“As long as they don’t get too good, there should be no worry of a WoTC ban.” …Well, unless they become tiered in representation and violate the turn three rule, which linear combo much do to keep up with Modern’s aggro decks. Winning-est is one parameter Wizards uses to ban cards, but the turn four rule is just as important to them.

When I say aggro decks, I’m not even talking about aggro-combo like Infect, which goldfished turn three kills, but less-busted stuff like Burn, Affinity, Zoo, Elves, etc. These decks still win on turn four a good amount of the time if left unchecked, so linear combo must necessarily break Wizards’ rules by winning on turn three to get under them and claim its spot in Modern.

“Linear combo is harder to interact with, that’s the point.” Would you not consider Cheeri0s a linear combo deck? Do you not agree that it’s the definitive “loses-to-any-interaction” deck in Modern?

As it stands, the only way for linear combo to survive Wizards’ format guidelines is to adopt a go-over-you plan like Ad Nauseam, which is a turn four or five combo deck with lots of consistency and resilience. The type of linear combo you write about in this article necessarily must outpace aggro to have the metagame effect you describe, and in doing so, it seals its fate on the banlist.

Even in online magic, Miracles is the dominant force. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/legacy#paper shows the lead it has on the rest of the format.

And what I said I got from an (ex) Goblins player, that DRS killed it. As far as its truth goes, my personal knowledge is limited to that. I’d have to play the deck or ask for more information.

I was under the impression that the banning of Goblin Recruiter was the beginning of the decline. In any case, the point is that Goblins is no longer played. Given that what you say about paper Legacy may be true (I have no data to say) the most likely explanation for its absence is the threat of terrible combo matches.

However, in paper magic, given the popularity of Miracles (and lack of popularity for the turn 1 combo decks) even with a bad combo matchup it could be playable at this point. However, technically about anything is playable in Legacy, so….

Aggro underperforming in an overall metagame due to losing to midrange AND combo is def. possible. We see it even now, as infect, one of moderns premier aggro trifecta, falls to new lows. Affinity and Burn are both not as powerful now as well. That being said, a few months ago, people cried over the linear aggro metagame. Today, moderns linear aggro decks are either too strong to die (burn, affinity), struggling (infect) or adapting (death shadow). I dont see this as a problem, as aggro, midrange and combo are all present.

Counterspell would not solve the problem of fast aggro in Modern. Recall that even in the golden days of Draw-Go, Jackel Pup still got under you and often won without additional help. Is Counterspell or a similar answer a good addition? Almost certainly. But the strength of answers do not by themselves keep aggro down. Aggro is meant to fight through removal anyway. We need a different angle of attack.

The first paragraph definitely used to be true, I’m not convinced it is still true. Infect and similar Gotcha! decks have declined significantly since Probe was banned. The only deck like that which remains is Affinity, and the stars do not often align.

Linear combo is harder to interact with, that’s the point. Most decks are capable of interacting with creatures to some degree, even aggro decks. My argument is that faster linear combo will force more interaction into the format for that very reason. As long as they don’t get too good, there should be no worry of a WoTC ban.

“Contention #1: Fast Combo Preys on Fast Aggro”

One of the quirks of the format is that this is true in general Magic theory but not in Modern, where aggro-combo is actually the fastest archetype. The reason is that aggro-combo can be interacted with by any deck with removal (read: any deck), so Wizards allows it to goldfish turn three kills. Linear combo decks that consistently goldfish turn three kills are harder to interact with (requiring Thoughtseize/Leak/etc.), so Wizards bans them.

Cheeri0s stands to be the first exception to this rule in awhile, since it’s a pure combo deck with no aggro dimension. But that’s because it can be answered by the same cards that deal with aggro-combo and even aggro-control: removal. If Cherri0s had enablers that were enchantments or even artifacts, and not 2/2s, it would not be allowed to exist in Modern.

Ya, I really enjoyed the article still. It was very insightful. It is rather interesting if it is Faeries though.

Hmm, had not heard that. I will look into it, though it only affects the inspiration for the piece, not the content.