Different control strategies in the different formats.

[cosineme]

I've played type 1 for a while now, but just recently started on slower sets such as legacy, extended, even...standard.

I've been reading/watching more analysis of pros, and this is the second time that this situation has come up. control vs control, the commentators or writers talk about how you should never counter the draw, and only counter the actual threats. now, this is hugely different than how control vs control plays in type 1, where almost every single draw spell must be contested.

why is there such a huge difference? and are the commentators correct? have i been playing extended wrong by countering an opponent's fof in extended? i mean, in cases such as iso scepter and orim's chant, you don't want to counter the scepter because it essentially gives them 4 more exact same threats that you'll have to deal with again. but countering draw prevents options.

i'm not really sure why this difference. i can think of a few reasons,
1. type 1 is so much faster that any card advantage significantly avalanches into victory

2. broken acceleration, in type 1, you can get "lucky" and hit moxes, and lotus in your draws, allowing you to play those cards you drew. in slower formats, this doesn't happen. playing a land a turn means even if they do cast successive FOF, if they aren't hitting land every turn, they're going to discard (which seems to happen more often than type 1)

well, we're always looking for ways to improve, maybe some veterans of multiple formats can enlighten.

[Dozer]

1. type 1 is so much faster that any card advantage significantly avalanches into victory

I'm not a veteran of multiple formats, but I think this is very much the big reason that draw spells are prime counter targets. Note, however, that Smmenen recently had an example on MTG.com (or was it SCG? can't really remember now) where he wouldn't counter a first-turn Ancestral with Mono-U.

When people talk about "threats" in Vintage, there actually are not so many (at least not in decks with enough draw in them for this issue to be relevant). Decks with relevant draw spells (especially decks with more than Ancestral) do not have enough threats to wait to counter them, because by then your opponent will have at least as much protection as you have counters. There are also two different types of draw in Vintage that you need to be aware of: the must-counter ones, and the other ones.

In the first category, I see Ancestral, Intuition (unless it's for AK, but who knows that beforehand?), Gifts Ungiven, and Fact or Fiction. Ancestral is important in that if you let a first turn Ancestral resolve, you might just lose that very turn because you don't know what you are up against. Later in the game, Ancestral provides the boost that is likely to push your opponent over the top to win, and it is such an easy way of catching up that you should prevent it. Intuition and Gifts Ungiven are easily capable of getting threats that are immune to counterspells (dredge cards, Recoup), and especially Gifts is dangerous here both because of a possible insta-win and the ability to tutor for more disruption/ countermagic. And while the old line "EOTFOFYL" is not heard as often anymore, it still is true in many situations.

Thirst for Knowledge is the draw spell that sits on the fence, because it is highly dependent on the board situation. With a Welder in play, you do not want to let TfK resolve. On the other hand, if you are ahead or have answers of your own (e.g. Brainstorm in response or similar), you might let TfK resolve at certain times. Same goes for Deep Analysis, which is rarely worth Forcing because that doesn't really stop it. As a Drain target, on the other hand, it is juicy. The cantrips are rarely countered, and for Skeletal Scrying it depends on how big it actually is.

Draw spells are often referred to as "threats" themselves when players talk about Vintage matches. That is evidence that draw spells really are that important. It all comes back to the power that draw spells can reveal. Best example: the Tendrils kill off a Draw-7 (which are a whole category for themselves and have special rules for countering or not).

Dozer

[Vegeta2711]

The reason people in other formats have been slowly growing towards the plan of simply countering threats is three-fold.

1. Because control in other formats usually have few true draw spells that you care about. Many non-Vintage decks have a far higher density of general answer cards or tutors than powerful draw spells. Note how many decks run cantrip engines backed by an overlord draw system. Which leads into...

2. Harder to stop engines. You can't really beat the LFTL -> Cycling engine via normal means. Deep Analysis takes 2 counters to fully beat. Dredge cards simply come back after being countered and enable other cards. Even if they don't have a central 'draw' engine, it's harder to fight 4 TFK, 3-4 FoF and Wishable card draw than 4 Isochron Scepter and protecting a removal spell to clear out DoJ. Even if you only focus on the hard hitting draw like FoF and wished for stuff, that's still 5-7 draw spells vs 4-5 other.

3. Many counters now being played aren't all purpose and lose a lot of value towards the late-game. Hence some control decks have issues fighting similar decks with more hard counters or extra disruption built in.

And of course the obvious Vintage reasons, only this and Legacy have Force of Will. Which means it's a lot more fesiable to get into an early counter war over draw spells. Also no other format has as many 'I win' spells you can draw into compared to Vintage. which means letting opponents draw is nowhere near as dangerous.

[cosineme]

1. type 1 is so much faster that any card advantage significantly avalanches into victory

I'm not a veteran of multiple formats, but I think this is very much the big reason that draw spells are prime counter targets. Note, however, that Smmenen recently had an example on MTG.com (or was it SCG? can't really remember now) where he wouldn't counter a first-turn Ancestral with Mono-U.

Well, this was true only in the sense that steve was holding an LOA and didn't want to deplete his hand and thus stop his unstoppable draw. I don't know of any other situations where recall isn't stopped.

Vegeta makes a lot of good points, especially the fact that not many counters are hard counters. So, how exactly is somebody supposed to play control vs control? it seems like tapping out main phase isn't too bad of a proposition. there is rarely a play that another control player is going to attempt that is deadly that you can't respond to. worst case scenario he gets to fof as well. also, the thing is, if you only hold your counters for actual threats, many of your counters will just not work after turns 8+

of course, there are many sides to the argument, i'm just trying to figure out how to play.

[Komatteru]

A big thing is that huge bombs don't cost a lot of mana in Vintage.  A draw spell might get your opponent two amazing cards, and you one counterspell can't stop them both in the same turn.  Also keep in mind that Vintage is still Magic.  In Magic, the person with more mana often wins.  A draw spell in Vintage can get you fast mana AND threats.  In the other formats, there isn't fast mana.

As Veggies says, Force of Will is also an important part.  If you let, say, TfK resolve, and then your opponent plays Tinker, your one counterspell doesn't exactly do a lot against the Force of Will your opponent just drew.

[Machinus]

The mana issue is huge. Mana defines tempo, and in Vintage, it is very easy to generate lots of tempo with all the broken acceleration. In other formats, if a deck is casting a draw spell, almost every time it has to sacrifice a lot of tempo to do this. This trade-off makes these other formats "fairer," because the price of card advantage is tempo. In Vintage, you can have your cake and eat it too, because of how broken some of the cards are. The artifact acceleration and restricted draw basically enable you to take multiple turns' worth of card advantage and mana development just by casting spells. This is so dangerous that disrupting the draw spells actually deprives the caster of tempo.

It basically comes down to tempo. To quote something Orlove said in an article, bad control players "draw cards until they lose." In a slow format, it is a little more obvious when you are sacrificing this tempo to gain card advantage, but the basic conflict is the same. The 2003 Tog mirror is about countering the Tog because no other card in the deck can generate tempo (in this case, just winning). It doesn't matter how many cards the Tog player draws; if they can't produce a threat, they lose. The mana constraints of the format were "fair" enough that this strategy worked.