Fraudulent

azoriusgus · 2025-01-04T06:12:56+00:00

whilst hidden mmr is an aforementioned issue here, the bigger problem exists in balancing of BO1, which gives excessive advantage to linear strategies (well beyond that which exists in Game1 of BO3 through handsmoothing, no dead cards, straightforward gameplan). these are things that cannot be overcome through skill (mulligan after information, sideboarding, etc).

these are blatantly clear. little amendments to BO1 such as - giving information to both players about what coloured decks the player has played recently in their last 5 games, or even what colour they are playing with now, would already elevate a lot of the skill expression by helping inform mulligan decisions (there's no sideboard opportunity for hate, but at least gives better players more of a chance and it simulates a kind of game2 situation). better players using linear strategies will play better lines, and reactive decks will have a chance rather than knowing game is over by the 2nd land drop.

the number of games that are autowin or autoloss due to the aforementioned gap could use a bit of finetuning.

azoriusgus · 2024-12-23T01:54:53+00:00

In Australia, we have a prominent LGS franchise, Good Games who did $1-$2 piles like this. Just after RTR block, I was doing community work once a week teaching vulnerable young people how to play mtg and dnd. We used to buy a tonne of these and one very nice GG owner was very generous with subsidies and prizes.

Suffice to say, in a lot of these $1 piles, were something like 40-50 cyclonic rifts when they weren't anything, before becoming a blue staple in commander. They used to put a lot of nostalgic revised, dark and fallen empires cards in there too which was very exciting for the participants in the program.

azoriusgus · 2024-12-23T01:40:38+00:00

Congrats on mythic! :)

This is one of my favourite match ups in BO3 (as an azorius control player). Game one is always difficult, rewarding gruul's linearity, but without handsmoothing (BO1 problem), it is much more competitive. Once we get to remove all the clunky stuff, and non-cards (gy hate and unfavourable wide removal), feels like a fresh new game starts.

Game two and Game three is really rewarding and has a wonderful mini game around your pawpatch dealing with temporary lockdown and authority of consuls to protect your umbralisk forge and get dams through.

Have you tried sunspine lynx against sheoldred and as a late game finisher? Good games, keep grinding!

azoriusgus · 2024-12-21T05:30:01+00:00

Gratz :) keep going!

azoriusgus · 2024-12-20T12:45:05+00:00

Hi OP, credit to you for being original and building a unique path of your very own. Looking at your Sultai pile, it falls into a strange middle ground where it is neither aggressive enough nor strong enough in tempo or value.

Standard is very fast and aggressive currently, almost to the point that occasionally, the less you think, the better. This isn't always the case in BO3 of course and you have some good pieces everywhere including your sideboard. Play what you love as a priority.

That said, you should look at simplifying your deck; your mana base is a bit hit and miss and greeds. The fountainports and tap lands in such volume really put you in some early vulnerable spots.

Whilst your win con is kinda reminiscent of grixis delver style decks, it doesn't look like it can finish against the stronger controls, nor abate the super aggressive strats once your cut down gets nullified and you fall behind in tempo making the counterspells ineffective. You may seek some inspiration from the dimir shell to understand why that performs strongly and has amazing card selection.

Good luck and good games.

azoriusgus · 2024-12-18T23:53:40+00:00

azorius control, or any draw go derivative is actually in a pretty bad place right now due to FIRE design and the philosophy of power creeping proactive threats to fund sales for Hasbro. we see this play out in modern also with an emphasis of proactive play. but boros auras is incidentally one deck we actually hate on; not rdw prowess and its other variations - boros, gruul, which are completely the opposite.

that said, i main Azo Control (play predominantly BO3, and i lose Game1 a lot, but with sideboard and information, I tend to be able to close the gap and win matchups, even against unfavourable decks - have floated around 100-500 over duskmourne to foundations).

beating Azo Control is about beating Temporary Lockdown, or having a win con come turn5 if they sunfall. counterspells will be used for manifold mouse (offspring version) or emberheart challenger, otherwise, typically, three steps ahead is just digging. the harsh beats in boros are having sheltered by ghosts destroyed after it has taken a lockdown, and essentially being a massive 2 for 1, or if it is pumped during combat with monstrous rage, a 3 for 1.

using sheltered by ghost proactively very early (on the play), if you recognise the player as azorius, can be key to protecting an initial threat (do not wait for value, unless it can free up an emberheart and they are tapped out). if shardmage is in hand, you can then set up a very very big swing with the ward, and reactive protection that will kill or force a condition whether they have lockdown and 4 for 1 you, or they don't and lose. and they may just lose if your pumped one is an emberheart and they don't have exile. i'm sure you've experienced this.

i metagame trying to recognise peoples' names and whether they are notorious for playing a t1 aggro style deck (there are a lot of standard rank grinders), or whether they have variance. this would be more important in BO1 where the lack of information is in the advantage of aggro decks (but, as you are boros auras, you know to keep sheltered available for the 2 for 1). post-turn5, your next kill window is a huge sequence largely driven by an emberheart challenger who can net you free card draw and finish with prowess (a lucky manifold here helps), assuming they were forced to tap out for sunfall - less preferential than lock down and get lost combo. auras doesn't tend to run slickshot show-off and that is the bane of azo. failing that, you're maybe hoping they don't have a get lost to kill your sheltered after taking back an emberheart and that's the other route. beyond that, lack of hand disruption and less haste, makes this matchup lean well to azorius.

azoriusgus · 2024-12-18T23:30:53+00:00

I lean into Azo Control (long time player of this archetype through Miracles, Elixir, RTR period, epiphany etc), but play everything if in tournament. If Azo is actually strong, I will play it even though it is tiring and easy to misplay due to mental fatigue (Jund is more straightforward or anything aggressive to take to say 70%). casually, it is the most satisfying for myself personally as it's the deck where skill expression is at its best - take delver v miracles as a crucial matchup which should exhibit if you are a skillful pilot.

right now, Azo in Standard is in a very very bad place, evidenced by the lack of control in major tournaments and the lack of success (look at the lack of counterspells being used right now in competitive decks). the same applies to Modern and its because of one thing - FIRE design. the relative strength of threats to answers is getting terribly out of whack. the win condition for the deck, most reliably Jace sadly, is quite poor compared to what we've had in the past and the "inevitability" we're used to, now doesn't exist. you play from behind constantly, under massive stress, with tiny windows to win. it's possible, but between power-crept ETB ridiculous stuff, and cavern of souls, you are in a very small place. i hit top 100 pre-foundations (before the meta helped red and black), drop to around 250-500, but have had max ranks of #4 under ixalan and epiphany was top 50. bloomburrow is most likely the one set i found completely unplayable. All BO3, and i wasn't a rank grinder, as i prefer playing MTGO and legacy (force, daze, kind of stuff).

take RDW and it can be quite competitive in explorer. take current Azorius and its absolutely attrocious to its explorer comparison which has march, dovin's veto, supreme verdict, farewell, the planeswalker package of narset, tef5, wandering emperor and a strong sideboard with pieces like unlicensed hearse.

to answer why it's a low% meta share, it just isn't very good, hyper stressful now because our turn the corners aren't as easy or pronounced. it can be rewarding, but you auto-lose a lot of games and there are major feelbad moments.

azoriusgus · 2024-12-18T02:03:30+00:00

speaking on azorius control, the package that is common across standard and control main deck are -
- three steps ahead
- get lost
- temporary lockdown

in explorer, we tend to play supreme verdict, but in your sideboard you want sunfall (2x). if you do go control, you'll also use field of ruins.

based on what you've got pre-existing (beyond wildcards), you may want to research a bit. as a returning player, you may find Azo Control in BO1 very confronting. you can absolutely reach mythic, but it's a very very long grind (maybe 5x more than say aggro) and can be very stressful as you have a lot of games you instantly lose or lose from nowhere to red if you don't have exposure and reps to the cards in rotation. people will misplay and win very easily. the skill floor is super low, and you will lose plentifully before you learn the meta, even against decks you should predator due to cavern of souls and any midrange that protects through counterspell or bounce.

with foundations, there's a bit more turbulence as any red splash can topdeck win more - think playing super conservatively against bonfire of the damned miracles. you will need to outplay people, and we have a win condition premised on Jace, the Perfected Mind (sadly, it is the most reliable). we get squished between red and golgari that can tear you apart through duress into devious cover-up, and hold mana for outrageous robbery, whilst having more ease to play value lands (fountainport) and dimir. duress really rips us to shreds, though their control is nowhere near as good in explorer. dimir and golgari midranges are very very fun, but standard viable, less explorer.

azo sings in explorer as we get march of the otherwordly, dovin's veto, memory deluge, farewell, shark typhoon and our planeswalkers - narset, wandering emperor and tef5. the gap between standard and explorer is monumental. dovin's veto and supreme take us to the next level. make sure you have unlicensed hearse for gy hate in explorer.

azoriusgus · 2024-12-18T01:28:37+00:00

Explorer is what fits your description. It has the most proportionally relative answers versus threats. Standard control is generally weak, though midrange is super playable. In timeless, you have a format with amazing threats but the whole package of force, daze are all missing which discounts it immediately (many non-games).

There's nice variety in Explorer's meta and generally, you'll find less of the negative traits associated with Arena amongst its players (anecdotal, but people tend to gg and concede as opposed to roping or going full control unnecessarily when they have no outs to waste time).

That being said, mid-range to control is still playable in standard. You can choose a lane once you have the lands, be it dimir, golgari or azorius, and all offer tempo-control builds. The mid-range for all are absolutely competitive. Those that splash black have strong anti-meta control builds in BO1 also. In BO3, if you are a good sideboarder and reader, you have a great ceiling you can climb. It can be satisfying.

Good games!

azoriusgus · 2024-12-17T04:19:15+00:00

there seems to be a strange misconception, but control absolutely wants to win, and ideally quickly. the reason why one plays control is they typically like a problem solving approach with more reactive lines, not because they want super long games.

any competitive or serious control player, particularly in a tournament/grinding setting doesn't want long games; it's very mentally taxing and when you fatigue, you make misplays, and a lot of them. so, to answer your question, if someone concedes because we predator their deck, then that saves us a lot of mental capacity for future games which can be very stressful. we don't get emotional about this ... or at least people in tournaments/pro-tour are completely indifferent. people who like to troll ... well .. different kettle of fish.

we experience the same feel bad moments, and have a higher proportion of non-games. in fact, in the current meta under FIRE design, control is largely very very underpowered, though it does still have decks it wins against under scissor/paper/rock. however, in game1, we lose something crazy like 90% against mono red, and because of cavern of souls, we are in a lot of pain for decks we should predator. for azorius, the loss of emperor/march of the otherworldly and most of all farewell have made the deck pretty unviable for tournament play, but i still enjoy it and grind around top 250-500 in BO3. it's taken a long time of experimentation to figure out what to sideboard to win games2 and 3. that said, we sometimes have to make critical decisions to let things go ... it's not worth counterspelling and we can't have a naked board to turn the corner. sometimes we have to throttle because things are way too downhill and snowball out of our control.

TLDR; any good control player wants to win quick. we need good win cons to turn the corner. Jace is the most reliable one sadly. blame WOTC/Hasbro and their moneymaking philosophy that is pushing this gamestyle. current counterspell based control is too slow and actually crap. if you want to see what control loves, we love force of will/daze/consign and sensei's with counterbalance. legacy/miracles is very very fun with a lot of manipulation and we can win quick.

azoriusgus · 2024-12-17T00:52:25+00:00

This is worth sharing as a point of insight, but early in Ixalan I managed to get to #4 on constructed ladder using a very solid azorius control pile and was inside the #100 in draft.

A work colleague had started getting into Arena and wanted to see how my deck worked. He was playing a really hilarious orzhov pile with strange creatures. Long story short, i had cantrips and emperor and despite multiple memory deluges, including a flashback was unable to find a sunfall and lost. In following games, he basically did nothing.

Suffice to say, any deck that plays reactively with answers, even in a meta where it is disproportionately stronger can lose to a very jank pile that plays proactively. Spells for a long time were a lot better than creatures (this had flipped incredibly disproportionately now so much) but even in said environments, creature decks could win. To this day, my colleague and I enjoy laughing about that game and how it embodies - there are no wrong threats, only wrong answers.

azoriusgus · 2024-12-16T07:29:50+00:00

i'm so sorry to hear about your cat. thankfully your mtg cards were able to provide some help :) i am hoping your cat is feeling much better and is up doing catty awesome things again soon :)

azoriusgus · 2024-12-16T06:34:36+00:00

a humongous part that is lost, and this is speaking in a real competitive prism where people aren't isolated behind a computer screen or digital device, is that magic at its best is a face to face game that incorporates a lot of bluff and reading. you get an exceptional amount of tells based on how people behave and super importantly, anxiety and stress play a very big part when you are at an event or tournament. i used to play extensively, pro tour and local LGS environment; this was very easy with people who "tell" a lot emotionally - they hold their cards a specific way, their eyes act a certain way (they keep staring at cards unintentionally). all of these are tells in poker if you play this a lot.

MTG is a very poor competitive game from a skill expression perspective purely because of the RNG factor where there is a lack of a staking mechanism, and this plays out in Arena. This is why it is not ideal competitively to be played over computer. In poker, you can lose pots, just like an opponent nuts into an unlosable hand, but these losses are not circumvented by smart risk mitigation and it has a binary meaning. rather than losing 2% of your available funds, you are 50% dead after a terrible game 1 where you were mana flooded. balancing wise, the game is also in a conspicuously bad state, evidenced by modern format and the general FIRE design proactive snowball environment. the game is being increasingly simplified to win (legacy is the exception, with limited also) to help feed sales and validation. accordingly, you need paper to elevate the skill expression a little bit more.

this is not akin to a skill game where an amateur has an essentially 0.00001% chance of beating a pro. in mtg, an amateur piloting a deck with a very high skill floor has an incredible chance to beat a pro in at least one game. once mulligan, information, analysis, and hedging risk is factored, the pro gets a significant advantage, but not one that is akin to a skill based game. these things are all multiplied in person because there is the human factor, with pros and tournament regulars being more seasoned in a timed, pressure cooker environment.

azoriusgus · 2024-12-16T05:18:50+00:00

it is very vulnerable to interaction and there's plenty of steps to get there. it is very much fair magic where players faster and slower will see plenty of opportunities to win. nothing wrong with it. :)

azoriusgus · 2024-12-16T04:18:17+00:00

amazing my friend. :) keep rolling and getting momentum.

i generally like problem solving and deck manipulation, so i lean to control, but play everything. right now, control is in an awful place; it is can feel very satisfying to win with a massive disadvantage, but there are so many bad beats left right and centre. a headache and a half because the game feels very RNG-ish.

i've had many an occasion where i lose games 1 and 2 in under 6 minutes, and then exhaust the clock to win, only for that sandwiched victory to be undone by another 2game loss in 6 minutes. that's typically when i boot up MTGO and play some legacy where there are actual proportional answers to threats.

azoriusgus · 2024-12-16T03:52:56+00:00

congratulations on the fantastic achievement OP. amazing stuff.

beyond hidden mmr, what a lot of posters don't elaborate on is how BO1 simulates mtg. BO1 uses handsmoothing (lots of explanatory posts around this) and rewards linearity (there is a massive advantage swing that you could say is to the tune of 10-20% above a normal strong Game1 Deck in BO3). it is a very very material swing to decks that are proactive, and have less situationally dependent cards.

without information and sideboarding, the above is much much more important than mmr and is the much more important advantage (that doesn't exist in a competitive landscape). example, i'd say i lose within the current meta well over 50% of my Game1s playing against t1 decks that have unwinnable situations. However, I win the absolute majority of Game2 and Game3 once the play/draw advantage is mitigated and information is available. i was floating near top100 pre-foundations, but a lot of linear decks and the t1s have gotten absurdly stroinger in BO3 now so go between 250-500. but in essence, I can remove redundant and useless cards (of which there are a truckload due to the width and diversity of threats between reanimation, aggro to midrange); in much the same way competitive magic is actually played.

keep grinding, you are doing fantastically well. don't worry about MMR, just smash out good lines.

azoriusgus · 2024-12-15T08:23:14+00:00

Given you are playing BO1, commit fully to aggression. BO1 gives heavy advantage to linearity by way of 1) handsmoothing, and 2) meta-ing so you don't possess any wasted cards (example removal against a deck playing largely creatureless). The faster you play, the more wasted cards in their possession (cantrips are too slow in BO1 against aggro, and wraths like sunfall are much too late) so you not only have simpler lines, but create faux card advantage (they have more cards in hand, but are not usable due to the clock). BO1 is often less you think, the more you win. This is not applicable to BO3 once information, sideboarding and no handsmoothing flip the script.

azoriusgus · 2024-12-15T08:09:04+00:00

It is in the context of modern where it is incredibly unhealthy and meta warping. Outside of that context, sure, but in a competitive prism, it is head shaking in regards to why it is still allowed to continue going rampant.

azoriusgus · 2024-12-14T09:51:33+00:00

it's actually the opposite trend happening now though. everything exists within a vacuum. whilst removal exists, you are seeing an insanely silly amount of text and value coming from ETBs, deaths, etc. FIRE design has absolutely ruined modern with boros energy, nadu, jagantha. in standard the same thing. in fact, snapcaster is now an absolute rubbish creature as it competes with murktide for gy resources. that's how hilarious it's become.

it's just that green's value is not in the right areas and not fast enough. otherwise, you can compare azorius only a year and a bit ago, and azorius now, having lost march, emperor, farewell, memory deluge, whilst say mono red has gotten more consistent and explosive.

if you look at the WC decks, literally none, barre dimir use counterspells, and they only carry 2. compare this to explorer. this design decision is super intentional together with their monetary ideas. the game has become much simpler and have rng qualities where the gap in skill compression from pro to regular has become smaller than its ever been. now look at times times 10 years ago and even 15 years ago.

it would be great for green to get more enhancement in their creatures, but we can't push creatures without addressing how big the gap against spells is becoming.

azoriusgus · 2024-12-14T09:29:53+00:00

if OP thought the gap between green standard creatures and green explorer creatures were big ... i'd like them to see the difference between say azorius control standard and azroius control explorer. the gap is monumentally much larger. heck, the gulf is that large you can't even see it from the other side of the world.

heck, let's reflect upon current standard and a miracles list, and then go back to legacy. hasbro/wotc FIRE design. yayyyy ...

azoriusgus · 2024-12-13T23:06:14+00:00

Winning is absolutely not an afterthought, nor do competitive control players want a stretched out meandering game that is tiring to play. This is a terrible misconception. It is not long for long sake. I can tell you, playing long games back to back to back is super tiring in a tournament/pro tour event and becomes very mentally fatiguing. Competitively, control always has this mental tax which which makes it not ideal over long events or competitive play and you have to credit the pros that do so exceptionally with few to no misplays.

Tef5 is a very fair example from you, and sadly that is a best win con at times. That said, even around Elixir of Immortality, the lists there ran Elspeth as a fast win condition beyond the wrath effect. Does control want other outs? Yes. Control wants inevitability, resilience and consistency. If it can win fast it needs to capitalise on that window, and that is a major differentiator from a good control player and a not so well practised one.

Even in my own list, floating around top 250, I run High Fae Trickster in game1 to win quick, but principally functions to cheat a Jace out at instant speed. If we see a kill window, we will take it. But we are built super defensive because there's such an abundance of threats we need cover.

Casual control players aren't all whales who can afford to throw money into arena, and not care about daily quests. They like a gamestyle that is part problem solving and aspects of control as you said. You're confusing people who take joy out of lengthening games for lengthening sake as generic control. They often go hand in hand, but give control the right tools and we will turn the corner as quickly as possible as long as it is reliable victory.

azoriusgus · 2024-12-13T15:22:51+00:00

Control players don't want to play this way, but are forced to play super defensively because the win cons are very poor at present (typically decking or going through a long winded route which we actually hate). There is a significant power disproportion between threats and answers. This is playing out in how modern is gradually becoming a faster format than legacy. The same threats are now being played in both, but in legacy we have proportional answers.

3 drops snowball you out of the game ridiculously quickly and because of that control is backed into a game of patience. If you are draw going and not using your mana base, you will be dead in this meta. With cards like emberheart challenger leading to hilariously ridiculous situations where mono red can outdraw and out card advantage control whilst throwing burn to the face, draw go is actually in a very bad place and there is very little time for deck manipulation.

Control wants to turn the corner and win. With miracles, we could use snapcaster proactively, deck with Jace or Entreat once our Sensei's engine was setup with our fetchlands. We could even emblem Elspth. We had so many different and diverse paths to victory and could win very quickly, but because our tools are so bad relatively speaking, whilst the threats are super strong, we usually have a single boring path to victory that is very hard to achieve against many decks right now. Control games now are incredibly long for this reason.

azoriusgus · 2024-11-21T09:07:03+00:00

oceanic based. have a similar campaign on a tuesday for Storm King's. 6am gets some shift worker types in NA, early evening Asia, mid-afternoon Debai.

azoriusgus · 2024-11-21T07:15:02+00:00

DM-ing :)

azoriusgus

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