed in the past, but there is a reason for it to pop up now. If the threats get more powerful, as well as the answers, this means that nothing changes until you stop having an answer. Then, the game ends a lot faster than in the past. We have reached a point where cheap removal for cheap creatures became insufficient. You can’t Path to Exile a Steppe Lynx for profit. Nor can you Maelstrom Pulse it. The removal is good enough for Baneslayer Angel; however, it is not for the cheap creatures of the format. The only logical answer to counter your opponents’ early creatures therefore is: Play early creatures as well!

Versions:
Shards of Alara (Foil)

Block Your Sprouting Thrinax…With My Sprouting Thrinax?

There is nothing wrong countering creatures with creatures. For example, Plumeveil or Wall of Denial are excellent examples of how a creature-countering creature may look like. The trouble starts when the best defensive creature is also one of the best aggressive creatures. Sprouting Thrinax is awfully powerful on both the offensive and defensive. While you might think of a more aggressive creature, he is probably the best defensive creature and quite resilient as well. This somewhat ridicules defensive strategies, as they are reduced to nothing more than a protection of aggressive decks. You hardly get rewarded by playing something like Wall of Denial instead of Sprouting Thrinax, even though you commit to a specific game plan.

Play a Removal, Untap, Cast a Threat…Oh, You Can Just Call Me Bloodbraid Elf

Even worse than Sprouting Thrinax, however, is Bloodbraid Elf. It doesn’t matter whether you cascade into a removal spell or a creature, as both are fine in countering other creatures. It plays like a much improved Shriekmaw, making it probably the best defensive creature around, which is kind of funny for a creature with haste and more power than toughness, and the potential of cascading into another creature or Blightning makes it the best aggressive creature, as well. Bituminous Blast has the same problem, although it is not as overpowered as Bloodbraid Elf is. It often plays like Plumeveil, which was an amazing creature on its own, but loses nothing in value when played in an aggressive deck, especially if even defensive decks have to rely on early creatures.

Enough the Shenanigans, Put Your Cards On the Table!

So, what am I up to? Well, to sum it up: Defensive strategies don’t get compensated, and no matter what your game plan is, it usually involves putting creatures on the table, even during the first few turns. You might say, so what? Board Presence forces interaction, which requires play skill, which is good! Well, it is not as easy as that. In reality, Magic always had enough interaction, and this is not an upgrade, but rather a step back. Why? The game encourages you to put cards onto the battlefield. This forces you to commit resources from a hidden zone into an open zone. The combat is usually not complicated at all, because, even though you play a lot of creatures, the interaction is nothing like in Limited. There could be an opposing creature, which you might want to trade with or destroy - these are your choices, and the answer is usually pretty obvious. If your opponent has no creatures or a creature you have to answer, like Baneslayer Angel, the choice is even easier. No matter how the game situation is, playing as aggressive as you can is always the right play unless the board demands a different reaction. What I mean with that? You play aggressive unless you have to play defensive? Well, yeah, like always, duh? There is a difference. Let’s jump back to pre-rotation Standard. We’re playing Kithkin versus five color control. Both sides had a lot of hidden information that the other one had to consider. The aggro player: “Do I commit more creatures, losing to Hallowed Burial? Can I afford playing a precombat Honor of the Pure, even if he has a Cryptic Command to timewalk me? Can I attack with Wizened Cenn, even though my opponent is threatening a Plumeveil? What about Volcanic Fallout? What is if I play around Plumeveil and he just plays a spot removal? Is it worth the risk?” The control player: “Do I play the Hallowed Burial now, or can I wait for another turn? What if he follows it up with a Cloudgoat Ranger, which I can’t counter? Should I play the Cryptic Command in his combat step to save time, or should I wait to make card advantage with it? Is it save to play the Plumeveil, or does he simply path it away? Can I risk running into Harm’s Way with my Volcanic Fallout? Or just play safe but less efficient by casting a spot removal?”

That is a lot of questions that have to be answered. Every single turn! The key here is that the information is hidden. We are losing hidden information in the current Standard. It doesn’t get much farther than “Can I race him even though he plays removal? What if he follows up with Bloodbraid Elf? Can I play around Bituminous Blast in a realistic manner?” – that is a lot less to think about, also, most of the questions are obvious most of the time; the removal keeps its value even if you don’t attack, Bloodbraid Elf is too erratic to play around, and you usually can’t play around Bituminous Blast, because it is too arbitrary as well, and also has pretty much the same value both if you play aggressive or defensive. In addition, there is nothing to keep you from committing as much as you can. In contrary, there are even spells that punish you for not doing so – like Blightning. Day of Judgment is too weak, because it is not good on its own (at the moment), and if you don’t play it alone, you usually have to rely on creatures as well, making Day of Judgment a lot worse.

Draw Step – Do You Play the Card or Put it on the Bottom?

Cascade in general and Bloodbraid Elf in particular force you to play cards that are always good. This fits perfectly into the philosophy of just playing every card as soon as you can. All of this creates a conglomerate, a chain reaction. Since Bloodbraid Elf is probably the single most powerful card in Standard, you have to build your deck around it. This means, you’re not really just cascading when you are playing a cascade spell, but rather like every single draw step. This takes away a lot of strategic depth, as you hardly gain anything by “waiting for the right moment”, and timing used to be one of the major factors in the past to play “skilful”.

Just Give Me Some Noble Hierarchs Instead!

The way I just described it, the problem reaches farther than just to Bloodbraid Elf as a card. There is nothing around to punish an one-sided, aggressive strategy, at least not remotely as much as there are benefiting factors, while defensive strategies get punished too heavily with Blightning, aggressive creatures that easily trade two-for-one and powerful all-around cards in general. This means that, although there are other decks than Jund, all of them have pretty much the same approach – Some more aggressive, some less aggressive, but all of them work alike: Put all cards you have onto the table, then smash.

Well, That Means We’re Playing a lot of Aggro Mirrors at the Moment – So What?

That is exactly the problem. While the metagame is not exactly diverse, it is far from monotone, as well. However, there are no different archetypes. There is blazing-fast aggro, midrange aggro, maybe even something you could call aggro control, and there is some combo. That’s all. I’m not saying playing Standard is just autopilot at the moment. No, it would be a difficult task to take all the play skill out of this game, and we’re far from that. However, the premises are not in favor of rewarding the better player. It is empirically proven that aggro versus aggro matchups are usually the easiest to play, since you have to reveal all your resources as soon as possible. Aggro versus control matchups have shown to be the most skill-intensive games, as both players try to show just as much information as they need, with a lot of decisions to make in the process. Control versus control is another matter, and in my opinion, while not as intensive as aggro versus control, it still is a lot more demanding than plain aggro versus aggro. This has other reasons.

Go 4 Gold with Lino Burgold

Good Game! – Sorry for not Playing Magic Though…

There is another problem. Most of the cards that are powerful enough to compete in this environment, especially if you look at creatures, are two- or even threecolored. There is Putrid Leech, Rhox War Monk, Sprouting Thrinax, Bloodbraid Elf, Woolly Thoctar, Knight of the Reliquary and similar creatures. There is a huge gap, especially at 3 and 4 mana, which can hardly be made up by monocolored cards. Sure, there are some cards like Ranger of Eos and Emeria Angel, but they usually are pretty conditional and/or just not as powerful. Since this format is pretty fast because there are so many creatures around, you can’t afford to stumble somewhere in the early game. As soon as you do, you die. The mana base of, for example, Jund, is pretty average, which means it is not consistent enough for such heavy color requirements. Even lacking consistency, Jund is still the most powerful deck around. This is why aggro versus aggro is less interactive than control versus control: In the aggro mirror, the starting hand matters a lot more, and many games end without any notable interaction at all. Even a slightly weaker draw can mean you are overwhelmed within turns without many options to gain an edge by “playing good”. Control mirrors ease this problem a lot by dragging the game for quite a long time, giving both players time to interact, as well as make up for a maybe weak starting hand or early mana problems. While the game doesn’t require that much skill anymore, let me say that in every game you actually play Magic, there are still a ton of decisions to make. It hasn’t lost much in comparison to previous Magic environments. However, the games where you don’t play Magic have increased dramatically, making the current situation a lot worse than just the occasional loss to mana flood or screw. All concepts force you to play cheap, but hard to cast cards that are hard to answer but end the game quickly. This allows for a lot of noninteracting games – like not having the right mana, or having the wrong answers. And, of course, there is no time left to draw into your solutions, because the game ends incredibly fast. Also, even if you draw into solutions later on, they are usually not good enough to keep up, because it is hard to trade at all, making it very hard to catch up again and get back into the game. Once you fall behind, you’re usually not going to recover from it. Especially the mana problems show this. In a Jund mirror, once you don’t play a third or even fourth land or as soon as you miss your third color, even just for a turn, you’re way behind your opponent and hardly ever recover.

Is There a Way Out?

In the current Standard format, no, I don’t think so. Not without a banning, of course. However, I wouldn’t go as far as ban, like, Bloodbraid Elf. It is not that broken by any means, it just creates a metagame that is pretty unfunny and a less demanding game in general. There can’t be a banning every time the metagame doesn’t look ideal, and I am not preaching that. All in all, this supreme dominance of aggressive decks is probably not permanent. No matter how weak control decks are at the moment, there are some good cards for that kind of archetype already, and I think it doesn’t need much more to allow a viable control deck to emerge again. This would completely change the metagame. Every new set brings us closer to a control deck, as aggressive decks, especially Jund*, have not much to gain anymore, as it pretty much already plays the ideal cards in about every slot. Control on the other hand, which has had trouble finding a sound list of even sixty cards, still has a lot to gain.

(* Just to make it clear: At the moment, Jund is hardly to be considered an “aggressive” deck, but should rather be seen as the “control” deck of the format. This again proves how aggressive and creature-dependant so-called “Control”-decks are at the moment.)

Versions:
8th Edition (Foil)
9th Edition (Foil)
Battle Royale Box Set
Magic 2011 Core Set (Foil)
Stronghold

Just Give Me a Counterspell for Two Blue Mana!

Ironically, I am quite a fierce defender of the absence of Counterspell. Counterspell wouldn’t be overpowered at all in the current format, but I think the card as a concept is outdated and flawed. A two-mana spell is not supposed to be equally good at every point of the game. This is not how it is supposed to work and inherently weakens expensive cards. While I would really look forward to a good counter, I think we would be better off with something like Mana Leak (which is probably more powerful at the moment, anyway), which seems like much better design for me. Also, this format is not lacking skill because of its lack of counterspells, but rather for the reasons above.

I know people who loathe the current format and see not a lot hope for it to change within the next months, arguing that Wizards seem to like the way it is going, especially with Magic selling better than ever before. I for myself, while I dislike swinging with Bloodbraid Elf, think that there is still plenty of fun ahead, and that Wizards doesn’t want to prevent control decks from happening generally.

A time will come where Standard is going to be a bit more demanding than today,

But until then,

Bloodbraid Elf is pretty good, right?

Thanks for reading and see you soon!

Lino