The current build I am running, testing a scepter free version with electrolyze, have a double PTQ this weekend, not sure if its good but we will find out.
Since U/W/R is a decent shell I thought I would put my two cents in on a solid control deck I have been brewing, yes it contains no basics, I might add one or two depending, it has been testing very well:
What does everyone think about maindecking 2 feast and famine? It makes some 50/50 match up's better and gives us much better card advantage than the ninja card people like to run, also with mistbind the synergy is bonkers
In no way do we want to sacrifice anything on our board, even if it is a doomed traveler. We do lack card draw, but we should not bring ourselves to sacrifice board position (which is our greatest strength) to make it. I'd play Mentor of the Meek or altar's reap if I felt like I REALLY needed some card draw, but I've never found it to be an overwhelming issue with our deck.
I never thought to myself that I needed more cards in my hand throughout all of the GP, every time you drop an anthem your token producers turn from 2 for 1's to 3 for 1's to 4 for 1's, even through all the U/b, ratchet bombs, slag storms, I always had cards in hand or a board clogged with tokens, you just need to understand when to play creatures and when to not overextend
Also want to apologize for not checking the thread, I was extremely busy over the past few days with college!
Fair enough. So why not Mentor? Did you not have enough time to test with it?
Mentor is far too slow, and the deck kicks off at 2 mana, from that point on you really never have extra mana you can tap to activate mentor, not to mention the 3 drop area is already clogged with token makers, in this deck if you are getting 1 for 1'd you are losing, you get value by trading 1/2 of a card like one token of a gather with one of their creatures, that is where our advantage comes from, as the game grinds out you gain more and more net advantage over your opponent.
Grats on the finish! Just one question though: why did you run Woodland Cemetery with only 4 Swamps, instead of another Sunpetal Grove (10 Plains means it would come into play untapped far more often)?
Thank you very much! To answer your question when I did play with sunpetal's over the one cemetery I found I was hurt extremely badly when my white mana came into play tapped vs my black mana, seeing as the black mana is really a secondary source in this deck (still important though), however I don't think it's wrong to just run another sun petal if you like it, I just found the black source to be less of a hindrance.
Also you would only have 9 white sources because you still need to replace the swamp the woodland cemetery produces (you need a minimum 9 black sources for the deck I think).
@polarbearvsrhino
yeah one thing I found was that this deck was extremely consistent, you typically dont lose to poor draws with this.
You mention card draw quite a bit while answering questions, do you think adding a single Grim Backwoods would help with this deck? Or is Vault too much of a power land that it's the only thing you want to be using as a spell land? Or does it take too much board presence away? Is seeing only a single green in all your games too much of a risk to run it?
I think vault is far too good to swap for any other land, whenever you hit 5 land with vault you win.
It is not wrong in certain match up's to replace the Elspeths with swords, I like the green, it helps immensely against good U/b players and the mirror but if you like you are welcome to change the secret tech. The great part about the 3 mana splash is that it is extremely interchangeable. I didnt like playing angelic destiny but you can, often times it seemed like a win more, celestial purge seems fine but I never had a problem against black decks at all.
Only 4 people with b/w tokens made day 2, it was me and 3 friends, all of us maxed midnight haunting and ran 0 splicers, instant speed is back breaking and allows you a counter free turn, for this meta haunting is just better
How are the 4 honors and 4 virtue? My thought was always that I would have too many anthems in my hand but is this assumption wrong? Also, I have been toying around with alter's reap as a form of draw, do you think it's viable at all or does it just set you behind having it in hand instead of something else?
I think the list is pretty tight right now so cutting creature producers for cards that actually put you behind on board state seems counter intiutive, in fact i believe it would actually make our delver match up worse as you are constantly trying to load up your board in an attempt to stop geist and play around vapor snag, with this deck you need to be ok with top decking when you have to and you need to be great at deciding when to mull, for you the game is lost turn 1 with a bad keep.
Also i love playing 8 anthem, you NEED 1 to play around curses, these are often countered so drawing extras is never a bad thing, plus if you have 3 anthrms out you can produce titan power for 2 mana with gather. As you lay more anthems thr card value generated by your tokens exponentually(SP?) Increases to give you more card advantag
This looks extremely close to the list I've been running. I run the champion package, and Garruk relentless.
Congrats on proving a green splash can get there.
Thank you sir, I'm glad I could show tokens as a house.
@Jose Cuervo: Yep the Ray Tech I feel is enough, I don't like to slow down the mana base more than it has to be, this is why I am not currently playing 3 color, you need a deck that can run off very scarce mana sources when you do that and this deck just cant do that, you have to have draw power to smooth land drops and cards.
@YamiJoey: Flashback is what makes ray so good, I dont mind the initial increased cost of 1 mana for the chance to flash it back, and I would hit a green source about once a game so I was very satisfied with the splash. Township is just not good for this deck, we run 13 anthems so we really don't need more dead lands, you wont want to activate Township anyway, vault is the house that you want to use over everything. I would actually hold back cards if vault was active and just ride the life gain and trading from death touch to gain further card advantage even trading 1 for 1 with opponents (in terms of creatures), since each creature we play usually costs at most 1/2 a card of value.
I know Elspeth is in there for a reason, I just never really felt I was losing the game enough to need her, other times I felt like she was a bit to too slow. Like I said the deck was really created/tuned and sleeved up the night before the event so I just went in blind with it.
You sideboard SoWaP in for almost every matchup, maybe worth just putting in the main?
Like I said I like to call audibles, that is my general SB list but every match is different, I prefer to put it in for game 2 or 3 because they often don't play artifact hate against me, this allows me to blow them out, my opponent's would say something along the lines of "what you play WaP? I didn't see anything before!" when I would tap out and swing
Creatures(13):
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Vendillion Clique
2 Thundermaw Hellkite
Instants(23):
3 Remand
3 Mana Leak
2 Izzet Charm
2 Cryptic Command
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
3 Path To Exile
2 Electrolyze
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Island
1 Plains
2 Techtonic Edge
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Clifftop Retreat
1 Sulfer Falls
3 Celestial Colonnade
1 Glacial Fortress
2 Counterflux
2 Aven Mindcensor
2 Stony Silence
1 Kataki, Wars Wage
1 Combust
1 Path To Exile
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Izzet Staticaster
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Batterskull
3 Augur of Bolas
2 Sigarda, Host of Herons
3 Thragtusk
Planeswalkers(6):
4 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
Artifacts(2):
2 Izzet Keyrune
Instants(9):
1 Cyclonic Rift
4 Desperate Ravings
2 Sphinx's Revelation
2 Syncopate
Sorceries(11):
2 Terminus
2 Entreat the Angels
3 Supreme Verdict
4 Pillar Of Flame
3 Temple Garden
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Steam Vents
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Hinterland Harbor
3 Glacial Fortress
1 Desolate Lighthouse
1 Clifftop Retreat
2 Ray of Revelation
2 Centuar Healer
1 Thragtusk
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Detention Sphere
1 Dissipate
2 Negate
4 Geist of Saint Traft
I never thought to myself that I needed more cards in my hand throughout all of the GP, every time you drop an anthem your token producers turn from 2 for 1's to 3 for 1's to 4 for 1's, even through all the U/b, ratchet bombs, slag storms, I always had cards in hand or a board clogged with tokens, you just need to understand when to play creatures and when to not overextend
Also want to apologize for not checking the thread, I was extremely busy over the past few days with college!
Mentor is far too slow, and the deck kicks off at 2 mana, from that point on you really never have extra mana you can tap to activate mentor, not to mention the 3 drop area is already clogged with token makers, in this deck if you are getting 1 for 1'd you are losing, you get value by trading 1/2 of a card like one token of a gather with one of their creatures, that is where our advantage comes from, as the game grinds out you gain more and more net advantage over your opponent.
Thank you very much! To answer your question when I did play with sunpetal's over the one cemetery I found I was hurt extremely badly when my white mana came into play tapped vs my black mana, seeing as the black mana is really a secondary source in this deck (still important though), however I don't think it's wrong to just run another sun petal if you like it, I just found the black source to be less of a hindrance.
Also you would only have 9 white sources because you still need to replace the swamp the woodland cemetery produces (you need a minimum 9 black sources for the deck I think).
@polarbearvsrhino
yeah one thing I found was that this deck was extremely consistent, you typically dont lose to poor draws with this.
I think vault is far too good to swap for any other land, whenever you hit 5 land with vault you win.
I think the list is pretty tight right now so cutting creature producers for cards that actually put you behind on board state seems counter intiutive, in fact i believe it would actually make our delver match up worse as you are constantly trying to load up your board in an attempt to stop geist and play around vapor snag, with this deck you need to be ok with top decking when you have to and you need to be great at deciding when to mull, for you the game is lost turn 1 with a bad keep.
Also i love playing 8 anthem, you NEED 1 to play around curses, these are often countered so drawing extras is never a bad thing, plus if you have 3 anthrms out you can produce titan power for 2 mana with gather. As you lay more anthems thr card value generated by your tokens exponentually(SP?) Increases to give you more card advantag
Thank you sir, I'm glad I could show tokens as a house.
@Jose Cuervo: Yep the Ray Tech I feel is enough, I don't like to slow down the mana base more than it has to be, this is why I am not currently playing 3 color, you need a deck that can run off very scarce mana sources when you do that and this deck just cant do that, you have to have draw power to smooth land drops and cards.
@YamiJoey: Flashback is what makes ray so good, I dont mind the initial increased cost of 1 mana for the chance to flash it back, and I would hit a green source about once a game so I was very satisfied with the splash. Township is just not good for this deck, we run 13 anthems so we really don't need more dead lands, you wont want to activate Township anyway, vault is the house that you want to use over everything. I would actually hold back cards if vault was active and just ride the life gain and trading from death touch to gain further card advantage even trading 1 for 1 with opponents (in terms of creatures), since each creature we play usually costs at most 1/2 a card of value.
I know Elspeth is in there for a reason, I just never really felt I was losing the game enough to need her, other times I felt like she was a bit to too slow. Like I said the deck was really created/tuned and sleeved up the night before the event so I just went in blind with it.
Like I said I like to call audibles, that is my general SB list but every match is different, I prefer to put it in for game 2 or 3 because they often don't play artifact hate against me, this allows me to blow them out, my opponent's would say something along the lines of "what you play WaP? I didn't see anything before!" when I would tap out and swing
http://www.twitch.tv/magicprotour/b/309836567
GP Baltimore Day 2 Stream:
at 4:15:00 is when my match starts