@chronatog said in How do you beat W&6 with fair hatebears?:

@griselbrother said in How do you beat W&6 with fair hatebears?:

I remember you played that green enchantment that gives your creatures shroud at some point (I forgot its name) - perhaps that's something to look into again?

Dense Foliage?

Hmm, no it wasn't that one. I don't remember the name sorry, but Stormanimagus likely does, as he was the one playing it.

@vaughnbros said in How do you beat W&6 with fair hatebears?:

@griselbrother

The power of hate bears and hate walkers is that they aren’t just a lock piece. They also threaten to kill your opponent (or bury them in CA for the walkers).

Uhm, Yeah. Sorry, I'm not really sure what your point is?

@griselbrother

My main point is the stuff like Rest In Peace and Shroud enchantment are nice effects, but they aren’t threats. Reducing your threat density hurts the strategy.

@vaughnbros said in How do you beat W&6 with fair hatebears?:

@griselbrother

My main point is the stuff like Rest In Peace and Shroud enchantment are nice effects, but they aren’t threats. Reducing your threat density hurts the strategy.

Ah, I see what you mean now and I agree, but only to a certain point. This is a question of speed vs disruption which is actually a very complex topic. Basically, you want to win while preventing your opponent from winning, but if you prevent your opponent from winning at all, it doesn't really matter how fast you kill them.

You could also look at this from a "time" perspective, ie. how much time do you give your opponent to win? However, time is a relative concept in Magic, and I think it's a misconception to look at it in terms of turns (as in how many turns do you give your opponent), because it doesn't really matter how many turns they get if they can't do anything with them.

Hatebears have always played non-creature threats (or answers or whatever you want to call it), for the reason that the disruption those cards provide is higher than that of creatures. Chalice, Thorn, Stony Silence, Misstep, Grafdigger's Cage, or, if you go way back, Choke, etc. come to mind. Conversely, Tarmogoyf isn't a hatebear either, but it might be a good card to play still.

If, say, Rest in Peace lowers your opponent's chances of winning enough then it might be a valid call to play that card even though it doesn't attack. At one time, most Dreadhorde players literally had no way of winning through a Prelate @ 1 but I would never attack with it because I didn't want it to run into a Snapcaster Mage, and it didn't matter at all when I started attacking. Similarly, Peacekeeper is technically a Hatebear, but it might as well have been an enchantment because, well, it can't attack.

When all this is said, I do agree that you probably shouldn't just load up on enchantments or artifacts and try to prevent your opponent from winning, but rather find the right balance between speed and disruption. This is what the most succesful Hatebear-like strategies (Shops and Eldrazi, which, technically, are using the same strategy) are so good at.

@griselbrother

You could certainly view the deck as needing balance, but cards that are only hate or only a bear threaten to disrupt the balance of the deck.

Just the overall idea of a “hatebear” is that it is both hate and a bear. Both a disruption card and a threat. A deck dense with these cards will always have hands loaded with both disruption and threats. It’s always balanced.

Tarmogoyf, I actually consider a “hatebear” in a number of creature heavy matchups since I mostly use her as a wall to prevent my opponent from attacking without losing one of their creatures in the process. Her hate being that she disrupts their ability to play aggro. Similarly, I’d look through each card and decide if it can be considered both under special circumstances, certain matchups, against certain cards, ect.

The hardest problem to me with these decks is the 1-drop problem. Very few 1 mana hatebears are printed. Weak hate cards aren’t real disruption, and 1 power creatures aren’t real bears. Deathrite is really the only card I consider to be a true hatebear. As a result, these decks tend to be very slow outside of Deathrite hands.

This is why I think the best iterations have played some 0/1 mana hate only cards, like counterspells. These aren’t hatebears, but they function to cover the deck’s biggest weakness of losing before you even get to play a bear.

A secondary problem with these decks is the card advantage problem (which is the main problem OP is running into). Hatebears are good, but they don’t generate card advantage. I think the best solution is to play Hatewalkers as they stay on strategy. May have to get creative since the restriction of the best hatewalker in Narset though. Wrenn and Six seems like a prime option.

Traditionally, hatebear decks have tried to play these “dual threat” cards, like Bob and Cold Eyed Selkie. These again, are nice cards, but they don’t satisfy the hate component of the deck.

@vaughnbros

Would you not qualify Deafening Silence as turn 1 hate? I know it isn't a bear, but I still run it in my "hatebears" decks.

@stormanimagus

That’s a 0/1 mana hate only card.

@vaughnbros R & D isn't always going to slap relevant abilities on bears. Occasionally you have to run a non-creature in your predominantly creature-based deck.

@stormanimagus

They should 1 drop creatures are extremely underpowered in Magic.

@vaughnbros said in How do you beat W&6 with fair hatebears?:

@stormanimagus

They should 1 drop creatures are extremely underpowered in Magic.

They are underpowered in Vintage because of various attributes of the format. There is a much healthier distribution of one drops in other formats. Legacy is arguably dominated by a one-drop in Delver. Modern has a ton of mana dorks and aggressive red creatures. Pioneer has mono black aggro, mono red aggro, mono white (Thraben Inspector is OP), but Inverter is strangling the format right now. Standard has the very powerful Cat Oven based around a 1-drop. I'm really not sure 1-drops are that bad. Like, the power creep is pretty obvious...

The power creep for creatures exists because creatures were so far behind the other card types at the onset of magic. There is a single 1 drop creature that has ever been banned/restricted in Deathrite Shaman. That’s it. There is a long list of instants/sorcereries/artifacts, even when we look at Modern that is mostly “post power creep”.

I mean, you point out Spectral Sailor, but do you think Spectral Sailor is actually good? It’s still a 1/1 that has little impact on the game until you start funneling way more mana into it (or use something else to buff it, which is actually the buff card, not this). I think the card is totally unplayable outside of a Spirits deck.

The focus on win-conditions, like Delver, is a major miss classification bias by magic players over the years. Delver is not good because of Delver. It’s good because of its Instants/Sorceries. Cards like Brainstorm, Force of Will, and Ponder that arguably shouldn’t even be legal in that format.