Preliminary list without too much testing. I could see going -1 Opt +1 Architect, -1 Dissolve +1 Think Twice, -1 Victim of Night +1 Dismember (for DS decks - Angler can be an issue), and try and fit a Kalitas somewhere in the SB.
The deck is a bit GY-centric which is an issue, but Scour the Lab. is just by far the best CA draw spell in the colors. The idea is similar to Esper Draw-Go with Azcanta as your engine. Being able to have better mana and some utility in the mana is a huge bonus. Azcanta also works well with Scour the Laboratory.
Hostage Taker is in the board for creature-centric matches and artifacts. It's in theory quite good against E-Tron, Lantern, CoCo decks, Affinity, etc. It might turn out to be a dud, in which Kalitas is the better card. UB historically has done poorly interacting with artifacts, so I wanted 2 in the 75 (EE + Hostage Taker), but I could be mistaken.
Deck mostly beats up on Combo decks and creature-centric decks.
So I was thinking that it might be possible to go heavier on enchantments rather than architects of will, the fact that architects works great with Scour is nice and all, but I think the card is pretty poor otherwise. My thought was perhaps going heavier on Azcanta and adding Spreading Seas. Spreading Seas obviously protects Azcanta very well, and works well in conjunction with LD lands. The LD lands could in some corner cases be used to blow up lands that have Spreading seas already on them to put an enchantment in the graveyard if need be to help with Scour. In any case, Spreading Seas and LD lands have a proven track record, so I don't think you could go too wrong to try to use them!
My other thought was running Serum Vision over Opt mostly because of it being a Sorcery to help with the card type count. I also briefly considered Chart A Course because it could discard excess Azcantas, or Spreading Seas and being a Sorcery again helps with the card type count. For the same reason, I also like the addition of Liliana of the veil. It's a fine card on it's own, extra walkers help with type count, being able to discard an enchantment from hand seems good.
I think the biggest difference between our lists, besides Spreading Seas over Architects of Will, is Leak over Logic Knot. I don't want to get bogged down on arguing over that choice difference, because I think ultimately it's a preference thing there; I will cede that Logic Knot looks better in a list like this due to Search, and Liliana Veil if you take that route, over other control decks. Not sure if that makes up for further relying on the GY but for the sake of moving on to productive conversation about the rest of the deck, Lets just call those slots 2cmc counters and discuss elswhere.
The 2 Chart a Course a just placeholders for now, I'm not sold on them.
I have no experience playing with Scour, so how do you think my list differs fundamentally from yours? What do you like, what do you hate?
So I was thinking that it might be possible to go heavier on enchantments rather than architects of will, the fact that architects works great with Scour is nice and all, but I think the card is pretty poor otherwise. My thought was perhaps going heavier on Azcanta and adding Spreading Seas. Spreading Seas obviously protects Azcanta very well, and works well in conjunction with LD lands. The LD lands could in some corner cases be used to blow up lands that have Spreading seas already on them to put an enchantment in the graveyard if need be to help with Scour. In any case, Spreading Seas and LD lands have a proven track record, so I don't think you could go too wrong to try to use them!
My other thought was running Serum Vision over Opt mostly because of it being a Sorcery to help with the card type count. I also briefly considered Chart A Course because it could discard excess Azcantas, or Spreading Seas and being a Sorcery again helps with the card type count. For the same reason, I also like the addition of Liliana of the veil. It's a fine card on it's own, extra walkers help with type count, being able to discard an enchantment from hand seems good.
I think the biggest difference between our lists, besides Spreading Seas over Architects of Will, is Leak over Logic Knot. I don't want to get bogged down on arguing over that choice difference, because I think ultimately it's a preference thing there; I will cede that Logic Knot looks better in a list like this due to Search, and Liliana Veil if you take that route, over other control decks. Not sure if that makes up for further relying on the GY but for the sake of moving on to productive conversation about the rest of the deck, Lets just call those slots 2cmc counters and discuss elswhere.
The 2 Chart a Course a just placeholders for now, I'm not sold on them.
I have no experience playing with Scour, so how do you think my list differs fundamentally from yours? What do you like, what do you hate?
I think your list is trying to do 2 things that play awkwardly together - you're playing 6 counters, but then also a ton of sorcery speed cards. Many times you're going to end up wasting mana because you have to hold up interaction and can't play your sorcery speed cards. UW can do this because they're mostly tap-out deck. UB plays much better with a Draw-Go shell than UW because UB has better removal which allows you to do this. In UW you're heavily reliant on Supreme Verdict and Path plays poorly with counters as well. I don't think the deck needs to imitate UW to do well.
As for Architects vs. the enchantments. Architects is a very flexible card. It is the best enabler for Scour, and since it cycles it has minimal downside (and plays better with your instant-interaction). When you get your opponent close to hell-bent/hell-bent which is the goal of any Azcanta deck as you want to 1:1 them with the Impulse effect, playing an Architects essentially seals the game buying you on average 1.5-2 turns. It also gives relevant information and can index yourself which is underrated imho. I've had others play with a Scour/Will list before and they've always been impressed by the card. It's innocuous, but what it does is very important for the deck imho.
The LoTV is interesting. I've never played with her in a control-shell, but I can see how she synergizes with some of what the deck is doing, plus she is just powerful on her own. I could go either way here. I'm also not sold on Chart a Course. If you're going to play a card like that, that poor mans Accumulated Knowledge (Take Inventory) plays MUCH better in the deck and with Azcanta. With Chart, you're almost never going to just draw 2. Granted, Take Inventory wants you to play with 4, but you could also replace with something like Think Twice that also has some synergy with LoTV and Azcanta instead.
Serum Visions in your list is just much better than Opt because your list is mostly tap-out. Opt plays better when you're holding up Snaps, Counter, card draw, impulse land, etc. I'm not saying that draw-go in a vacuum is better than tap-out, it's just that I think that the card pool for UB is more suited to draw-go than tap-out imho. White has powerful cards like D. Sphere, Gideons, and Wall of Omens that UB doesn't. LoTV really wants you to have a board advantage since that is when she is at her best.
I would be interested to hear how your list plays out, but I think you vastly underestimate how good Architects is.
I guess it depends if we're trying to build the best Azcanta deck or the best Scour the lab deck. Architects is probably great if your focus is making Scour great, but I think the single best card at protecting Azcanta is probably spreading seas. I also think Azcanta and spreading seas don't need any help to be great cards. Architect is terrible on it's own, and scour is pretty bad unless you reliably can cast it 4. If we shift the focus off scour, by say dropping down to 2, then architects becomes very hard to justify and we're more likely to have delirium enabled during the times we draw scour.
Ended up going -1 Opt +1 Architects and -1 Dissolve for +1 Think Twice. Our Modern Monday's are 40 min rounds. I ended up going 1-0-2 lol.
2-0 Boros Burn
1-1 Bant Knightfall splash for Kessig
1-1-1 E. Tron
I didn't have Hostage Taker yet, but it would have been very good against Knightfall and E. Tron. I also didn't have the Field of Ruin (LGS sold out and my JP ones not here yet), so I played an Island instead. It kind of hurt against E. Tron. In the limited amount of games Azcanta wasn't terrible, but it did whiff once with 3 lands + Snap, but I think the deck wants 1 more removal spell. I know Osman Ozguney has been playing a 1-of Ob Nixilis online and he's been doing well and UW tends to play 1 Gideon Jura. I'm thinking of going -1 TT +1 Ob Nix as it is a draw engine and removal spell. There are certainly MU's it's really bad like Combo + Burn, but that's also mostly true for Jura as well, but it is still good.
The Downfall wasn't the worst, but I think you want cheaper removal that you can grab off Azcanta so a 1 of Dismember is probably better. I also think -1 Flooded Strand +1 Drowned Catacombs is better too (81% in opening 7 to be untapped and 90% by the 9th card). I want another UB dual, but don't want it to be tapped (so no Tar pit / Fetid Pools) and those %'s are good enough imho. The other option is River of Tears, and honestly, that might be better. Ok, I sorta convinced myself just now on the River of Tears. I'll give that a try. Tears is better in SB games with Brutality / Thoughtseizes.
The 1-of Spellbomb actually wasn't bad, providing revolt/delirium and shutting down Knight. It's pretty low-cost to play. Need more games to get in, but that's the preliminary outlook. Scour was good. Need to play more with Azcanta to get a better picture.
Any reason you prefer Scour (which requires setup and running some bad filler cards) over Ancestral Vision ?
Sure it is slow (Scour isn't fast either) and isn't an instant but it is much cheaper to play.
Any reason you prefer Scour (which requires setup and running some bad filler cards) over Ancestral Vision ?
Sure it is slow (Scour isn't fast either) and isn't an instant but it is much cheaper to play.
Scour is more consistent than AV, and works much better in conjunction with Snapcaster and Gearhulk. Incidentally, the Architects perform quite a few duties in the deck - cycling for 1 mana is always low cost; it helps fill GY for Knot if needed, for Azcanta, and later in the game, acts as disruption+win-con or pseudo-selection with yourself (ala something like Halimar Depths) if you need to find something. On the surface, it looks bad, but it is one of the better cards imho.
As for the removal - GftT is quite good, but if you look at the top 50 creatures that are played Victim only misses Gurmag Angler and Tidehollow Sculler. It's pretty much Terminate, though missing Angler can be somewhat of a problem against DS. That's a little less of a problem with less DS around, but it's still something to consider. The deck probably wants a Dismember as well. As for Murderous Cut, you simply can't play it - you're all ready playing 3 Logic Knots, Azcanta that wants your GY filled, Scour that wants delirium, and 3 Snaps + 1 Gearhulk.
For the 3 mana counter, I think the selection of Dissolve is better than the niche scenarios for Disallow (I tend to value consistency a bit more than most), but I ended up cutting it since I wanted a 4th "CA" spell. I ended up going -1 Dissolve +1 TT, but next week I'm going to try -1 TT +1 Ob Nix. It's been working for Ozguney on MTGO, so I'll see it how it goes.
For me at least, the appeal of Azcanta is that control decks no longer need cards like Ancestral Vision and Sphinx's Rev, both of which are unplayable (competitively) in modern in my estimation. I think UW control has been doing well despite running 1-of Rev, not because of it, and Ancestral Vision has no competitive home.
The more I think about Scour the Lab, the more I think the juice isn't worth the squeeze. We are working way too hard to get a 1 mana discount on Jace's Ingenuity. There's just no way I'm ever sleeving up Architects of Will.
On the other hand, after reading Sam Blacks article on what he calls his "Search for Azcanta deck featuring UB control cards" (paraphrasing), i'm starting to think that I have been undervaluing the ramp aspect of Azcanta. Sam basically said they switched out Glimmer of Genius for Heiroglyphic Illumination simply so they would have more cyclers to flip Azcanta earlier. We can do something similar in modern by including Thought Scour, which plays well with UB control strategies generally in any case. My only concern is that by moving off of Scour the Lab, Spreading Seas becomes less potent because it isn't pulling double duty as both Delirium and Azcanta protection. Without Seas, Azcanta becomes more vulnerable and we are in the same predicament again where we need a certain critical number of win conditions, and card advantage sources. UW control can get away with only relying on Colonnade and Snap because they also have access to planeswalkers that can attack. We might have to rely on Torrential Gearhulks and Tasigurs, which puts us on all of our win conditions and card advantage as relying on the graveyard, which is not a great place to be, and I'm not too sure that is something that we can overcome since we don't have access to Enchantment/Artifact hate in UB. We may have to splash into Sultai for Abrupt Decay. What do you think?
For me at least, the appeal of Azcanta is that control decks no longer need cards like Ancestral Vision and Sphinx's Rev, both of which are unplayable (competitively) in modern in my estimation. I think UW control has been doing well despite running 1-of Rev, not because of it, and Ancestral Vision has no competitive home.
The more I think about Scour the Lab, the more I think the juice isn't worth the squeeze. We are working way too hard to get a 1 mana discount on Jace's Ingenuity. There's just no way I'm ever sleeving up Architects of Will.
On the other hand, after reading Sam Blacks article on what he calls his "Search for Azcanta deck featuring UB control cards" (paraphrasing), i'm starting to think that I have been undervaluing the ramp aspect of Azcanta. Sam basically said they switched out Glimmer of Genius for Heiroglyphic Illumination simply so they would have more cyclers to flip Azcanta earlier. We can do something similar in modern by including Thought Scour, which plays well with UB control strategies generally in any case. My only concern is that by moving off of Scour the Lab, Spreading Seas becomes less potent because it isn't pulling double duty as both Delirium and Azcanta protection. Without Seas, Azcanta becomes more vulnerable and we are in the same predicament again where we need a certain critical number of win conditions, and card advantage sources. UW control can get away with only relying on Colonnade and Snap because they also have access to planeswalkers that can attack. We might have to rely on Torrential Gearhulks and Tasigurs, which puts us on all of our win conditions and card advantage as relying on the graveyard, which is not a great place to be, and I'm not too sure that is something that we can overcome since we don't have access to Enchantment/Artifact hate in UB. We may have to splash into Sultai for Abrupt Decay. What do you think?
I think you're under-estimating 1 mana, especially the difference between 5 and 4 is much greater than 1 to 2 or 3 to 4, etc. If Jace's Ingenuity cost 4 mana it would be seeing a lot of play.
As for Will - I mean, you even mention Sam running a bunch of cyclers to turbo-ramp out Azcanta. Then you say you'd never play Architects because it's terrible, yet it does exactly what the deck wants imho. You can't rely solely on Azcanta as your CA-suite; it is slow, vulnerable to LD/GY hate and vulnerable to Abrupt Decay/Pulse, etc. It's a tool to be used in addition to your other sources of CA - a way to fight on another axis. The reason Thought Scour is played is because it fuels delve cards, which are nearly a non-bo (outside of Logic Knot because of its flexibility and necessity) with early Azcanta flips. Also, how is Seas protecting Azcanta? You're throwing away a card and a land (if in the case of Tec edge) to protect it, but you need to sink a couple turns into the card just to get to card parity at that point. Imho, Azcanta isn't meant to be the aim of the deck - it's meant as an important adjunct to what the deck all ready wants to do. I think you're focusing a little too much on having your 75 built around Azcanta instead of building a 75 that works well together.
I agree being so GY-centric is a hindrance not a benefit G2/G3, but we don't have FoF/etc. available to us. As for Enchantment hate, you can play EE and Hostage Taker also hits artifacts. Blacks suite of planeswalkers can also win the game (Lili, LH / Ob Nix ults), but also do things the deck all ready wants, where Gideon's are more one-dimensional, so it isn't like there aren't pro's and cons to each. By the way, once again you under-estimate the flexibility of Architects being an enabler/card draw, disruption, and win-con depending on the state of the game. It's not uncommon later in the game to lock my opp. for 2 turns and win with the 3/3. I think you should give it a try before totally dismissing its merits, but that's up to you in the end.
If you don't want to be so GY-centric I could see going -1 Scour, -1 Architects, +1 Opt, +1 Glimmer of Genius to hedge a bit. It's probably not the worst idea in the world.
I think you're under-estimating 1 mana, especially the difference between 5 and 4 is much greater than 1 to 2 or 3 to 4, etc. If Jace's Ingenuity cost 4 mana it would be seeing a lot of play.
I have no doubt Ingenuity would see play if it were 4 mana, and I realize the difference between 4 and 5 is massive, I just don't think warping the deck around a card that is only marginally better than Jace's Ingenuity or Glimmer of Genius some of the time (and considerably worse at other times) is a good idea.
You say I want to build a deck that works around Azcanta, and that is true, because I think the card is powerful enough to warrant that. I would argue you are trying to do the same thing but with Scour the Laboratory, which imo is not powerful enough to warrant building a deck around. AS far as Architects of Will, they aren't close to playable without Scour. Comparing Illumination to Will as an Azcanta enabler isn't ideal. Illumination can be flashbacked to turn gearhulk or snapcaster into a 3 for 1, or can be cast later in the game as a +2. Ill take a 4 mana instant speed divination over Hill Giant 100% of the time.
The reason Thought Scour is played is because it fuels delve cards, which are nearly a non-bo (outside of Logic Knot because of its flexibility and necessity) with early Azcanta flips.
This is one of the reason I initially pointed out that we should be on Mana Leak rather than Logic Knot. It doesn't work well with Azcanta or with Delirium, or Snapcaster, or Gearhulk.
how is Seas protecting Azcanta? You're throwing away a card and a land (if in the case of Tec edge) to protect it, but you need to sink a couple turns into the card just to get to card parity at that point.
Spreading Seas protects Azcanta by attacking opposing LD lands, but I don't think Seas is necessary if we aren't playing Scour. I originally intended them to act as additional fuel for Delirium, the fact that they also cantrip, screw with your opponents card quality and protect Azcanta was just a bonus. My point was exactly what yours is - we can't rely solely on Azcanta but with the caveat that Scour is not good enough. We need to look harder. I like your idea of adding some planeswalkers. If we did that, we could possibly play 1-2 Gifts Ungiven to help with card advantage. I've been play Gifts as a 1-of in UW Control and it has been outstanding as a value card. Any combination of Walker, Snap, Cryptic, Azcanta is good. In UW you have 2 different gideons and a jace, in UB we could have 2 different lillys and jace, or Ob Nixilis etc. The other direction we could take is a small Thopter/Sword package, which again lets the Gifts be very good.
I do like your suggestion of Engineered Explosives! I think Abrupt Decay is more versatile, but EE saves us from having to dip into a 3rd color. Perhaps a Trinket Mage package out of the sideboard? If you decide to stay on Scour the Lab, a Trinket Mage package would do you well I think.
The list is 2 cards short and some of the specifics like which planeswalkers and which 1 mana cantrip (or heiroglyphic illumination) are not as important as the overall picture of the deck. One of things that will be missed is the lack of Damnation variants for gift piles compared to white (in UW I main deck 2 verdict 1 Wrath), might be worth it to run a 1-of Bontu's Last Reckoning.
Well, you say it's marginally better than Ingenuity, but agree that the leap from 4 to 5 mana is pretty significant. There are a decent number of 4 cost spells that see play in Modern, but far fewer 5CMC cards see play (plus it plays well with Cryptic in the sense that you put your opponent in a bad spot holding up 4 mana). Also, I'm only warping it by playing 3-4 copies of a card that at worst cycles for U or B (the Spellbomb is in the main because I needed a SB slot for Hostage Taker), so it has a far lower opportunity cost than the cards you're including to build around Azcanta.
As for Spreading Seas...yes I know what it does - I'm talking about the cost. Targeting OP LD costs you the card (98% of the time the land is going to be untapped and will tag a land of yours), and it is much much worse if it is Tec Edge you have to target. That's 1-2 cards you're down, which costs you 8 mana to recoup and 2 turns. That's just not a winning play. If you want to play SS for other reasons, then, that can be argued, but the use of it to pre-emptively make opp. use their LD is -CA. I also agree that you wouldn't play Architects without a pay off (see: LE or Scour the Lab), but I'm not just throwing Will into a random deck so I'm not sure how that argument holds. You're not going to play Thought Scour in non-GY centric decks, but that doesn't make Thought Scour a bad card. It makes it niche. I have enjoyed the card as being very flexible and important in the deck. We'll probably agree to disagree on this forever, until you play the deck (for better or worse).
I also do not like Mana Leak at all even in non-path decks. We're aiming to prolong the game. I'm willing to take the minor hit on Azcanta to have 3 very good counters that are relevant early and late. Plus you don't always have to delve with Logic Knot, and many times early it's essentially censor. It doesn't really strain your GY a lot til later in the game.
I'm hoping that Ob Nix will work out. I think I can afford 1 5 mana play and he seems to be quite flexible, and the deck is already pretty good against Combo decks so I think I can afford this to boost my other MU's. Gifts is interesting, and could be quite good. Next time I play I'll make a note if one or the other instant speed 4 mana CA spells would have been better. I tried Thopter/Sword when it was unbanned. It's not good. I don't see that changing here. It's possible Trinket Mage is good, but then the only targets are EE or Spellbomb. It's just too low impact imho. The space in the SB is pretty taxed as is.
As for the list...it only has 4 removal spells (well 5 if you count the edict from LoTV). I don't see how this can be successful in Modern. I think if I were you, I'd stick to one list and play some games and tweak from there instead of relying on thought experiments. I know you're in a lot of other threads and playing many other control decks so maybe time is limited for you, but I think that's where I'd start if you wanted to improve the list. Lmk how it goes.
Not sure how I left Fatal Push out, that should be a 4-of. So the 2 empty slots and -1 cryptic -1 land maybe.
Aside from the sword combo, I think all the cards in the list are powerful enough on their own merit, and as you can see there are spreading seas in the list. So there isn't any concessions being made to Azcanta. I don't count leak over knot, I think leak is the superior card. The list o provided makes more concessions to gifts ungiven than it does to Azcanta, including the 1 logic knot. I came across gifts piles a couple times on 8 Mana where I wanted Cryptic, snap, negate, x which would allow me to counter a spell on the stack. The logic knot is a concession to that end.
Yes, I am in a bunch of control threads. I love control, and I want to find the best home for Azcanta because I think that is the most powerful control card printed in a long time. I think it's right up there with Snapcaster and Cryptic. I understand you are high on Scour the Lab, and I hope that even though we disagree about it's practicality that this conversation continues to be fruitful for both of us. If ever it gets bogged down to the point you don't feel like continuing, just let me know. It is your thread, with Scour in the tag line after all lol.
My main testing comes from UW because I believe it to be the most competitive control option currently, but I do have access to pretty much every card available to esper control online. But yea, you nailed, I just don't have the time to test every variant. I would rather theorycraft until the list 'feels' right. Until then, I'm not giving up my steady stream of 4-1s 3-2s with UW, it's profitable.
I might end up changing Negate for Countersquall as the 2 life may matter against Combo/Tron decks, and UB isn't too difficult mana-wise. I also may end up cutting 1 Opt for another removal spell or something like TT. Another removal spell may be better in conjunction with Azcanta and PW'ers...not sure. Warrants more testing. If more combo shows up I may want Clique in the SB or the 1 Surgical I took out for Kalitas.
I'm still torn on what I want to cut for the Dismember - there are more PW'ers showing up in Modern and it's nice to have the option of Downfall with Snap/Gearhulk. It may just be that I need to cut one VoN for the Dismember as a hedge for Angler. My mana is relatively painless so I can afford the 2 life loss from Dismember pretty easy. We'll see how it goes.
I've played some with Ob nixilis in UB in the past, and I found him unreliable as a card advantage source in a lot of matchups because we don't have a way to recoup life loss and by the time you get 5 Mana you just end up playing him as a 5cmc sorcery speed removal because your life is low and you can't afford to pay life. I think Jace aot and unraveler are both better options for card advantage, but worse at board control.
The removal package in black is always going to line up funny against shadow decks unfortunately. You could try edicts too, they should be fine in most matches considering the amount of removal we run. Devour Flesh is particularly appealing for the Shadow match. Or tribute to hunger could potentially buy you the life you need to profitability use on nixilis.
Ok, so I played tonight in our Modern Monday (with a friend who is getting into the game that I've been teaching) and beat Elves 2-0, drew with UWR Control, and lost 1-2 to Burn. Overall, the deck performed well. I probably want 1 more anti-aggro/burn card in the SB, but not sure what it should/could be. Probably right to just play 4 Collective Brutality in the SB right now. That card is so damn flexible. Also, I didn't play my best as I was teaching my friend while playing (our modern events are casual competitive, in that we're all friends (10-15 of us), but we all play T1-T2 decks for the most part), so take that with a grain of salt.
The UWR match was hilarious. I win a 35-36 min G1, and at one point later in the game we had 6 spells on the stack(I ended up winning (the stack) and then lethaling with Tar Pit and Gearhulk). That doesn't happen too much in Modern and that game was a blast - lots of back and forth. Our rounds are 40 min, so we shuffle up and get ready for G2 real fast. He ends up drawing the perfects and killing me from 14 life on T4/T5 of turns (I spell snare his Helix, attempt to cryptic counter bolt & bounce his colonnade, he plays his last card - D. Stroke...). He is empty handed, I'm @ 6 life, he has enough mana to activate Colonnade swing and be able to draw Electrolyze to win. He's played 2 Electrolyze, 2 Helix and 2 Bolts. He untaps, draws, attacks with colonnade, and Electrolyzes me. The beats are so bad lmao (though to be fair I think I played that turn badly with the cryptic, so kudos). I think I win this MU much more often than not, and 40 min rounds are tough for a deck like this to begin with. It's also worse when I T2 seize him and he has like 4 lands and an opt (I take a queller; he only had 2 spells), and he proceeds to rips the perfects for like 6 straight turns lol. Sometimes it happens.
The Supreme Will was surprisingly good in all 3 MU's (I decided to take this from Bennyhillz). It's probably better in UB than UW because we don't play Path and our Tec Edges are better and we play Gearhulk / more Snapcasters. I dig it. Only cast Search once and it was countered (was afraid my opponent was on UWR Geist, so I didn't counter back, but he ended up being Control :>). I'm not sure how important GY hate is right now, so I could see replacing the Spellbomb in the SB with the 4th Brutality. Or maybe Hostage Taker is too cute and just replace that with it. SB is fluid so we'll see.
Basically, I want my MB solid against creature and mid-range MU's, and my SB focused against combo, burn, and the colorless decks (with a few blow-out cards against go-wide decks like NoSB/Kalitas). I think Disfigure right now is actually really good and was happy with it as a 1 of.
I think the deck just needs a better/additional 2 mana counter (I'd kill to play 4 Counterspell and 2 Logic Knots in my 2 slot) and something better than Glimmer that plays well with Snapcaster and Counterspells (C'mon WoTC, just reprint Fact or Fiction all ready).
Last thing - I'm not entirely sure on the Clique, but it was a hedge since it's not really bad in general except against Electrolyze really. It wasn't the worst tonight, but I could see it being something else.
PS: I actually think cutting the Clique for the 25th land might be right. The deck is really mana-intensive. By the way, if you play a list like this in a comp-REL event, writing the decklist is a total PITA. 33 unique cards out of 60 MB.
That list looks pretty good. I've been driving myself crazy the last couple days trying to find a 5th removal spell for UW, but in all honesty I think I'd like to play around 7 so this list looks pretty appealing to me right now. Creatures are running rampant right now, control decks should be kicking ass but we just aren't seeing it.
I have to agree with your sentiments on Glimmer - you should give a 1-of value Gifts Ungiven a shot in that slot. It's basically fact or fiction, except you get to pick 4 cards instead of a random 5. It's been surprisingly good for me in UW, but looks even better in UB. You could gifts for Cryptic, Gearhulk, Snap, Liliana, that's a 4 for 1! The only concession I might make to gifts would be adding an extra walker or two to make sure you have enough high impact cards to grab left on your deck if you don't draw until you have like 30 cards left in the deck. If you need answers instead of threats grab Snap, downfall, VoN, damnation. I think gifts is underplayed as a value card.
I'm on my mobile at the moment, but when I get to a computer I'll upload what I might try pushing through a league online.
When I was looking at your manabase and I saw the two fetches and thought it might be better to split them so that it looks we might actually be Grixis. I also thought it might actually be worthwhile to including a Steam Vents in the main and 1 in the side for a total of 8 Red sources to bring in something like Crumble to Dust from the board. Although that could be incorrect because there aren't that many traditional Tron decks running around right now, and I don't particularly like Crumble against E-Tron anyways.
The other thought I had was that with the value Gifts and the fairly high amount of Snaps/Hulks, Death's Majesty looks pretty appealing. Her -3 buying back a Gearhulk flashing back a Hero's Downfall sounds pretty sweet.
That list looks pretty good. I've been driving myself crazy the last couple days trying to find a 5th removal spell for UW, but in all honesty I think I'd like to play around 7 so this list looks pretty appealing to me right now. Creatures are running rampant right now, control decks should be kicking ass but we just aren't seeing it.
I have to agree with your sentiments on Glimmer - you should give a 1-of value Gifts Ungiven a shot in that slot. It's basically fact or fiction, except you get to pick 4 cards instead of a random 5. It's been surprisingly good for me in UW, but looks even better in UB. You could gifts for Cryptic, Gearhulk, Snap, Liliana, that's a 4 for 1! The only concession I might make to gifts would be adding an extra walker or two to make sure you have enough high impact cards to grab left on your deck if you don't draw until you have like 30 cards left in the deck. If you need answers instead of threats grab Snap, downfall, VoN, damnation. I think gifts is underplayed as a value card.
I'm on my mobile at the moment, but when I get to a computer I'll upload what I might try pushing through a league online.
Gifts does seem really good at first glance, but my reservation is that a good opponent will always dump Snap and Gearhulk (assuming, I haven't drawn him) and with only Lili to rebuy I think it makes my draws a lot less live. Maybe I'm overstating though. If I had access to K.Command Gifts would be a lot better. I should probably try it out sometime and see how it goes.
As for your list I know you're playing Mana Leak to play more basics, but honestly, the color-fixing is very good and rarely comes up that I can't cast either VoN or Logic Knot. The upside on LK is just a lot higher than Leak, so it definitely seems worth it to me. Let me know how the PW package works out for you in your league. I'm skeptical of playing 2 6 drops and a 5 drop that relies on having a 6 drop in the yard to be really good. I tend to build my control decks on consistency rather than synergy, so maybe my POV is just coming from a different angle. Anywho, keep me appraised.
Also, if you're going to splash red for anything it should probably be 1-2 K. Commands since it does everything the deck wants and fills a niche UB is very poor in (artifact interaction).
PS: As for the fetches - I love my Onslaught JP fetches so that's why I chose Strand and Mire (I wanted another U and B, so regardless it's going to be that combination). I think making them Grixis colors to try and get the opponent will come up about...0.002% of the time. It can't hurt to do though if you have no attachment to why I play the fetches I do
I think confusing the opponent by playing mire/tarn will actually come up pretty often. What land my opponent plays on T1 affects my decisions making process greatly, especially when first turn play is scalding tarn - I never know if it's Storm or shadow, so I can't effectively cast serum visions until I know whether I want removal or counters. Opponent's may be equally constricted by flooding strand, depending on what deck they play. Just from my experience as a mostly UW player, Scalding Tarn on T1 is actually a decision tree that matters for me. Command does seem like a nice splash, though I think it's not necessary.
As for the gifts, even if they dump snap + Gearhulk that means you got a cryptic and a planeswalker, or 3cmc walker and Azcanta and you can cast both on curve. T4 eot gifts untapped Lilly buy back Gearhulk cast Azcanta. I've been having a blast with gifts.
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4 Darkslick Shores
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Watery Grave
1 Drowned Catacomb
2 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Field of Ruin
3 Island
2 Swamp
Removal:
4 Fatal Push
2 Victim of Night
1 Go for the Throat
1 Hero's Downfall
2 Damnation
1 Negate
3 Logic Knot
1 Dissolve
3 Cryptic Command
PW:
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
Card Draw:
1 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Opt
3 Scour the Laboratory
3 Architects of Will
Engine:
2 Search for Azcanta
Value:
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Hostage Taker
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
3 Collective Brutality
2 Thoughtseize
2 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Flashfreeze
1 Dispel
Preliminary list without too much testing. I could see going -1 Opt +1 Architect, -1 Dissolve +1 Think Twice, -1 Victim of Night +1 Dismember (for DS decks - Angler can be an issue), and try and fit a Kalitas somewhere in the SB.
The deck is a bit GY-centric which is an issue, but Scour the Lab. is just by far the best CA draw spell in the colors. The idea is similar to Esper Draw-Go with Azcanta as your engine. Being able to have better mana and some utility in the mana is a huge bonus. Azcanta also works well with Scour the Laboratory.
Hostage Taker is in the board for creature-centric matches and artifacts. It's in theory quite good against E-Tron, Lantern, CoCo decks, Affinity, etc. It might turn out to be a dud, in which Kalitas is the better card. UB historically has done poorly interacting with artifacts, so I wanted 2 in the 75 (EE + Hostage Taker), but I could be mistaken.
Deck mostly beats up on Combo decks and creature-centric decks.
My other thought was running Serum Vision over Opt mostly because of it being a Sorcery to help with the card type count. I also briefly considered Chart A Course because it could discard excess Azcantas, or Spreading Seas and being a Sorcery again helps with the card type count. For the same reason, I also like the addition of Liliana of the veil. It's a fine card on it's own, extra walkers help with type count, being able to discard an enchantment from hand seems good.
4 Spreading Seas
3 Search for Azcanta
Creatures/Walkers (6)
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Liliana, of the Veil
1 Liliana, The Last Hope
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
4 Serum Visions
4 Fatal Push
2 Chart a Course??
3 Mana Leak/Logic Knot
1 Negate
1 Hero's Downfall
2 Damnation
2 Cryptic Command
1 Murderous Cut
3 Scour the Laboratory
4 LD lands
21 Other
I think the biggest difference between our lists, besides Spreading Seas over Architects of Will, is Leak over Logic Knot. I don't want to get bogged down on arguing over that choice difference, because I think ultimately it's a preference thing there; I will cede that Logic Knot looks better in a list like this due to Search, and Liliana Veil if you take that route, over other control decks. Not sure if that makes up for further relying on the GY but for the sake of moving on to productive conversation about the rest of the deck, Lets just call those slots 2cmc counters and discuss elswhere.
The 2 Chart a Course a just placeholders for now, I'm not sold on them.
I have no experience playing with Scour, so how do you think my list differs fundamentally from yours? What do you like, what do you hate?
I think your list is trying to do 2 things that play awkwardly together - you're playing 6 counters, but then also a ton of sorcery speed cards. Many times you're going to end up wasting mana because you have to hold up interaction and can't play your sorcery speed cards. UW can do this because they're mostly tap-out deck. UB plays much better with a Draw-Go shell than UW because UB has better removal which allows you to do this. In UW you're heavily reliant on Supreme Verdict and Path plays poorly with counters as well. I don't think the deck needs to imitate UW to do well.
As for Architects vs. the enchantments. Architects is a very flexible card. It is the best enabler for Scour, and since it cycles it has minimal downside (and plays better with your instant-interaction). When you get your opponent close to hell-bent/hell-bent which is the goal of any Azcanta deck as you want to 1:1 them with the Impulse effect, playing an Architects essentially seals the game buying you on average 1.5-2 turns. It also gives relevant information and can index yourself which is underrated imho. I've had others play with a Scour/Will list before and they've always been impressed by the card. It's innocuous, but what it does is very important for the deck imho.
The LoTV is interesting. I've never played with her in a control-shell, but I can see how she synergizes with some of what the deck is doing, plus she is just powerful on her own. I could go either way here. I'm also not sold on Chart a Course. If you're going to play a card like that, that poor mans Accumulated Knowledge (Take Inventory) plays MUCH better in the deck and with Azcanta. With Chart, you're almost never going to just draw 2. Granted, Take Inventory wants you to play with 4, but you could also replace with something like Think Twice that also has some synergy with LoTV and Azcanta instead.
Serum Visions in your list is just much better than Opt because your list is mostly tap-out. Opt plays better when you're holding up Snaps, Counter, card draw, impulse land, etc. I'm not saying that draw-go in a vacuum is better than tap-out, it's just that I think that the card pool for UB is more suited to draw-go than tap-out imho. White has powerful cards like D. Sphere, Gideons, and Wall of Omens that UB doesn't. LoTV really wants you to have a board advantage since that is when she is at her best.
I would be interested to hear how your list plays out, but I think you vastly underestimate how good Architects is.
2-0 Boros Burn
1-1 Bant Knightfall splash for Kessig
1-1-1 E. Tron
I didn't have Hostage Taker yet, but it would have been very good against Knightfall and E. Tron. I also didn't have the Field of Ruin (LGS sold out and my JP ones not here yet), so I played an Island instead. It kind of hurt against E. Tron. In the limited amount of games Azcanta wasn't terrible, but it did whiff once with 3 lands + Snap, but I think the deck wants 1 more removal spell. I know Osman Ozguney has been playing a 1-of Ob Nixilis online and he's been doing well and UW tends to play 1 Gideon Jura. I'm thinking of going -1 TT +1 Ob Nix as it is a draw engine and removal spell. There are certainly MU's it's really bad like Combo + Burn, but that's also mostly true for Jura as well, but it is still good.
The Downfall wasn't the worst, but I think you want cheaper removal that you can grab off Azcanta so a 1 of Dismember is probably better. I also think -1 Flooded Strand +1 Drowned Catacombs is better too (81% in opening 7 to be untapped and 90% by the 9th card). I want another UB dual, but don't want it to be tapped (so no Tar pit / Fetid Pools) and those %'s are good enough imho. The other option is River of Tears, and honestly, that might be better. Ok, I sorta convinced myself just now on the River of Tears. I'll give that a try. Tears is better in SB games with Brutality / Thoughtseizes.
The 1-of Spellbomb actually wasn't bad, providing revolt/delirium and shutting down Knight. It's pretty low-cost to play. Need more games to get in, but that's the preliminary outlook. Scour was good. Need to play more with Azcanta to get a better picture.
Sure it is slow (Scour isn't fast either) and isn't an instant but it is much cheaper to play.
I'd also prefer 2x Go For the Throat + 1x Murderous Cut and either SB the Victim of Night (harder to cast while building up for Cryptic and misses Angler) or remove it completely.
Dissolve is probably worse than Disallow if you want a 3-mana counter.
Scour is more consistent than AV, and works much better in conjunction with Snapcaster and Gearhulk. Incidentally, the Architects perform quite a few duties in the deck - cycling for 1 mana is always low cost; it helps fill GY for Knot if needed, for Azcanta, and later in the game, acts as disruption+win-con or pseudo-selection with yourself (ala something like Halimar Depths) if you need to find something. On the surface, it looks bad, but it is one of the better cards imho.
As for the removal - GftT is quite good, but if you look at the top 50 creatures that are played Victim only misses Gurmag Angler and Tidehollow Sculler. It's pretty much Terminate, though missing Angler can be somewhat of a problem against DS. That's a little less of a problem with less DS around, but it's still something to consider. The deck probably wants a Dismember as well. As for Murderous Cut, you simply can't play it - you're all ready playing 3 Logic Knots, Azcanta that wants your GY filled, Scour that wants delirium, and 3 Snaps + 1 Gearhulk.
For the 3 mana counter, I think the selection of Dissolve is better than the niche scenarios for Disallow (I tend to value consistency a bit more than most), but I ended up cutting it since I wanted a 4th "CA" spell. I ended up going -1 Dissolve +1 TT, but next week I'm going to try -1 TT +1 Ob Nix. It's been working for Ozguney on MTGO, so I'll see it how it goes.
For a big draw spell maybe Pull from Tomorrow can be used as a weaker version of Sphinx's Revelation in a non-white deck.
For me at least, the appeal of Azcanta is that control decks no longer need cards like Ancestral Vision and Sphinx's Rev, both of which are unplayable (competitively) in modern in my estimation. I think UW control has been doing well despite running 1-of Rev, not because of it, and Ancestral Vision has no competitive home.
The more I think about Scour the Lab, the more I think the juice isn't worth the squeeze. We are working way too hard to get a 1 mana discount on Jace's Ingenuity. There's just no way I'm ever sleeving up Architects of Will.
On the other hand, after reading Sam Blacks article on what he calls his "Search for Azcanta deck featuring UB control cards" (paraphrasing), i'm starting to think that I have been undervaluing the ramp aspect of Azcanta. Sam basically said they switched out Glimmer of Genius for Heiroglyphic Illumination simply so they would have more cyclers to flip Azcanta earlier. We can do something similar in modern by including Thought Scour, which plays well with UB control strategies generally in any case. My only concern is that by moving off of Scour the Lab, Spreading Seas becomes less potent because it isn't pulling double duty as both Delirium and Azcanta protection. Without Seas, Azcanta becomes more vulnerable and we are in the same predicament again where we need a certain critical number of win conditions, and card advantage sources. UW control can get away with only relying on Colonnade and Snap because they also have access to planeswalkers that can attack. We might have to rely on Torrential Gearhulks and Tasigurs, which puts us on all of our win conditions and card advantage as relying on the graveyard, which is not a great place to be, and I'm not too sure that is something that we can overcome since we don't have access to Enchantment/Artifact hate in UB. We may have to splash into Sultai for Abrupt Decay. What do you think?
I think you're under-estimating 1 mana, especially the difference between 5 and 4 is much greater than 1 to 2 or 3 to 4, etc. If Jace's Ingenuity cost 4 mana it would be seeing a lot of play.
As for Will - I mean, you even mention Sam running a bunch of cyclers to turbo-ramp out Azcanta. Then you say you'd never play Architects because it's terrible, yet it does exactly what the deck wants imho. You can't rely solely on Azcanta as your CA-suite; it is slow, vulnerable to LD/GY hate and vulnerable to Abrupt Decay/Pulse, etc. It's a tool to be used in addition to your other sources of CA - a way to fight on another axis. The reason Thought Scour is played is because it fuels delve cards, which are nearly a non-bo (outside of Logic Knot because of its flexibility and necessity) with early Azcanta flips. Also, how is Seas protecting Azcanta? You're throwing away a card and a land (if in the case of Tec edge) to protect it, but you need to sink a couple turns into the card just to get to card parity at that point. Imho, Azcanta isn't meant to be the aim of the deck - it's meant as an important adjunct to what the deck all ready wants to do. I think you're focusing a little too much on having your 75 built around Azcanta instead of building a 75 that works well together.
I agree being so GY-centric is a hindrance not a benefit G2/G3, but we don't have FoF/etc. available to us. As for Enchantment hate, you can play EE and Hostage Taker also hits artifacts. Blacks suite of planeswalkers can also win the game (Lili, LH / Ob Nix ults), but also do things the deck all ready wants, where Gideon's are more one-dimensional, so it isn't like there aren't pro's and cons to each. By the way, once again you under-estimate the flexibility of Architects being an enabler/card draw, disruption, and win-con depending on the state of the game. It's not uncommon later in the game to lock my opp. for 2 turns and win with the 3/3. I think you should give it a try before totally dismissing its merits, but that's up to you in the end.
If you don't want to be so GY-centric I could see going -1 Scour, -1 Architects, +1 Opt, +1 Glimmer of Genius to hedge a bit. It's probably not the worst idea in the world.
You say I want to build a deck that works around Azcanta, and that is true, because I think the card is powerful enough to warrant that. I would argue you are trying to do the same thing but with Scour the Laboratory, which imo is not powerful enough to warrant building a deck around. AS far as Architects of Will, they aren't close to playable without Scour. Comparing Illumination to Will as an Azcanta enabler isn't ideal. Illumination can be flashbacked to turn gearhulk or snapcaster into a 3 for 1, or can be cast later in the game as a +2. Ill take a 4 mana instant speed divination over Hill Giant 100% of the time.
This is one of the reason I initially pointed out that we should be on Mana Leak rather than Logic Knot. It doesn't work well with Azcanta or with Delirium, or Snapcaster, or Gearhulk.
Spreading Seas protects Azcanta by attacking opposing LD lands, but I don't think Seas is necessary if we aren't playing Scour. I originally intended them to act as additional fuel for Delirium, the fact that they also cantrip, screw with your opponents card quality and protect Azcanta was just a bonus. My point was exactly what yours is - we can't rely solely on Azcanta but with the caveat that Scour is not good enough. We need to look harder. I like your idea of adding some planeswalkers. If we did that, we could possibly play 1-2 Gifts Ungiven to help with card advantage. I've been play Gifts as a 1-of in UW Control and it has been outstanding as a value card. Any combination of Walker, Snap, Cryptic, Azcanta is good. In UW you have 2 different gideons and a jace, in UB we could have 2 different lillys and jace, or Ob Nixilis etc. The other direction we could take is a small Thopter/Sword package, which again lets the Gifts be very good.
I do like your suggestion of Engineered Explosives! I think Abrupt Decay is more versatile, but EE saves us from having to dip into a 3rd color. Perhaps a Trinket Mage package out of the sideboard? If you decide to stay on Scour the Lab, a Trinket Mage package would do you well I think.
Here's another list for you to mull over
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Torrential Gearhulk
Planeswalkers (4)
1 Liliana, the last hope
1 Liliana of the veil
1 Ashiok Nightmare Weaver
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
Spells (19)
4 Opt/Serum/Scour
2 Mana Leak
1 Logic Knot
1 Negate
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Hero's Downfall
3 Cryptic Command
2 Gifts Ungiven
2 Damnation
1 Murderous Cut
1 Whir of Invention
3 Search for Azcanta
Artifacts (4)
2 Thopter Foundry
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Talisman of Dominance
Land (24)
4 LD lands
21 Other
The list is 2 cards short and some of the specifics like which planeswalkers and which 1 mana cantrip (or heiroglyphic illumination) are not as important as the overall picture of the deck. One of things that will be missed is the lack of Damnation variants for gift piles compared to white (in UW I main deck 2 verdict 1 Wrath), might be worth it to run a 1-of Bontu's Last Reckoning.
As for Spreading Seas...yes I know what it does - I'm talking about the cost. Targeting OP LD costs you the card (98% of the time the land is going to be untapped and will tag a land of yours), and it is much much worse if it is Tec Edge you have to target. That's 1-2 cards you're down, which costs you 8 mana to recoup and 2 turns. That's just not a winning play. If you want to play SS for other reasons, then, that can be argued, but the use of it to pre-emptively make opp. use their LD is -CA. I also agree that you wouldn't play Architects without a pay off (see: LE or Scour the Lab), but I'm not just throwing Will into a random deck so I'm not sure how that argument holds. You're not going to play Thought Scour in non-GY centric decks, but that doesn't make Thought Scour a bad card. It makes it niche. I have enjoyed the card as being very flexible and important in the deck. We'll probably agree to disagree on this forever, until you play the deck (for better or worse).
I also do not like Mana Leak at all even in non-path decks. We're aiming to prolong the game. I'm willing to take the minor hit on Azcanta to have 3 very good counters that are relevant early and late. Plus you don't always have to delve with Logic Knot, and many times early it's essentially censor. It doesn't really strain your GY a lot til later in the game.
I'm hoping that Ob Nix will work out. I think I can afford 1 5 mana play and he seems to be quite flexible, and the deck is already pretty good against Combo decks so I think I can afford this to boost my other MU's. Gifts is interesting, and could be quite good. Next time I play I'll make a note if one or the other instant speed 4 mana CA spells would have been better. I tried Thopter/Sword when it was unbanned. It's not good. I don't see that changing here. It's possible Trinket Mage is good, but then the only targets are EE or Spellbomb. It's just too low impact imho. The space in the SB is pretty taxed as is.
As for the list...it only has 4 removal spells (well 5 if you count the edict from LoTV). I don't see how this can be successful in Modern. I think if I were you, I'd stick to one list and play some games and tweak from there instead of relying on thought experiments. I know you're in a lot of other threads and playing many other control decks so maybe time is limited for you, but I think that's where I'd start if you wanted to improve the list. Lmk how it goes.
Aside from the sword combo, I think all the cards in the list are powerful enough on their own merit, and as you can see there are spreading seas in the list. So there isn't any concessions being made to Azcanta. I don't count leak over knot, I think leak is the superior card. The list o provided makes more concessions to gifts ungiven than it does to Azcanta, including the 1 logic knot. I came across gifts piles a couple times on 8 Mana where I wanted Cryptic, snap, negate, x which would allow me to counter a spell on the stack. The logic knot is a concession to that end.
Yes, I am in a bunch of control threads. I love control, and I want to find the best home for Azcanta because I think that is the most powerful control card printed in a long time. I think it's right up there with Snapcaster and Cryptic. I understand you are high on Scour the Lab, and I hope that even though we disagree about it's practicality that this conversation continues to be fruitful for both of us. If ever it gets bogged down to the point you don't feel like continuing, just let me know. It is your thread, with Scour in the tag line after all lol.
My main testing comes from UW because I believe it to be the most competitive control option currently, but I do have access to pretty much every card available to esper control online. But yea, you nailed, I just don't have the time to test every variant. I would rather theorycraft until the list 'feels' right. Until then, I'm not giving up my steady stream of 4-1s 3-2s with UW, it's profitable.
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Watery Grave
1 Drowned Catacomb
2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 River of Tears
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Field of Ruin
3 Island
2 Swamp
Removal:
4 Fatal Push
2 Victim of Night
1 Go for the Throat
1 Hero's Downfall/Dismember
2 Damnation
1 Negate
3 Logic Knot
3 Cryptic Command
PW:
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
Card Draw:
1 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Opt
1 Glimmer of Genius
2 Scour the Laboratory
3 Architects of Will
Engine:
2 Search for Azcanta
Value:
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Hostage Taker
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
3 Collective Brutality
2 Thoughtseize
2 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Flashfreeze
1 Dispel
I might end up changing Negate for Countersquall as the 2 life may matter against Combo/Tron decks, and UB isn't too difficult mana-wise. I also may end up cutting 1 Opt for another removal spell or something like TT. Another removal spell may be better in conjunction with Azcanta and PW'ers...not sure. Warrants more testing. If more combo shows up I may want Clique in the SB or the 1 Surgical I took out for Kalitas.
I'm still torn on what I want to cut for the Dismember - there are more PW'ers showing up in Modern and it's nice to have the option of Downfall with Snap/Gearhulk. It may just be that I need to cut one VoN for the Dismember as a hedge for Angler. My mana is relatively painless so I can afford the 2 life loss from Dismember pretty easy. We'll see how it goes.
The removal package in black is always going to line up funny against shadow decks unfortunately. You could try edicts too, they should be fine in most matches considering the amount of removal we run. Devour Flesh is particularly appealing for the Shadow match. Or tribute to hunger could potentially buy you the life you need to profitability use on nixilis.
Good luck, keep us posted.
The UWR match was hilarious. I win a 35-36 min G1, and at one point later in the game we had 6 spells on the stack(I ended up winning (the stack) and then lethaling with Tar Pit and Gearhulk). That doesn't happen too much in Modern and that game was a blast - lots of back and forth. Our rounds are 40 min, so we shuffle up and get ready for G2 real fast. He ends up drawing the perfects and killing me from 14 life on T4/T5 of turns (I spell snare his Helix, attempt to cryptic counter bolt & bounce his colonnade, he plays his last card - D. Stroke...). He is empty handed, I'm @ 6 life, he has enough mana to activate Colonnade swing and be able to draw Electrolyze to win. He's played 2 Electrolyze, 2 Helix and 2 Bolts. He untaps, draws, attacks with colonnade, and Electrolyzes me. The beats are so bad lmao (though to be fair I think I played that turn badly with the cryptic, so kudos). I think I win this MU much more often than not, and 40 min rounds are tough for a deck like this to begin with. It's also worse when I T2 seize him and he has like 4 lands and an opt (I take a queller; he only had 2 spells), and he proceeds to rips the perfects for like 6 straight turns lol. Sometimes it happens.
Anyways, the decklist:
3 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Darkslick Shores
1 River of Tears
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Watery Grave
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
3 Island
2 Swamp
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Field of Ruin
Counters:
1 Spell Snare
3 Logic Knot
1 Countersquall
1 Supreme Will
3 Cryptic Command
1 Disfigure
4 Fatal Push
2 Victim of Night
1 Go for the Throat
1 Hero's Downfall
2 Damnation
Planeswalker:
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
Creatures:
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Torrential Gearhulk
Only Value:
1 Search for Azcanta
1 Think Twice
2 Glimmer of Genius
Selection/Cantrip:
4 Opt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Thoughtseize
3 Collective Brutality
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Flashfreeze
2 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Dispel
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Hostage Taker
The Supreme Will was surprisingly good in all 3 MU's (I decided to take this from Bennyhillz). It's probably better in UB than UW because we don't play Path and our Tec Edges are better and we play Gearhulk / more Snapcasters. I dig it. Only cast Search once and it was countered (was afraid my opponent was on UWR Geist, so I didn't counter back, but he ended up being Control :>). I'm not sure how important GY hate is right now, so I could see replacing the Spellbomb in the SB with the 4th Brutality. Or maybe Hostage Taker is too cute and just replace that with it. SB is fluid so we'll see.
Basically, I want my MB solid against creature and mid-range MU's, and my SB focused against combo, burn, and the colorless decks (with a few blow-out cards against go-wide decks like NoSB/Kalitas). I think Disfigure right now is actually really good and was happy with it as a 1 of.
I think the deck just needs a better/additional 2 mana counter (I'd kill to play 4 Counterspell and 2 Logic Knots in my 2 slot) and something better than Glimmer that plays well with Snapcaster and Counterspells (C'mon WoTC, just reprint Fact or Fiction all ready).
Last thing - I'm not entirely sure on the Clique, but it was a hedge since it's not really bad in general except against Electrolyze really. It wasn't the worst tonight, but I could see it being something else.
PS: I actually think cutting the Clique for the 25th land might be right. The deck is really mana-intensive. By the way, if you play a list like this in a comp-REL event, writing the decklist is a total PITA. 33 unique cards out of 60 MB.
I have to agree with your sentiments on Glimmer - you should give a 1-of value Gifts Ungiven a shot in that slot. It's basically fact or fiction, except you get to pick 4 cards instead of a random 5. It's been surprisingly good for me in UW, but looks even better in UB. You could gifts for Cryptic, Gearhulk, Snap, Liliana, that's a 4 for 1! The only concession I might make to gifts would be adding an extra walker or two to make sure you have enough high impact cards to grab left on your deck if you don't draw until you have like 30 cards left in the deck. If you need answers instead of threats grab Snap, downfall, VoN, damnation. I think gifts is underplayed as a value card.
I'm on my mobile at the moment, but when I get to a computer I'll upload what I might try pushing through a league online.
3 Mana Leak
1 Negate
3 Cryptic Command
Removal (10)
4 Fatal Push
1 Victim of Night
1 Go for the Throat
2 Hero's Downfall
2 Damnation
Planeswalkers (4)
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Liliana of the The Veil
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Liliana, Death's Majesty
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Torrential Gearhulk
Card Quality (8)
4 Opt
2 Search for Azcanta
1 Think Twice
1 Gifts Ungiven
Land (25)
4 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Watery Grave
3 Darkslick Shores
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Island
3 Swamp
3 Tectonic Edge
When I was looking at your manabase and I saw the two fetches and thought it might be better to split them so that it looks we might actually be Grixis. I also thought it might actually be worthwhile to including a Steam Vents in the main and 1 in the side for a total of 8 Red sources to bring in something like Crumble to Dust from the board. Although that could be incorrect because there aren't that many traditional Tron decks running around right now, and I don't particularly like Crumble against E-Tron anyways.
The other thought I had was that with the value Gifts and the fairly high amount of Snaps/Hulks, Death's Majesty looks pretty appealing. Her -3 buying back a Gearhulk flashing back a Hero's Downfall sounds pretty sweet.
Gifts does seem really good at first glance, but my reservation is that a good opponent will always dump Snap and Gearhulk (assuming, I haven't drawn him) and with only Lili to rebuy I think it makes my draws a lot less live. Maybe I'm overstating though. If I had access to K.Command Gifts would be a lot better. I should probably try it out sometime and see how it goes.
As for your list I know you're playing Mana Leak to play more basics, but honestly, the color-fixing is very good and rarely comes up that I can't cast either VoN or Logic Knot. The upside on LK is just a lot higher than Leak, so it definitely seems worth it to me. Let me know how the PW package works out for you in your league. I'm skeptical of playing 2 6 drops and a 5 drop that relies on having a 6 drop in the yard to be really good. I tend to build my control decks on consistency rather than synergy, so maybe my POV is just coming from a different angle. Anywho, keep me appraised.
Also, if you're going to splash red for anything it should probably be 1-2 K. Commands since it does everything the deck wants and fills a niche UB is very poor in (artifact interaction).
PS: As for the fetches - I love my Onslaught JP fetches so that's why I chose Strand and Mire (I wanted another U and B, so regardless it's going to be that combination). I think making them Grixis colors to try and get the opponent will come up about...0.002% of the time. It can't hurt to do though if you have no attachment to why I play the fetches I do
As for the gifts, even if they dump snap + Gearhulk that means you got a cryptic and a planeswalker, or 3cmc walker and Azcanta and you can cast both on curve. T4 eot gifts untapped Lilly buy back Gearhulk cast Azcanta. I've been having a blast with gifts.