I haven't played the deck much, but I was thinking post board, having 2 Blue Sun, 2 Dissipate, 3 Spellbomb, 4 Mana Leak, 2 Drownyard and a Negate would be sufficient. Maybe I'm wrong,
What do you suggest as a trump to UB?
Basically, what hard to deal with threat could I use? I can't think of anything really? Another sorin maybe?
So, Grixis was a deck that a few pros talked about around the PT.
Reid Duke had a Premium article that talked about UB, Esper and Grixis.
He said Grixis was a good choice, it has a good delver match up and an even better humans match up than UB because of slagstorm.
I really don't see why this deck has dropped completely off the radar.
Anyways, here's my list I've been working on, it's similar to Reid's but I changed some things I don't like.
Firstly, congratultions! Now let me get to some points:
1/ If 6 drops are traditionally bad in tempo decks, then I guess I'm not running a strict tempo deck, I'm running a good deck. Are 2 drop 1/1 flyers (Squadron Hawk usually good in control decks? No. But we all saw Cawblade (ironically, except for me, but I've read plenty bout it).
My deck can still be explosive. I have a god-damned 3/2 flyer for 1 cmc. For my Titans I dropped 2 Brimstone Volleys. In fact, I will go as far as saying my deck is almost exactly as explosive as before except it has two cards in it that can win the game as soon as they drop.
2/ Noxious Revival is not actually a card? Your point is not actually a point.
3/ Desperate Ravings is certainly not slow - but hey, its like a dad - some people have bad experiences with them and I can understand that so I'm not going to argue this. But a hella lot of people like them.
4/ I agree about Dissipate.
5/ I'm amazed this deck is still so underestimated.... I agree.
Hey, thanks man! Yeah, I originally wrote the post as just a rant/introduction. So I'll go over some of your points:
1) My thoughts on Inferno Titan are, yes it is a good card. Definitely, especially in a meta-game full of x/1s. However, in the sense of playing a 22 land tempo deck, I dont think a 6 drop is what you want. Thinking back on the many games played, I don't even hit 6 mana that often. Yeah, brimstone volley is reach or a "finisher" but it is also a 3 mana removal spell. Having a 6 drop in your opening hand is essentially a mulligan. Maybe if you're playing 24-26 lands, it's different, but then you're playing a whole different deck. Squadron Hawk is different, it's a 2 mana 1/1 flyer than Ancestral Recal's you when you play it, allowed you to shuffle with Jace brainstorms and held swords found by SFM perfectly. You can't apply that principle to every card.
2) Yes, haha true. I didn't make a case for what I said in my original post. I will now:
Noxious Revival is not what you want in this deck, in my humble opinion. First off, if it put the card in your hand it would very obviously be insane. But the fact that it puts it on the top of your deck to me, just means it really isnt doing anything. Id rather have a shock, a leak, a ponder anything than that. Sure, sometimes you are able to get a snapcaster or a delver back, but then you have to wait a whole turn, for 2 life to have it. Also, it has an anti-synergy with Snapcaster Mage and Grim Lavamancer. Yes, it will eventually be back in the graveyard, but this is not the deck you want to be durdling around with do nothing cards in. I don't know how to explain my view really, it's just...what happens when there's nothing in your graveyard? Then it's just sitting in your hand, doing nothing. It's the same thing as inferno titan, a 7 card hand with a noxious revival is essentially a 6 card hand. I don't like cards that need other cards to do something. Even snapcaster mage is ambush viper in times of need. Again, just my opinion. But I'd consider Shocks 5-8, extra gut shots, any other spell, hell, even ravings over this.
3) As far as desperate ravings goes. It's just not again what I think you want to be doing in this deck. Yes, it is good card advantage, yes it digs you deep to find things. This isn't a control deck. I don't like having cards in my hand that you have to hold onto sometimes. You misunderstand me as dislike Desperate Ravings in general. I think Desperate Ravings is a GREAT card, in the right deck, which I don't believe UR tempo is. This card, in Chapin Grixis or GerryT 5CC is great, because that deck CAN durdle around and do nothing, and wait to cast ravings when it needs to. This deck, I want to be putting pressure on, and disrupting opponents. Not stuck with a card in my hand that I cant cast, its the same thing with Noxious Revival, Inferno Titan, Ravings ect. You see my point?? If you want to play like a UR Control deck that plays ravings and inferno titans and things like that, I'm not telling you its wrong, thats a different deck, that I've never played and cant comment on. I just think this deck needs to be streamlined full of cheap, efficient threats and disruption, as it is, in my eyes, a tempo deck.
We agree on alot of things though, and dont take my "rebuttal" the wrong way, thats what this thread is for. To bounce ideas back and forth, hell, I might be wrong, I'm no pro.
Marrow Shards I think might actually be decent, it's good against inkmoth nexus and moorland haunt. Moorland Haunt specifically is a problem for this deck, and MS is a good answer to that, it might just be a good card against illusions in general. It seems situational though, again, something thats stuck in your hand and then it's actually just horrible. So I don't know, it's something that should be tested and tried out.
Ok, I've been playing this deck online for the past week, just 4-0'd the first daily I've played with it yesterday, coming in 1st out of 100-something people.
You can go there to see it, fairly stock list, yes it should have the 4th snapcaster, but I didnt have it at the time. I would switch out the singleton negate for the 4th Snapcaster. Also I'd drop the 3rd incinerate for the 4th vapor snag possibly. I also didn't have gut shots or shrines online because they are $3 a piece. So Phantasmal Bears out of the board do the same thing as shrine against Esper, 5CC, UW. And I don't think I'd even run gut shot.
Basically, I have browsed through this forum and no offense, but alot of you guys are completely off base with this deck, atleast the way I see it.
It's UR "Tempo" which to me, means playing cheap, hard to deal with threats that provide a quick clock, and protecting them with disruption(counters/removal).
I see people posting lists with inferno titans (6 drops are bad in tempo decks)
Also, Noxious Revival is not actually a card. I also dont like Ravings in this deck, I tested with it for a while, and to me, its slow, and clunky most of the time. Ponder is exactly what you want to be doing, not ravings. One last side note, I dont play dissipate. The mana in this deck is not great, being a 2 color deck with 4 dual lands. Yes, Chandra's Phoenix is 1RR but it is such a damn good card that it's worth it to sometimes have it stranded in your hand for a couple turns while you wait to draw into a red source. Dissipate, on the other hand does not pull enough weight in my opinion to be worth the 1UU cost.
The issue, is people taking a "Tempo" deck and trying to play a control deck with it. If you turn this deck into UR control with inferno titans, then you arent going to be able to out agro the control decks, or control the agro decks if that makes sense.
This deck, atleast similar builds to mind has a PHENOMENAL match up against any control deck, despite day of judgement and timely reinforcements.
Turn 1 flying wild nacatls and the recursion of phoenix is insanely difficult for most control decks to handle.
The one match up I'm not very fond of is the illusions match up because of moorland haunt and geist. 2 very difficult to deal with cards.
All im suggesting is trying to streamline your decks a little bit, you want to be putting your opponents under pressure while disrupting their game plan. You have 3 mana lava axes for reach plus snapcasters and time walks that ping them for 1.
This deck is in my opinion the darkhorse of the format, no one pays attention to it, despite the fact that it's in my opionion, very good if build and played correctly.
Well, I always play some form of Control. For this upcomming metagame, atleast untill the Tier-1 is established this is the list I'm working with.
3 Colors is no longer greedy, with the fetches leaves tectonic edge! Tec edge was the true reason that 3 color mana bases were punished. Ghost quarter is a joke, and is for taking out utility lands...not land/color screwing people.
With UW...I don't like the lack of instant speed removal, paying 4 life for a dismember is something you can realistically afford to do once per game against an agressive or midrange deck. It also dosent hit titans or sphinxes. My main beef with UW...
With UB...they dont have Oblivion Ring, which is such a great catch all to trouble permanents that UB has trouble dealing with. Also, UB has no great artifcat removal, and they dont have Gideon Jura or Timely reinforcements...
Thus, Esper...and the mana has been smooth as **** so far...here's the list:
So, now that we know what the meta is, here's my attempt at a control deck. I've tested against 12Post, U/R Combo (Twin & Ascencion), Zoo & Affinity. So far I think this deck is actually decent, I'm not claiming that it's tuned or has solved the meta by any means, and it's still a work in progress, but I'm just looking for some input. Thanks
So, ever since Shards Block "Esper" has been my favorite color combination. I'm currently trying to make this deck work, and I actually believe it has the potential to be competative. I have even seen some columnists writing about it on various sites, but have never been in agreement with their lists. I am not a great deck builder, but I love to brew lists. Here's my decklist, why I have certain cards, what I've cut recently, and sideboarding plan. I appreciate any constructive criticism or comments, especially on the mana base which I am horrible at figuring out. Please, I would like to keep this a semi-competitive discussion, no budget or anything like that.
Card Choices:
Basically starts with the standard control "auto-include"
4 Preordain
4 Mana Leak
I was originally playing 3 GftT and 1 Doom Blade, but with the rise of Tempered Steel I switched it to a 2-2 split, and have been thinking maybe even a 3-1 split infavor of Doom Blade might be better. Either way I think 4 instant speed spot removal is a good number, and one of the main reasons to play black.
3 Oblivion Ring is a catch all answer to any permanent, however, I've recently been getting blown out alot by "O-Ring your O-Ring" or something similar.
3 Day is I think needed in this meta of Goblins/Tempered Steel, hitting a turn 4 day against alot of these decks is very much needed.
3 Wall of Omens, cantrips and early defense against various Mono-Red decks and Tempered Steel, not sure about this number.
3 Solemns, fantastic value card, mana fixing for a 3 color deck, a decent body and replaces itself upon death, making wrathing with him out great.
2 Grave Titan, best 6 drop finisher avilable imo
1 Consecrated Sphinx, insane card advantage if it survives, I think 1 is good to have, its better against certain decks and it flies
4 Jace Beleren, main form of card advantage, and because of the spot removal, days, walls and solemns, they are easy enough to protect, maybe cut this to 3? Not sure...
2 Gideon, just shuts down various aggro decks, I think 2 is a good number, 3 might be too many, you wont see just 1 enough.
1 Liliana, because you never want to have a hand with 2, but sometimes she's just fantastic, she's been demonic tutor x3 sometimes and single-handedly won me games.
As far as the mana base goes, tarpit is better than colonnade so that got the nod in numbers, I dont want too many tap lands, the deck has:
18 Blue mana req
16 White mana req
10 Black mana req
With:
17 Blue Sources
15 White Sources
12 Black Sources
Changes, at first I had a Venser, 3 Spreading Seas, & the 4th WoO... but even against Valakut, the spreading seas werent doing enough, and they were horrible in most match-ups, Venser was beyond clunky and didn't do even close to enough for a 5 drop.
SB:
Against U/R Twin
+3 Mental Mistep
+2 Spell Pierce
+1 Negate
-3 Day of Judgment
-2 Wall of Omens
-1 Oblivion Ring
Taking out dead cards for counters, MM hits Preordains, Ponders and most importantly their Dispels, Oblivion ring seems mostly dead aside from Shrine, but Wall of Omens atleast cantrips, thats why I took them out in the numbers I have
Taking out dead WoO and Gideon does nothing in this match up for basically counterspell against them and Pierce hits GSZ and ramp spells or traps
Tempered Steel:
+3 Revoke Existance
+3 Timely Reinforcements
-2 Jace Belerens
-1 Liliana
-1 Go for the Throat
-2 Mana Leak
Leak seems slow, Jace seems slow and too hard to protect, Liliana is incredibly slow, and Gfft dosent kill anything except Hero(If they even have it). Revoke is HUGE here, hitting like their entire deck, and Timely Reinforcements is like a 4-1 and is even a giant blow out if they dont have a steel.
Monored:
+3 Flashfreeze
+3 Mental Mistep
+3 Timely Reinforcements
-4 Mana Leak
-4 Jace Beleren
-1 Oblivion Ring
Yeah, 9 cards against red. Flashfreeze is awesome, MM is huge, hitting Guide, Bolt, Lavamancer, Bushwacker, Goblin Grenade all for 2 Life, or U.
Reinforcements, again, like Steel is HUGE. Even better here because the 6 life is more relevant against red often.
CawBlade
+2 Revoke
+2 Spell Pierce
-3 Wall of Omens
-1 Day
Not sure on my board plan for this match up, Revoke is only good againt: swords, spellskites and o-rings, maybe this warrants bringing in the 3rd?
SO yeah, that's the deck, thoughts, input, ideas, your own decklist?
EDIT: Well, I was just reading an article by Nick Spagnolo, and him and Edgar Flores agreed Squadron Hawk is the best card in the format, prompting me to think it might just strictly be better than wall of omens...
-3 Wall of Omens
-1 Jace Beleren/Mana Leak?
+4 Squadron Hawk?
I don't think Elixir is horrible, but trinket mage has been awful for me.
If anything I think a sideboard of multiple Lilianas or Jaces might be best.
UB is the only rough match up, after 3 days of testing, I've been consistently beating Delver, Humans, RG and zombies.
That seems like decent actually. I might try it out.
Elixir would be good against mono red too.
What do you suggest as a trump to UB?
Basically, what hard to deal with threat could I use? I can't think of anything really? Another sorin maybe?
Reid Duke had a Premium article that talked about UB, Esper and Grixis.
He said Grixis was a good choice, it has a good delver match up and an even better humans match up than UB because of slagstorm.
I really don't see why this deck has dropped completely off the radar.
Anyways, here's my list I've been working on, it's similar to Reid's but I changed some things I don't like.
3 Grave Titan
3 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Sorin Markov
2 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
4 Desperate Ravings
2 Doom Blade
2 Faithless Looting
3 Forbidden Alchemy
2 Go for the Throat
4 Mana Leak
3 Slagstorm
1 Tribute to Hunger
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Drowned Catacomb
3 Evolving Wilds
3 Island
3 Mountain
4 Sulfur Falls
3 Swamp
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
2 Dissipate
1 Negate
2 Nephalia Drownyard
3 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Whipflare
2 Olivia Voldaren
1 Sever the Bloodline
2 Tragic Slip
Oppinions, comments?
I can post Reid's original list for those who dont have Premium if it's requested.
Hey, thanks man! Yeah, I originally wrote the post as just a rant/introduction. So I'll go over some of your points:
1) My thoughts on Inferno Titan are, yes it is a good card. Definitely, especially in a meta-game full of x/1s. However, in the sense of playing a 22 land tempo deck, I dont think a 6 drop is what you want. Thinking back on the many games played, I don't even hit 6 mana that often. Yeah, brimstone volley is reach or a "finisher" but it is also a 3 mana removal spell. Having a 6 drop in your opening hand is essentially a mulligan. Maybe if you're playing 24-26 lands, it's different, but then you're playing a whole different deck. Squadron Hawk is different, it's a 2 mana 1/1 flyer than Ancestral Recal's you when you play it, allowed you to shuffle with Jace brainstorms and held swords found by SFM perfectly. You can't apply that principle to every card.
2) Yes, haha true. I didn't make a case for what I said in my original post. I will now:
Noxious Revival is not what you want in this deck, in my humble opinion. First off, if it put the card in your hand it would very obviously be insane. But the fact that it puts it on the top of your deck to me, just means it really isnt doing anything. Id rather have a shock, a leak, a ponder anything than that. Sure, sometimes you are able to get a snapcaster or a delver back, but then you have to wait a whole turn, for 2 life to have it. Also, it has an anti-synergy with Snapcaster Mage and Grim Lavamancer. Yes, it will eventually be back in the graveyard, but this is not the deck you want to be durdling around with do nothing cards in. I don't know how to explain my view really, it's just...what happens when there's nothing in your graveyard? Then it's just sitting in your hand, doing nothing. It's the same thing as inferno titan, a 7 card hand with a noxious revival is essentially a 6 card hand. I don't like cards that need other cards to do something. Even snapcaster mage is ambush viper in times of need. Again, just my opinion. But I'd consider Shocks 5-8, extra gut shots, any other spell, hell, even ravings over this.
3) As far as desperate ravings goes. It's just not again what I think you want to be doing in this deck. Yes, it is good card advantage, yes it digs you deep to find things. This isn't a control deck. I don't like having cards in my hand that you have to hold onto sometimes. You misunderstand me as dislike Desperate Ravings in general. I think Desperate Ravings is a GREAT card, in the right deck, which I don't believe UR tempo is. This card, in Chapin Grixis or GerryT 5CC is great, because that deck CAN durdle around and do nothing, and wait to cast ravings when it needs to. This deck, I want to be putting pressure on, and disrupting opponents. Not stuck with a card in my hand that I cant cast, its the same thing with Noxious Revival, Inferno Titan, Ravings ect. You see my point?? If you want to play like a UR Control deck that plays ravings and inferno titans and things like that, I'm not telling you its wrong, thats a different deck, that I've never played and cant comment on. I just think this deck needs to be streamlined full of cheap, efficient threats and disruption, as it is, in my eyes, a tempo deck.
We agree on alot of things though, and dont take my "rebuttal" the wrong way, thats what this thread is for. To bounce ideas back and forth, hell, I might be wrong, I'm no pro.
Marrow Shards I think might actually be decent, it's good against inkmoth nexus and moorland haunt. Moorland Haunt specifically is a problem for this deck, and MS is a good answer to that, it might just be a good card against illusions in general. It seems situational though, again, something thats stuck in your hand and then it's actually just horrible. So I don't know, it's something that should be tested and tried out.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/3193445
4 Delver of Secrets
2 Grim Lavamancer
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Brimstone Volley
4 Galvanic Blast
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Incinerate
4 Mana Leak
1 Negate
4 Ponder
3 Vapor Snag
9 Island
9 Mountain
4 Sulfur Falls
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Arc Trail
3 Flashfreeze
2 Mental Mistep
2 Negate
4 Phantasmal Bear
You can go there to see it, fairly stock list, yes it should have the 4th snapcaster, but I didnt have it at the time. I would switch out the singleton negate for the 4th Snapcaster. Also I'd drop the 3rd incinerate for the 4th vapor snag possibly. I also didn't have gut shots or shrines online because they are $3 a piece. So Phantasmal Bears out of the board do the same thing as shrine against Esper, 5CC, UW. And I don't think I'd even run gut shot.
Basically, I have browsed through this forum and no offense, but alot of you guys are completely off base with this deck, atleast the way I see it.
It's UR "Tempo" which to me, means playing cheap, hard to deal with threats that provide a quick clock, and protecting them with disruption(counters/removal).
I see people posting lists with inferno titans (6 drops are bad in tempo decks)
Also, Noxious Revival is not actually a card. I also dont like Ravings in this deck, I tested with it for a while, and to me, its slow, and clunky most of the time. Ponder is exactly what you want to be doing, not ravings. One last side note, I dont play dissipate. The mana in this deck is not great, being a 2 color deck with 4 dual lands. Yes, Chandra's Phoenix is 1RR but it is such a damn good card that it's worth it to sometimes have it stranded in your hand for a couple turns while you wait to draw into a red source. Dissipate, on the other hand does not pull enough weight in my opinion to be worth the 1UU cost.
The issue, is people taking a "Tempo" deck and trying to play a control deck with it. If you turn this deck into UR control with inferno titans, then you arent going to be able to out agro the control decks, or control the agro decks if that makes sense.
This deck, atleast similar builds to mind has a PHENOMENAL match up against any control deck, despite day of judgement and timely reinforcements.
Turn 1 flying wild nacatls and the recursion of phoenix is insanely difficult for most control decks to handle.
The one match up I'm not very fond of is the illusions match up because of moorland haunt and geist. 2 very difficult to deal with cards.
All im suggesting is trying to streamline your decks a little bit, you want to be putting your opponents under pressure while disrupting their game plan. You have 3 mana lava axes for reach plus snapcasters and time walks that ping them for 1.
This deck is in my opinion the darkhorse of the format, no one pays attention to it, despite the fact that it's in my opionion, very good if build and played correctly.
3 Colors is no longer greedy, with the fetches leaves tectonic edge! Tec edge was the true reason that 3 color mana bases were punished. Ghost quarter is a joke, and is for taking out utility lands...not land/color screwing people.
With UW...I don't like the lack of instant speed removal, paying 4 life for a dismember is something you can realistically afford to do once per game against an agressive or midrange deck. It also dosent hit titans or sphinxes. My main beef with UW...
With UB...they dont have Oblivion Ring, which is such a great catch all to trouble permanents that UB has trouble dealing with. Also, UB has no great artifcat removal, and they dont have Gideon Jura or Timely reinforcements...
Thus, Esper...and the mana has been smooth as **** so far...here's the list:
4 Think Twice
2 Divination
1 Stoic Rebuttal
3 Go for the Throat
3 Doom Blade
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Day of Judgment
3 Gideon Jura
4 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Grave Titan
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Darkslick Shores
2 Isolated Chapel
3 Island
3 Plains
3 Swamp
1 Doom Blade
1 Go for the Throat
3 Timely Reinforcements
2 Tribute to Hunger
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Flashfreeze
2 Clestial Purge
1 Revoke Existance
2 Divine Offering
and @wackyzacky, post board against combo I have:
4 Cryptic Command
4 Spell Pierce
4 Rune Snag
2 Mana Leak
2 Spell Snare
1 Negate
as well as disenchants for ascencion and paths for pestermite/deciever
I've tested the match up and it dosent seem to be as horrible as you're making it out to be.
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Rune Snag
2 Mana Leak
3 Cryptic Command
2 Spell Snare
3 Fire Spout
2 Wrath of God
2 Ajani Vengeant
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Wall of Omens
3 Vendillion Clique
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
3 Seachrome Coast
2 Glacial Fortress
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Island
2 Plains
1 Mountain
4 Kitchen Finx
1 Cryptic Command
2 Lightning Helix
4 Spell Pierce
1 Negate
3 Disenchant
Board Plan is as follows:
vs:
12 Post
+1 Cryptic Command
+4 Spell Piece
+1 Negate
-3 Fire Spout
-3 Wall of Omens
UR Combo
+1 Cryptic Command
+4 Spell Pierce
+1 Negate
+3 Disenchant
-3 Fire Spout
-4 Wall of Omens
-2 Wrath of God
Zoo
+4 Kitchen Finx
+2 Lightning Helix
-4 Rune Snag
-2 Cryptic Command
Affinity
+2 Lightning Helix
+3 Disenchant
-3 Cryptic Command
-2 Mana Leak
Let me know what I can do to make this better. Or if this has any merit.
Here's the list:
2 Doom Blade
2 Go for the Throat
4 Preordain
3 Day of Judgment
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Wall of Omens
3 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Grave Titan
1 Consecrated Sphinx
4 Jace Beleren
2 Gideon Jura
1 Liliana Vess
4 Seachrome Coast
3 Darkslick Shores
3 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Celestial Colonnade
3 Glacial Fortress
3 Islands
3 Plains
2 Swamps
3 Revoke Existance
2 Spell Pierce
1 Negate
3 Mental Mistep
3 Timely Reinforcements
3 Flashfreeze
Card Choices:
Basically starts with the standard control "auto-include"
4 Preordain
4 Mana Leak
I was originally playing 3 GftT and 1 Doom Blade, but with the rise of Tempered Steel I switched it to a 2-2 split, and have been thinking maybe even a 3-1 split infavor of Doom Blade might be better. Either way I think 4 instant speed spot removal is a good number, and one of the main reasons to play black.
3 Oblivion Ring is a catch all answer to any permanent, however, I've recently been getting blown out alot by "O-Ring your O-Ring" or something similar.
3 Day is I think needed in this meta of Goblins/Tempered Steel, hitting a turn 4 day against alot of these decks is very much needed.
3 Wall of Omens, cantrips and early defense against various Mono-Red decks and Tempered Steel, not sure about this number.
3 Solemns, fantastic value card, mana fixing for a 3 color deck, a decent body and replaces itself upon death, making wrathing with him out great.
2 Grave Titan, best 6 drop finisher avilable imo
1 Consecrated Sphinx, insane card advantage if it survives, I think 1 is good to have, its better against certain decks and it flies
4 Jace Beleren, main form of card advantage, and because of the spot removal, days, walls and solemns, they are easy enough to protect, maybe cut this to 3? Not sure...
2 Gideon, just shuts down various aggro decks, I think 2 is a good number, 3 might be too many, you wont see just 1 enough.
1 Liliana, because you never want to have a hand with 2, but sometimes she's just fantastic, she's been demonic tutor x3 sometimes and single-handedly won me games.
As far as the mana base goes, tarpit is better than colonnade so that got the nod in numbers, I dont want too many tap lands, the deck has:
18 Blue mana req
16 White mana req
10 Black mana req
With:
17 Blue Sources
15 White Sources
12 Black Sources
Changes, at first I had a Venser, 3 Spreading Seas, & the 4th WoO... but even against Valakut, the spreading seas werent doing enough, and they were horrible in most match-ups, Venser was beyond clunky and didn't do even close to enough for a 5 drop.
SB:
Against U/R Twin
+3 Mental Mistep
+2 Spell Pierce
+1 Negate
-3 Day of Judgment
-2 Wall of Omens
-1 Oblivion Ring
Taking out dead cards for counters, MM hits Preordains, Ponders and most importantly their Dispels, Oblivion ring seems mostly dead aside from Shrine, but Wall of Omens atleast cantrips, thats why I took them out in the numbers I have
Valakut
+3 Flashfreeze
+2 Spell Pierce
-3 Wall of Omens
-2 Gideon
Taking out dead WoO and Gideon does nothing in this match up for basically counterspell against them and Pierce hits GSZ and ramp spells or traps
Tempered Steel:
+3 Revoke Existance
+3 Timely Reinforcements
-2 Jace Belerens
-1 Liliana
-1 Go for the Throat
-2 Mana Leak
Leak seems slow, Jace seems slow and too hard to protect, Liliana is incredibly slow, and Gfft dosent kill anything except Hero(If they even have it). Revoke is HUGE here, hitting like their entire deck, and Timely Reinforcements is like a 4-1 and is even a giant blow out if they dont have a steel.
Monored:
+3 Flashfreeze
+3 Mental Mistep
+3 Timely Reinforcements
-4 Mana Leak
-4 Jace Beleren
-1 Oblivion Ring
Yeah, 9 cards against red. Flashfreeze is awesome, MM is huge, hitting Guide, Bolt, Lavamancer, Bushwacker, Goblin Grenade all for 2 Life, or U.
Reinforcements, again, like Steel is HUGE. Even better here because the 6 life is more relevant against red often.
CawBlade
+2 Revoke
+2 Spell Pierce
-3 Wall of Omens
-1 Day
Not sure on my board plan for this match up, Revoke is only good againt: swords, spellskites and o-rings, maybe this warrants bringing in the 3rd?
SO yeah, that's the deck, thoughts, input, ideas, your own decklist?
EDIT: Well, I was just reading an article by Nick Spagnolo, and him and Edgar Flores agreed Squadron Hawk is the best card in the format, prompting me to think it might just strictly be better than wall of omens...
-3 Wall of Omens
-1 Jace Beleren/Mana Leak?
+4 Squadron Hawk?