Interesting post on TCGPlayer

In an interesting thread: http://forum.tcgplayer.com/showthread.php?t=149722

justactcasual wrote:

randombu wrote:Generally magic is classified by four types of cards, threats, answers, tempo and card advantage (land fits in somewhere).

These 'classifications' are not intrinsic qualities of a card. A card only enters one of these categories depending on how it is played in a specific game. Relic of Progenitus is a threat if the opponent is playing Immortal Coil. Cinder Pyromancer is an answer to just about anything if your opponent is on 1 life. Manamorphose is a tempo card if it allows you to avoid colour screw for a turn. Terror is card advantage in response to an opponent's Giant Growth.

Just about any card could play any one of these roles given a certain situation. By hedging yourself into thinking of each card serving only one role you're doing yourself a great disservice.

I'm not sure I completely agree with his definitions, but I think it's something interesting to think about. A lot of the best cards in Magic either serve one role (defensive or offensive) extremely well, or do both pretty well. Examples are Wrath, a very good defensive card, Blistering Firecat, a good aggressive card, and stuff like Tarmogoyf or Cryptic Command which can aptly play either defense or offense. There's probably a better example for "good aggressive card," but you get the idea.

This is similar to in Feldman's article today where he talks about how decks with multiple gameplans do a much better job of assuming different roles in different matchups. If a deck is the most aggressive or most controlling thing in the format, it doesn't need to be able to change roles as much. (Though it's still kind of nice, imo.) But that's not true of most decks. One example he gave was if you're playing Tron in Extended and rawdog a turn 3 Sundering Titan your Repeals are going to change from tempo/control cards to beatdown enablers. It's also advantageous to be able to change roles, because what are you going to do when you're playing a combo deck that goldfishes on turn 4 against a combo deck that goldfishes on turn 3? You probably don't have any dudes, so you're most likely going to be reaching for your sideboard and hoping to find something to slow them down at least a turn, two games out of the last three.

This goes back to something I've been thinking for awhile: I like aggro-control, probably better than any other archetype. I like a deck that rewards me for knowing when to beat down and when to lay back and just try not to die. I like being able to change gears, because oftentimes your opponent needs to understand when you've done that and adjust accordingly. I hate being "all-in" on one plan, so why not give myself options? The couterargument I'm sure is that you won't always draw the cards to let you choose between both plans, and sometimes you'll draw control cards when you want to beat down and vice versa. But I think if there are sufficient ways to filter my draws in the format, I want to be the fish deck.

Feldman's articles have been pretty impressive lately, actually. I wish his decklists looked as coherent as his theoretical arguments.

I saw that thread a while back, but didn't chime in. I was just glad to know that there are a couple others that think about Manamorphose in the same way I do, and that I'm not completely crazy. And Chuck, Manamorphose had nothing to do with that loss to DoranLark...

I've read that old Flores article before. Any chance someone can post the full text of Feldman's?

Another interesting forum post, this one in response to Feldman's article:

wrapter wrote:

The Article wrote:Will you win a race? If so, you are the beatdown.

This is wrong. Winning a race is irrelevant to role; what matters is inevitability. If you will win a race but also have inevitability, you are not the beatdown. Conversely, even if you are unlikely to win a race, if you do not have inevitability, you are the beatdown.

Consider a blue deck full of card drawing and powerful spells facing a white deck full of dorks, and blue has a 5/5 staring down a white 4/4 with both players hellbent at 20 life. Blue is heavily favored to win a race, yet it is probably correct to sit back on defense. Blue has inevitability and should assume a control role.

Consider the poison slivers vs GW matchup in TSP block. Poison slivers goldfished at least one turn faster than GW, but was most certainly the control deck. In a long game, Dormant Sliver would bury GW in card advantage and Telekinetic Sliver would lock it up; slivers clearly had inevitability. Slivers "controlled" the game by attacking and forcing GW to play defense, but slivers was not assuming a beatdown role.

I'm sure there are great articles out there about it, but inevitability is pretty much what it sounds like: if the game goes long enough, I'm going to win for whatever reason. That is usually a control deck, but sometimes it can be the combo deck that just needs to stall the aggro deck for a couple of turns because the aggro deck has no way to break up the combo. Put another way, inevitability means that you are favored in a topdecking war.

In the example given, with the blue deck having a 5/5 and the white deck having a 4/4, both players at 20, no cards in hand, and plenty of lands, would you attack with your 5/5 or sit back on defense? What if your opponent was another blue deck, or a red deck? What if these were just limited decks instead of constructed decks? What cards in your deck or your opponent's deck would make you less or more likely to attack?

I also found gerry t's article/response to chapin's rather interesting.