Magic and Complexity Creep

I had a great time playing casual multiplayer at the Pirate Ship last night with Tim and CBG. I thought I had brought EDH decks with, but had not, so my only "casual" deck was one of my first netdecked lists, from way back in the 20th century. I used Randy Buehler's CounterPhoenix list from 1998 with a few tweaks. I tried to stay as true to the spirit of the deck as possible, and kept most of my card choices pre Masques block (except for the manabase- no one should have to play with Caldera Lake ever again). I also had the Naoki Nakada Caw Go list as well, not for casual but because I have been meaning to try it in Standard. I played that deck for the last game, just for the hell of it. What surprised me was how much more complex control decks are today than they were a decade ago. Frankly the same may be said for aggro decks too, I'm not sure. But the CounterPhoenix build was a deck that, as a control deck of it's day was at the peak of subtlety and while it was no ProsBloom in terms of complexity, like most control decks it wasn't easy to play well. Today it is fairly straightforward. Even with Intuitions, there are only a few targets you really want, and obviously once you have all 4 Shard Phoenixes recurring there is not much else to the deck other than sitting up on Forbid/Capsize mana. Now compare to Caw Go. It is a control deck, and as Conley Woods pointed out in a recent article, control decks are designed to eventually streamline the number of choices that need to be made as the game goes longer. But look at what happens with today's control decks in the long game. Which of Jace's abilities is best to use here? What about Venser's? And Elspeth's? Do I search for SoFaF or SoBaM with Stoneforge? Do I want to get back my Tech Edge with my Sun Titan? How about the Plains I discarded at the end of turn 2 when I searched up 3 Squadron Hawks? What about the Journey to Nowhere? Or the dead Squadron Hawk to get a shuffle for my library prior to using Jace's Brainstorm? Maybe it's no surprise, but Magic in general, and control in particular has become crazy complicated, even in the late game, when in 1998 you'd just be swinging with 4 Shard Phoenixes and ditching lands to buyback your Forbids.

The problem with EDH

There are two problems with EDH. One is that it's constructed, so I suck at it. The other problem is that it's awesome, so I keep beating my head against the wall. I reached a new low last night as I managed to Jokulhaups when all it would do is piss everyone off. Awk.

Still, it's a super fun format and I think I am going to keep playing as much as I possibly can so that I can get better. More familiarity with my deck and the ways in which it can win would help a lot. I played the Rakdos deck again last night, but I failed to Jokulhaups into Rakdos (which is always the right play). They might beat you from that position. Then again, they probably won't.

I am learning a ton about tutoring, slow accumulation of advantage, politics and killer enchantments (curse you, red-black. why do you taunt me so?). TooSarcastic is the unchallenged alpha male of the EDH playgroup. He's always dominating the board. He totally won last night when Tabasco should have blown him out. The captain failed to cast Debtor's Knell before each Jokulhaups effect. I think he will learn from this mistake. Major_luck and Fugie collaborated to...well, I am not sure what they were doing.

There is another project that intrigues me, which is taking my blue-green deck and modifying it to up the counterspelling. I am not planning on making a lock deck, just something where everybody asks me, "okay?" whenever they put a spell on the stack. What do you all think? Maybe 15 counters? That way, I should usually have one in hand, but not all the time. I might wanna add white for Swift Silence. But I think I am gonna stay UG and use Momir Vig.

Sorry about the brevity. I am focused on EDH right now and there isn't a ton to say.

Tabasco, if you want in on the 29th, you need to tell me like, now. There are only two seats left at the 8-man, and I have an idea for one of 'em.