The Current State of BO1 Standard

[Shiku]

I've recently switched from BO3 to BO1 and I have to say it's the most unfun experience. Everything is highly polarized.
- Super aggro deck
- A deck specifically catered to counter aggro (mid range)
- Heavy control & grind decks

On one hand, it's nice to have paper-stone-scissors mechanics and that's theoretically how it should be. On the other hand, the way it plays out is latest by round 3 you already know if your deck is going to lose in that match-up and your plays don't matter at that point. Aggro beats slow decks but loses vs mid-range and slow decks win vs mid-range. I do hit Diamond 1/2 every season so I wouldn't say I'm a bad player though I obviously do make mistakes. However, every time I look back at a match and try to think what I could have done better or different and there's nothing that comes to my mind. If a Boros deck is on the play with a good hand, you are 100% toast as a slow deck even if your hand had early plays. Same is true when you play as mid-range into a Azorius/Esper/Dimir and everything gets countered, destroyed and removed from your deck and it's a boring snooze fest of waiting until you lose. Seeing the cards the opponent plays, you know their deck would 100% lose vs aggro but your mid-range has no chance whatsoever.

So in the end, skill and deck building doesn't matter and all it comes down to is numbers game: are you on average matched more often vs decks you're favored against or not.

[The_Dybbuk_King]

Bo1 is incredibly casual. People will play decks that have very strong game 1s (typically aggro or something with weird win cons). The only reason to play Bo1 is for completing dailies/weeklies quickly.

Bo3 is the only way to play MTG with any sort of seriousness. Sideboarding is the true (basic) litmus test of a player's skill.

[Kskaudonsu]

Bruh, this is MTG, not chess. It's legalized adolescent gambling. The more polarized, the better in WOTCs eyes. Just look at all the new mechanics. They lean most into big swings so that top decking becomes more important. Then its the algorithm in command

[The_Dybbuk_King]

Originally posted by Kskaudonsu:

Bruh, this is MTG, not chess. It's legalized adolescent gambling. The more polarized, the better in WOTCs eyes. Just look at all the new mechanics. They lean most into big swings so that top decking becomes more important. Then its the algorithm in command

My guy, please just take your terrible takes over to hearthstone or whatever tf.

[DontMisunderstand]

This is an interesting comment to me, because in my experience the flow is reversed. Control beats aggro, aggro beats midrange, midrange beats control. To my mind this indicates that my understanding of midrange is different from the way other people understand it. My understanding is that midrange focuses on value plays to gain incremental advantage, repeatedly, until that advantage just smashes through whatever the opponent was trying to do. In a sense, their resources simply matter more than the opponents' resources. That was my understanding, and with that understanding obviously the value engines make 1 for 1s a losing proposition for opposing control strategies, and those same value engines allow them to rebuild after board wipes too fast and too consistently for that type of control deck to compete with it.

[The_Dybbuk_King]

Originally posted by DontMisunderstand:

This is an interesting comment to me, because in my experience the flow is reversed. Control beats aggro, aggro beats midrange, midrange beats control. To my mind this indicates that my understanding of midrange is different from the way other people understand it. My understanding is that midrange focuses on value plays to gain incremental advantage, repeatedly, until that advantage just smashes through whatever the opponent was trying to do. In a sense, their resources simply matter more than the opponents' resources. That was my understanding, and with that understanding obviously the value engines make 1 for 1s a losing proposition for opposing control strategies, and those same value engines allow them to rebuild after board wipes too fast and too consistently for that type of control deck to compete with it.

Midrange is not necessarily a hard archetype, but rather, an amalgamation of control and aggro. Value plays allow it to be effective against control, and slow the game down against aggro. Midrange's natural weakness is combo, the true third piece of the MTG RPS.

[DontMisunderstand]

Originally posted by The_Dybbuk_King:

Midrange is not necessarily a hard archetype, but rather, an amalgamation of control and aggro. Value plays allow it to be effective against control, and slow the game down against aggro. Midrange's natural weakness is combo, the true third piece of the MTG RPS.

Logically this makes sense to me, and matches with my experience as well. The decks I use that I consider "midrange" tend to only lose to either aggro opening the god hand or a very silly combo win out of nowhere.

[The_Dybbuk_King]

Originally posted by DontMisunderstand:

Originally posted by The_Dybbuk_King:

Midrange is not necessarily a hard archetype, but rather, an amalgamation of control and aggro. Value plays allow it to be effective against control, and slow the game down against aggro. Midrange's natural weakness is combo, the true third piece of the MTG RPS.

Logically this makes sense to me, and matches with my experience as well. The decks I use that I consider "midrange" tend to only lose to either aggro opening the god hand or a very silly combo win out of nowhere.

Midrange excels in games 2 and 3. Their ability to adapt to its opponent is unrivaled.

In the words of the FGC greats (and scrubs alike lol), game 1 is just data.

[PyroMail.com]

Originally posted by DontMisunderstand:

This is an interesting comment to me, because in my experience the flow is reversed. Control beats aggro, aggro beats midrange, midrange beats control. To my mind this indicates that my understanding of midrange is different from the way other people understand it. My understanding is that midrange focuses on value plays to gain incremental advantage, repeatedly, until that advantage just smashes through whatever the opponent was trying to do. In a sense, their resources simply matter more than the opponents' resources. That was my understanding, and with that understanding obviously the value engines make 1 for 1s a losing proposition for opposing control strategies, and those same value engines allow them to rebuild after board wipes too fast and too consistently for that type of control deck to compete with it.

I also thought a long time that aggro beats control. But then, enlightenment came.

*Temporary Lockdown*

[Shiku]

Originally posted by The_Dybbuk_King:

Midrange is not necessarily a hard archetype, but rather, an amalgamation of control and aggro. Value plays allow it to be effective against control, and slow the game down against aggro. Midrange's natural weakness is combo, the true third piece of the MTG RPS.

I guess you can also put it that way. Though I'd put combo in the same (speed) category as control since both want at least 4-5 turns until they start to take off and that's going to be difficult when the opponent plays 2-3 spells a turn.

[The_Dybbuk_King]

Originally posted by Xenagos:

Originally posted by The_Dybbuk_King:

Midrange is not necessarily a hard archetype, but rather, an amalgamation of control and aggro. Value plays allow it to be effective against control, and slow the game down against aggro. Midrange's natural weakness is combo, the true third piece of the MTG RPS.

I guess you can also put it that way. Though I'd put combo in the same (speed) category as control since both want at least 4-5 turns until they start to take off and that's going to be difficult when the opponent plays 2-3 spells a turn.

In older formats, such as vintage and legacy, combo can easily win turn 1-2. Standard is balanced around the fastest possible win condition at turn 3-4.

See: ad nauseum decks

[DontMisunderstand]

Originally posted by Xenagos:

Originally posted by The_Dybbuk_King:

Midrange is not necessarily a hard archetype, but rather, an amalgamation of control and aggro. Value plays allow it to be effective against control, and slow the game down against aggro. Midrange's natural weakness is combo, the true third piece of the MTG RPS.

I guess you can also put it that way. Though I'd put combo in the same (speed) category as control since both want at least 4-5 turns until they start to take off and that's going to be difficult when the opponent plays 2-3 spells a turn.

That depends, there are definitely some very very fast combos. Rosie Cotton combo can put out an arbitrarily large number of arbitrarily large creatures on turn 3 to swing for an arbitrarily large amount of damage turn 4.

I wouldn't say combo is slow, but more that it's a distinctly different method for building a deck. The plan is to play this specific selection of card names, and that wins the game.

[Shiku]

Originally posted by The_Dybbuk_King:

In older formats, such as vintage and legacy, combo can easily win turn 1-2. Standard is balanced around the fastest possible win condition at turn 3-4.

See: ad nauseum decks

Oh, in the older formats absolutely. I was strictly speaking about standard and most combos there come online earliest turn 4. Generally, I think combos in standard are in a good spot. They're viable in BO1 but not a problem to counter in BO3.

[Ha 何豪源]

the devs probably like to bully real life focused people with bo1 and no fair adjustment of the starting order that you have to spend a lot of time to get your daily wins.

everyone knows that on the draw is like losing in about 75% of the cases, yet the devs are happy with not implenting a turn-rotated starting order. HOW HARD THIS CAN BE?!

[Soji]

Best of 1 is the worst possible way to play this game. Half the complaints people have about MTGA would be alleviated at least noticeably if they just started playing best of 3. No hand smoothing, very little aggro because in a competitive environment it struggles to reach the same numbers as its Bo1 counterparts, actual interactive games where both players are adjusting their decks post side board. People would really love the bo3 experience but they just do not have time for a bo3 apparently.

[black]

or like in hearthstone, add collection draft. mtga offers alot to collect but nothing collected is in any kind usefull.

a card collector game where collecting doesn't make sense is the worst design by far. that's why there is so much hate they had to shut down the official forums :D silence the masses, take the money till they find out.

i would collect every set, draft all day, don't care much about 200 bucks per month. but this game gives me nothing back, just anger about many broken mechanics which get worse set by set without any fixes in years.

you should not be on same level of possibilities after years of playing and collecting as beginners who buy 100 packs to craft a meta deck.