[Discussion] Format Imbalance or Fun?

[Smmenen]

I still don't see why people enjoy control mirrors. The games almost always last to time and even then there could be no clear winner. How does this make magic more fun?

I enjoy playing control mirrors because, in my opinion, a control mirror is the most skill intensive match this game has to offer.  

There are far more subtleties, nuances, timing complications, and tempo issues that come up in a control mirror that never come up in any other match.  At any point, during any turn, the game can go to hell.  If a control player's defenses are not up all the time, even if only for an instant, that player has just opened up a path for the opponent to play around the opponent's cards and resolve a key spell.  In doing so that player has just found a pressure point, gained leverage, and made things happen.  This is how a poor hand can overcome a strong hand, and why the control mirror is the one match that I feel truly is the best representation of skill a player can perform (in Constructed, at least).

Maybe that's just me, but other noted people have also said as such.

I'm not targeting you in particular, but i see this sentiment alot.  Mostly it comes from people who play control exclusively.  How much Combo have you played?  How much workshops?   What you say in the big paragraph above I think applies equally to intense matchups with any good type one deck, irrespective of archetype (except maybe aggro).

I have piloted Combo, Workshops, and lots of Drain decks in tournament top8s and in my view, Combo is by far the most skill intensive of archetypes.  (I'm the guy who piloted mono blue at gencon!)  Control mirrors require alot of experience to learn.  But once learned, it's fairly intuitive.  It's almost entirely about timing and knowing what you need to win (forward thinking).  Combo requires a constant analysis that experience simply cannot provide in making optimal plays.  But you also need all that experience as well.  Also, combo usually has the greatest number of potential lines of play making it the most difficult to find the optimal line of play.

[Methuselahn]

It's true, combo could be the most difficult deck to play, but that question sort of deviates from the whole "Is it at least fun?" (read: acceptable) question.

One thing that combo doesn't offer is the opportunity to bluff and read your opponent.  This is fun, and a big reason to like control over combo, mana drain over ritual/trini.

I have probably played all of those archetypes equally and would agree with Rico who, I know from experience, has also played them all, alot.

[ViRidIAnLoNGBoW]

I play TPS almost exclusively and have lost far worse to a well placed mana drain than a first turn trinisphere.  However, the unfortunate thing with "all you have to do to beat trinisphere is get three basic lands" is that in playing combo you are probably only running twelve, mabye thirteen lands.  In TPS, probably the most prevelent combo deck right now, you have 8 chances-eight cards out of 60 -that will help you.  The problem with Trinisphere was that regardless of how simply it could have been dealt with it, it was not an easy road to go down, especially for combo.

And as it has been said quite a few times before me, combo did not dominate before trinisphere, but now that everybody is talking about throwing together death-long or TPS or belcher, It may be time for the workshop players to throw orb of dreams into the sideboard because I can saftely say after testing against it, it is just as scary first turn against combo as trinisphere.

[Freelancer]

Viridian longbow how is orb of dreams so scary? I have played several times with TPS against a root maze wich is functionally the same, a root maze generally only slowed me down for 1 turn maybe 2 turns...
But by the time I am about to go off I am using rituals to generate storm/mana and win that way instead off dump moxen tap for mana rebuild moxe, moxen replay moxen tap for mana tendrills way...

Combo is in my opinion harder than control in a vacuum but control decks on the other hand are from my perspective more difficult to pilot in actual game situations...(control decks are harder in actual games because they are reactive in nature)

note: I am a budget player and only test these matchups from the 'other side', and I have more feeling for combo than control...(This sentence sounds weird to me, I hope you people understand what I mean lol)