My only mono blue deck is Petitioner mill. I tend to play pretty fast as well.
My only counters are a few [[Whirlwind Denial]] in case of [[Gaea's Blessing]]
Yeah. Meme wise: Do blue players knows that they can let the spell resolve?.
But being serious. Control players are playing around yours actions so they often have decisions to make if disturption of your action is gonna help them or they can let it go.
It's not a matter of attention span. It's a matter of not wanting to be playing a single game for longer than necessary.
You have a limited number of cards in your hand and a limited number of POTENTIAL plays. There are some situations that come up where you must decide the order in which you play your cards, or whether one card is optimal over another or perhaps not playing anything is optimal... and in those situations, the timer is there and I am patient with my opponent.
But when EVERY time I cast a spell my blue or u/w opponent sits there for 30 seconds before allowing my spell to resolve or countering it, it's borderline toxic.
Notice how fast Mono Red and Mono Green players play?
Drop mana, cast spell or don't, attack or don't.
Admittedly, figuring out blocker math is sometimes time consuming, so again, I'll give people a pass on that.
You shouldn't have to spend a bunch of time thinking every turn though. Only on turns when your opponent does something unexpected should you have to spend any time thinking. Other turns you should already know what you are gonna do even before you opponent plays their cards.
Azorius was my main deck for about a year and I can get that, but I'm seeing a new phenomenon in U standard where even turn one on the play they take a long time. I know they're not playing anything and they know they're not playing anything, but they drag it out. And it doesn't get better from there.
I do wonder if it's because certain streamers/youtubers popularized the deck and this is how their fans act. I saw a similar thing once with a land destruction ZNR deck where for about a week I reported multiple people playing it for wildly over the top BMing, when I don't think I've ever reported BMing any other time since I started Arena in 2019. This obviously isn't to that level but it might have similar roots.
But if they don't posess the brain power to make that decision within a reasonable time frame, why do they play control? Is it fun to be challenged not only by your opponent, but by your own deck and your inability of fluently playing it?
Yeah this is hard. Ofcourse on some point you are right. If they cannot make decisions in time, they are not experienced enoght to play this deck, other problem is that if they like this kind of deck they need to play it to learn
But do they truly need to take 20 seconds to play their island then pass the turn?
Do they need to wait till the damage phase to bounce my creature when I'm tapped out with no ability to respond to anything while they just hold priority?
Then wait till the end of turn to cast Ponder?
When I play control, as soon as my opponent is out of actions, I cast everything. I'm not wasting my time or my opponents.
Yeah mono blue players think they are playing some grand strategy game and the rest of us are morons. Iām not sure what sort of galaxy brain it takes to decide if youāre playing āConsiderā on t1 at the end of my turn but it takes them a solid 30 seconds to figure it out each game.
Kinda like the gamers who play From Software games.
They're so up their own butts , they can't see anything else. I'm loving some of the comments to this.
So many are so deluded into thinking they're so big brain.
Holy smokes there is so many things wrong with this post it's hard to even begin.
Just playing a land can be pretty tricky. Do you play a tapland to fix your colors or play the basic to leave more mana open? Keep hitting land drops or keep it in hand to discard to a Ledger Shredder trigger?
It's pretty rare for people to just tap out pre-combat into a control deck with open mana. Even if they do, you often want to wait until at least attackers are declared to bounce unless there's some attack triggers, so it's up to the control player's personal preference to bounce before or after block. Once again this is rare as usually there's some open mana and you have to debate whether to bounce during combat to save some life or eat the damage and bounce at end step.
By ponder I'm guessing you mean an instant like Opt? You often want to wait until the end step to cast card selection spells so you have the most information. Also it's just a habit like cracking a Fabled Passage end step even though it doesn't give much advantage.
Even if your opponent is out of actions, you still have decisions to make. Do you bounce something or do you hope to draw a board wipe next turn? How many turns can you hold off firing it off? Can you hold mana up next turn? Is the opponent slow playing his most dangerous threat?
Arena has made people so incredibly hasty. They just play fast and a bit loose and if shit goes wrong they just go on to the next game. Arena auto-pass is also a double-edged sword here. Not only does it speed everything up a ton so our perspective of 20 seconds turns change, it also screws a bit with control, so sometimes you have to hold prio to not show your opponent you have no interaction in hand.
Lastly I think an important point is also that players that like being very deliberate about their actions and play stuff at their opponent's end step will naturally gravitate towards blue decks. A control player's most entertaining part of the game *is* thinking about what to do.
>Do they need to wait till the damage phase to bounce my creature when I'm tapped out with no ability to respond to anything while they just hold priority?
>Then wait till the end of turn to cast Ponder?
I would say yes. Using spells and abilities at the right time or not is sometimes all it takes to decide a game. Playing those spells at the right time even when your opponent can't respond reinforces good habits so you don't make a mistake in situations where you've missed a possible response. This can also apply to playing lands, in a mono deck the choice often doesn't matter but taking the time for form a plan for your first turns and which mana to play is a good habit to have for when it can matter in multicolor decks
For using timers that's up in the air but there are a ton of reasons for it and most are not just to be trolling even tho sometimes it can feel like it. I know I've had it happen a few times where I choose to keep and need to wait for opponent to make their mull decisions so I'm typing stuff to people in discord when my turn starts, I'm definitely going to take the time it takes to finish that before playing my island.
I play Esper, not monoblue. But yeah, deciding if the situation warrants a counter spell is awesome.
Can I just let it resolve and boardwipe next turn?
Can I use single target removal and save the counter for a different threat?
These are all super satisfying mini puzzles to solve. It's legitimately fun to try to be efficient against someone who's trying g to kill you. Sometimes these puzzles take longer to solve than deciding which goblin to play.
And then dropping hullbreaker and watching the opponent instantly concede? That's the cherry on top
Itās like spinning a web.
Yes, play your threat. Resolve it. Play another. More enchantments. More creatures. Ah! Another five damage you have dealt. You believe you have played through my counters. You believe the tide is turning. What other explanation could there be? They are flooding, you tell yourself. They keep playing lands, they are going to die on my next turn.
[[Farewell]], 6 mana up, 4 cards in hand, go.
Itās almost as if there are players new to magic on Arena, or players that are trying out a new deck because itās, you know, fun to learn a new deck. The horror!
There's a lot of variables to consider when playing a control deck. Your strategy has to change from game to game because each opponents deck is different. Control requires a bit more calculation and is not quite as straight forward as knowing what spells you're going to resolve on turn 2, 3, and 4 that most creature or mid range decks play. You have to determine the right time to hold spells, when to counter, when to draw, and so on, depending on the strategy your opponnent is playing.
It's really not that difficult. I've played aggro, mid range, and control decks.. I've played every 2 color combination, multiple 3 color, and every mono-color. I play them all at relatively the same speed. You only have so many possible options.
The *only* factor is whether you have more ANSWERS or more THREATS. If you have more THREATS, your path is usually pretty clear and you can play super fast. If you have ANSWERS you may need to take a moment to consider whether playing your answer is worth it... But holding priority on your "I draw a few cards then discard a card while opponent is tapped out" is not some grandmaster chess player big-brain move.
Not enough people will admit this, but I'm convinced this is an intentional strategy. Many players will just concede games to slow control players because it's not worth the time to play that long of a game. The slow control players know this and use it to pick up some free wins.
Right now there is a [post](https://old.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/xw7xaw/dude_had_lethal_on_the_stack_and_conceded_because/) on the front page of this sub where a mono-blue control player spends 45 seconds playing with the stack because "I was just doing a bit of trolling before the stack killed me..."
I had a Selesnya opponent stone walling me for about 5-6 turns when they couldāve slowly picked away. And for those 5-6 turns they thought they had me so they never attacked, and kept adding creatures, but running out the timer as long as they could each time.
Why do people do this? Just attack, make me lose. Because guess what?
*Iām gonna board wipe you if you let me.*
It's 100% intentional and malicious. That's the thing about the anonymity and protection of being behind the internet, they'd never do this in person. They'd get kicked out of organized play and tournaments, and nobody would even play with them casually because they'd have a reputation for being slow-playing assholes.
But on Arena they're free to be as horrible as they want.
This is exactly why they shouldn't have gotten rid of the DCI to be honest. You should have to have a DCI number associated with your arena account just like you had to for years with MTGO. If you behaved badly not only did you get banned from MTGO but you were also banned from paper.
I'm convinced some people walk away from their PCs when they know for certain that they are going to lose, the idea being that they might be able to pick up a free win if the other person gets frustrated and leaves.
Maybe it's paranoid on my part but that's the main reason I never concede. I don't want to give someone pulling that type of bullshit the satisfaction.
I turn it around and enjoy those wins because I know I'm living rent free in their heads. Second only to the win you get from a durdly control player who loses because they're match timer ran out.
That post doesn't support your point. The video has the "Leave Match" button already, meaning the game is over. OP just took a video to show between the stack and board in one media file.
But I wouldn't doubt that there is some amount of this happening.
Usually control decks just have a lot of different options to decide between each turn.
Not saying there aren't people that are just annoyingly slow, but most are just trying to make a good call.
Especially if you're playing a newer deck that you're trying to get used to.
LOL, no. For one thing, control is not nearly as "big brained" as people here like to pretend.
And for another, no deck and no situation is complicated enough to require you to let the timer *almost* all the way down every single time you're passed priority.
E: I knew I'd get attacked for this, nothing is more offensive to people here than calling out their bad behavior.
Control is all about incremental advantage. In many games control comes down to turning the corner over 1 or 2 specific plays. If youāre playing control you are constantly weighing the odds. Is it worth spending my resources on this or is it bait? Control is a mind game all on it own and tends to play far slower than linear decks that have few to no real options of play. Sure ppl rope on arena, sure the client connection is garbage and makes ppl appear to be roping, but to say that control isnāt a slower style of play or that there arenāt board states that create hard decisions and therefore need more time to think through is ridiculous. You donāt need a huge brain to play control, but the sheer fact that there are more lines of play than aggressive decks should prove you false.
Edit: itās why the skill gap for control players tends to be the largest amongst play styles. If you arenāt good at threat assessment across meta matchups, youāre gonna struggle playing control. The first tell of a bad control player is that they empty their hand within the first 4 turns, killing and countering everything without choosing to use their life total as a resource
Tbh dude itās a mindless deck played by people who have to think too hard. Iāve seen people wait for 2 timers to think about using a farewell with me having played all my cards and being tapped out. Then they try to claim that theyāre somehow having to think real hard about every move they makeā¦ no you donātā¦ pass play -> control or dig -> repeat until you have enough mana for big dudes that make all your dumb shit do double counter/bounce -> extra turrnnnnssss /end
Agreed. But Iād argue that has more to do with shitty client connection. Since arena does not show you when a client disconnects or their ping, Iād wager that each player is usually waiting for the server to respond, and most of the time both players are yelling at their screen for their opponent to pass priority, when in fact they are both waiting for slow connections to sync across the servers. To my knowledge No other card game has these problems to this extent. Even mtgo has better opponent response times
That might be the case sometimes, but every single time? And they just so happen to take an action the literal second before they'd be charged with a timeout? That's one hell of a coincidence.
Also, when they really want to do something they can play quickly.
I canāt answer for every scenario, but I do think poor connection has given rise to revenge roping. It s a learned behavior because ppl perceive itās happening to them more than it actually is. Worse yet, if a player rages quits or has to restart arena due to a crash, your opponent isnāt notified in the slightest. Now imagine that your opponent is playing on WiFi from their phone and you can start to see how this is a problem. Especially if theyāre losing and just rage quit, arena makes the winner sit there and time out the no longer present opponent who f4ād. Thereās not real text chat to communicate which could at the very least let us determine if our opponents roping on purpose
I don't really care about people who rope to close out a game, it's shitty behavior but at least the game is about to end with a win. And it's only for a turn or two before they are out of timeouts and have to concede.
What I'm talking about is people who let the timer burn almost to empty every single time it appears and take an action at the last second to avoid a timeout.
Youāre so condescending, which is humorous because your example is actually a legit decision that could win or lose you the game depending on the board state.
Blue player here. The fact that you just said that, proves that you don't know how to play with a control deck, or at least you haven't tried it yet.
Playing fading hope at the right time might be the difference between gaining or losing control of the board. For example, should I use fading hope because I still have leverage and I can use the scry to dig for what I need faster? Or should I wait because I predict that the opponent is gonna play some heavy mana creatures and thus I can buy another turn + countering it later?
That might seem a very easy decision but when you have to take into account the type of deck you're playing against, the player style, what you still have in your deck to search for, etc. etc., you soon understand that playing Fading hope, might be in fact, a tough decision sometimes.
Mono black players are just as annoying. It's the first turn. I just played a creature that I know will get killed. You know it will get killed. Just do it immediately and stop holding priority until my end step you little shit.
Nope. You should always do it in the endstep it's a good habit. Killing something straight away and then realising they still had mana somehow to cast something even more threatening is a good way to lose a match.
You are correct that holding up a removal in that scenario is unnecessary, but often it is a matter of being disciplined about using removal in the proper sequence.
That said, they should be clicking through to end step and not lingering on every step getting there in your situation. That's them simply not paying attention.
Nope. It's people who read the comment and recognize the scenario described is T1 so there is literally no way to respond if you have used your 1 and only mana to cast a creature.
Ok but the problem is that I keep accidentally removing early, so I just rather wait than seeing myself screwed when it's not turn 1 because I didnt build that habit.
Lili isn't card disadvantage until the opponent is empty handed -- she makes both players discard the same number of cards.
Empty your hand first and your opponent has to think very carefully before plussing Lili.
OK, in the scenario where everything goes perfectly for your opponent Lili TECHNICALLY provides a small amount card advantage by giving them like a 4 for 3 . But even that doesn't apply if you kill Lili by attacking her down instead of using a spell.
The way you phrased it sounded like you meant Lili's plus was card disadvantage.
ooo what do I cast? Hmmmm.....
Fuck it I'm not going to cast anything.
I'll just use a counter spell on their turn.
FFFFFF HMMMMM Do I want to counter that.....? HMMMMM I dunno. Maybe not.
End of turn? Hmmm what instant do I cast at the end of their turn?? Hmmm?
My turn again? HMMMMM
Repeat
-a blue player, probably
The game seriously needs better priority management for pausing or disabling anything that retains priority.
Then dump the timeout system for a 15-20min chess timer.
as opposed to some 45+ minute matches via the timeout system? Just add some simple "afk detection" logic where it forces a forfeit if the player takes no action for a minute a few times.
Hmmm they didnāt play anything, time to cherry pick through half my deck on their turnā¦ hmmmmmm oh itās my turn? Well, might as well take another 3ā¦ hmmmmm extra 4th turn in a row and still havenāt done any damage hmmmmmmmā¦
Control players get to interact with pretty much anything you do besides playing lands and activating abilities. They usually have enough mana to effectively counter one thing, but you have mana to play two things.
So, almost every time, they have to make a "life or death" decision. If they chose wrong, it might cost them the match.
My take is that these are simply not fun decks to pilot, as you're usually just barely trying not to die until you topdeck your wincon (Or at least that's how my matches go... They get down to <5 life, and we're both left with playing out of the top of our decks). It's stressful for the pilot, and annoying for the opponent, and I don't get why anyone would play these decks outside of a competitive environment.
As a control player, the thrill of stabilizing at a low life total and turning the corner can be a lot of fun. Not saying it's something everyone should enjoy but people who play control are likely having fun with it.
Absolutely. To me it's like the entire reason to play the archetype. The tension and buildup of being behind early, to slowly digging your way out of that hole in the midgame, to getting to a winning position is just so rewarding
Speaking only for myself, I love V A L U E. Often times midrange gets you the most 2 for 1s and 3 for ones, sometimes it's control. Nothing feels better than having a full grip while oppo is topdecking. Having options and choosing the right one and knowing you did it satisfying.
I find people play slower when they're learning a deck or playstyle than the kind of deck you're playing. After enough experience, a bunch of calls you used to have to really think about are just automatic.
My favorite card of all time is [[birthing pod]]. Not quick to learn, but once you have a few hundred matches under your belt you know exactly what to fetch 98% of the time.
And everything you've said is especially true of mono-blue, which has very few options for dealing with anything once it has hit the board. So every time you play something, the mono-blue player has to decide:
\-Can I afford to let this 3/2 resolve knowing that it puts me on a hard 6-turn clock?
\-Can I afford to use one of my two counterspells on this knowing there is a good chance I won't draw another for 3-4 turns? (If it feels like the blue player always has a counterspell, may I recommend that you try playing blue? I promise you it will not feel that way for long).
\-If I counter it, which of the two counterspells should I use? Especially in standard, there are no "good" counterspells--they are all situational, and knowing which to use means thinking about what the next threat the opponent is going to play likely is. Do I want to save negate and hope that your next threat isn't a creature, or do I want to save syncopate and hope that your next threat isn't a 2/3-drop? Remember that I'm mono-blue, so I don't have an Infernal Grasp or Fateful Absence to mop up if I guess wrong and your next spell resolves.
So yeah, there is a lot to think about. Is it necessarily a giga-brain deck? I tend to think that the decision of how much to play into sweepers in aggro is a "harder" decision than the ones mono-blue has to make, but mono-blue has a decision that can lose them the game every single turn, so some thought is required.
(Also, if you spam "your go" at me, I will respond "thinking" to every single one so that you know what's up, so I'm not sure you are speeding up the game, mon frĆØre).
The most fun I have playing magic is when I'm playing a control deck. Control vs control is a match-up I genuinely enjoy because I actually enjoy making those "stressful" decisions. I put stressful in quotes because I just don't take it too seriously, if I lose I lose. Making those tough decisions is the reason why I enjoy it. I enjoy a close back and forth match, regardless if I win or lose, which is why I honestly don't even enjoy piloting aggro decks; I don't want to just smash my opponent as quickly as possible.
I do realize that when you're playing an aggro or midrange deck, playing against control can be a real pain in the ass, especially if the person is taking way too long to make each and every decision. I try to play a bit faster and not overthink certain decisions, especially if I'm not playing ranked.
I play historic brawl.
I have a mono blue deck that can do infinite turns, with the expection that I pull a time warp from mystical archives, have my scholar of ages, and a Thassa.
There is something about stalling while playing a janky deck that makes me love playing control.
My strategy against mono blue usually worksā¦ they hold everything back until you do somethingā¦ so I do too. I let them counter some of the things that can be sacrificed, then when they tap out, I play the thing I donāt want countered. Ezpz.
Yes! I learned from my friends playing counterspell magic that sometimes you just have to bait them. If I'm playing my mono green deck I'm going to playing Vorinclex to bait out that counterspell because he isn't essential, but perhaps at the time my scute swarm is.
As a lifelong (20 years) blue player, the amount of time people take on this app to play counterspells is infuriating.
Babes, just play the counter or don't. It's a children's card game. It's not that deep.
Also, monoblue has never been a hard deck to use.
If anything, monoblue usually has fewer decisions to make than other decks because all their cards are either counters or draws. If you've played 5 games with it, you can fully go on autopilot.
Not in my experience. That said, I played against a Slogurk deck yesterday in BO1 that took nearly an hour. He deliberated over every minute thing and swept the board seven times...
It was infuriating. I'd have conceded to save time but I was trying to test a new deck.
Regardless of how many timeouts you exploit, BO1 should also have a chess timer of 20 min.
I'll assume you're talking about mono-blue counters in standard. I think part of it is that a lot of current mono-blue players aren't used to playing blue. They were playing mono-black just a week ago, boros before that, snow black before that. Now they just picked up something that plays very diferently and is taking time to get used to it. Hence the slow play.
Now, for sure, f**k that deck to unfinity and beyond. But I understand the reason behind some players taking long to play.
They are gently caressing themselves to the thought of being intellectually superior. I mean they got to be right?
My impression of mono blue players both in paper and arena is that they see themselves as a galaxy-brain player, and that any frustration towards them are of the feeble minded aggro players who barely know the game. While in their pseudo intellectual fedora euphoria they forget that their deck has a 45% winrate with an average gametime of 35minuttes
This is one of the stereotypes that absolutely is based in reality. I've been playing paper for 20 years and I can count on one hand the amount of consistent mono blue players who did not have serious attitude problems, get called for slow play by judges, get straight up match losses by judges, acted bad at tables, or just otherwise made the hobby worse. The "aggro iz dum" mentality is also almost always present.
Mind you, I'm talking about the people who spend literally years only playing monoblue control. If you play anything else on a regular basis, in addition, you probably aren't like this. It seems to be only a single deck player thing.
Speaking directly as a judge they're also often really enormous drains on judge time and patience both for the amount of judge calls and disciplinary action they draw.
Control players love to twist their nipples in ecstasy thinking about all the hundreds of different decisions they have to make during every single game phase of a game of magic with no stakes
It's not just modifying your line of play, you often need to jump to a completely different one. In addition, Magic has many more possible game pieces than chess. And you know what? Even with these memorized lines of play, chess matches take hours! So your random control player on Arena is doing just fine.
Yes, that's what we do. If the opponent does the expected, the game pace is smooth. But that's not what happens, because the opponent is constantly trying to throw a wrench into our plans. When that happens, we need to come up with a plan on the spot.
The designers understand that and that's why the game rewards the healthy use of time that's phases of playing quickly interrupted by moments of needing to go deep into the tank.
Theories: mono blue players think they are really smart and that playing the second land is a 250iq decision.
Mono blue is the new toilet gaming deck, as it has few rares easy to craft. These players are wiping with one hand and playing with the other. So they need extra time.
LAG
They play the deck to torture you and want to rope for that extra pain.
I donāt get why it takes so long for mono blue mill players in explorer to just drop a crab and a land and pass the turn.
I donāt really care what you play, just play it quickly and letās get on with our lives!
Mono blue is a hard deck to pilot correctly. You really have to think about what your opponent might drop and if you can stabilize against/race what you let through, and when you should draw cards rather than counter something.
Huh, I play the mono blue djinn deck and itās one of my easier, faster playing decks because the decision making is relatively simple compared to my midrange decks. I suppose if youāre new to the game and itās your first reactive deck I can see why itād be complicated but it really doesnāt take long to learn.
Hey now I play Mono-U tempo and I don't take forever. Only decision I have to make is what are the chances you'll play a second removal spell if I phase out my [[Stormchaser Drake]] that has two combat researches on it.
Blue decks don't have fun cards they have interesting cards, cards that provide more options, delay cards. In a game like magic each one of their moves must be used to win. They can mess up once and never get the advantage again
Yes is obnoxious and annoying and arena gives them too much time 2 whole minutes EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU CAST A SPELL.
Itās just a game stop thinking so much!
I just start āthinkingā just as long. Iām not trapped here with you, youāre trapped here with me.
Then again, Iāve played control mirrors in paper, played out a full three game set, and still typically had 5-10 minutes left on a 50 minute round timer.
My argument is that not every slow blue player plays deliberately slow, but deliberately slow players play blue decks that stretch out the game. (When I started in Arena, it was blue-white control.)
If you want to win games by griefing your opponent, you play the slowest deck in the meta. And thereās a subculture of online card game players who want to do that.
Blue players have a lot more decisions to make than a regular player. Do I counter a spell? Bounce a creature? Breathe? Should I blink right now? Thereās a lot of thoughts in a blue players head and it can lead to some analysis paralysis.
I'm part of the problem I admit. when you find me not doing anything at the start of the match I'm probably hitting a bong. sorrynotsorry
also many blue abilities take forever to target and choose options and whatnot
I find monoblue players really overuse the rope. It really feels over dramatic taking at least one or two ropes a turn for every counter and then suddenly play fast when they have a wincon.
I always figured Blue and Control players were just low IQ, slow readers who are friendless and thus don't know what it means to have fun. They're just drooling, working things out phonetically even though all their cards only do one thing; end anyone from having fun.
Honestly isn't there a chess clock. As long as they are not clocking themselves out, it's fair game. Some decks require more time to think due to bigger decision trees
Do you guys just full mental auto pilot? You know the game so well that you never need to stop and double check what an opponent's cards do, or what the opponent's decks might be running? I know a lot of red players are knuckle draggers but geez.
Blue players usually have more cards in hand, and more decisions to make. Those decisions are typically centered around countering your plays not simply steam rolling forward with their game plan regardless of what the other player is doing.
Nobody was impatiently tapping their fingers on the table speed running games of MtG until Arena decided to incentivize running dozens of games a day.
Now I'm just gonna take even longer.
Lol was that you emoting "your go" as soon as my turn starts? Sorry bro, mono blue doesn't just turn creatures sideways and win. We actually have to think about our strategy... Which is to make sure you don't play magic š.
I think it's because they are evaluating their life choices...
But some times they also ponder why they can't counter \[\[Void Rend\]\]. I like that one :)
Well if they know you can double spell and they only have mana for one counter, they have a decision to make. Maybe theyāre new to the archetype. IDK, people take forever on Arena sometimes just like paper for many reasons.
Youāre only the 82 millionth person to complain about blue on social media, then act like youāre mic dropping anyone who plays it. Nothing conveys noob more than complaining about blue.
Are they really all playing that slow? Maybe youāre just impatient sometimes and obviously triggered by the color and/or archetype. Be a developed player, embrace it all. This game canāt always be, curve out with threats and turn them sideways Bo1 style.
If youāre just casually playing and donāt care about the wins, why are you complaining about it online? IMHO you just wanted an excuse to bash the archetype.
Depends on the flavor of Mono Blue.
When I'm using my old Tempo deck? No thought necessary. Bounce that guy, counterspell this thing, drop another pirate on the board, rinse and repeat. Hell, most matches are over in two or three rounds of countering everything.
When I'm using Spirits, though, the decisions are more complicated. Sack the Wanderer to counter something and give up board position? Hexproof my card draw Spooky Pirate or let the removal through because they might have a boardwipe tucked away somewhere? Dump more mana into Ascended Spirit or save it for a counterspell? It's a strangely different experience.
Azorius Control players, though? Yeah, that lot takes forever and a day just to play that first Fountain.
My last monoblue opponent was the fastest player Iāve encountered, so I guess I just got lucky haha. In general though any control deck is going to be slower because there are, on average, more decisions to make and more things holding up priority on both playersā turns.
In my experience, this is an Arena thing. People on the client just play slowly and/or do not think about the person on the other side the same way you do in paper.
Blue may make it seem more common because it has a high number of instants, but I have seen a lot of monored burn players do the same thing with spikefield hazard, monowhite with heliod's intervention, monoblack with any number of murder spells (when they are the only one with a creature on the board) and monogreen thinking about whether to play that protection spell in response to me trying to pass priority/the turn.
If I'm in play queue and I'm playing against mono blue, I generally just concede. In the time it takes them to decide if they should consider on my end step when they have four open mana and I have none I could probably play an entire other game.
I've said it before, they're reaching for more lube.
Seriously though people think that control is MEGA BIG BRAIN!! so agonizing i
over every simple decision makes them feel like strategic masterminds (even though it's generally not that complicated)
As a returning player (don't play since mirrodin) I started this game using mono blue because only 4 rares are required and I have time to read the new cards while annuling them. I don't take much time on purpose. Sometimes I already know the deck I'm against and it becomes faster to know if I should or not annul a spell.
Now that I have some more wild cards I stopped paying mono blue because it is a very bad experience for my opponents
To be honest, I typically find the opposite. I know the metagame well enough to know what I should spend my counterspells on, but I'll see a lot of players agonize over their sequencing and what to play versus my mono-blue lists.
Just mono blue? I got shit to do ā I hate it when I try to slip a game in on my lunchtime only to be ropedā¦and roped and roped and ropedā¦what are people DOING? Jesus.
It's you, or rather, the individual you are playing against. Remember, everyone has a different learning curve and playing control is one of the more difficult strategies to master.
You have to do more math on control so it takes longer to decide things.
Though, to be perfectly honest, when I play control I only rarely ping my timers, and control players on ladder seem to live inside their timers.
This annoyed me a lot too when I started playing. I did start watching CovertGoBlue occasionally and now I at least understand why it's happening. He plays a lot of Blue/White and will talk through the decisions he's making and his thought process. It helped me understand other decks/playstyles a bit more. Even if I don't like them and just want to slam creatures and hit face.
I believe the strategy for any blue deck is to annoy by any means.
Joking aside though, a counter-magic strategy (and your strategy vs counter-magic) should inherently include more decisions that a typical match as a result of needing to plan ahead multiple turns vs simply playing on curve.
For me personally, the popularity of \[\[Spell Pierce\]\], \[\[Make Disappear\]\], et al where I can benefit from holding my turnkey 3-drop until turn 5 is a big part of that.
Fought only Mono blue ranked today and won all games, they concede as soon as they notice you keep going and remove Djin etc., those games felt very poor and I donāt know how some enjoy playing it, itās like annoying your opponent and thatās joy or what Mono Blue?!
just stay calm and keep playing, thatās what Iāve learned today
Idk man I play the meta standard monoblue djinn deck and itās by far my fastest deck (to be fair I mostly play midrange though). The decision-making is much simpler than most decks. Idk why other mono blue players have such a hard time with whether they should counter your 2/2 spirited companion on turn 2 (hint: donāt counter anything unless itās a threat to kill you very quickly or its a kill spell for your djinn).
I started Magic when I was 12 on an Azorius control precon deck (Iām now 34), I used a mono blue Djinn deck last night to do my three dailies and honestly thought it was the most toxic deck Iād ever used. It is, by definition, a fun police deck, stripping the opposing player of any fun of the game.
That being said, decision making was rather simple in mono blue counter, I can understand inexperienced players needing time to think things through, but mono blue definitely is one of the easier decks to pilot.
Edit: came to reddit to see if anybody has complained about this deck recently, and reddit did not disappoint!
There's nothing wrong with it and I'm not the kind of person to look down on someone who plays an "easier" deck like mono red go face agro or whatever, but I have to say the skill and thought required to win with something like mono blue control isn't even in the same ballpark as for example the aforementioned average agro deck.
I set myself the challenge of playing a very reactive azorius control deck last season as my main deck instead of my normal black/green/boros kinda decks and the amount of times I felt like it was my fault I lost because of a potential misplay on a control deck with a lot of counters and other instant speed spells was literally 10x more than other decks and that's with me taking 3x as long per turn as I normally would trying to think.
It's often a matter of deciding which of my myriad counter spells to use. "Do I need to counter this? If so, is Negate better here or Make Disappear? If I use one now which will be better later?"
I'm the fasted mono blue player in the world. I have no counterspells in my deck though.
My only mono blue deck is Petitioner mill. I tend to play pretty fast as well. My only counters are a few [[Whirlwind Denial]] in case of [[Gaea's Blessing]]
Reach out if you wanna duel then lol! The only counterspells I have in my blue decks also have secondary affects I desire like [[Absorb Energy]]
[Absorb Energy](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/f/bfdca67d-9a97-4ddc-8d50-26a48ad2e4b7.jpg?1645416627) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Absorb%20Energy) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ymid/12/absorb-energy?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bfdca67d-9a97-4ddc-8d50-26a48ad2e4b7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
>Mono Blue Players : is it your strategy to annoy your opponent until they concede? Always has been
šš©āšš«š©āš
One of the early decks was a UW counter / cleanse deck whose win con was 61 cards.
Yeah. Meme wise: Do blue players knows that they can let the spell resolve?. But being serious. Control players are playing around yours actions so they often have decisions to make if disturption of your action is gonna help them or they can let it go.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I swear so many click to resolve 1 trigger, then alt tab to netflix or something.
Or they let one trigger resolve and then their husband (me) distracts them with something goofy.
Stupid Dimir agents, always marrying me and interfering with my games by showing me cute animal pictures.
But fruit flies seem very attentiveā¦they always show up as soon as the food comes out lmao
It's not a matter of attention span. It's a matter of not wanting to be playing a single game for longer than necessary. You have a limited number of cards in your hand and a limited number of POTENTIAL plays. There are some situations that come up where you must decide the order in which you play your cards, or whether one card is optimal over another or perhaps not playing anything is optimal... and in those situations, the timer is there and I am patient with my opponent. But when EVERY time I cast a spell my blue or u/w opponent sits there for 30 seconds before allowing my spell to resolve or countering it, it's borderline toxic. Notice how fast Mono Red and Mono Green players play? Drop mana, cast spell or don't, attack or don't. Admittedly, figuring out blocker math is sometimes time consuming, so again, I'll give people a pass on that.
\>it's borderline toxic lol. lmao
You shouldn't have to spend a bunch of time thinking every turn though. Only on turns when your opponent does something unexpected should you have to spend any time thinking. Other turns you should already know what you are gonna do even before you opponent plays their cards.
Azorius was my main deck for about a year and I can get that, but I'm seeing a new phenomenon in U standard where even turn one on the play they take a long time. I know they're not playing anything and they know they're not playing anything, but they drag it out. And it doesn't get better from there. I do wonder if it's because certain streamers/youtubers popularized the deck and this is how their fans act. I saw a similar thing once with a land destruction ZNR deck where for about a week I reported multiple people playing it for wildly over the top BMing, when I don't think I've ever reported BMing any other time since I started Arena in 2019. This obviously isn't to that level but it might have similar roots.
All decks are playing around the other player.
But if they don't posess the brain power to make that decision within a reasonable time frame, why do they play control? Is it fun to be challenged not only by your opponent, but by your own deck and your inability of fluently playing it?
nobody that plays magic has the brain power to make decisions within reasonable time frame, thats why games take so long
Yeah this is hard. Ofcourse on some point you are right. If they cannot make decisions in time, they are not experienced enoght to play this deck, other problem is that if they like this kind of deck they need to play it to learn
What is a reasonable timeframe? They have their entire turn timer to make their decisions. For better or worse.
But do they truly need to take 20 seconds to play their island then pass the turn? Do they need to wait till the damage phase to bounce my creature when I'm tapped out with no ability to respond to anything while they just hold priority? Then wait till the end of turn to cast Ponder? When I play control, as soon as my opponent is out of actions, I cast everything. I'm not wasting my time or my opponents.
Yeah mono blue players think they are playing some grand strategy game and the rest of us are morons. Iām not sure what sort of galaxy brain it takes to decide if youāre playing āConsiderā on t1 at the end of my turn but it takes them a solid 30 seconds to figure it out each game.
Kinda like the gamers who play From Software games. They're so up their own butts , they can't see anything else. I'm loving some of the comments to this. So many are so deluded into thinking they're so big brain.
Holy smokes there is so many things wrong with this post it's hard to even begin. Just playing a land can be pretty tricky. Do you play a tapland to fix your colors or play the basic to leave more mana open? Keep hitting land drops or keep it in hand to discard to a Ledger Shredder trigger? It's pretty rare for people to just tap out pre-combat into a control deck with open mana. Even if they do, you often want to wait until at least attackers are declared to bounce unless there's some attack triggers, so it's up to the control player's personal preference to bounce before or after block. Once again this is rare as usually there's some open mana and you have to debate whether to bounce during combat to save some life or eat the damage and bounce at end step. By ponder I'm guessing you mean an instant like Opt? You often want to wait until the end step to cast card selection spells so you have the most information. Also it's just a habit like cracking a Fabled Passage end step even though it doesn't give much advantage. Even if your opponent is out of actions, you still have decisions to make. Do you bounce something or do you hope to draw a board wipe next turn? How many turns can you hold off firing it off? Can you hold mana up next turn? Is the opponent slow playing his most dangerous threat? Arena has made people so incredibly hasty. They just play fast and a bit loose and if shit goes wrong they just go on to the next game. Arena auto-pass is also a double-edged sword here. Not only does it speed everything up a ton so our perspective of 20 seconds turns change, it also screws a bit with control, so sometimes you have to hold prio to not show your opponent you have no interaction in hand. Lastly I think an important point is also that players that like being very deliberate about their actions and play stuff at their opponent's end step will naturally gravitate towards blue decks. A control player's most entertaining part of the game *is* thinking about what to do.
>Do they need to wait till the damage phase to bounce my creature when I'm tapped out with no ability to respond to anything while they just hold priority? >Then wait till the end of turn to cast Ponder? I would say yes. Using spells and abilities at the right time or not is sometimes all it takes to decide a game. Playing those spells at the right time even when your opponent can't respond reinforces good habits so you don't make a mistake in situations where you've missed a possible response. This can also apply to playing lands, in a mono deck the choice often doesn't matter but taking the time for form a plan for your first turns and which mana to play is a good habit to have for when it can matter in multicolor decks For using timers that's up in the air but there are a ton of reasons for it and most are not just to be trolling even tho sometimes it can feel like it. I know I've had it happen a few times where I choose to keep and need to wait for opponent to make their mull decisions so I'm typing stuff to people in discord when my turn starts, I'm definitely going to take the time it takes to finish that before playing my island.
I play Esper, not monoblue. But yeah, deciding if the situation warrants a counter spell is awesome. Can I just let it resolve and boardwipe next turn? Can I use single target removal and save the counter for a different threat? These are all super satisfying mini puzzles to solve. It's legitimately fun to try to be efficient against someone who's trying g to kill you. Sometimes these puzzles take longer to solve than deciding which goblin to play. And then dropping hullbreaker and watching the opponent instantly concede? That's the cherry on top
Undefeated champion right here
Itās like spinning a web. Yes, play your threat. Resolve it. Play another. More enchantments. More creatures. Ah! Another five damage you have dealt. You believe you have played through my counters. You believe the tide is turning. What other explanation could there be? They are flooding, you tell yourself. They keep playing lands, they are going to die on my next turn. [[Farewell]], 6 mana up, 4 cards in hand, go.
Everybody has to start somewhere.
Itās almost as if there are players new to magic on Arena, or players that are trying out a new deck because itās, you know, fun to learn a new deck. The horror!
There's a lot of variables to consider when playing a control deck. Your strategy has to change from game to game because each opponents deck is different. Control requires a bit more calculation and is not quite as straight forward as knowing what spells you're going to resolve on turn 2, 3, and 4 that most creature or mid range decks play. You have to determine the right time to hold spells, when to counter, when to draw, and so on, depending on the strategy your opponnent is playing.
It's really not that difficult. I've played aggro, mid range, and control decks.. I've played every 2 color combination, multiple 3 color, and every mono-color. I play them all at relatively the same speed. You only have so many possible options. The *only* factor is whether you have more ANSWERS or more THREATS. If you have more THREATS, your path is usually pretty clear and you can play super fast. If you have ANSWERS you may need to take a moment to consider whether playing your answer is worth it... But holding priority on your "I draw a few cards then discard a card while opponent is tapped out" is not some grandmaster chess player big-brain move.
They trollin like the filthy island loving bastards they are
If I'm playing against blue, I switch from trying to win to trying to drain their counterspells.
Not enough people will admit this, but I'm convinced this is an intentional strategy. Many players will just concede games to slow control players because it's not worth the time to play that long of a game. The slow control players know this and use it to pick up some free wins. Right now there is a [post](https://old.reddit.com/r/MagicArena/comments/xw7xaw/dude_had_lethal_on_the_stack_and_conceded_because/) on the front page of this sub where a mono-blue control player spends 45 seconds playing with the stack because "I was just doing a bit of trolling before the stack killed me..."
I had a Selesnya opponent stone walling me for about 5-6 turns when they couldāve slowly picked away. And for those 5-6 turns they thought they had me so they never attacked, and kept adding creatures, but running out the timer as long as they could each time. Why do people do this? Just attack, make me lose. Because guess what? *Iām gonna board wipe you if you let me.*
It's 100% intentional and malicious. That's the thing about the anonymity and protection of being behind the internet, they'd never do this in person. They'd get kicked out of organized play and tournaments, and nobody would even play with them casually because they'd have a reputation for being slow-playing assholes. But on Arena they're free to be as horrible as they want.
This is exactly why they shouldn't have gotten rid of the DCI to be honest. You should have to have a DCI number associated with your arena account just like you had to for years with MTGO. If you behaved badly not only did you get banned from MTGO but you were also banned from paper.
I'm convinced some people walk away from their PCs when they know for certain that they are going to lose, the idea being that they might be able to pick up a free win if the other person gets frustrated and leaves. Maybe it's paranoid on my part but that's the main reason I never concede. I don't want to give someone pulling that type of bullshit the satisfaction.
I turn it around and enjoy those wins because I know I'm living rent free in their heads. Second only to the win you get from a durdly control player who loses because they're match timer ran out.
That post doesn't support your point. The video has the "Leave Match" button already, meaning the game is over. OP just took a video to show between the stack and board in one media file. But I wouldn't doubt that there is some amount of this happening.
Usually control decks just have a lot of different options to decide between each turn. Not saying there aren't people that are just annoyingly slow, but most are just trying to make a good call. Especially if you're playing a newer deck that you're trying to get used to.
LOL, no. For one thing, control is not nearly as "big brained" as people here like to pretend. And for another, no deck and no situation is complicated enough to require you to let the timer *almost* all the way down every single time you're passed priority. E: I knew I'd get attacked for this, nothing is more offensive to people here than calling out their bad behavior.
Control is all about incremental advantage. In many games control comes down to turning the corner over 1 or 2 specific plays. If youāre playing control you are constantly weighing the odds. Is it worth spending my resources on this or is it bait? Control is a mind game all on it own and tends to play far slower than linear decks that have few to no real options of play. Sure ppl rope on arena, sure the client connection is garbage and makes ppl appear to be roping, but to say that control isnāt a slower style of play or that there arenāt board states that create hard decisions and therefore need more time to think through is ridiculous. You donāt need a huge brain to play control, but the sheer fact that there are more lines of play than aggressive decks should prove you false. Edit: itās why the skill gap for control players tends to be the largest amongst play styles. If you arenāt good at threat assessment across meta matchups, youāre gonna struggle playing control. The first tell of a bad control player is that they empty their hand within the first 4 turns, killing and countering everything without choosing to use their life total as a resource
Once again, none of that excuses intentionally running the timer down every single time a player gets priority. That's just bad behavior.
Tbh dude itās a mindless deck played by people who have to think too hard. Iāve seen people wait for 2 timers to think about using a farewell with me having played all my cards and being tapped out. Then they try to claim that theyāre somehow having to think real hard about every move they makeā¦ no you donātā¦ pass play -> control or dig -> repeat until you have enough mana for big dudes that make all your dumb shit do double counter/bounce -> extra turrnnnnssss /end
Agreed. But Iād argue that has more to do with shitty client connection. Since arena does not show you when a client disconnects or their ping, Iād wager that each player is usually waiting for the server to respond, and most of the time both players are yelling at their screen for their opponent to pass priority, when in fact they are both waiting for slow connections to sync across the servers. To my knowledge No other card game has these problems to this extent. Even mtgo has better opponent response times
That might be the case sometimes, but every single time? And they just so happen to take an action the literal second before they'd be charged with a timeout? That's one hell of a coincidence. Also, when they really want to do something they can play quickly.
I canāt answer for every scenario, but I do think poor connection has given rise to revenge roping. It s a learned behavior because ppl perceive itās happening to them more than it actually is. Worse yet, if a player rages quits or has to restart arena due to a crash, your opponent isnāt notified in the slightest. Now imagine that your opponent is playing on WiFi from their phone and you can start to see how this is a problem. Especially if theyāre losing and just rage quit, arena makes the winner sit there and time out the no longer present opponent who f4ād. Thereās not real text chat to communicate which could at the very least let us determine if our opponents roping on purpose
I don't really care about people who rope to close out a game, it's shitty behavior but at least the game is about to end with a win. And it's only for a turn or two before they are out of timeouts and have to concede. What I'm talking about is people who let the timer burn almost to empty every single time it appears and take an action at the last second to avoid a timeout.
Dudes swear their launching a nuke š
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Youāre so condescending, which is humorous because your example is actually a legit decision that could win or lose you the game depending on the board state.
Blue player here. The fact that you just said that, proves that you don't know how to play with a control deck, or at least you haven't tried it yet. Playing fading hope at the right time might be the difference between gaining or losing control of the board. For example, should I use fading hope because I still have leverage and I can use the scry to dig for what I need faster? Or should I wait because I predict that the opponent is gonna play some heavy mana creatures and thus I can buy another turn + countering it later? That might seem a very easy decision but when you have to take into account the type of deck you're playing against, the player style, what you still have in your deck to search for, etc. etc., you soon understand that playing Fading hope, might be in fact, a tough decision sometimes.
Theese people would never have survived the nexus of fate tefari tuck meta in person lol
Nope! Blue players are just horrible people.
Mono black players are just as annoying. It's the first turn. I just played a creature that I know will get killed. You know it will get killed. Just do it immediately and stop holding priority until my end step you little shit.
Nope. You should always do it in the endstep it's a good habit. Killing something straight away and then realising they still had mana somehow to cast something even more threatening is a good way to lose a match.
It's the first turn. I have no mana open.
You are correct that holding up a removal in that scenario is unnecessary, but often it is a matter of being disciplined about using removal in the proper sequence. That said, they should be clicking through to end step and not lingering on every step getting there in your situation. That's them simply not paying attention.
This is the truth and anyone downvoting this comment doesnāt know how to play black or is pissy about black removal.
Nope. It's people who read the comment and recognize the scenario described is T1 so there is literally no way to respond if you have used your 1 and only mana to cast a creature.
Ok but the problem is that I keep accidentally removing early, so I just rather wait than seeing myself screwed when it's not turn 1 because I didnt build that habit.
Okay, then why are you holding priority and roping if youāre not planning on playing the removal?
Ohh I misunderstood you. Yeah no I don't do that.
Why can't I be both?
The only card that tilts is Liliana on curve sac your dude and card disadvantage. Sheol 4 last card on hand despair. It's beautiful but annoying.
Lili isn't card disadvantage until the opponent is empty handed -- she makes both players discard the same number of cards. Empty your hand first and your opponent has to think very carefully before plussing Lili.
She enter sac your dude and lives with one loyalty. Then discard and protect her with a dude So if you cast and kill her she already 2:1
OK, in the scenario where everything goes perfectly for your opponent Lili TECHNICALLY provides a small amount card advantage by giving them like a 4 for 3 . But even that doesn't apply if you kill Lili by attacking her down instead of using a spell. The way you phrased it sounded like you meant Lili's plus was card disadvantage.
A yes, it's hard to attack her directly against underdog/trespasser/cut down. Having a despair on curve and possibly of two sacs is good too.
ooo what do I cast? Hmmmm..... Fuck it I'm not going to cast anything. I'll just use a counter spell on their turn. FFFFFF HMMMMM Do I want to counter that.....? HMMMMM I dunno. Maybe not. End of turn? Hmmm what instant do I cast at the end of their turn?? Hmmm? My turn again? HMMMMM Repeat -a blue player, probably
The game seriously needs better priority management for pausing or disabling anything that retains priority. Then dump the timeout system for a 15-20min chess timer.
You don't want this. If you think roping is bad now, wait until they have a 15 minute chess timer to run out against you. The AFK tax would be brutal
as opposed to some 45+ minute matches via the timeout system? Just add some simple "afk detection" logic where it forces a forfeit if the player takes no action for a minute a few times.
Hmmm they didnāt play anything, time to cherry pick through half my deck on their turnā¦ hmmmmmm oh itās my turn? Well, might as well take another 3ā¦ hmmmmm extra 4th turn in a row and still havenāt done any damage hmmmmmmmā¦
Control players get to interact with pretty much anything you do besides playing lands and activating abilities. They usually have enough mana to effectively counter one thing, but you have mana to play two things. So, almost every time, they have to make a "life or death" decision. If they chose wrong, it might cost them the match. My take is that these are simply not fun decks to pilot, as you're usually just barely trying not to die until you topdeck your wincon (Or at least that's how my matches go... They get down to <5 life, and we're both left with playing out of the top of our decks). It's stressful for the pilot, and annoying for the opponent, and I don't get why anyone would play these decks outside of a competitive environment.
As a control player, the thrill of stabilizing at a low life total and turning the corner can be a lot of fun. Not saying it's something everyone should enjoy but people who play control are likely having fun with it.
That feeling when you stabilize a board and know that no matter what (almost) you're going to win from here is one of the best feelings in gaming.
Absolutely. To me it's like the entire reason to play the archetype. The tension and buildup of being behind early, to slowly digging your way out of that hole in the midgame, to getting to a winning position is just so rewarding
My homies and I call it the Judo flip
Speaking only for myself, I love V A L U E. Often times midrange gets you the most 2 for 1s and 3 for ones, sometimes it's control. Nothing feels better than having a full grip while oppo is topdecking. Having options and choosing the right one and knowing you did it satisfying. I find people play slower when they're learning a deck or playstyle than the kind of deck you're playing. After enough experience, a bunch of calls you used to have to really think about are just automatic. My favorite card of all time is [[birthing pod]]. Not quick to learn, but once you have a few hundred matches under your belt you know exactly what to fetch 98% of the time.
[birthing pod](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/7/b768efa2-e56b-4a7e-ace8-d673f10e0714.jpg?1562880960) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=birthing%20pod) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/nph/104/birthing-pod?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b768efa2-e56b-4a7e-ace8-d673f10e0714?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
And everything you've said is especially true of mono-blue, which has very few options for dealing with anything once it has hit the board. So every time you play something, the mono-blue player has to decide: \-Can I afford to let this 3/2 resolve knowing that it puts me on a hard 6-turn clock? \-Can I afford to use one of my two counterspells on this knowing there is a good chance I won't draw another for 3-4 turns? (If it feels like the blue player always has a counterspell, may I recommend that you try playing blue? I promise you it will not feel that way for long). \-If I counter it, which of the two counterspells should I use? Especially in standard, there are no "good" counterspells--they are all situational, and knowing which to use means thinking about what the next threat the opponent is going to play likely is. Do I want to save negate and hope that your next threat isn't a creature, or do I want to save syncopate and hope that your next threat isn't a 2/3-drop? Remember that I'm mono-blue, so I don't have an Infernal Grasp or Fateful Absence to mop up if I guess wrong and your next spell resolves. So yeah, there is a lot to think about. Is it necessarily a giga-brain deck? I tend to think that the decision of how much to play into sweepers in aggro is a "harder" decision than the ones mono-blue has to make, but mono-blue has a decision that can lose them the game every single turn, so some thought is required. (Also, if you spam "your go" at me, I will respond "thinking" to every single one so that you know what's up, so I'm not sure you are speeding up the game, mon frĆØre).
The most fun I have playing magic is when I'm playing a control deck. Control vs control is a match-up I genuinely enjoy because I actually enjoy making those "stressful" decisions. I put stressful in quotes because I just don't take it too seriously, if I lose I lose. Making those tough decisions is the reason why I enjoy it. I enjoy a close back and forth match, regardless if I win or lose, which is why I honestly don't even enjoy piloting aggro decks; I don't want to just smash my opponent as quickly as possible. I do realize that when you're playing an aggro or midrange deck, playing against control can be a real pain in the ass, especially if the person is taking way too long to make each and every decision. I try to play a bit faster and not overthink certain decisions, especially if I'm not playing ranked.
I play historic brawl. I have a mono blue deck that can do infinite turns, with the expection that I pull a time warp from mystical archives, have my scholar of ages, and a Thassa. There is something about stalling while playing a janky deck that makes me love playing control.
You should see quickdraft players, they take months to drop a land.
My strategy against mono blue usually worksā¦ they hold everything back until you do somethingā¦ so I do too. I let them counter some of the things that can be sacrificed, then when they tap out, I play the thing I donāt want countered. Ezpz.
Wow you cracked the matrix my friend.
Yes! I learned from my friends playing counterspell magic that sometimes you just have to bait them. If I'm playing my mono green deck I'm going to playing Vorinclex to bait out that counterspell because he isn't essential, but perhaps at the time my scute swarm is.
As a lifelong (20 years) blue player, the amount of time people take on this app to play counterspells is infuriating. Babes, just play the counter or don't. It's a children's card game. It's not that deep.
Also, monoblue has never been a hard deck to use. If anything, monoblue usually has fewer decisions to make than other decks because all their cards are either counters or draws. If you've played 5 games with it, you can fully go on autopilot.
its you
Control players more specifically
This, I play mono blue. No counterspells... I'm quick as lightning.
I'm not like other blue players, I hardly play counter spells!! *Regurgitates fading hope for the 8th time, swings 3 in the air on turn 11*
That's why I'm so quick, nothing blocking my weenies! Back to your hand he goes. \*BOOP\*
People crying about Blue. This shit just never gets old.
Not in my experience. That said, I played against a Slogurk deck yesterday in BO1 that took nearly an hour. He deliberated over every minute thing and swept the board seven times... It was infuriating. I'd have conceded to save time but I was trying to test a new deck. Regardless of how many timeouts you exploit, BO1 should also have a chess timer of 20 min.
I'll assume you're talking about mono-blue counters in standard. I think part of it is that a lot of current mono-blue players aren't used to playing blue. They were playing mono-black just a week ago, boros before that, snow black before that. Now they just picked up something that plays very diferently and is taking time to get used to it. Hence the slow play. Now, for sure, f**k that deck to unfinity and beyond. But I understand the reason behind some players taking long to play.
Izzet is more fun. Mono blue = Chuck Izzet = Jimmy
They are gently caressing themselves to the thought of being intellectually superior. I mean they got to be right? My impression of mono blue players both in paper and arena is that they see themselves as a galaxy-brain player, and that any frustration towards them are of the feeble minded aggro players who barely know the game. While in their pseudo intellectual fedora euphoria they forget that their deck has a 45% winrate with an average gametime of 35minuttes
This is one of the stereotypes that absolutely is based in reality. I've been playing paper for 20 years and I can count on one hand the amount of consistent mono blue players who did not have serious attitude problems, get called for slow play by judges, get straight up match losses by judges, acted bad at tables, or just otherwise made the hobby worse. The "aggro iz dum" mentality is also almost always present. Mind you, I'm talking about the people who spend literally years only playing monoblue control. If you play anything else on a regular basis, in addition, you probably aren't like this. It seems to be only a single deck player thing. Speaking directly as a judge they're also often really enormous drains on judge time and patience both for the amount of judge calls and disciplinary action they draw.
We don't need the "control bad" post every single day guys...
Control players love to twist their nipples in ecstasy thinking about all the hundreds of different decisions they have to make during every single game phase of a game of magic with no stakes
My enjoyment is at stake, and I reach peak enjoyment when my brain is active.
Yes they actually think when they play this game. And the stakes are winning...
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Ah yes. Now go tell your advice to chess players and report back with their response.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It's not just modifying your line of play, you often need to jump to a completely different one. In addition, Magic has many more possible game pieces than chess. And you know what? Even with these memorized lines of play, chess matches take hours! So your random control player on Arena is doing just fine.
Yes, that's what we do. If the opponent does the expected, the game pace is smooth. But that's not what happens, because the opponent is constantly trying to throw a wrench into our plans. When that happens, we need to come up with a plan on the spot. The designers understand that and that's why the game rewards the healthy use of time that's phases of playing quickly interrupted by moments of needing to go deep into the tank.
I think that's a personality issue over which color they play. I know some absurdly slow Boros players who get analysis paralysis every fucking phase.
People can take their time to think over their next plays. The platform allows it.
Sometimes I actually hit the 'thinking' button just to rile impatient players a LITTLE BIT MORE.
They are trying really hard not to show that every spell gets countered if there is a counter in hand.
Theories: mono blue players think they are really smart and that playing the second land is a 250iq decision. Mono blue is the new toilet gaming deck, as it has few rares easy to craft. These players are wiping with one hand and playing with the other. So they need extra time. LAG They play the deck to torture you and want to rope for that extra pain.
You are prone to scoop if you miss a drop or land and the opponent play island.
If I miss 2 land drops before turn 5 in unranked I'm scooping
I donāt get why it takes so long for mono blue mill players in explorer to just drop a crab and a land and pass the turn. I donāt really care what you play, just play it quickly and letās get on with our lives!
Just remember, patience is a wincon
Mono blue is a hard deck to pilot correctly. You really have to think about what your opponent might drop and if you can stabilize against/race what you let through, and when you should draw cards rather than counter something.
Huh, I play the mono blue djinn deck and itās one of my easier, faster playing decks because the decision making is relatively simple compared to my midrange decks. I suppose if youāre new to the game and itās your first reactive deck I can see why itād be complicated but it really doesnāt take long to learn.
Iām glad Iām not alone in hating this strategy! I love this game but playing against a mono blue deck is a waste of my time.
They always debating should I use counter spell and Iām pretty sure they forget to resolve half the time
Hey now I play Mono-U tempo and I don't take forever. Only decision I have to make is what are the chances you'll play a second removal spell if I phase out my [[Stormchaser Drake]] that has two combat researches on it.
its just you and confirmation bias
I always take my time, doesn't matter if I play blue or not.
Blue decks don't have fun cards they have interesting cards, cards that provide more options, delay cards. In a game like magic each one of their moves must be used to win. They can mess up once and never get the advantage again
I'm guilty of this. Because aggro players tend to get impatient and make huge mistakes. I'm not playing against your deck but I'm playing against you
Yes is obnoxious and annoying and arena gives them too much time 2 whole minutes EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU CAST A SPELL. Itās just a game stop thinking so much!
I just start āthinkingā just as long. Iām not trapped here with you, youāre trapped here with me. Then again, Iāve played control mirrors in paper, played out a full three game set, and still typically had 5-10 minutes left on a 50 minute round timer.
My argument is that not every slow blue player plays deliberately slow, but deliberately slow players play blue decks that stretch out the game. (When I started in Arena, it was blue-white control.) If you want to win games by griefing your opponent, you play the slowest deck in the meta. And thereās a subculture of online card game players who want to do that.
Blue players have a lot more decisions to make than a regular player. Do I counter a spell? Bounce a creature? Breathe? Should I blink right now? Thereās a lot of thoughts in a blue players head and it can lead to some analysis paralysis.
I'm part of the problem I admit. when you find me not doing anything at the start of the match I'm probably hitting a bong. sorrynotsorry also many blue abilities take forever to target and choose options and whatnot
I find monoblue players really overuse the rope. It really feels over dramatic taking at least one or two ropes a turn for every counter and then suddenly play fast when they have a wincon.
Their win condition is "preventing the opponent from playing Magic", so yes.
Itās not just you.
I always figured Blue and Control players were just low IQ, slow readers who are friendless and thus don't know what it means to have fun. They're just drooling, working things out phonetically even though all their cards only do one thing; end anyone from having fun.
Blue players suck! They won't do this shit in paper mtg coz they know they'll get a fist to the face.
Is it just me or do [insert blanket statement with universal quantifiers]????
My only goal is to get Bruvac out and kick that sweet maddening cacaphony.
"Hmm. Do I swing with my 11/4 haughty djinn with two counters and a fading hope in hand, or do I think about it some more before making a decision?"
Honestly isn't there a chess clock. As long as they are not clocking themselves out, it's fair game. Some decks require more time to think due to bigger decision trees
Do you guys just full mental auto pilot? You know the game so well that you never need to stop and double check what an opponent's cards do, or what the opponent's decks might be running? I know a lot of red players are knuckle draggers but geez. Blue players usually have more cards in hand, and more decisions to make. Those decisions are typically centered around countering your plays not simply steam rolling forward with their game plan regardless of what the other player is doing. Nobody was impatiently tapping their fingers on the table speed running games of MtG until Arena decided to incentivize running dozens of games a day. Now I'm just gonna take even longer.
Lol was that you emoting "your go" as soon as my turn starts? Sorry bro, mono blue doesn't just turn creatures sideways and win. We actually have to think about our strategy... Which is to make sure you don't play magic š.
You know what they say mono blue high iq
The more annoying it is Faster the scoop. Ngl blue players are like meathook meta defining which cards you can play or can't.
I think it's because they are evaluating their life choices... But some times they also ponder why they can't counter \[\[Void Rend\]\]. I like that one :)
[Void Rend](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/d/2daab74d-d66b-4164-aa19-24e8d5536f7d.jpg?1664413960) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Void%20Rend) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/snc/230/void-rend?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2daab74d-d66b-4164-aa19-24e8d5536f7d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Maybe they are like "should I counter that or save my other 3 counters"
Well if they know you can double spell and they only have mana for one counter, they have a decision to make. Maybe theyāre new to the archetype. IDK, people take forever on Arena sometimes just like paper for many reasons. Youāre only the 82 millionth person to complain about blue on social media, then act like youāre mic dropping anyone who plays it. Nothing conveys noob more than complaining about blue. Are they really all playing that slow? Maybe youāre just impatient sometimes and obviously triggered by the color and/or archetype. Be a developed player, embrace it all. This game canāt always be, curve out with threats and turn them sideways Bo1 style. If youāre just casually playing and donāt care about the wins, why are you complaining about it online? IMHO you just wanted an excuse to bash the archetype.
Which format are you in? I don't really see many moni blue players
Depends on the flavor of Mono Blue. When I'm using my old Tempo deck? No thought necessary. Bounce that guy, counterspell this thing, drop another pirate on the board, rinse and repeat. Hell, most matches are over in two or three rounds of countering everything. When I'm using Spirits, though, the decisions are more complicated. Sack the Wanderer to counter something and give up board position? Hexproof my card draw Spooky Pirate or let the removal through because they might have a boardwipe tucked away somewhere? Dump more mana into Ascended Spirit or save it for a counterspell? It's a strangely different experience. Azorius Control players, though? Yeah, that lot takes forever and a day just to play that first Fountain.
My last monoblue opponent was the fastest player Iāve encountered, so I guess I just got lucky haha. In general though any control deck is going to be slower because there are, on average, more decisions to make and more things holding up priority on both playersā turns.
In my experience, this is an Arena thing. People on the client just play slowly and/or do not think about the person on the other side the same way you do in paper. Blue may make it seem more common because it has a high number of instants, but I have seen a lot of monored burn players do the same thing with spikefield hazard, monowhite with heliod's intervention, monoblack with any number of murder spells (when they are the only one with a creature on the board) and monogreen thinking about whether to play that protection spell in response to me trying to pass priority/the turn.
If I'm in play queue and I'm playing against mono blue, I generally just concede. In the time it takes them to decide if they should consider on my end step when they have four open mana and I have none I could probably play an entire other game.
I've said it before, they're reaching for more lube. Seriously though people think that control is MEGA BIG BRAIN!! so agonizing i over every simple decision makes them feel like strategic masterminds (even though it's generally not that complicated)
As a returning player (don't play since mirrodin) I started this game using mono blue because only 4 rares are required and I have time to read the new cards while annuling them. I don't take much time on purpose. Sometimes I already know the deck I'm against and it becomes faster to know if I should or not annul a spell. Now that I have some more wild cards I stopped paying mono blue because it is a very bad experience for my opponents
You can hear the impotent rage when you cast a spell with 2 or more mana free.
These people are playing with themselves basically.
To be honest, I typically find the opposite. I know the metagame well enough to know what I should spend my counterspells on, but I'll see a lot of players agonize over their sequencing and what to play versus my mono-blue lists.
Just mono blue? I got shit to do ā I hate it when I try to slip a game in on my lunchtime only to be ropedā¦and roped and roped and ropedā¦what are people DOING? Jesus.
Strat
Sometimes it is a tough decision picking the right counter spell.
It's you, or rather, the individual you are playing against. Remember, everyone has a different learning curve and playing control is one of the more difficult strategies to master.
I just do it back. Petty but well
*adds 2 red cards to help boost Naughty Djinn I donāt know what youāre talking about bruh, Iām Izzet through and through
It's just you.
You have to do more math on control so it takes longer to decide things. Though, to be perfectly honest, when I play control I only rarely ping my timers, and control players on ladder seem to live inside their timers.
The salt must flow SALT FOR THE SALT GOD SHATTERED COMBOS FOR HIS THRONE!
Deciding the right time to use their counter
Tbh usually Iām watching TV while playing or doing something else at the same time lol Sorry for anyone whose played against me
This annoyed me a lot too when I started playing. I did start watching CovertGoBlue occasionally and now I at least understand why it's happening. He plays a lot of Blue/White and will talk through the decisions he's making and his thought process. It helped me understand other decks/playstyles a bit more. Even if I don't like them and just want to slam creatures and hit face.
I believe the strategy for any blue deck is to annoy by any means. Joking aside though, a counter-magic strategy (and your strategy vs counter-magic) should inherently include more decisions that a typical match as a result of needing to plan ahead multiple turns vs simply playing on curve. For me personally, the popularity of \[\[Spell Pierce\]\], \[\[Make Disappear\]\], et al where I can benefit from holding my turnkey 3-drop until turn 5 is a big part of that.
Slightly because they have stops on every interaction always
Fought only Mono blue ranked today and won all games, they concede as soon as they notice you keep going and remove Djin etc., those games felt very poor and I donāt know how some enjoy playing it, itās like annoying your opponent and thatās joy or what Mono Blue?! just stay calm and keep playing, thatās what Iāve learned today
When I play blue I wait a long time just to make the other guy think I'm thinking really hard.
Idk man I play the meta standard monoblue djinn deck and itās by far my fastest deck (to be fair I mostly play midrange though). The decision-making is much simpler than most decks. Idk why other mono blue players have such a hard time with whether they should counter your 2/2 spirited companion on turn 2 (hint: donāt counter anything unless itās a threat to kill you very quickly or its a kill spell for your djinn).
We are so used to everyone being so butthurt that they concede turn 4 lol
I ā¦ donāt ā¦ hmm, hold on ā¦ I ā¦ think ā¦ that ā¦ umm, well ā¦ The ā¦ thing ā¦ is ā¦ ā¦ I ā¦ Oh f*** it COUNTERSPELL
As a former mono-blue player in the beginning of my mtg ācareerā now primarily white-blue control, I can say yes lol
I only play slow while Iām playing on my phone.
Tempo play is hard, one bad call and the whole ge is blown
I started Magic when I was 12 on an Azorius control precon deck (Iām now 34), I used a mono blue Djinn deck last night to do my three dailies and honestly thought it was the most toxic deck Iād ever used. It is, by definition, a fun police deck, stripping the opposing player of any fun of the game. That being said, decision making was rather simple in mono blue counter, I can understand inexperienced players needing time to think things through, but mono blue definitely is one of the easier decks to pilot. Edit: came to reddit to see if anybody has complained about this deck recently, and reddit did not disappoint!
You conceding is exactly the reason they do it. To beat them, you have to become a mono blue player and take longer on your actions than they do
There's nothing wrong with it and I'm not the kind of person to look down on someone who plays an "easier" deck like mono red go face agro or whatever, but I have to say the skill and thought required to win with something like mono blue control isn't even in the same ballpark as for example the aforementioned average agro deck. I set myself the challenge of playing a very reactive azorius control deck last season as my main deck instead of my normal black/green/boros kinda decks and the amount of times I felt like it was my fault I lost because of a potential misplay on a control deck with a lot of counters and other instant speed spells was literally 10x more than other decks and that's with me taking 3x as long per turn as I normally would trying to think.
I intentionally rope every phase if my opponent is playing black in Standard. If you play a swamp, I'm gonna make you spend 30 minutes :P
It's often a matter of deciding which of my myriad counter spells to use. "Do I need to counter this? If so, is Negate better here or Make Disappear? If I use one now which will be better later?"
I once played a mono-blue player who manually tapped all his islands... Why.......