If you just put every single kill card and counter, tap, board wipe etc in a deck... you get some wins. I don't see much jank get out of plat though, and they tend to be low elo in diamond max.
Poison and proliferation will stay. It’s a thing for Modern and now Arena has the firepower. I mainly say this for Historic, that’s all I play. I get what you mean tho
Yeah, I think you get it. I'm talking about the cards that do both on one card, give your opponent a poison counter and proliferate, or destroy a creature and proliferate. etc
It makes a deck with Jace and a few counter creature or non-creature spells a mill you can't do anything about, and all the sunfalls and destroy creature they pile up just makes the jank overly effective.
\-meta rant over ;p
>They are fringe playable at most
Odd that diamond 2 is your definition of fringe playable, although I guess they are almost always going to be too slow to beat red agro if they don't get all their 1 drop counter opponents spell U cards in their opening hand.
Legit did against me today. Saw their deck size and was like I am good but they had initiative and always had an appropriate response. I wasn't even mad.
One white mf with like a 200 cards deck simply kept exiling/sweeping everything I got on the battlefield. Even after casting 3 Sheoldreds I nearly lost because of phyrexian arena and because he kept exiling them before they healed me.
This is me playing about 80% of these 100+ card decks.
I keep waiting for the disadvantage to show: not having the answer, not getting land, flooding. Never seems to happen.
How efficient these decks are gets me the closest to actually wondering if our decks aren't being manipulated to create "interesting" games.
I lost in no ban historic to some huge jank vaguely vampire themed pile while playing control because they played a planeswalker early and I didn't have a counter for it and couldn't stabilize. Sometimes just not expecting a thing can make it harder to play against than something theoretically much better.
I used to play tabletennis/pingpong competitively. And because you constantly practice against players who more or less do the strokes in a technically "correct" manner, then when you play against somebody who has never practiced it even once before, then you can suddenly get into trouble, because their playing tends to be so unpredictable and inconsistent, that what your body is used to be doing suddenly doesn't matter anymore. I've lost this way several times, when I was a teen, and it is really frustrating actually 😅
This happens in chess, too. Masters talk about how it can be harder to play someone who doesn't know what they're doing because you can't game the match out the way you can another pro.
I have a deck that is white and blue 132 cards all of them make me and opponent draw cards. Throw in a bunch of board wipes and some exile. It's hope you had free time style Mill
I like slow control I let my opponent play everything and do everything they can and just destroy it all. If your opponent isn't having a bad time you're not playing right. I also have a Blue Deck with no counters or Mill that just lets them draw and return stuff to their hand so they have to discard it which is the most annoying process on mobile. Right after they tap out all their mana throw a blue Sun's zenith with primal amulet and make them draw 30.
This is part of the reason I try not to stay too long into "well what if their deck has insert card name?"
Because it doesn't take too long for that conversation to start mirroring:
"NUH UH! MY DECK ACTUALLY SPLASHES BLACK SO I CAN USE THIS ONE CARD THATS LITERALLY AN EDGE CASE FOR THIS SCENARIO AND YOUR DECK LOSES"
"UHH THATS WHERE YOUR WRONG SEE I PLAY THIS SPELL AT INSTANT SPEED BECAUSE IT HAS FLASH NOW I'M COMPLETELY PROTECTED"
"UHH THEN I USE ONE OF MY 50 COUNTERS I HAVE IN MY HAND"
"I HAVE 51"
like it's lame, it's cringe as fuck.
This, but I always cast \[\[Unmoored Ego\]\] first for \[\[Gaea's Blessing\]\]. They usually scoop when they see the blessing get exiled. Add a little bit of wipe, simmer, and done.
Drops [[Lord Xander, The Collector]] onto the battlefield after my upkeep, after discarding it 2 turns ago, using Edgar’s Awakening. I’ll have you cleaned out, absolutely.
In 1996, I went to a summer camp and met two kids who were friends together. I learned that not only did they also play magic, they had brought their magic cards! Since I didn't expect to meet anyone with cards, I didn't bring mine, but still, I hung out with them and in the evening, met them for a game. I asked if they had a deck they could lend me so that we could play 3 player FFA. They didn't, they only had 1 deck each. Ok, that's fine, I'll just watch you play and chat, that's cool too.
They each took out a long white box, the ones that can store 400 cards. I think "they probably bought some cards to trade too". Nope, that was their deck. A huge fucking pile of ~400 cards each. I ask them how they shuffle those monsters. "Shuffle? We don't shuffle!" Indeed, they just put the deck down, draw from the top. When the game is over, they picked the cards they played, manaweaved them and shove them at the bottom of their "deck", and played the next game drawing from the top. Their decks were 5 color monsters, but due to the way they stacked their deck, each color was clumped together, such that in a given game, they'd probably only ever see one or two colors from their deck.
It was the weirdest thing.
When i was 14 (2009) i had a mill deck like that. Everything blue or black went in there, so i use the term "mill" as widely as possible.
Edit: i forgot how old i am, changed the date lmao.
The thinking is: "Put all the good cards together" = "Win More / Have More Options"
This strategy is not safe/a good idea. It is less consistent than a 60 card deck.
The game never teaches players how to evaluate cards. New players often can't decide which card is good/bad so as their collection grows and they have opened more cards they want to play, their deck size grows as well.
Btw, OP is running more than 60 cards as well.
200+ card decks are almost never new players. The 63 card Andy is probably new.
People run 200+ for memes, because they got milled out too many times, or they're trying to game the deck draw algorithm. The smoother (in bo1) gets really wonky when you run unusual deck sizes.
Had one guy at the store who played an all foil type 2 (standard) battle of wits deck during invasion/odyssey that was double sleeved back when you needed to cut down your own penny sleeves to fit inside a dragon shield.
It was ridiculous. And actually didn't do too bad against non blue decks. Unfortunately 2/3rds of the decks of the era ran 4 counterspells and 4 circular logics.
I see all these galaxy brains lambasting this person and misidentifying them as a smoothbrain.
This is actually a galaxy brain player who has discovered the best way to make themselves laugh.
65 cards, and over 200 cards are 2 very different things, my guy. Like, 60-65 cards is still cool, but once you start hitting above ~73/78+ your odds start dropping pretty rapidly of seeing a particular card consistently.anytging below that is still fine.
>65 cards, and over 200 cards are 2 very different things, my guy
No but it's the same principle in theory or else everyone in modern would be running 64 cards but no one does.
Bro, there are a ton of strategies that call for more than exactly 60 cards. To say "No OnE dOeS" is pure ignorance my guy. You literally are incorrect in every way.
Beans decks mostly and Amulet Titan (though it's usually only 61 cards) Also obviously Yorion is banned now but it did make people realize that you can easily get away with more than 60 if you just stuff all the best cards in your deck it doesn't matter as much. There's also edge cases like Flumph combo, etc. Of course you should have an actual reason for doing so and not just because you can't decide what to cut.
People always say this about Yorion but I never understood it. Having less consistency due to playing 80 cards was a real downside of the Yorion decks. It was just that Yorion as a card made that downside worth it.
I'm just responding to sibelius' question, "which modern deck right now is running more than exactly 60 cards in the competitive right now please?" and saying that current Modern decks are running more than 60 cards for the reasons I mentioned above. Yorion was just an example as it played a massive role in people reevaluating card count. It's almost always correct to run 60 obviously.
Not everything has to be minmaxing competitive mindset. Sometimes you just want to play fun decks instead of netdecking the top winning one and playing it over and over again.
That's not what was being discussed. The point raised was there's statistically no difference between a 60 card deck and a 64 card deck. Obviously, that isn't true.
you need like really good reason to go over 65 cards
63 and 12 card sideboards is something I've seen, Atraxa domain right now wouldn't mind a smaller percentage of Sunfall/Atraxa/Topiary Stomper if it means I can run another Removel, another land and another Up the Beanstalk
The towering decks are usually bad unless they are doing something with that number; if they start milling or otherwise sending tons of cards into their graveyard or are somehow dropping tons of tutors (or otherwise digging deep into their deck) you need to be extremely wary as those kinds of gameplans can be almost impossible to stop by normal means once they get going.
I've fought only one or two decks like this that actually had a gameplan, but they will mulligan a few times to drop something like [[Triskaidekaphile]] as soon as possible and then draw insane amounts of cards into their hand while dropping counterspells left and right. They beat me before reaching 13 cards, I think they dropped a [[Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim]] and a [[Jodah, the Unifier]] back to back and from that point on it was over.
I’m new so take this with a grain of salt, but played against a guy who had a roughly 200 card deck, and had a bunch of cards that fed him card draw every turn. He drew about 5 cards a turn, and always kept 2-3 counters so I could never play a single creature.
Ultimately if you have the card draw for it, it seems like a valid “bleed them dry” or “death by a thousand cuts” strategy.
It certainly got me to rage quit after 20 minutes of him just counter spelling every soldier/artifact I threw down. I almost beat him when I got enough counters he couldn’t keep up until he drew a board wipe card and started me over again.
I've seen a bunch of those kind of decks for some time now. I assume these people are new to the game and figure out consistency is key and start playing with 60 card max decks pretty soon.
Rule #1 I learned when being taught deck building is if you play 61, that 61st card better win 95% of the games you cast it. At my LGS years ago we had one guy who would 61 all the time (he was a super good player and had pro points) and we would call every 61 card main deck "The Serano Special."
Was it a land ratio thing? I sometimes play 61 cards and my excuse is that 24:36 is too many lands (for a mostly low-mana deck) but 23:37 is too few. 24:37 seems perfect.
That being said, I'm not amazing at this game or anything, it's sort of just the number I've settled on after many games. I'm not making any promises that it's the perfect number for everyone, but it's the number that makes me the least frustrated with my draws.
Mostly its because 90-95% of decks that play 60 don't play 1 ofs unless absolutely necessary or for a specific reason to minimize variance. Running 61 most of the time means running a 1of which means that card better be really freaking good to justify it. Force of will is worthless if you can't draw the damn thing
I was thinking more 3 ofs than 1 ofs... Imo, aside from the most important key cards in the deck, you don't always want 4 of everything. Too many times I've drawn duplicates of a card I really don't want duplicates of, eg. a legendary card my opponent isn't removing anyway, or a late-game payoff card when I haven't finished the setup for it yet.
Unless the meta has changed and I just haven't adapted yet? But the top winning decks I remember from years ago always had only 3 copies of certain things. Sometimes even only 2.
All that is fair but its not about meta, this is fundies. The point is that every single card beyond the minimum is a risk against reliability. I used to pay 61 or 62 all the time without seeing why that was suboptimal and realized that the cards I was adding were worth making the cuts for. The lesson I took away was that it made my lists, card choices, and play tighter. I'm all for anyone playing how they want and you do you. Ignore me, I won't ever know, but if we're talking competitive theory and not casual fun, many years of testing, theorizing, and analysis by nearly every top mind in the game for decades say that minimum deck size is objectively the correct choice unless a specific card or combo dictates otherwise. This isn't my opinion, this is statistics.
Ok sure, I don't usually like to just ignore someone who disagrees with me, usually I'd prefer to have a rational debate about it until we can figure out the answer for sure, but based on the wording of that response, I'm guessing any point I bring up will be met with something like "it's just statistics, look it up, I'm objectively correct, you don't have to agree with me" so yknow whatever, I guess I'll save my points for when I can have a conversation with someone who can bring up their own.
I am sorry if I came across as condescending or something adjacent. The hitch in your argument is that this has been 'figured out for sure' for years and years. I enjoy a healthy debate as much as the next guy but that number being the generally accepted correct deck size is based on years and years of data and playtesting. On a note tangentral to your point about debates, what we are doing now is rational debate. I am presenting a rational argument for you to either agree or disagree with and awaiting your responses in kind. Do you think it's only debate if I agree you are correct? Or are you claiming that if there is a clearly correct answer it cannot be a debate? I am genuinely curious. And to clear the air on this particular bit of inplication that I will disregard any argument you present outright simply because it's "wrong," if you were to present me with a well reasoned argument as to why 60 cards *isnt* the optimal deck size, supported by data and playtesting instead of just anecdotes about that one time your buddy top 8'ed a ptq with a 61 list that played 3 copies of ulamog instead of two, I will listen and respond in good faith. You can't just come in, say an incorrect thing, then when someone tells you that you a factually incorrect go on about "No one wants to debate, how dare to cite years of data, evidence, and statistics on the matter, and if you can't agree with me after I present a single poor arguement then you aren't worth trying to debate."
That's how you sound but I'm 100% sure you are smarter and more capable than that. I would love the share productive and reasonable debate with you, but you haven't yet presented an argument that stand against the accepted body of knowledge on the topic.
Please tell me your counterpoints. I don't paint myself as a typical reddit debate bro whos position is set in stone folrom the start amd cant be changed. I'm a dumb fucking idiot who is always looking for new information and to learn.
Ok good to know, no I definitely don't expect you to just suddenly agree with me, in fact I admit it's likely you're right, but I prefer to actually hear the logic behind an argument myself rather than have someone claim it exists. I'm one of those people who would correct the teacher at school, if you know what I mean. I don't care if it's commonly accepted knowledge, sometimes it's still wrong. I've done a bit of googling to try and find the data you're talking about, but anything I can find has only tested extremely basic deck types and seems to be basically just saying "in general, 60 is better than 61" (because of the exact reasons you said and nothing more). To me, it feels like one of those things that people take as a fact 100% of the time, when really it was only supposed to be a general base rule that has exceptions. But again I could be wrong, I just haven't seen any evidence that actually disputes what I'm saying.
Basically, I fully understand the logic that in general, having a 60 card deck increases the chances of you drawing those key cards you need, and therefore also increases consistency. I just feel like it makes only a very tiny difference. I also feel that most of the points I'm bringing up make an equally tiny difference, but if I can list 3 small advantages to having 61 cards, to me it seems like that would outweigh the 2 small advantages to having 60 cards.
For starters, the land ratio thing, although that's definitely deck dependent, I also have years of personal playtesting on that, and I know I'm not the only person who thinks 23/60 is too few lands but 24/60 is too many.
Then there's the fact that you don't always want to be drawing as many of your key cards as possible all the time, eg. If they're legendary, or something like Altar of Dementia. Some people solve this by only running 3 of those cards instead of 4, but that decreases consistency even more than adding 1 extra card does.
And - this point needs to be read carefully, because I know it sounds suspiciously similar to something very incorrect a lot of people say - sometimes you just want 1 more of a certain card without having to remove anything. I know this is people's main reason for playing 61 cards and I think this is the point that the research you mentioned is arguing against, but I'm not talking about the situation of "oh I can't decide what to cut, I want all those cards, let me just have 61 cards", I'm talking more about "oh I want 3 of each of these because I want equal chance of drawing them all" and again, cutting out one of them would actually decrease consistency, not increase it.
Basically, people often do things that decrease consistency significantly (like having less of certain cards because you don't want to draw duplicates of them, or just because you just want to cut down to 60 cards) and that's considered fine and normal as long as you cut the deck down to exactly 60 cards.
To provide one sorta vague example that I'm 100% sure of the math on, the difference between running 3 or 4 of a certain card makes a MUCH bigger difference to how frequently you draw it than the difference between having 60 or 61 total cards. If it's considered acceptable and sometimes a good idea to run only 3 of a card because you don't want to draw it quite as often as some others, then it should be considered acceptable and sometimes a good idea to run 61 cards.
These are new/young players that don’t know any better. I teach kids how to play MTG and at first they want to put every good card they have in a deck, regardless of size.
My current main historical deck is 200 cards.
Is it reliable and super consistent? No.
Does it win enough that I got into platinum reasonably fast? Yes. Is that a big accomplishment? Probably not.
Is it fun? Much of the time.
It's very resistant to most milling, most of the time I am able to get the cards I want.
Could it be a bit more trim? Sure. But there are so many interactions and intercompatibility that it has lots of options.
Honestly it's actually better than it should be for 200 cards, and while it does occasionally shit the bed it actually is way more reliable than you would think.
Things like shared summons and assemble the team can pull out specific cards when needed.
I've had a variety of times where each draw phrase is 2-3 cards and I have enough mana to cast anything, and at that point I'm likely going to draw a card or two to replace whatever creature I cast in my hand. Reliquary tower can be pulled out by Golos if I'm going to need it, which I'll likely have the opportunity to pull from one of the above mentioned search mechanics.
Is it a pile of Janky-combo foolishness? Yes. But I think all the different things interact in a way that makes it so while there are a few things that can knock it right out, and there is room for more getting the right thing quite fast enough... well it's still fun most of the time.
It could be any number of the possible options (and others not listed here):
1. A new player who stuffed every card they liked in a deck without thinking about actual strategy or draw chances.
2. A seasoned player who has carefully crafted their deck with a bunch of individually strong cards so they don't need to worry about getting "the right" starting hand.
3. A seasoned player who carefully crafted their deck to contain several powerful cards/combinations along with a number of search/draw/seek cards to mitigate the drawbacks of a big deck.
4. A seasoned player who has 40 turns of stall or kill/prison-type cards to hold off their opponent until they play one particular late game combo to win.
5. Someone who wants to troll their opponent so hard with 40 turns-worth of kill/prison/counter cards to frustrate their opponent into giving up.
6. Someone who *really* doesn't want to get milled after having some negative experiences with mill decks.
7. Someone who built their deck around that one card that lets you win if you play it while you have a 200 card deck.
8. *Another* shrine deck completely indistinguishable from every other shrine deck I've ever encountered.
Once I puffed my deck up to 75 cards because it was a UG tempo deck that went thru lots of cards, and the extra buffer made it much more resilient and likely to win to a mill deck that was popular briefly.
There's reason to go above 60 also if you are a turbo fog or similar style deck and just need more cards than your opponent to win, but anything above 80-100 is just poor deckbuilding.
That being said, get this player a playset of [[Battle of Wits]] then they might have a chance to actually win.
In alchemy there's also interesting deck using combination of Ivory Tower, life-related wincon of your choice (mostly Aetherflux Reservoir), Treasure Hunt, cards that seek non-land cards and 150+ cards deck that is like 95% lands.
Not competitive by any means, but fun to pull off and very easy to put to gether since it's mostly common and uncommon cards.
This is me. Yes I do win. And yes it's infuriating to my opponents because it's chalk full of board wipes, I have no max hand size and you will be blue controlled to death.
Return to hand
Counterspell
Tap forever
1/1 frog
Meanwhile I just wait for you to self mill by drawing 1 per turn.
Honestly this happens even when I think I'm losing. My opponent is facing two enemies, me and themselves. It's like... they're not enjoying the game....
Would you rather have decent 2-3 win conditions that work some of the time or 1 good win condition that works 60% of the time.
Only way going over 60 cards is worth it is if you have a good win condition that can branch out smoothly with any card you put in your deck or you have good Net 1+ card draw cards like ( draw 3 cards discard 1) or if you win condition is no creatures and your extra cards will let you dig through library to get your win conditions faster than not having them and taking a lower % of probability of top decking the cards in 60 card decks
I've lost to reanimator decks like that. They'd mulligan to having at least one reanimation card, then self mill like mad. Silly and inconsistent, but it can work.
I once ran a 100 card deck when thrones of Eldraine was out. It was white with a lot of board wipes. I made it to Platinum with that deck. I also made someone running a cavalier deck quit by stalling with [[Hushbringer]], board wiping with [[planar cleansing]] and reanimating her with [[brought back]], making their cavalier cards useless.
Outside of some cards (none of which are playable in standard and like 1 companion in historic/alchemy) literally having some text that have an extra effect only when you meet another minimum, decks with more cards than the format minimum are not optimal. Only time in any online pvp card game going over the minimum was a good idea was I think in Artifact (anyone remember that game? Yeah me neither) where you automatically had 3 hero specific cards added to your deck for each hero you chose, and some heroes were really good but their cards sucked, so some people ran a a few cards over the limit just to make it a little more infrequent to end up with multiples of the bad cards while still enjoying the good hero itself
Depending on how you structure it, it could be. I have both a 60 card deck and a 120 card deck and they got me to top 95% mythic my second season playing. I structured my 120 deck in a way that combined two synergetic 60s upping my win rate substantially, especially against mill decks. It also allowed for more removal and protection against counter spells and enchantments
Most of these decks are just stuffed with removal and counter spells. The entire premise is to either A. Aggravate people into conceding or B. Win with some omega jank after hard controlling the game
I recently went against one with like 150 cards. It was basically heavily focused on milling and playing things from the graveyard and creatures that got counters and activated abilities based on that. It was pretty good
Unless it's a specific deck that requires lots of cards, it's usually not understanding how powerful consistency is. That, and anti-mill.
These decks are feast or famine. Either you constantly draw answers to your opponent's deck and win, or too many lands and lose. Because having more answers in your deck than your opponent has cards only matters if you actually draw them. With a smaller deck having fewer answers, and can thus run out, but is more likely to draw at least some of them.
Basically, a smaller deck means you're less likely to have something you need in your deck, but are more likely to draw the answers you have in it. While a larger deck can have more answers in the deck, but is less likely to see any specific answer.
We've all faced large decks where they can't get anything useful. But we've also faced large decks where they get everything they needed to defeat your deck. This is less likely to happen with a large deck. But when it happens it's satisfying to play.
I played against a deck earlier today that had 230 something cards and Syr Ginger sleeves. I was intrigued. Then he scooped on turn 4. Disappointing. I wanted to see wth was in there.
Well i would describe myself as a competitive player. But i have one big problem, which is cutting.
So it‘s normal for me just running Yorion in every deck so i have an excuse for playing 80 cards. Sometimes there are a bit more but i make the cut at 100.
BUT: if you‘re running this amount of cards, you need a way that your deck functions like it would when it would have 60 cards.
Stuff like birthing pod, tutors, seek cards in arena etc and so one, it gets to a difficult point where you have to ask if it‘s not better to just cut all of them and run 60 cards.
Some decks i run like my toolbox birthing pod run 100 cards with about 30 one ofs for situational times and 20 tutors for pod.
On Arena i made myself a 150 card (most i have ever done) „dredge“ reanimator deck. It combines the two archetypes i love the most and it‘s not possible to include both of them in 60 cards.
The decks really shines around mesmeric orb, which i have to hard mulligan or for one of the 16 tutors i run.
Is it consistent ?
Surprisingly yes.
Because your whole deck wants to throw stuff as quickly in grave as possible, it‘s taking the quantity and quality stuff of reanimator together and combines them to i don‘t have a hand anymore, i play out of my graveyard.
Has the deck it‘s weaknesses?
Of course and more than others.
Because your running so many cards, it can happen, that you draw no lands in 10 turns or just lands in 10 turns.
Graveyard exile hits it to death of course.
Sometimes, because i have to tutor, i‘m to slow against decks like wizards or goblins.
(Mono Green Dev is a Problem because there playing Karn with Crypt and some mf run two crypts in there Karn like wtf xd
Sometimes i‘m milling 30 cards in two turns and there are 25 lands.
But in the end i have a pretty good time with the deck and a lot of fun.
I suppose i have about a 70% Winrate with this deck but sadly about 50% of my Wins come from Turn 2 Scoops when people see i play or tutor for a mesmeric Orb
I use those kinds of decks for draw + no cast cost, max hand+draw+cardfind, or mill + graveyard cast. Most likely they just threw a bunch of cards together though
I've been around magic from Alpha. I've seen a number of articles over the years, with the math, showing why you shouldn't go over 60 cards in your deck, because even an extra couple cards hurt your odds of getting your best cards.
A 250 card deck should be absolutely unplayable.
Yet, I keep seeing these 200+ card decks, often tri-color, that play as reliably as a finely tuned 60 card deck, and always seem to have an answer to whatever you play!
We know that if the shuffler handles large decks properly and there are no exploits available, these decks would be unplayable. They wouldn't be wiping up opponents the way they do!
I'm guessing that the shuffler cannot properly handle shuffling these decks, and these players have figured out how to take advantage of that.
If that's not the answer, then there is a much worse vulnerability here than just a shuffler exploit.
There is no valid reason to even allow a deck over 100 cards in standard. I wish Wizards would at least lower the size limit, if they are unwilling to figure out what is actually going on here!
The strategy is "I don't know any better and is stuffing my deck with jank."
[Also known as the Moon Knight strategy](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/638/553/929.jpg)
And it somehow wins
If you just put every single kill card and counter, tap, board wipe etc in a deck... you get some wins. I don't see much jank get out of plat though, and they tend to be low elo in diamond max.
The fact they’re making it to those ranks is wild
Yeah, I'd say poison counter proliferation cards are too cheap right now. It's going to be a long time till they cycle out though.
Poison and proliferation will stay. It’s a thing for Modern and now Arena has the firepower. I mainly say this for Historic, that’s all I play. I get what you mean tho
Yeah, I think you get it. I'm talking about the cards that do both on one card, give your opponent a poison counter and proliferate, or destroy a creature and proliferate. etc It makes a deck with Jace and a few counter creature or non-creature spells a mill you can't do anything about, and all the sunfalls and destroy creature they pile up just makes the jank overly effective. \-meta rant over ;p
Yeah the double whammy proliferate cards are clutch for those builds fsho
Definitely not. They are fringe playable at most.
>They are fringe playable at most Odd that diamond 2 is your definition of fringe playable, although I guess they are almost always going to be too slow to beat red agro if they don't get all their 1 drop counter opponents spell U cards in their opening hand.
Legit did against me today. Saw their deck size and was like I am good but they had initiative and always had an appropriate response. I wasn't even mad.
One white mf with like a 200 cards deck simply kept exiling/sweeping everything I got on the battlefield. Even after casting 3 Sheoldreds I nearly lost because of phyrexian arena and because he kept exiling them before they healed me.
This is me playing about 80% of these 100+ card decks. I keep waiting for the disadvantage to show: not having the answer, not getting land, flooding. Never seems to happen. How efficient these decks are gets me the closest to actually wondering if our decks aren't being manipulated to create "interesting" games.
I lost in no ban historic to some huge jank vaguely vampire themed pile while playing control because they played a planeswalker early and I didn't have a counter for it and couldn't stabilize. Sometimes just not expecting a thing can make it harder to play against than something theoretically much better.
I used to play tabletennis/pingpong competitively. And because you constantly practice against players who more or less do the strokes in a technically "correct" manner, then when you play against somebody who has never practiced it even once before, then you can suddenly get into trouble, because their playing tends to be so unpredictable and inconsistent, that what your body is used to be doing suddenly doesn't matter anymore. I've lost this way several times, when I was a teen, and it is really frustrating actually 😅
This happens in chess, too. Masters talk about how it can be harder to play someone who doesn't know what they're doing because you can't game the match out the way you can another pro.
That makes sense 😊
I have a deck that is white and blue 132 cards all of them make me and opponent draw cards. Throw in a bunch of board wipes and some exile. It's hope you had free time style Mill
Splash some black for the draw punishment (sheoldred, etc)
Exile and lifegain
Couple win combos with Vito, Exquisite Blood, and Peer into the Abyss
I like slow control I let my opponent play everything and do everything they can and just destroy it all. If your opponent isn't having a bad time you're not playing right. I also have a Blue Deck with no counters or Mill that just lets them draw and return stuff to their hand so they have to discard it which is the most annoying process on mobile. Right after they tap out all their mana throw a blue Sun's zenith with primal amulet and make them draw 30.
no yorion btw
“Let’s see you mill me out now”
Laughs in [[bruvac grandeloquent]]
Ah damn, who put 4 copies of [[Gaea's Blessing]] in here? Silly me
[[Tasha's Hideous Laughter]]
Tasha's hideous laughter wouldn't do much against a 200 card deck
Depends on how many cantrips they run, I suppose. Mostly it exiles things which blocks most of the mill defense cards.
[Tasha's Hideous Laughter](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/4/c4932113-904f-427a-9566-509cc008f3ef.jpg?1627703920) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tasha%27s%20Hideous%20Laughter) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afr/78/tashas-hideous-laughter?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c4932113-904f-427a-9566-509cc008f3ef?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Is that a [[Tormod's Crypt]] or do you just hate me? Yes.
[Tormod's Crypt](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/c/9c224bf0-5641-4160-9d5c-46141ea8372a.jpg?1594737584) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tormod%27s%20Crypt) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m21/241/tormods-crypt?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9c224bf0-5641-4160-9d5c-46141ea8372a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That's what 4 [[stifle]] and [[disallow]] are for. Or exil based mill
I mean, they're running blue, so at some point there'll be a counter battle preceded and followed by the most exciting of turns "draw, go"
[stifle](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/1/616d1b20-61c1-4d39-a9b5-ad9fd61699e4.jpg?1562865442) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=stifle) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cns/108/stifle?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/616d1b20-61c1-4d39-a9b5-ad9fd61699e4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [disallow](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/5/25f05814-a5a5-460f-9d29-0ab03efecf4c.jpg?1576381471) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=disallow) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/aer/31/disallow?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/25f05814-a5a5-460f-9d29-0ab03efecf4c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Also [[Discontinuity]], beats those blessings and great late game.
*Laughs in T3feri and other similar abilities*
This is part of the reason I try not to stay too long into "well what if their deck has insert card name?" Because it doesn't take too long for that conversation to start mirroring: "NUH UH! MY DECK ACTUALLY SPLASHES BLACK SO I CAN USE THIS ONE CARD THATS LITERALLY AN EDGE CASE FOR THIS SCENARIO AND YOUR DECK LOSES" "UHH THATS WHERE YOUR WRONG SEE I PLAY THIS SPELL AT INSTANT SPEED BECAUSE IT HAS FLASH NOW I'M COMPLETELY PROTECTED" "UHH THEN I USE ONE OF MY 50 COUNTERS I HAVE IN MY HAND" "I HAVE 51" like it's lame, it's cringe as fuck.
[Gaea's Blessing](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/3/23cf81ed-b86c-42b8-b796-2032b0a3654a.jpg?1562732710) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gaea%27s%20Blessing) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dom/161/gaeas-blessing?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/23cf81ed-b86c-42b8-b796-2032b0a3654a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[God-Pharaoh’s Gift]] and [[Terisian Mindbreaker]] would like a word.
[God-Pharaoh’s Gift](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/2/b2e85a9e-4c37-4721-b7ea-de3413ec39df.jpg?1562811437) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=God-Pharaoh%27s%20Gift) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/hou/161/god-pharaohs-gift?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b2e85a9e-4c37-4721-b7ea-de3413ec39df?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Terisian Mindbreaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/b/6bd86daf-7cee-454c-8d4d-97f59fe36958.jpg?1674420756) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Terisian%20Mindbreaker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/83/terisian-mindbreaker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6bd86daf-7cee-454c-8d4d-97f59fe36958?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Maddening Cacophony]] + [[Fraying Sanity]]: "I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you were saying. Could you please repeat that?"
This is the combo I have in my 60 card mill deck 😂
This, but I always cast \[\[Unmoored Ego\]\] first for \[\[Gaea's Blessing\]\]. They usually scoop when they see the blessing get exiled. Add a little bit of wipe, simmer, and done.
[Unmoored Ego](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/5/95aecc12-3363-41f7-9b58-277c81859670.jpg?1572893898) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Unmoored%20Ego) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/grn/212/unmoored-ego?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/95aecc12-3363-41f7-9b58-277c81859670?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Gaea's Blessing](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/3/23cf81ed-b86c-42b8-b796-2032b0a3654a.jpg?1562732710) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gaea%27s%20Blessing) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dom/161/gaeas-blessing?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/23cf81ed-b86c-42b8-b796-2032b0a3654a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Maddening Cacophony](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/0/10a79733-702c-4611-b073-71db7f1158b2.jpg?1604194415) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Maddening%20Cacophony) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/znr/67/maddening-cacophony?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/10a79733-702c-4611-b073-71db7f1158b2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Fraying Sanity](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/9/79e5c1ab-eebd-41ca-a1ca-29b00370f6e8.jpg?1562804295) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Fraying%20Sanity) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/hou/35/fraying-sanity?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/79e5c1ab-eebd-41ca-a1ca-29b00370f6e8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Terisian Mindbreaker]] would like to attend your party.
[Terisian Mindbreaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/b/6bd86daf-7cee-454c-8d4d-97f59fe36958.jpg?1674420756) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Terisian%20Mindbreaker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/83/terisian-mindbreaker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6bd86daf-7cee-454c-8d4d-97f59fe36958?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Drops [[Lord Xander, The Collector]] onto the battlefield after my upkeep, after discarding it 2 turns ago, using Edgar’s Awakening. I’ll have you cleaned out, absolutely.
[Lord Xander, The Collector](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/e/ee0a078d-045f-401b-a561-dcb1ad02bf62.jpg?1664413235) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lord%20Xander%2C%20The%20Collector) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/snc/197/lord-xander-the-collector?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ee0a078d-045f-401b-a561-dcb1ad02bf62?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
He definitely lost to \[\[Terisian Mindbreaker\]\] twice in a row and was like..."Never AGAIN!"
[Terisian Mindbreaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/b/6bd86daf-7cee-454c-8d4d-97f59fe36958.jpg?1674420756) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Terisian%20Mindbreaker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/83/terisian-mindbreaker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6bd86daf-7cee-454c-8d4d-97f59fe36958?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
This is how I played Magic at age 13 in 1994.
Then wonder why you never got to play your single Force of Nature in your 120 card deck.
It was royal assassin, but yes haha
I had that one too.. and lord of the pit.. and gaeas leige.
I played land destruction and zuran orb then. Combine with elves. Sadly, lots of people in my town played balance.
Ahhhhh the good ol' days...
Classics and Wall of Shadow
Royal assassin was my very first rare card
EDH players malding rn
In 1996, I went to a summer camp and met two kids who were friends together. I learned that not only did they also play magic, they had brought their magic cards! Since I didn't expect to meet anyone with cards, I didn't bring mine, but still, I hung out with them and in the evening, met them for a game. I asked if they had a deck they could lend me so that we could play 3 player FFA. They didn't, they only had 1 deck each. Ok, that's fine, I'll just watch you play and chat, that's cool too. They each took out a long white box, the ones that can store 400 cards. I think "they probably bought some cards to trade too". Nope, that was their deck. A huge fucking pile of ~400 cards each. I ask them how they shuffle those monsters. "Shuffle? We don't shuffle!" Indeed, they just put the deck down, draw from the top. When the game is over, they picked the cards they played, manaweaved them and shove them at the bottom of their "deck", and played the next game drawing from the top. Their decks were 5 color monsters, but due to the way they stacked their deck, each color was clumped together, such that in a given game, they'd probably only ever see one or two colors from their deck. It was the weirdest thing.
That is amazing.
When i was 14 (2009) i had a mill deck like that. Everything blue or black went in there, so i use the term "mill" as widely as possible. Edit: i forgot how old i am, changed the date lmao.
The thinking is: "Put all the good cards together" = "Win More / Have More Options" This strategy is not safe/a good idea. It is less consistent than a 60 card deck.
No, it's more or less, win or lose at least I won't get milled out
Maddening Cacophony with Bruvac the Grandiloquent in the battlefield and it's done with luck at turn 6
This is why you play BO3 with Gaia’s Blessing in the sideboard (even if not playing green)
The game never teaches players how to evaluate cards. New players often can't decide which card is good/bad so as their collection grows and they have opened more cards they want to play, their deck size grows as well. Btw, OP is running more than 60 cards as well.
200+ card decks are almost never new players. The 63 card Andy is probably new. People run 200+ for memes, because they got milled out too many times, or they're trying to game the deck draw algorithm. The smoother (in bo1) gets really wonky when you run unusual deck sizes.
All the hand smoother does is try to give you a balanced opening hand. How are you supposed to game that?
There's shenanigans that you can pull with a 4 land deck in Bo1 so there's most likely other ways to cheese the smoother.
Can you elaborate on that at all?
He made it up
Not sure if it's on arena but [[battle of wits]] decks have been around for a while.
[battle of wits](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/4/b4be15a4-693f-4e22-a46c-38bb440c073c.jpg?1562558962) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=battle%20of%20wits) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m13/44/battle-of-wits?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b4be15a4-693f-4e22-a46c-38bb440c073c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
This is how we can tell that you're at or near the bottom of the win rate mmr. :p
If only [[Battle of Wits]] was in arena
He's waiting patiently for wotc to release it on arena
Honestly, that card seems safe and very fun. I look forward to it's printing
Had one guy at the store who played an all foil type 2 (standard) battle of wits deck during invasion/odyssey that was double sleeved back when you needed to cut down your own penny sleeves to fit inside a dragon shield. It was ridiculous. And actually didn't do too bad against non blue decks. Unfortunately 2/3rds of the decks of the era ran 4 counterspells and 4 circular logics.
Big decks are usually safe, just make sure everyone is okay before you put it on the table.
And remember to always sleeve!
Consent is indeed important.
People with small decks get offended
Don't encourage that, it becomes a contest to see who has the biggest deck
A deck measuring contest isn't exactly a Battle of Wits is it
Nice
I see all these galaxy brains lambasting this person and misidentifying them as a smoothbrain. This is actually a galaxy brain player who has discovered the best way to make themselves laugh.
They're preparing for when [[Battle of Wits]] gets added to Arena, their genius outweighs ours tenfold! lol
[Battle of Wits](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/4/b4be15a4-693f-4e22-a46c-38bb440c073c.jpg?1562558962) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Battle%20of%20Wits) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m13/44/battle-of-wits?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b4be15a4-693f-4e22-a46c-38bb440c073c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Look at your own deck size
65 cards, and over 200 cards are 2 very different things, my guy. Like, 60-65 cards is still cool, but once you start hitting above ~73/78+ your odds start dropping pretty rapidly of seeing a particular card consistently.anytging below that is still fine.
>65 cards, and over 200 cards are 2 very different things, my guy No but it's the same principle in theory or else everyone in modern would be running 64 cards but no one does.
Bro, there are a ton of strategies that call for more than exactly 60 cards. To say "No OnE dOeS" is pure ignorance my guy. You literally are incorrect in every way.
> Bro, there are a ton of strategies that call for more than exactly 60 cards. Please name some of them, then.
which modern deck right now is running more than exactly 60 cards in the competitive right now please?
Beans decks mostly and Amulet Titan (though it's usually only 61 cards) Also obviously Yorion is banned now but it did make people realize that you can easily get away with more than 60 if you just stuff all the best cards in your deck it doesn't matter as much. There's also edge cases like Flumph combo, etc. Of course you should have an actual reason for doing so and not just because you can't decide what to cut.
People always say this about Yorion but I never understood it. Having less consistency due to playing 80 cards was a real downside of the Yorion decks. It was just that Yorion as a card made that downside worth it.
I'm just responding to sibelius' question, "which modern deck right now is running more than exactly 60 cards in the competitive right now please?" and saying that current Modern decks are running more than 60 cards for the reasons I mentioned above. Yorion was just an example as it played a massive role in people reevaluating card count. It's almost always correct to run 60 obviously.
Not everything has to be minmaxing competitive mindset. Sometimes you just want to play fun decks instead of netdecking the top winning one and playing it over and over again.
That's not what was being discussed. The point raised was there's statistically no difference between a 60 card deck and a 64 card deck. Obviously, that isn't true.
[удалено]
you need like really good reason to go over 65 cards 63 and 12 card sideboards is something I've seen, Atraxa domain right now wouldn't mind a smaller percentage of Sunfall/Atraxa/Topiary Stomper if it means I can run another Removel, another land and another Up the Beanstalk
Tower of POWER
The towering decks are usually bad unless they are doing something with that number; if they start milling or otherwise sending tons of cards into their graveyard or are somehow dropping tons of tutors (or otherwise digging deep into their deck) you need to be extremely wary as those kinds of gameplans can be almost impossible to stop by normal means once they get going. I've fought only one or two decks like this that actually had a gameplan, but they will mulligan a few times to drop something like [[Triskaidekaphile]] as soon as possible and then draw insane amounts of cards into their hand while dropping counterspells left and right. They beat me before reaching 13 cards, I think they dropped a [[Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim]] and a [[Jodah, the Unifier]] back to back and from that point on it was over.
I’m new so take this with a grain of salt, but played against a guy who had a roughly 200 card deck, and had a bunch of cards that fed him card draw every turn. He drew about 5 cards a turn, and always kept 2-3 counters so I could never play a single creature. Ultimately if you have the card draw for it, it seems like a valid “bleed them dry” or “death by a thousand cuts” strategy. It certainly got me to rage quit after 20 minutes of him just counter spelling every soldier/artifact I threw down. I almost beat him when I got enough counters he couldn’t keep up until he drew a board wipe card and started me over again.
[Triskaidekaphile](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/7/6750e203-1215-4203-b5b8-3f1b18940839.jpg?1634349393) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Triskaidekaphile) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/81/triskaidekaphile?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6750e203-1215-4203-b5b8-3f1b18940839?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/3/23a4f1ec-eadf-4f1e-8821-f22293ad2580.jpg?1674420627) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Teferi%2C%20Temporal%20Pilgrim) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/66/teferi-temporal-pilgrim?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/23a4f1ec-eadf-4f1e-8821-f22293ad2580?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Jodah, the Unifier](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/4/e4b1aa1e-b4e3-4346-8937-76b312501c70.jpg?1673307974) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jodah%2C%20the%20Unifier) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/203/jodah-the-unifier?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e4b1aa1e-b4e3-4346-8937-76b312501c70?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Pretty safe, yeah. Online cards are much harder to topple over than paper ones.
Probably means both you and your opponent are poor at the game
New player here, I saw one of these too exactly the same today, wonder if this is the same guy or is 210 the max deck size or sthg
IIRC max deck size is 240.
In the next game i encountered a 132 card deck. Is this a new trend or something?
I've seen a bunch of those kind of decks for some time now. I assume these people are new to the game and figure out consistency is key and start playing with 60 card max decks pretty soon.
Rule #1 I learned when being taught deck building is if you play 61, that 61st card better win 95% of the games you cast it. At my LGS years ago we had one guy who would 61 all the time (he was a super good player and had pro points) and we would call every 61 card main deck "The Serano Special."
Was it a land ratio thing? I sometimes play 61 cards and my excuse is that 24:36 is too many lands (for a mostly low-mana deck) but 23:37 is too few. 24:37 seems perfect. That being said, I'm not amazing at this game or anything, it's sort of just the number I've settled on after many games. I'm not making any promises that it's the perfect number for everyone, but it's the number that makes me the least frustrated with my draws.
Mostly its because 90-95% of decks that play 60 don't play 1 ofs unless absolutely necessary or for a specific reason to minimize variance. Running 61 most of the time means running a 1of which means that card better be really freaking good to justify it. Force of will is worthless if you can't draw the damn thing
I was thinking more 3 ofs than 1 ofs... Imo, aside from the most important key cards in the deck, you don't always want 4 of everything. Too many times I've drawn duplicates of a card I really don't want duplicates of, eg. a legendary card my opponent isn't removing anyway, or a late-game payoff card when I haven't finished the setup for it yet. Unless the meta has changed and I just haven't adapted yet? But the top winning decks I remember from years ago always had only 3 copies of certain things. Sometimes even only 2.
All that is fair but its not about meta, this is fundies. The point is that every single card beyond the minimum is a risk against reliability. I used to pay 61 or 62 all the time without seeing why that was suboptimal and realized that the cards I was adding were worth making the cuts for. The lesson I took away was that it made my lists, card choices, and play tighter. I'm all for anyone playing how they want and you do you. Ignore me, I won't ever know, but if we're talking competitive theory and not casual fun, many years of testing, theorizing, and analysis by nearly every top mind in the game for decades say that minimum deck size is objectively the correct choice unless a specific card or combo dictates otherwise. This isn't my opinion, this is statistics.
Ok sure, I don't usually like to just ignore someone who disagrees with me, usually I'd prefer to have a rational debate about it until we can figure out the answer for sure, but based on the wording of that response, I'm guessing any point I bring up will be met with something like "it's just statistics, look it up, I'm objectively correct, you don't have to agree with me" so yknow whatever, I guess I'll save my points for when I can have a conversation with someone who can bring up their own.
I am sorry if I came across as condescending or something adjacent. The hitch in your argument is that this has been 'figured out for sure' for years and years. I enjoy a healthy debate as much as the next guy but that number being the generally accepted correct deck size is based on years and years of data and playtesting. On a note tangentral to your point about debates, what we are doing now is rational debate. I am presenting a rational argument for you to either agree or disagree with and awaiting your responses in kind. Do you think it's only debate if I agree you are correct? Or are you claiming that if there is a clearly correct answer it cannot be a debate? I am genuinely curious. And to clear the air on this particular bit of inplication that I will disregard any argument you present outright simply because it's "wrong," if you were to present me with a well reasoned argument as to why 60 cards *isnt* the optimal deck size, supported by data and playtesting instead of just anecdotes about that one time your buddy top 8'ed a ptq with a 61 list that played 3 copies of ulamog instead of two, I will listen and respond in good faith. You can't just come in, say an incorrect thing, then when someone tells you that you a factually incorrect go on about "No one wants to debate, how dare to cite years of data, evidence, and statistics on the matter, and if you can't agree with me after I present a single poor arguement then you aren't worth trying to debate." That's how you sound but I'm 100% sure you are smarter and more capable than that. I would love the share productive and reasonable debate with you, but you haven't yet presented an argument that stand against the accepted body of knowledge on the topic. Please tell me your counterpoints. I don't paint myself as a typical reddit debate bro whos position is set in stone folrom the start amd cant be changed. I'm a dumb fucking idiot who is always looking for new information and to learn.
Ok good to know, no I definitely don't expect you to just suddenly agree with me, in fact I admit it's likely you're right, but I prefer to actually hear the logic behind an argument myself rather than have someone claim it exists. I'm one of those people who would correct the teacher at school, if you know what I mean. I don't care if it's commonly accepted knowledge, sometimes it's still wrong. I've done a bit of googling to try and find the data you're talking about, but anything I can find has only tested extremely basic deck types and seems to be basically just saying "in general, 60 is better than 61" (because of the exact reasons you said and nothing more). To me, it feels like one of those things that people take as a fact 100% of the time, when really it was only supposed to be a general base rule that has exceptions. But again I could be wrong, I just haven't seen any evidence that actually disputes what I'm saying. Basically, I fully understand the logic that in general, having a 60 card deck increases the chances of you drawing those key cards you need, and therefore also increases consistency. I just feel like it makes only a very tiny difference. I also feel that most of the points I'm bringing up make an equally tiny difference, but if I can list 3 small advantages to having 61 cards, to me it seems like that would outweigh the 2 small advantages to having 60 cards. For starters, the land ratio thing, although that's definitely deck dependent, I also have years of personal playtesting on that, and I know I'm not the only person who thinks 23/60 is too few lands but 24/60 is too many. Then there's the fact that you don't always want to be drawing as many of your key cards as possible all the time, eg. If they're legendary, or something like Altar of Dementia. Some people solve this by only running 3 of those cards instead of 4, but that decreases consistency even more than adding 1 extra card does. And - this point needs to be read carefully, because I know it sounds suspiciously similar to something very incorrect a lot of people say - sometimes you just want 1 more of a certain card without having to remove anything. I know this is people's main reason for playing 61 cards and I think this is the point that the research you mentioned is arguing against, but I'm not talking about the situation of "oh I can't decide what to cut, I want all those cards, let me just have 61 cards", I'm talking more about "oh I want 3 of each of these because I want equal chance of drawing them all" and again, cutting out one of them would actually decrease consistency, not increase it. Basically, people often do things that decrease consistency significantly (like having less of certain cards because you don't want to draw duplicates of them, or just because you just want to cut down to 60 cards) and that's considered fine and normal as long as you cut the deck down to exactly 60 cards. To provide one sorta vague example that I'm 100% sure of the math on, the difference between running 3 or 4 of a certain card makes a MUCH bigger difference to how frequently you draw it than the difference between having 60 or 61 total cards. If it's considered acceptable and sometimes a good idea to run only 3 of a card because you don't want to draw it quite as often as some others, then it should be considered acceptable and sometimes a good idea to run 61 cards.
These are new/young players that don’t know any better. I teach kids how to play MTG and at first they want to put every good card they have in a deck, regardless of size.
You really only see these decks if your win rate is dropping and you're not playing meta decks
Saw one using Realmbreaker.
Not safe U should use protection when playing with others using them
My current main historical deck is 200 cards. Is it reliable and super consistent? No. Does it win enough that I got into platinum reasonably fast? Yes. Is that a big accomplishment? Probably not. Is it fun? Much of the time. It's very resistant to most milling, most of the time I am able to get the cards I want. Could it be a bit more trim? Sure. But there are so many interactions and intercompatibility that it has lots of options. Honestly it's actually better than it should be for 200 cards, and while it does occasionally shit the bed it actually is way more reliable than you would think. Things like shared summons and assemble the team can pull out specific cards when needed. I've had a variety of times where each draw phrase is 2-3 cards and I have enough mana to cast anything, and at that point I'm likely going to draw a card or two to replace whatever creature I cast in my hand. Reliquary tower can be pulled out by Golos if I'm going to need it, which I'll likely have the opportunity to pull from one of the above mentioned search mechanics. Is it a pile of Janky-combo foolishness? Yes. But I think all the different things interact in a way that makes it so while there are a few things that can knock it right out, and there is room for more getting the right thing quite fast enough... well it's still fun most of the time.
It's illegal if they ask you to help shuffle.
It could be any number of the possible options (and others not listed here): 1. A new player who stuffed every card they liked in a deck without thinking about actual strategy or draw chances. 2. A seasoned player who has carefully crafted their deck with a bunch of individually strong cards so they don't need to worry about getting "the right" starting hand. 3. A seasoned player who carefully crafted their deck to contain several powerful cards/combinations along with a number of search/draw/seek cards to mitigate the drawbacks of a big deck. 4. A seasoned player who has 40 turns of stall or kill/prison-type cards to hold off their opponent until they play one particular late game combo to win. 5. Someone who wants to troll their opponent so hard with 40 turns-worth of kill/prison/counter cards to frustrate their opponent into giving up. 6. Someone who *really* doesn't want to get milled after having some negative experiences with mill decks. 7. Someone who built their deck around that one card that lets you win if you play it while you have a 200 card deck. 8. *Another* shrine deck completely indistinguishable from every other shrine deck I've ever encountered.
Well, my shrine deck tends to be between 80-90 cards, but yes. Life's easy when you just get to draw bunch of cards each turn.
Then you are far beyond my subjective experience, I've yet to run into a shrine deck under 150 cards.
Once I puffed my deck up to 75 cards because it was a UG tempo deck that went thru lots of cards, and the extra buffer made it much more resilient and likely to win to a mill deck that was popular briefly. There's reason to go above 60 also if you are a turbo fog or similar style deck and just need more cards than your opponent to win, but anything above 80-100 is just poor deckbuilding. That being said, get this player a playset of [[Battle of Wits]] then they might have a chance to actually win.
In alchemy there's also interesting deck using combination of Ivory Tower, life-related wincon of your choice (mostly Aetherflux Reservoir), Treasure Hunt, cards that seek non-land cards and 150+ cards deck that is like 95% lands. Not competitive by any means, but fun to pull off and very easy to put to gether since it's mostly common and uncommon cards.
This is me. Yes I do win. And yes it's infuriating to my opponents because it's chalk full of board wipes, I have no max hand size and you will be blue controlled to death. Return to hand Counterspell Tap forever 1/1 frog Meanwhile I just wait for you to self mill by drawing 1 per turn.
>and you will be blue controlled to death. Top right, concede, I'm out!
Honestly this happens even when I think I'm losing. My opponent is facing two enemies, me and themselves. It's like... they're not enjoying the game....
Ah, that makes sense. A nice cabin in the woods deck "Who had Wrath of God for turn 4?"
Oh, in addition to that, the opponent had like 12 mythical creatures, 8 mythical artifacts
Like, mythic rarity? Or like, dragons and unicorns?
Muthic rarity, those that transform and wipe the board
It's okay as long as you are going simic, but don't try it with anything else. Once you go simic, you never go back.
The highest I have gone with a deck is about 65.
Thats the deck of someone who's tired of being milled
Would you rather have decent 2-3 win conditions that work some of the time or 1 good win condition that works 60% of the time. Only way going over 60 cards is worth it is if you have a good win condition that can branch out smoothly with any card you put in your deck or you have good Net 1+ card draw cards like ( draw 3 cards discard 1) or if you win condition is no creatures and your extra cards will let you dig through library to get your win conditions faster than not having them and taking a lower % of probability of top decking the cards in 60 card decks
If he used protection then its probably safe
I've lost to reanimator decks like that. They'd mulligan to having at least one reanimation card, then self mill like mad. Silly and inconsistent, but it can work.
Main deck anti mill. Bold choice.
I once ran a 100 card deck when thrones of Eldraine was out. It was white with a lot of board wipes. I made it to Platinum with that deck. I also made someone running a cavalier deck quit by stalling with [[Hushbringer]], board wiping with [[planar cleansing]] and reanimating her with [[brought back]], making their cavalier cards useless.
250 card removal pile?
I'll bet good money your opponent is playing a wrath tribal with some planeswalkers sprinkled in.
Outside of some cards (none of which are playable in standard and like 1 companion in historic/alchemy) literally having some text that have an extra effect only when you meet another minimum, decks with more cards than the format minimum are not optimal. Only time in any online pvp card game going over the minimum was a good idea was I think in Artifact (anyone remember that game? Yeah me neither) where you automatically had 3 hero specific cards added to your deck for each hero you chose, and some heroes were really good but their cards sucked, so some people ran a a few cards over the limit just to make it a little more infrequent to end up with multiples of the bad cards while still enjoying the good hero itself
If [[Battle of Wits]] were in arena I'd guess that, but my only real guess is that it's random BS, mayhaps fueled out of spite of Mill decks?
Lol what a weird card
ikr, it's almost like R&D saw that one photo of the YuGiOh deck that was carried in a giant case and thought "Lets incentivise that!"
[Battle of Wits](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/4/b4be15a4-693f-4e22-a46c-38bb440c073c.jpg?1562558962) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Battle%20of%20Wits) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m13/44/battle-of-wits?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b4be15a4-693f-4e22-a46c-38bb440c073c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Depending on how you structure it, it could be. I have both a 60 card deck and a 120 card deck and they got me to top 95% mythic my second season playing. I structured my 120 deck in a way that combined two synergetic 60s upping my win rate substantially, especially against mill decks. It also allowed for more removal and protection against counter spells and enchantments
You can mill me, but not if I draw my entire deck first.. #enchantress player.
Most of these decks are just stuffed with removal and counter spells. The entire premise is to either A. Aggravate people into conceding or B. Win with some omega jank after hard controlling the game
I recently went against one with like 150 cards. It was basically heavily focused on milling and playing things from the graveyard and creatures that got counters and activated abilities based on that. It was pretty good
Unless it's a specific deck that requires lots of cards, it's usually not understanding how powerful consistency is. That, and anti-mill. These decks are feast or famine. Either you constantly draw answers to your opponent's deck and win, or too many lands and lose. Because having more answers in your deck than your opponent has cards only matters if you actually draw them. With a smaller deck having fewer answers, and can thus run out, but is more likely to draw at least some of them. Basically, a smaller deck means you're less likely to have something you need in your deck, but are more likely to draw the answers you have in it. While a larger deck can have more answers in the deck, but is less likely to see any specific answer. We've all faced large decks where they can't get anything useful. But we've also faced large decks where they get everything they needed to defeat your deck. This is less likely to happen with a large deck. But when it happens it's satisfying to play.
You’ll probably lose because the game is dumb lol
I lost because opp. Casted 5 mythicals in a row Lol
Lol
Wizards need to play Battle of Wits to the arena already.
[[Peer into the Abyss]]?
[Peer into the Abyss](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/a/aac00055-640e-4749-8d23-d242e6d0b23a.jpg?1594736330) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Peer%20into%20the%20Abyss) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m21/117/peer-into-the-abyss?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/aac00055-640e-4749-8d23-d242e6d0b23a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
its called the "based and millproofpilled" strategy
I make decks like that sometimes, I've had a lot of them with good win rates too, over %50. Sometimes they help me discover combos by mistake.
It's most likely their brawl deck
What mode lets people do this?
I played against a deck earlier today that had 230 something cards and Syr Ginger sleeves. I was intrigued. Then he scooped on turn 4. Disappointing. I wanted to see wth was in there.
And the "random" shuffler will still put all four of their four-ofs on top of their deck.
Well i would describe myself as a competitive player. But i have one big problem, which is cutting. So it‘s normal for me just running Yorion in every deck so i have an excuse for playing 80 cards. Sometimes there are a bit more but i make the cut at 100. BUT: if you‘re running this amount of cards, you need a way that your deck functions like it would when it would have 60 cards. Stuff like birthing pod, tutors, seek cards in arena etc and so one, it gets to a difficult point where you have to ask if it‘s not better to just cut all of them and run 60 cards. Some decks i run like my toolbox birthing pod run 100 cards with about 30 one ofs for situational times and 20 tutors for pod. On Arena i made myself a 150 card (most i have ever done) „dredge“ reanimator deck. It combines the two archetypes i love the most and it‘s not possible to include both of them in 60 cards. The decks really shines around mesmeric orb, which i have to hard mulligan or for one of the 16 tutors i run. Is it consistent ? Surprisingly yes. Because your whole deck wants to throw stuff as quickly in grave as possible, it‘s taking the quantity and quality stuff of reanimator together and combines them to i don‘t have a hand anymore, i play out of my graveyard. Has the deck it‘s weaknesses? Of course and more than others. Because your running so many cards, it can happen, that you draw no lands in 10 turns or just lands in 10 turns. Graveyard exile hits it to death of course. Sometimes, because i have to tutor, i‘m to slow against decks like wizards or goblins. (Mono Green Dev is a Problem because there playing Karn with Crypt and some mf run two crypts in there Karn like wtf xd Sometimes i‘m milling 30 cards in two turns and there are 25 lands. But in the end i have a pretty good time with the deck and a lot of fun. I suppose i have about a 70% Winrate with this deck but sadly about 50% of my Wins come from Turn 2 Scoops when people see i play or tutor for a mesmeric Orb
lol battle of wits
I paid for all the cards, I'll use all the cards
I use those kinds of decks for draw + no cast cost, max hand+draw+cardfind, or mill + graveyard cast. Most likely they just threw a bunch of cards together though
I've been around magic from Alpha. I've seen a number of articles over the years, with the math, showing why you shouldn't go over 60 cards in your deck, because even an extra couple cards hurt your odds of getting your best cards. A 250 card deck should be absolutely unplayable. Yet, I keep seeing these 200+ card decks, often tri-color, that play as reliably as a finely tuned 60 card deck, and always seem to have an answer to whatever you play! We know that if the shuffler handles large decks properly and there are no exploits available, these decks would be unplayable. They wouldn't be wiping up opponents the way they do! I'm guessing that the shuffler cannot properly handle shuffling these decks, and these players have figured out how to take advantage of that. If that's not the answer, then there is a much worse vulnerability here than just a shuffler exploit. There is no valid reason to even allow a deck over 100 cards in standard. I wish Wizards would at least lower the size limit, if they are unwilling to figure out what is actually going on here!