|
SpikeyMikey
Guest
|
 |
« Reply #2 on: July 10, 2002, 10:29:21 pm » |
|
Burn is not the answer aggro needs. Aggressive card choices and an aggressive playing style is what aggro needs.
I honestly don't think that the metagame is shifted towards control. Both aggro and control style decks have inherent strengths and weaknesses, and they're all pretty well balanced, as far as I can tell.
I think the biggest problem is a lack of really good aggro players. Just like in T2, the better players tend to play control decks, because when an "oh shit, I lose" card comes up, you have answers for it. It's also a little more challenging to play control, it's less forgiving of mistakes than an aggressive deck is, and it keeps you at the top of your game.
Also, just like other formats, you really have to become accustomed to playing a certain style. For instance, I gave my sligh deck to a friend, to play a few friendly games against another sligh deck. My deck was far superior, the girl he was playing was only running 1 cursed scroll, 1 mox monkey(not exactly a huge loss in the fast mirror, but certainly hurts if an active scroll gets out), 2 price main(dead in the mirror), and was running ironclaw orcs to make up the missing slots. He lost. 4 straight games. I picked up the deck, and proceeded to beat her 4 out of 5 games. It's not because I'm a better player than him, in terms of sheer game skill, he's far better than I am.
You have to understand that aggro and control are not exactly set values, it's more like a grey-scale, with your very aggressive decks(Stompy), to your more controlling aggressive decks(Suicide), and from your very controlling decks(Parfait), to your very aggressive control decks(Pox). Most "aggro" decks fall very far to the aggressive side, having few answers, mostly things like wastelands, lyrists or shamans. These decks aren't looking for answers, they're looking for problems. That is the key to playing an aggressive deck.
I believe it was Mike Flores that said it, but the author really doesn't matter, the quote does: "There are no wrong threats, only wrong answers." It's so true. I just recently gave myself a lesson in that, when I put together this 3 color weenie deck a couple weeks back. I was having problems with my sligh, because people were boarding in 7+ cards against me, not in just a few matchups, but in every matchup. Caltrops, Sanctimony, Chill, Conversion, anything they could get their hands on to hose the deck. So I built something a little more versatile.
It was B/G/R, running every good aggro creature I could find, Carnos, Sarcos, Pups, Fanatics, Kird Apes, it was just a bunch of fast, aggressive creatures, some burn, and some answers. Too many answers. I ran 3 maindeck Lyrists, to deal with Oath of Druids and B2B, with 3 more in the board for any sideboard hate that might come in. 4 Edicts, 3 WOrb, a DT, a VT, a Wheel, the deck tried to do everything. It accomplished nothing. Every time you add another agenda to a deck, you water down the other strategies in it.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying aggro shouldn't have any answers, just like a control deck with no threats, you're going to lose if you don't have some way to disrupt your opponent's strategy, but the question isn't "What do I do to answer card X?" it's "What can I do to make him answer to me?" If your opponent is too busy trying to deal with your threats, card X isn't going to make it on the table. When you play an aggressive deck, you are playing with mana advantage. If you pay R for a Jackal Pup, and your opponent pays UU to Drain it, you've just netted yourself some tempo. Yes, he evens it out next turn, but you're not playing for next turn, you're playing to end the game before he gets a chance to get his feet under him.
Let's say it's the middle of a game, around turn 5, and the previous turn, your opponent Mana Drained a Ball Lightning. Morphling drops. It's just going to sit there for a while, right? He doesn't really have the mana to swing 5, untap and block, and still protect it. Yeah, he has force, but who really LIKES pitching cards from a control deck?? So it's going to sit there and block. Now lets say your opponent is at 11, and you're still at 20, and you have a pair of pups and a pair of fanatics on the board. You attack, right? I've watched people in that situation sit back, because they're afraid of taking 5 via the pup. Screw it! Yeah, you may be taking 5, but your opponent is taking 4, and that's without counting whatever burn you might throw at them. You can't be scared. You can't wonder "What if my opponent has this card?" Don't worry about it. You don't have an answer for that card. Don't give him time to find it. Beat his skull in. Play another ball, what's the worst he can do, drain it and use it to attack for one turn, before morphling is back on blocking duty? At best, he's takin extra points to the dome, and that's what it's all about.
Control works on card advantage. When they use one mindtwist on turn 1 to rob you of 4 cards, they've gained massive card advantage. Control doesn't like 1-for-1 trades, because in a war of attrition, their slower answers will lose to your faster threats. This is not new information, everyone knows this, and yet people try to play aggro in a controlling manner, trying to maximize their card efficiency.
I agree, if you bolt your opponent's ball lightning, instead of them, you've gained an advantage. That'd be fine, if you were looking for the long game. Back to the example of my friend losing the mirror, that's exactly what he was doing. He'd hold back burn, hold back creatures, trying to set up a favorable board position. The way I piloted the deck, I didn't care if I got hit with a ball lightning. Screw that, I've got balls of my own. I got an advantageby forcing her react to me, the way she did to him, and she lost, because once you lose that tempo, you're done.
An aggressive deck is a lot scarier when it's bleeding 4-8 points off you a turn, because you can't keep that up very long before you die. When you're sitting with a Moat on the table, and an active Library, it's not nearly as scary. Bolt me? I'll misdirect it to your pup, the one that's been sitting there useless since moat dropped. Rather than run maindeck anarchy to deal with the moat, I'd rather focus on killing my opponent before it drops. A little disruption goes a long way, and the more disruption you throw in a deck, the less effective it becomes. What good does duress do you after you've hit someone with a hippie 3 or 4 times? I'm not suggesting you shouldn't run both, just that you need to think about how often your "answers" are going to be dead. It's much rarer to have a dead threat.
In an aggressive deck, you need to be proactive, you need to take charge of the game from the moment you drop your first land, and don't ever let your opponent take a breath. That's what aggro needs to beat control, that's all it ever has needed.
Just my two cents.
P.S. I'm not saying burn isn't good, I'm just saying that you're going to slow yourself down to add it to an existing non-red deck, and that loss of tempo is going to kill you more often than it helps. Somehow forgot to slip that into that long rant...
MERGED POST\n\n
|
