DEFINITELY.... IMHO, Carlsen like many other Legendary GMS like Fischer, Botwinnik, Smyslov and Petrosyan will find it VERY DIFFICULT IN A MATCH.....

Because Tal is a  IGNORE THE OPPONENT's THREAT PLAYER 90ù of the times..

Nowadays,  name a top player who IGNORE OPPONENT's THREAT MORE OFTEN THAN Tal?

I dont find any....

Just because modern GMs use computers for preparation and analysis they aren't necessarily any stronger over the board than Tal, Fischer and the like. Modern GMs seem to make plenty of errors over the board, while many of the best games of the old GMs had comparatively few (though their lesser games I'm sure are equally flawed). I guess the playing style has changed (with the exception of a few top players) in response to the knowledge that GMs nowadays look for computer-like solutions, perhaps based on whatever computer-generated motifs they might have seen than didn't really exist before as chess memes, but I suspect that the main difference has been for the knowledge of computers and engines to make them more cautious and less adventurous, rather than specifically more accurate or better in any other sense. This belief in the absolute supremacy of the new generation, fuelled it seems in part by Nakamura's much discussed comments on Fischer, is, I suspect, a modern myth.

My feeling is that Carlsen would have pushed Tal pretty hard, but Tal in his early days before ill health got to him and when he was on his famous winning streak would have set Carlsen problems that would have perplexed the Norwegian as much as they did his illustrious contemporaries in the 1950s. Carlsen doesn't play 'perfect chess' all the time by any means as his games against Karjakin showed. He just about scraped past Karjakin after the latter missed an opportunity to force a draw possibly allowing him to win the match in the game he lost to Carlsen in the classical time controls phase. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that Tal at his best was a fair bit stronger than Karjakin presently is. 

No, the game is very different now. The margin of error has been drastically reduced. The players of the past didn't have brilliant chess engines to review their matches and polish their skill-sets. If you gave Tal the current version of Stockfish maybe.... 

Wonder how much "preparation" helps with this ... for instance, would Carlsen be able to beat Tal in chess960? 

What happened against Tal vs the young GM Seirawan, is what might happen against him vs Carlsen.

Classical games: Yasser Seirawan beat Mikhail Tal 4 to 0, with 1 draw.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1140493

wow so many for magnus , cool i dont often get to disagree with so many of you at once

Tal would batter carlsen

Yasser is the GOAT!

if mikhail tal alive again ,is he able to snach the world crown from wcc carlsen?

NO. He was about to be crushed by Magnus.

Tal's attacking style does not work against top players, only against patzers.

the list of patzers are a whos who of the greatest chess players of their generations marco , all you have to do is look at these so called patzers , each and everyone of them marco youd probably admit were bloody brilliant chess players and Tal checkmated them all

heres a game v an amazing defender if not the best lets watch the wizard declaw the tiger        

You look only at one game and that is a blitz. Head to head RECORD, Petrosian is ahead against Tal.

Let us see Tal against another good defender.

Classical games: Viktor Korchnoi beat Mikhail Tal 13 to 4, with 27 draws.

so i show one game . but it certainly proves Tal faced the best players in the world in his time

but youre right Korchnois record v Tal is amazing and worth mention

Carlsen also faced the best players in his time, so what is the point? Actually Carlsen faced the best player in his time and dominated.

comparison, by definition, is relative. I mean. einstein was a pretty good chess player. I think he knew shit about other stuff too. but how to compare those who no longer live?

PAUL KERES, THAT'S WHO!

Seirawan 4 Tal 0

Morphy!