19, Jan, 25

Modern MTG Design Pushes Threats and Combos Beyond Their Limits

Power creep is not a new concept in MTG. Every year, it seems like cards are getting stronger and more efficient. This plays a massive role in how Constructed formats evolve.

While power creep has its downsides, it isn’t the only issue we’ve seen that affects Constructed Magic over time. The bigger problem has been that while creatures and combo cards are better than ever, reactive elements haven’t followed the same pattern.

From Standard down to Legacy, the vast majority of tier one decks are proactive. This isn’t a coincidence, and this wasn’t always the case. Control decks thrived years ago in nearly every format, but, unfortunately, times have changed. Today, we’re going to look closer at the evolution of creatures, combos, and their supporting cast to get a better sense of why Magic has headed in this direction.

Versatility of Threats

Ajani, Nacatl Pariah

One of the biggest reasons why proactive strategies have risen to the forefront of most formats is that creature quality has skyrocketed in recent years. This is true in both formats driven by premier sets (Standard, Pioneer) and in formats where Horizons products dominate (Modern, Legacy).

Right off the bat, it’s easy to see how threats have gotten cheaper. In Standard and Pioneer, creatures like Heartfire Hero provide aggressive decks with turn-one plays that continue to get stronger over the course of the game. I remember the good old days when Scorch Spitter was a premium one-drop! Oh, how times have changed.

This isn’t inherently problematic until you factor in the fact that reactive cards, including removal spells, haven’t exactly followed suit. One-mana removal like Cut Down is the best thing you have access to in order to keep assertive decks in check. Yet, Cut Down fizzles if the opponent casts Monstrous Rage in response, and it does nothing to answer bigger attackers like Screaming Nemesis.

At the same time, Heartfire Hero is an easy card to land under opposing Counterspells. The combination of these ideas makes it much harder to play a reactive deck. You need your removal and Counterspells to line up in a timely fashion, which is a lot to ask for.

This issue is only exacerbated by the range of value-generating threats that exist in Modern-day Magic. Even if you’re able to keep up with your opponent’s onslaught, proactive beatdown decks have access to elite grindy elements that simultaneously keep the pressure on.

Staving off early pressure is a great start, but what happens when your opponent slams Urabrask’s Forge? In Pioneer, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker comes down early, and it’s pretty much impossible to answer it in a clean one-for-one fashion once it hits the board.

In Modern, Ajani, Nacatl Pariah and Seasoned Pyromancer flood the board quickly with tokens. Sure, board wipes can help in this situation, but Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury requires very different answers. When your beatdown game plan is coupled with elite attrition options, it’s hard not to choose a safe proactive archetype.

Fight Fire with Fire

Grinding Station

This brings us to the second style of proactive deck that has also gotten much stronger over time: combo. Combo decks have followed a similar pattern as decks looking to attack the opponent’s life total. Not only are many combos cheaper and easier to assemble than ever, but they’re also quite resilient.

In Pioneer, Lotus Field combo is a good choice with a robust game plan. It suffers a bit from being too slow against the various Prowess shells. However, the various slow decks of the format, such as five-color Overlords, can struggle against Lotus Field combo. Reactive decks aren’t that much better, since they tend not to apply a ton of pressure.

Grinding Breach and Belcher combo in Modern have the best of both worlds since they’re capable of straight-up racing beatdown decks like Boros Energy. Plus, thanks to free Counterspells like Flare of Denial, Belcher decks can win through disruption from reactive decks. Grinding Breach can too, especially with Urza’s Saga in the mix.

Moving to Legacy, the bans to Vexing Bauble and Psychic Frog were at least helpful in reducing the strength of combo decks. Both of these cards made it much easier to beat opposing copies of Force of Will and run away with the game.

Nonetheless, reactive decks are still a small fraction of the Legacy metagame. Keeping up with tempo Daze decks while also contending with the sheer amount of value Nadu, Winged Wisdom can generate is difficult. Continuing to ban broken proactive cards isn’t a long-term solution, anyway.

Lack of Rewards

Solitude

Given how threats and combo cards continue to get better, the only hope for reactive strategies is that more cards that reward you for building a reactive deck continue to get printed. These cards have been few and far between in recent years.

The reality is, that many cards that look like they’d be good inclusions for reactive decks have simply proven to be better in proactive shells. Take Phlage, for example. Phlage provides a solid life buffer and is a great grindy win condition for control decks. Yet, at the same time, it’s a fantastic piece of top end for Boros Energy to use against control decks themselves.

Solitude is another card that looks like it could be control’s savior. However, as threats have gotten more efficient, it’s become harder to get value out of Solitude as a five-mana play. Sure, Evoking can be helpful in a pinch but you’re still down on resources in the exchange.

This is why the best Solitude deck in Modern seems to be Orzhov Blink, which can better abuse it and can tutor for it with Recruiter of the Guard. All of this then begs the question: what can be done to bolster reactive decks moving forward?

The best bet at this point is likely to match these cheap, versatile threats with efficient, flexible answers that can be used in a variety of matchups. Wrath of the Skies comes to mind. Wrath is good against small creature decks while also being solid versus Urza’s Saga strategies. On top of that, it’s the type of card that Boros Energy and Grinding Breach can’t utilize themselves.

Better card draw spells may help the cause, too. Solitude and Force of Negation become better zero-mana plays when supplemented with ways to generate card advantage. Of course, this isn’t an easy task, since if you make the card advantage machine too good, tempo decks will get a big edge (like with Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student).

Incentivizing players to craft reactive decks is tough. Regardless, we need to start somewhere. Decks such as Sphinx’s Revelation control are a lost art that produced exciting, interactive gameplay. If we continue down the design path we’re on now, we may never recover.

*MTG Rocks is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more
BROWSE
[the_ad id="117659"]