Hiya! I'm a fairly new player who is interested in a Blue/White defender deck. I've built it, and am just looking for y'all's opinion on it, and/or any tips you have to make it better! Thanks!
first work on your manabase. adding non basic lands will add consistency to your deck giving you more wins. They're also good as a long term investment into the game since with the right fetches and shock lands you drastically lower the cost of building other decks. start with 4 hallowed fountains and flooded strands for this deck and then move to the others. here's a great article on how much of each color you should have. http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/frank-analysis-how-many-colored-mana-sources-do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells/ I seriously use it all the time as a reference. with your curve topping out at 4 mana you probably want around 22-23 lands
second I'm not seeing a whole lot of interaction with your opponent. no counter spells, creature removal or discard. a deck doesn't necessarily need this but it helps to be able to slow down you opponent from winning. Control magic is ok but kind of expensive as in modern you want removal to cost 1-2 mana instead of 4. for the same cost you could wrath of god your enemy killing several of there creatures, yours included, so I don't recommend adding it to this deck, but you can build a deck around that if need be.
Thirdly I think this deck is lacking in win conditions. I can easily see you sitting across the table from another player and having several walls out but not having the ability to do much to win the game. for instance I could see the situation like the following happening quite a bit. say you're playing this deck against a budget affinity deck.
You have a perimeter captain, wakestone gargoyle and a wall of denial out. the opponent casts dispatch on the gargoyle and then attacks with an inkmoth nexus with a cranial plating attached to it. The wall of denial can probably block it but it wont last more then 2 turns and then you will end of taking infect damage. all the while you are waiting to draw a card to do something relevant to the opponent in return while they attack you with there win condition.
[card]
door keeper[/card] was too slow in standard to win you games and your not set up to lock a game down long enough to mill an opponent to death. ludevic's test subject is very slow and you don't have any way to produce sick amounts of mana to turn it into a 13/13 before the opponent kills it.
wake stone gargoyle can enable your walls in attacking but only wakestone gargoyle itself and plumveil can deal any damage when they attack.
seriously consider adding green as a color and adding the card assault formation. it will up the cost of the deck by increasing the cost of the mana base but assault formation is sweet. the walls in green can also ramp your mana up very quickly to make things like ludivic's test subject more useful.
I'd make room for wall of omens and path to exile. Path to exile is arguably the best removal in modern and at the very least top 3. wall of omens fits your them is one of the better walls in modern and replaces itself after it is cast buy letting you draw another card after casting it.
Thank you all so much for the tips and Modern legal advice! I'm going to revise my deck tonight with your tips and post it here! I think my main thing is that I'm new so I don't know all the cards But I think a defender based blue/white control deck is what I'm going for! Thanks again!
So true control decks aren't very popular in modern. the reason for this is that there are plenty of things that prevent game plan of a control deck from working. lets go into what a control deck wants to do. For the first several turns a control deck wants to limit what the other player can do by 1 for 1ing. player casts a creature you respond with creature removal to kill the creature before it can attack. player casts a spell you counter that spell. This strategy is inherently inefficient as the opponent is likely to cast something for which you have no response. counter spells and removal in modern either only work on certain types of things or are prohibitively expensive. abrupt decay for instance can remove many different types of permanents but only if they have a CMC of 3 or less. oblivion ring gives the opponent 3 turns to cast stuff and while it can remove almost anything is itself vulnerable to removal.
The Control player then around turn 4 will use something that does more then 1 for 1 like using a board wipe like supreme verdict granting the control player an advantage in cards. This is termed "stabilizing" for the control player. This generally means the control player has more cards in hand as answers the opponents cards allowing them to control the game until they draw into a wincon and kill the opponent.
The problem with this strategy in a competitive modern environment is there are quite a few decks that you simply cant interact with in a meaningful way. decks like Gr tron dont care if you have counter spells or removal in hand when they use eye of ugin (lands can't be contered) to find emrakul the aeons torn which is immune from counter spells and like 99% of removal. Another example is GW boggles which uses a hexproof creatures that can't be targeted by spot removal. board wipes can work if they don't have an enchantment with totem armor on and you can counter spell them before they are put into play but it only takes one creature and the deck is designed to make them very large.
Now this is not to say that some control elements aren't useful. there are some decks that if you can't interact with them in a meaningful way they just win. If you don't have any instant speed creature removal and splinter twin has the combo they need in hand then they simply win with infinite pestermites. there are other answers to splinter twin but you get the idea. Countering a siege rhino before it hits the board using mana leak is well worth the card spent to disrupt your opponents plans.
So lets look at what a wall decks advantages are and how we can leverage that to win a game. walls are generally pretty cheap and while they lack offense usually the focus on the toughness means for the price you pay you get quite a bit. way back in the day you used to judge creatures efficiency by comparing the cmc with the abilities and power and toughness the creature had. Back then 1 mana per ability like flying or 2 points of power and/or toughness. Now the expectations are a little higher then this with things like 3/4 or more tarmogoyf.
plumveil can double as removal by flashing in to kill something right after the player declares attackers against you. wall of denial will be a !@#$ to remove and take a hit like a champ. perimeter captain will help recover any life lost by creatures that get through. wall of omens will block little guys quite well and replaces itself when you cast it with a new card in hand. down sides to this strategy are that only the plumeveil can kill creatures it blocks allowing an aggro deck to potentially put into play more creatures then you and get through your defenders. This also means that if you use a spell like wrath of god you lose your creatures as well meaning little to no net advantage from using a board wipe. there are a few blue spells that bounce all attackers back to the opponents hand. there kind of expensive and while this buys you some time to win eventually the other player will simply recast the creatures and y are back where you started.
So the other cards in the deck will have to help you over come these weakness. wind reaver seems like a decent wincon if they try to remove the creature you simple need blue mana available to bounce it back into your hand to recast next turn flying is helpful as well as a source of evasion getting the damage through. very reminiscent of aetherling in esper control during return to ravinica standard. wind reaver is probably coming down turn 6 so you have some mana to bounce him back and keep him safe from removal. then assuming you attack each turn your looking at winning probably 4 turns later. Now competitively in modern games that go this long are very rare. this means you need to be able to stall the game for what amounts to an eternity in modern.
steel of the godhead is a decent card but really only works with wind reaver. as far as two card combos go its rather underwhelming. If you bounce wind reaver back to your hand you lose SotG. Pestermite and splintertwin makes infinite creatures with haste. magus of the disk and ghostway kills all of your opponents creatures and leave all of yours alive, plus f they have come into play effects they get triggered again.
Here's some suggestions. this is a link to the best wall deck I have seen. it could use some work but would be a great place to start. plus like no one is playing this deck.
The best blue white control deck I've seen is blue white tron. it has a great wincon in the gifts ungiven + unburial rites package and if that doesn't work tron allows it to ramp up to play the big fatties on its own.
I would argue that neither of the decks are well tuned enough that you couldn't make quite a few changes to them thereby improving them and putting your own stamp on them. I don't think a WU defender deck has the tools to be competitive.
I can't say how much I appreciate you helping! All this is awesome advice, and I can't wait to get this deck completed so I can share with with you and test it out! I'll report back soon with improvements! Deathwishjoe, rock on.
I can see where you would enjoy the whole wall deck thing, however, I unfortunately have to agree that white blue walls does pack little to no punch. I would, however, caution that there is a bit of tech you could use out of the travis woo article (for once he said something useful). That bit of tech is worship. I recommend this for the simple reason that it combines especially well with wall of denial. It, in and of itself, is immune to abrupt decay and inquisition of kozilek, while your wall is immune to spot removal, period. They might make you discard it, but well, that happens, and if you're in blue/white, you should seriously have other means of card advantage. If you're going to run plumeveil as a source of 'spot removal" then also consider 2 wall of reverence. 4 wall of denial, 4 plumeveil, 2 wall of reverence, and 3 worship should certainly constitute a "defender" plan.
However, I will freely admit that these walls are all high cmc. This means you would want blue/white's traditional counters (mana leak, remand, etc. ), spot removal (path to exile, though a strong argument could be made for plumeveil) ,card selection (serum visions, anticipate) and an actual win condition (take your pick). The blue/white control aspect I would argue that you should pay attention to the blue/white gifts control version for how it would play out, or tron.
However, if you really want to use a "defender" approach to winning, say, milling them out, then I have to say that doorkeeper is just bad, even though he only costs 2 to play. I would caution that a small black splash for 1 or 2 phenax, god of deception makes your walls big butts have another use, and you have an otherwise indestructible enchantment that they might as well forget about getting rid of.
All of this said, in the hands of a new player, this would be an incredibly tough deck to play, defense based. I think paying attention to deathwishjoe's post is definitely a better starting point, though you may have given me a downright evil idea for my own meta. Have fun playing!
Well I'm glad I inspired you! Haha! Yeah, I am definitely working with this deck, adding more card control and spot removal. My main issue at this time is idk if i can afford 4 PtE's and 4 Serum Visions esc. I liked Wall of Reverence and am definitely considering it, i just need to make room for my other cards and spells. Thanks!!
Most argue it isn't as good, but you could run sleight of hand instead of serum visions. Path to exile is harder to replace for what it does, but you might get away with journey to nowhere, pacifism, or maybe even temporal isolation as budget replacements until you get your paths. The downside to all of them is primarily abrupt decay.
I've never been a fan of Wakestone Gargoyle because even though it lets you Defenders attack, the majority of creatures in your deck still have 0 Power.
I believe this give me much more control with counters and exiles, as well as win-conditions in extort, powerful enchantments and HHO. Again, advice is greatly appreciated
10 Island
10 Plains
4 Plumeveil
4 Doorkeeper
4 Wakestone Gargoyle
4 Wall of Denial
4 Shield of the Righteous
4 Indestructibility
4 Control Magic
4 Ludevic's Test Subject
4 Tezzeret's Gambit
4 Perimeter Captain
second I'm not seeing a whole lot of interaction with your opponent. no counter spells, creature removal or discard. a deck doesn't necessarily need this but it helps to be able to slow down you opponent from winning. Control magic is ok but kind of expensive as in modern you want removal to cost 1-2 mana instead of 4. for the same cost you could wrath of god your enemy killing several of there creatures, yours included, so I don't recommend adding it to this deck, but you can build a deck around that if need be.
Thirdly I think this deck is lacking in win conditions. I can easily see you sitting across the table from another player and having several walls out but not having the ability to do much to win the game. for instance I could see the situation like the following happening quite a bit. say you're playing this deck against a budget affinity deck.
You have a perimeter captain, wakestone gargoyle and a wall of denial out. the opponent casts dispatch on the gargoyle and then attacks with an inkmoth nexus with a cranial plating attached to it. The wall of denial can probably block it but it wont last more then 2 turns and then you will end of taking infect damage. all the while you are waiting to draw a card to do something relevant to the opponent in return while they attack you with there win condition.
[card]
door keeper[/card] was too slow in standard to win you games and your not set up to lock a game down long enough to mill an opponent to death.
ludevic's test subject is very slow and you don't have any way to produce sick amounts of mana to turn it into a 13/13 before the opponent kills it.
wake stone gargoyle can enable your walls in attacking but only wakestone gargoyle itself and plumveil can deal any damage when they attack.
seriously consider adding green as a color and adding the card assault formation. it will up the cost of the deck by increasing the cost of the mana base but assault formation is sweet. the walls in green can also ramp your mana up very quickly to make things like ludivic's test subject more useful.
I'd make room for wall of omens and path to exile. Path to exile is arguably the best removal in modern and at the very least top 3. wall of omens fits your them is one of the better walls in modern and replaces itself after it is cast buy letting you draw another card after casting it.
I don't see Tezzeret's Gambit doing much in this deck
I agree with much of what was said by the person above
Also you could try a blue/white control deck
key cards
others
-mr_pyjak
The Control player then around turn 4 will use something that does more then 1 for 1 like using a board wipe like supreme verdict granting the control player an advantage in cards. This is termed "stabilizing" for the control player. This generally means the control player has more cards in hand as answers the opponents cards allowing them to control the game until they draw into a wincon and kill the opponent.
The problem with this strategy in a competitive modern environment is there are quite a few decks that you simply cant interact with in a meaningful way. decks like Gr tron dont care if you have counter spells or removal in hand when they use eye of ugin (lands can't be contered) to find emrakul the aeons torn which is immune from counter spells and like 99% of removal. Another example is GW boggles which uses a hexproof creatures that can't be targeted by spot removal. board wipes can work if they don't have an enchantment with totem armor on and you can counter spell them before they are put into play but it only takes one creature and the deck is designed to make them very large.
Now this is not to say that some control elements aren't useful. there are some decks that if you can't interact with them in a meaningful way they just win. If you don't have any instant speed creature removal and splinter twin has the combo they need in hand then they simply win with infinite pestermites. there are other answers to splinter twin but you get the idea. Countering a siege rhino before it hits the board using mana leak is well worth the card spent to disrupt your opponents plans.
So lets look at what a wall decks advantages are and how we can leverage that to win a game. walls are generally pretty cheap and while they lack offense usually the focus on the toughness means for the price you pay you get quite a bit. way back in the day you used to judge creatures efficiency by comparing the cmc with the abilities and power and toughness the creature had. Back then 1 mana per ability like flying or 2 points of power and/or toughness. Now the expectations are a little higher then this with things like 3/4 or more tarmogoyf.
cards in your original list that meet this expectation or better are the following.
Plumeveil
Wall of Denial
Perimeter Captain
and lets throw in wall of omens since the card draw ability is great.
plumveil can double as removal by flashing in to kill something right after the player declares attackers against you. wall of denial will be a !@#$ to remove and take a hit like a champ. perimeter captain will help recover any life lost by creatures that get through. wall of omens will block little guys quite well and replaces itself when you cast it with a new card in hand. down sides to this strategy are that only the plumeveil can kill creatures it blocks allowing an aggro deck to potentially put into play more creatures then you and get through your defenders. This also means that if you use a spell like wrath of god you lose your creatures as well meaning little to no net advantage from using a board wipe. there are a few blue spells that bounce all attackers back to the opponents hand. there kind of expensive and while this buys you some time to win eventually the other player will simply recast the creatures and y are back where you started.
So the other cards in the deck will have to help you over come these weakness. wind reaver seems like a decent wincon if they try to remove the creature you simple need blue mana available to bounce it back into your hand to recast next turn flying is helpful as well as a source of evasion getting the damage through. very reminiscent of aetherling in esper control during return to ravinica standard. wind reaver is probably coming down turn 6 so you have some mana to bounce him back and keep him safe from removal. then assuming you attack each turn your looking at winning probably 4 turns later. Now competitively in modern games that go this long are very rare. this means you need to be able to stall the game for what amounts to an eternity in modern.
steel of the godhead is a decent card but really only works with wind reaver. as far as two card combos go its rather underwhelming. If you bounce wind reaver back to your hand you lose SotG. Pestermite and splintertwin makes infinite creatures with haste. magus of the disk and ghostway kills all of your opponents creatures and leave all of yours alive, plus f they have come into play effects they get triggered again.
Here's some suggestions. this is a link to the best wall deck I have seen. it could use some work but would be a great place to start. plus like no one is playing this deck.
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/wall-assault/
The best blue white control deck I've seen is blue white tron. it has a great wincon in the gifts ungiven + unburial rites package and if that doesn't work tron allows it to ramp up to play the big fatties on its own.
http://www.channelfireball.com/tag/uw-tron/
I would argue that neither of the decks are well tuned enough that you couldn't make quite a few changes to them thereby improving them and putting your own stamp on them. I don't think a WU defender deck has the tools to be competitive.
And any thoughts on Refocus and/or Godsend?
However, I will freely admit that these walls are all high cmc. This means you would want blue/white's traditional counters (mana leak, remand, etc. ), spot removal (path to exile, though a strong argument could be made for plumeveil) ,card selection (serum visions, anticipate) and an actual win condition (take your pick). The blue/white control aspect I would argue that you should pay attention to the blue/white gifts control version for how it would play out, or tron.
However, if you really want to use a "defender" approach to winning, say, milling them out, then I have to say that doorkeeper is just bad, even though he only costs 2 to play. I would caution that a small black splash for 1 or 2 phenax, god of deception makes your walls big butts have another use, and you have an otherwise indestructible enchantment that they might as well forget about getting rid of.
All of this said, in the hands of a new player, this would be an incredibly tough deck to play, defense based. I think paying attention to deathwishjoe's post is definitely a better starting point, though you may have given me a downright evil idea for my own meta. Have fun playing!
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/10-03-15-another-brick-in-the-wall/
I've never been a fan of Wakestone Gargoyle because even though it lets you Defenders attack, the majority of creatures in your deck still have 0 Power.
PucaTrade Invite. Sign up and enjoy the first 500 points ($5) free!
10 Plains
8 Island
3 Plumeveil
3 Wall of Denial
3 Perimeter Captain
4 Glacial Fortress
3 Wall of Omens
3 Anticipate
4 Wall of Reverence
2 Godsend
3 Dissolve
3 Blind Obedience
4 Mana Leak
3 Suspension Field
2 Hundred-Handed One
2 Holy Mantle
I believe this give me much more control with counters and exiles, as well as win-conditions in extort, powerful enchantments and HHO. Again, advice is greatly appreciated