Permanent Impact

[Rubik_3x3x3]

The significance of permanents in Type 4 seems to be less than that of instants which have the advantage of being played on any given turn, or sorceries which can tutor for five cards or clear the board. Granted, some permanents are a bit better/safer than others, primarily lands or nonland permanents with instant-speed abilities capable of winning a game, which then makes the card often feel very sorcery-esque.

The idea that "a 6/6 with relevant abilities is pretty good" seems incorrect when creatures often get shot down as they enter the battlefield. I feel that creatures, especially the so-called "beaters," fall short of expectations very often. So, I guess I'm wondering a few key things:

Is creature combat a relevant part of Type 4 in your stack?
Have the counterspells and removal spells entirely overpowered permanents?
What % of your stack is creatures? An approximate split between beaters and utility would also be helpful.
What % is removal for on-board answers?
Any other suggestions outside of answering these questions is appreciated.

Thanks in advance for the usually great tips I get here.

[spcleddy]

Had similar thoughts a few months back, decided to up the number of creatures and hold off on adding too many new spells for awhile. It got back to a nice balance, but at the price of card quality on some of the creatures. Now I'm having to cut lame guys and limit the counters and wraths I include.

More creatures meant that something would stick. Then they swing and do damage. But no true "combat." The few dudes that make it are always sideways, not a whole lot of blockers.

According to Excel, I have around 80 creatures out of a 240 card stack. Of those, maybe 60 or so are fatties. 40 counters, 25-30 wraths, 25 spot removals including art/enchant hate. Speaking of which, I experimenting with powerful enchantments too to see if that becomes interesting. May need to increase removal for it if things like Invocation get out of hand.

It's hard to find a good balance, and it takes a lot of playtesting. Good thing I enjoy T4!

[Rubik_3x3x3]

I enjoy it more than any other format because every set brings updates, but things never cycle out like Standard. Also, most of the best cards are complete crap and can be bought for under a dollar, with a few exceptions. Unfortunately, I only have a few friends that play Magic, so we need almost all of us to get to play T4 (at least 4/5 of us).

I think you're counter-heavy, by the way. Go check out my counterspells thread. Most of us feel the number should be about 8-12% depending on taste, and you appear to be around 18%, which seems to high no matter what your taste unless everything is a huge bomb in your stack. Otherwise, you feel that 25% fatties makes creatures matter? Or maybe more like a 1:1 fatty to removal ratio?

[Godder]

It's good to have answers, but if your stack is more answers than threats (whether creatures, enchantments, lands or artifacts), no threats will feel adequate. Remember that threats can answer each other - it doesn't need to all be counters or "destroy" effects.

[Farandar]

I have something like a third of Creatures out of a 350 (more or less) cards stack.
Hard to say which are beaters and which are utilities (some are obvious the one or the other, of course : Inkwell leviathan is clearly a beater, and Ertai, wizard adept an utilit' guy). But what about Nullstone gargoyle ? Or even Emrakul and its timewalk ability ?

In the last game we played, the thing is mainly : clear the way for my creature, counter the rest. Sounds less fun it is in real game, but quite true anyway. As far as I remember, players more often die from blasts (Parallectric feedback on Emrakul, Urza's rage, Searing wind) than from being beaten. But that happens too, why should anyone play hasty boys if not ?

My opinion is that if your creatures are instant killed or countered, it means that THEY are treats to be dealt with, and counters and removal are ways to achieve this goal. But if you and your friends want a Grand Melee style stack, may be you should reorganize your stack in order to have more combat.

Question is : is lack of creature combat a problem to your gaming group ? Anything else is irrelevant (fun rulez).


Oh and last thing. Control magic is a way to take care of a threatening creature. A vicious but very fun way

[Rubik_3x3x3]

I guess I ought to take a look at my ratios. Creatures will often stick, but rarely fight each other. Usually one or two guys will have a dude, and will attack the other guys for fear of blocking or whatever else, so I'm not sure there's too much removal. I guess I have to look at ratios before anything else.

What is the overall ratios of your stacks? Creatures, removal, counter, other? I feel this may be important in establishing something where creatures matter, but might not be the grand melee scenario, although it might be fun to just take out half the non creature stuff and see what happens.

EDIT: Does ~33% creatures, ~12% counters, ~10% sweepers/wraths, ~10% removal (including non-creature), ~35% draw/broken/other seem good?

[Mr. Type 4]

I think it's a matter of taste, but I feel that creature combat can be achieved in Type 4 by controlling what cards are allowed in the deck.  If you want creature combat to be relevant you need to "water down" the removal so you'll not only use fewer removal cards, but the ones you do include should be less potent with more limited applications.  DEFINITLY limit the number of board sweepers, and probably make them all sorcery speed.  I guess this could be a fun stack to build if you're really bored with the Uber-powerful Type 4 model.

Simple Fact: in any format of Magic, the removal cards are far more powerful that the cards they remove - period. In Type 4 this is even more obvious because people tend to built type 4 stacks featuring "only the best" removal cards as there are so many to choose from. 

In my stack, 95% of the creatures are ones that can impact the game immediately. Waiting a whole round before you can attack with something is an eternity.

I have found that my Type 4 games are laregly decided by the permanents that DO ultimately stick to the board.  Oftentimes these are the less powerful permanents that people wont "waste" their valuable removal on.

[Metamind]

I don't view it as a bad thing. Not each creature should survive. Permanents that do survive win the game, and they do that quickly. I appreciate the skill of appearing weak and harmless, so that players don't look at you when they search for targets for their removals. I even more appreciate convincing everyone it's to their advantage to keep that threat alive, then kill them all with it.

The idea that "a 6/6 with relevant abilities is pretty good" seems incorrect

You should have higher expectations  A 6/6 doesn't get the job done fast enough to be very relevant here. Four turns to kill a player is not realistic. Which is good IMO, it would suck to gaze at a dragon for five turns and not be able to do anything about it while it slowly kills you. Getting only 1-2 hits will not help you in the long run too much as it draws more ire to you from the beaten player. In my stack I just completely ignore attacks from anything in that range of damage. Four turns away from now a removal spell would probably resolve, someone else will mess with that opponent or I would just kill him before that. I wouldn't spend a removal on it even if I have it, in most cases.

Is creature combat a relevant part of Type 4 in your stack?

Usually, the final nail in the coffin, the end result of the masterplan that results in a player dead is an attack from a creature, and it's by far the most common killing method here. Creatures have the advantage that you cannot know who will they attack, so they would often dodge counters. They are political tools. You usually aim to attack someone after he had already spent his spell for the turn, maybe for countering yours, catching him totally by surprise.

Blocks are pretty rare. I would say that a block occurs every second game. It's almost always better to be aggressive here, and we like it that way. Games shouldn't drag forever.
Sometimes the player you wish to attack is just in a too good board position, or his life total is too high compared to his power AND that player considers you as someone neutral or a friend. Then it might be best to keep your creature back, not make an enemy and threaten everyone with your potential to attack them during the next turn. You are standing and watching, waiting for the next opportunity.
That happens somewhat more often (a bit less than once per game). But still, if a player wants to kill you, it's almost always better for him to spend his removal on your creature (often even a few turns before he attacks you) then to leave it alive, even if his creature is able to survive the block. Giving a player a turn to play sorcery speeds in this format is way too good to take the risk.