I went 9-2 with U/W in the MOCS and got 16th place my only two loses where to jund going 2-2 to the deck overall I think the way to fight slaughter games is to board one Ispera, one Archon of the Triumvirate, and one Sphinx of the chimes wish I would of thought of it before the event.
Tourney Report:
Round 1: Bant Control -
Game 1 I keep a 2 lander with a keyrune, 2 Jace, and other stuff. Of course, I miss the third land drop until turn 4, and just fall way behind as I struggle with mana the whole game.
Game 2, I keep a decent hand, deal with his threats, and get multiple revelations off. Game.
Game 3, I mulligan a 1 lander into a 1 lander into plains plains jace Keening Apparition Syncopate. I draw a few islands, after missing land drops, but his skyknight races quicker. I get a keyrune down, but he just Selesnya charms his knight after blocks with plenty of counter backup. Super lame to lose the first round, a very winnable matchup, to two games decided by mana screw and mulligans.
Round 2: UW Control
Game 1, Typical affair. Except he goes for a runewing turn 4 on the play, which is met with a WHHAAAAAT? from me and a counter. We trade big controly plays for a while. After a ton of draw go, he goes for a jace, which I cancel. He cancels back, and I attempt a large syncopate. He sync's back, leaving him with 3 open mana and me with a synco and a revelation in hand. I revelate for 6, drawing some lands, another revelation, a keyrune and a skyknight, which detains the jace. He revelates on his turn. He in total plays three runewings, which are great against keyrune, but not so much against the weirds, which do work. He also spheres on Azorius Keyrune, getting two from each side of the board. He revelates again, but him being a slow player... it's still game one, I have 17 minutes and he has 6. It gets down to like, 10 cards left in both libraries. But he has a one card advantage that Id deck first. I wrath his runewing, giving me the advantage... then he inspirations me twice! So I lose game one. But he has <1 min. I'm still at like, 13 minutes. So yeah. Do I like winning because my opponent times out? No. But it happens.
Round 3 - UW Control.
And again. Play no mirrors for two weeks, now nothing but! I drop a turn 4 Skyknight to his two Islands, and he concedes after his draw. Another player likely playing in another event, as it's taking him ages to do anything. I sideboard, and he sits on my turn 1 combat step for at least 5 minute already. He eventually decides to play. He plays 2 skyknights and 3 AoS, two angels which are countered. The third lands and gets his knights back, which I traded a knight and two keyrunes for. I counter one knight, and trade a third rune for. I stick a weird, and land a jace with dispel and sync back up to his one card, 9 lands and a owl familiar. He concedes.
Round 4 - UW Control
Sigh. Took game 1 on a keyrune beatdown, with triple syncopate back-up.
Game 2 starts with a mull to 5. Always awesome. Two 1-landers, again. He misses his third land drop for a few turns, while im stuck with 3 plains and a fountain with a bunch of double blue. He gets his third land drop and goes for a keyrune, which is 'pated. I land a Jace the following turn. I draw a billion cards, and still low on land, missing drops... which sucks, but so is he. I eventually get stuff rolling, and remove his two keyrunes with a sphere. He drops a keening apparition, that I try to cancel, but he cancels my cancel. He gets his runes back. After that, I land a skyknight and weird, and commence the beatdowns. He tries a rift to buy time after I drop a jace, it's syncopated. He tried a revelation with my lethal attack inboard, and it also gets syncopated, winning the game, the match, and 3-1'ing the daily. Not bad!
I would like some advice on how you play the control mirror vs. another deck with light pressure, 4 Jace, and 4 Sphinx.
It seems like a totally different game--if you don't know what you are doing, you can think that you are way ahead in a traditional sort of way, then find out you were losing all along. You have to manage clock, library, and life. You can easily lose by either of them.
One thing I am finding is that due to the clock--you can't afford to board into a heavy counter package. If you have little pressure and are facing a similar deck, then whichever deck has more counters main tends to win the first game. And if you lose the first, there is not enough time to win the second and third with your SB counter magic package.
Is the increasing popularity of U/W Revelation-based control, and the mirror, the reason you are all starting to main deck more counters? With so much control out there, and the mirror being so insane, should we be boarding psychic spiral and playing for the deck win?
I personally find heavy main deck counters as a near-must in this environment. They completely hose so many threats, it's not even funny. Every deck has things you MUST counter, like Rakdos Return out of Jund/Rakdos, Revelation in the mirror, any number of things in Selesnya. Syncopate for 1 also slows aggro way down, nulling their two or three drop. They serve as removal, almost, which get us to the late game - where we want to be.
You are absolutely right about having to manage the clock and library. It can and will come down to that. My board plan for the straight UW mirror is typically
-4 Supreme Verdict
-3 Azorius Charm
+4 Dispel
+1 Psychic Spiral
+1 Keening Apparition
+1 Sundering Growth
At the very least. In the late game, when you know you can protect the spiral, you cast it and very nearly win on the spot. That said, I haven't had to use it yet. And I absolutely board into a heavy counter package, you want them all. I don't remember where I read it, but the control deck with more control elements typically wins. Being able to EoT Sphinx's for all your mana with dispel back-up is just crushing for the opponent. My list, preboard, has eight things to bring my opponent's life to zero. And I almost never have an issue sticking one long enough to do so, especially in the control mirror. Especially when three of those dodge sorcery speed removal, it's enough.
The way I find to win the control mirror is get them into counter wars over cards you don't really care about. If I have a bunch of mana up, and they cast a Jace, I'll throw a cancel at it, and maybe a syncopate, to force two counters out of their hand, assuming I still have more counter magic in hand. In the end, you don't really care about the Jace. Sure, it might give them a card or two more, but getting the counter magic is what will let you win the war when you go to land a threat/revelation.
And I guess I've played enough paper magic and caw-blade mirrors that this deck almost feels auto-pilot. I don't take a ton of time making decisions, and typically don't hit an issue where I don't have time for games two or three. Even in my longest round earlier today in the daily, I did take quite a bit of time (12 minutes of my clock) to eventually lose the game by being decked. But it took my opponent his whole clock to do that.
All said and done, I've been thinking about putting some Judge's Familiar in the board. A turn one flier that can peck the opponent to death, or tack an extra cost onto a spell seems pretty reasonable in the mirror. Plus, it trades with Lyev Skyknight, which is pretty sweet. Any thoughts?
I have played caw-blade mirrors as well. The reason I am finding this so weird is that I have 3 cancels main-that is all my counter magic.
So when I am facing another control deck, I suspect they have more counters--but I don't know. And so judging my role and what I am supposed to be doing is very tough. If I play the kind of game you are talking about with just 3 counters it will SEEM to go okay, and then after 30 turns you will just lose often on their last play. Since I'm aware of that, it gets very confusing to me knowing what to do each turn.
I find the post-board games a lot easier, decison-wise.
I sold my block deck, should have sold the mythics a few days ago just before the MOCs. I can't play this format for 2 more months.
As for the control plan. You try to stop anything that gives them a 2 for 1 or better. You either deck them, stick a threat and hope they brick, or get them to run out of time. Psychic spiral speeds up the decking process.
Anyone tried Search the city for the mirror? Seems crazy, but, I mean, it draws you 5 cards. If you're really going through your entire deck... you'll get them eventually.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Some facts of magic:
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
It would seem with supreme verdict, you would want to run angel of serenity, no? I'd hate to be put into a situation where you have to kill your own stuff because the situation demanded it. At least with an angel of serenity, you can get it back.
It would seem with supreme verdict, you would want to run angel of serenity, no? I'd hate to be put into a situation where you have to kill your own stuff because the situation demanded it. At least with an angel of serenity, you can get it back.
Totally. I mirror, you don't always have 3 targets for your angel. I feel like casting angel without fully benefitting from the 3 targets is a bit weak against mirror or bant because the angel will most probably get taken care of.
Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
The top list did beat the bottom list in the quarters premier event though. The top list also beat a bant creature deck that had sphinx's revelations in the finals.
This archetype seems well positioned in the meta if there are a lack of slaughter games decks. If more people are playing boros over rakdos aggro this is a good thing for UW.
If you look at the Blue based control decks that are doing well, they're not playing many gatecrash cards. Esper gets obzedat, ghost council, and bant gets urban evolution and maybe Prime Speaker Zegana if you're going a creature heavy version. Bant didn't really improve that much, but I guess esper is doing alright.
As for which is the best control deck to play, that's hard to say. They all have their pros and cons. Though this archetype won the premier event.
Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
Azorius is still awesome. it's main weakness is Obzedat but it has the advantage to run 19 basic lands and it can play the aggro/control game better than other versions that splash a 3rd color. I like that deck.
It's great, until you run into Slaughter Games or Obzedat. Which is 90% of the games that are not against mono-red.
We UW can deal with 100% problematic creature if we have Rapid Hybridization in our 75. I suggest to run RH 3-4 in your 75.
While Slaughter Games, if it become very annoying, we can play Council of the Absolute which is still, not a good answer. But CotA is the best answer available.
There really should be an instant UW spell that say : You gain hexproof until end of turn. Good flavorwise while also not broken.
==================
Is it worth enough to, let say, splash red for better removal (Warleader Helix) and PW (Ral Zarek) and the great counterflux
You played JESUS?!?! I heard none of his guys stay in the graveyard, and once you think you have him beat he ALWAYS comes back to win within three turns. I like...WORSHIP him.
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4 Hallowed Fountain
7 Plains
10 Island
2 Frostburn Weird
3 Azorius Charm
3 Azorius Keyrune
3 Lyev Skyknight
4 Jace, Architect of Thought
4 Cancel
4 Syncopate
4 Sphinx's Revelation
4 Supreme Verdict
4 Detention Sphere
1 Angel of Serenity
2 Rest in Peace
1 Keening Apparition
1 Psychic Sprial
1 Cyclonic Rift
4 Dispel
2 Sundering Growth
1 Archon of the Triumvirate
1 Frostburn Weird
1 Azorius Keyrune
Tourney Report:
Round 1: Bant Control -
Game 1 I keep a 2 lander with a keyrune, 2 Jace, and other stuff. Of course, I miss the third land drop until turn 4, and just fall way behind as I struggle with mana the whole game.
Game 2, I keep a decent hand, deal with his threats, and get multiple revelations off. Game.
Game 3, I mulligan a 1 lander into a 1 lander into plains plains jace Keening Apparition Syncopate. I draw a few islands, after missing land drops, but his skyknight races quicker. I get a keyrune down, but he just Selesnya charms his knight after blocks with plenty of counter backup. Super lame to lose the first round, a very winnable matchup, to two games decided by mana screw and mulligans.
Round 2: UW Control
Game 1, Typical affair. Except he goes for a runewing turn 4 on the play, which is met with a WHHAAAAAT? from me and a counter. We trade big controly plays for a while. After a ton of draw go, he goes for a jace, which I cancel. He cancels back, and I attempt a large syncopate. He sync's back, leaving him with 3 open mana and me with a synco and a revelation in hand. I revelate for 6, drawing some lands, another revelation, a keyrune and a skyknight, which detains the jace. He revelates on his turn. He in total plays three runewings, which are great against keyrune, but not so much against the weirds, which do work. He also spheres on Azorius Keyrune, getting two from each side of the board. He revelates again, but him being a slow player... it's still game one, I have 17 minutes and he has 6. It gets down to like, 10 cards left in both libraries. But he has a one card advantage that Id deck first. I wrath his runewing, giving me the advantage... then he inspirations me twice! So I lose game one. But he has <1 min. I'm still at like, 13 minutes. So yeah. Do I like winning because my opponent times out? No. But it happens.
Round 3 - UW Control.
And again. Play no mirrors for two weeks, now nothing but! I drop a turn 4 Skyknight to his two Islands, and he concedes after his draw. Another player likely playing in another event, as it's taking him ages to do anything. I sideboard, and he sits on my turn 1 combat step for at least 5 minute already. He eventually decides to play. He plays 2 skyknights and 3 AoS, two angels which are countered. The third lands and gets his knights back, which I traded a knight and two keyrunes for. I counter one knight, and trade a third rune for. I stick a weird, and land a jace with dispel and sync back up to his one card, 9 lands and a owl familiar. He concedes.
Round 4 - UW Control
Sigh. Took game 1 on a keyrune beatdown, with triple syncopate back-up.
Game 2 starts with a mull to 5. Always awesome. Two 1-landers, again. He misses his third land drop for a few turns, while im stuck with 3 plains and a fountain with a bunch of double blue. He gets his third land drop and goes for a keyrune, which is 'pated. I land a Jace the following turn. I draw a billion cards, and still low on land, missing drops... which sucks, but so is he. I eventually get stuff rolling, and remove his two keyrunes with a sphere. He drops a keening apparition, that I try to cancel, but he cancels my cancel. He gets his runes back. After that, I land a skyknight and weird, and commence the beatdowns. He tries a rift to buy time after I drop a jace, it's syncopated. He tried a revelation with my lethal attack inboard, and it also gets syncopated, winning the game, the match, and 3-1'ing the daily. Not bad!
It seems like a totally different game--if you don't know what you are doing, you can think that you are way ahead in a traditional sort of way, then find out you were losing all along. You have to manage clock, library, and life. You can easily lose by either of them.
One thing I am finding is that due to the clock--you can't afford to board into a heavy counter package. If you have little pressure and are facing a similar deck, then whichever deck has more counters main tends to win the first game. And if you lose the first, there is not enough time to win the second and third with your SB counter magic package.
Is the increasing popularity of U/W Revelation-based control, and the mirror, the reason you are all starting to main deck more counters? With so much control out there, and the mirror being so insane, should we be boarding psychic spiral and playing for the deck win?
You are absolutely right about having to manage the clock and library. It can and will come down to that. My board plan for the straight UW mirror is typically
-4 Supreme Verdict
-3 Azorius Charm
+4 Dispel
+1 Psychic Spiral
+1 Keening Apparition
+1 Sundering Growth
At the very least. In the late game, when you know you can protect the spiral, you cast it and very nearly win on the spot. That said, I haven't had to use it yet. And I absolutely board into a heavy counter package, you want them all. I don't remember where I read it, but the control deck with more control elements typically wins. Being able to EoT Sphinx's for all your mana with dispel back-up is just crushing for the opponent. My list, preboard, has eight things to bring my opponent's life to zero. And I almost never have an issue sticking one long enough to do so, especially in the control mirror. Especially when three of those dodge sorcery speed removal, it's enough.
The way I find to win the control mirror is get them into counter wars over cards you don't really care about. If I have a bunch of mana up, and they cast a Jace, I'll throw a cancel at it, and maybe a syncopate, to force two counters out of their hand, assuming I still have more counter magic in hand. In the end, you don't really care about the Jace. Sure, it might give them a card or two more, but getting the counter magic is what will let you win the war when you go to land a threat/revelation.
And I guess I've played enough paper magic and caw-blade mirrors that this deck almost feels auto-pilot. I don't take a ton of time making decisions, and typically don't hit an issue where I don't have time for games two or three. Even in my longest round earlier today in the daily, I did take quite a bit of time (12 minutes of my clock) to eventually lose the game by being decked. But it took my opponent his whole clock to do that.
All said and done, I've been thinking about putting some Judge's Familiar in the board. A turn one flier that can peck the opponent to death, or tack an extra cost onto a spell seems pretty reasonable in the mirror. Plus, it trades with Lyev Skyknight, which is pretty sweet. Any thoughts?
So when I am facing another control deck, I suspect they have more counters--but I don't know. And so judging my role and what I am supposed to be doing is very tough. If I play the kind of game you are talking about with just 3 counters it will SEEM to go okay, and then after 30 turns you will just lose often on their last play. Since I'm aware of that, it gets very confusing to me knowing what to do each turn.
I find the post-board games a lot easier, decison-wise.
As for the control plan. You try to stop anything that gives them a 2 for 1 or better. You either deck them, stick a threat and hope they brick, or get them to run out of time. Psychic spiral speeds up the decking process.
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
More facts of magic
Totally. I mirror, you don't always have 3 targets for your angel. I feel like casting angel without fully benefitting from the 3 targets is a bit weak against mirror or bant because the angel will most probably get taken care of.
Typhodius (4-0)
RTR Block Constructed Daily #4940472 on 01/29/2013
4 Hallowed Fountain
10 Island
8 Plains
3 Angel of Serenity
2 Keening Apparition
4 Lyev Skyknight
3 Cancel
4 Detention Sphere
4 Jace, Architect of Thought
3 Sphinx's Revelation
4 Supreme Verdict
3 Syncopate
2 Archon of the Triumvirate
1 Cancel
4 Dispel
2 Hussar Patrol
2 Precinct Captain
1 Syncopate
3 Tablet of the Guilds
4 Azorius Guildgate
4 Hallowed Fountain
10 Island
9 Plains
Creatures 10
3 Angel of Serenity
1 Keening Apparition
4 Lyev Skyknight
2 Precinct Captain
4 Azorius Charm
4 Detention Sphere
4 Jace, Architect of Thought
4 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Supreme Verdict
4 Syncopate
3 Cancel
1 Codex Shredder
3 Dispel
2 Dramatic Rescue
2 Hussar Patrol
1 Supreme Verdict
3 Tablet of the Guilds
4 Azorius Guildgate
4 Hallowed Fountain
9 Island
10 Plains
Creatures 9
3 Angel of Serenity
2 Keening Apparition
4 Lyev Skyknight
4 Azorius Charm
3 Azorius Keyrune
4 Cancel
3 Detention Sphere
4 Jace, Architect of Thought
3 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Supreme Verdict
1 Archon of the Triumvirate
1 Detention Sphere
4 Dispel
1 Hussar Patrol
2 Precinct Captain
1 Sundering Growth
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Syncopate
3 Tablet of the Guilds
I'm not sure which list is better. I like cancel over syncopate, and I like Precinct Captain over keening apparition.
The top list did beat the bottom list in the quarters premier event though. The top list also beat a bant creature deck that had sphinx's revelations in the finals.
This archetype seems well positioned in the meta if there are a lack of slaughter games decks. If more people are playing boros over rakdos aggro this is a good thing for UW.
If you look at the Blue based control decks that are doing well, they're not playing many gatecrash cards. Esper gets obzedat, ghost council, and bant gets urban evolution and maybe Prime Speaker Zegana if you're going a creature heavy version. Bant didn't really improve that much, but I guess esper is doing alright.
As for which is the best control deck to play, that's hard to say. They all have their pros and cons. Though this archetype won the premier event.
greks (4-0)
RTR Block Constructed Daily #5196469 on 03/25/2013
4 Hallowed Fountain
10 Island
9 Plains
3 Angel of Serenity
1 Keening Apparition
4 Lyev Skyknight
2 Cancel
2 Detention Sphere
2 Dispel
4 Jace, Architect of Thought
4 Sphinx's Revelation
4 Supreme Verdict
3 Syncopate
2 Cancel
1 Detention Sphere
1 Dispel
2 Dramatic Rescue
1 Keening Apparition
2 Precinct Captain
3 Rapid Hybridization
1 Syncopate
2 Tablet of the Guilds
We UW can deal with 100% problematic creature if we have Rapid Hybridization in our 75. I suggest to run RH 3-4 in your 75.
While Slaughter Games, if it become very annoying, we can play Council of the Absolute which is still, not a good answer. But CotA is the best answer available.
There really should be an instant UW spell that say : You gain hexproof until end of turn. Good flavorwise while also not broken.
==================
Is it worth enough to, let say, splash red for better removal (Warleader Helix) and PW (Ral Zarek) and the great counterflux
My 180 Modern Bordered Only Cube