I would appreciate some help building around this deck i just mashed together from different decks ive been looking into. Im a big fan of control decks and this is my first time attempting to build anything for the modern format.
I don't know your experience as a player, card pool, budget and what do you want this deck for, so maybe my advice doesn't apply to you. But if you've played control in Standard in any of those seasons in which it is a tier1 deck, and you're willing to invest money into a competitive deck, playing UW Miracles fits that play style of playing draw and go, each player plays one spell at a turn (or none) and if they overextend you punish them with a sweeper, and game 1 finishes with 10 minutes on the clock. If you try to play that game style with black, Damnation is worse than Terminus and Supreme Verdict, Fatal Push misses some creatures you can hit with Path to Exile, black walkers can't compete with Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and your sideboard doesn't have white trump cards. I don't mean blue-black decks are worse than white-blue, but they're worse at playing this stalling game style typical from Standard. Maybe you just want to play a reactive blue-black deck, and then Yuta Takahashi Faeries deck is the most suitable choice https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gppor18/top-8-decklists-2018-12-09
That's considering you don't mind netdecking and expending money in getting the best deck. If you just want to improve yours with minimum expending, I think you play too many finishers (3 walkers, 2 big creatures, 2 expensive black sorceries) and I would cut at least the black sorceries. Mind Stone and 2 mana counterspells don't combine well. With Talisman of Dominance you can at least cast Spell Snare or Fatal Push the turn you play it, but you can't cycle it later, so I would cut the mana rocks entirely and play 4th copies of Serum Visions and Fatal Push; the remaining slot could be an extra land in case you feel mana screwed often.
Control decks aren't goldfishing against the wall, so in the end the best way to know what works better is practicing against the decks you want to defeat later in tournaments to tune it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Who is truer: you who are, or you who are to be?
Currently sleeved: WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
Looking at the creatures 3 snapcaster is good but the other guys are probably not the best in your build. Scarab God and Titan are only good in the grindy match ups. I'm not sure about your meta but over all you won't run into too many of those decks. Gurmag is an option but I think tasigur is better.
Looking at the lands I think you want 2 more field of ruin and more basics. I would cut Catacombs and Darkslick Shores for the most part. Darkslick isn't great in a slow deck like this and Catacomb gets worse the more you have.
I'm not a fan of Mind Stone because I'm going to suggest you cut all the expensive cards in your deck.
The instants look pretty good but Remand is a bit strange. You'll want at least 3 Cryptic.
You should cut Beacon and Army of the Damned. Neither are modern playable. They are just way too expensive.
Ob is also quite expensive but he can be good in the right match ups.
For the sideboard, these are all good cards. I would play the Damnations mainboard. It's tough to know what sideboard cards you should run without knowing your meta better though.
So after the changes I would play something like this:
I understand these changes, it seems more reasonable.
But my question to one of the changes is the Liliana Planeswalker. How does she fit in with the deck? what does she do?
And is there any way to turn this deck into more budget? Im saving up money to buy the deck i end up building but other than the budget version of 8 rack i have nothing else to play at fmn. Any suggestion to turn this into a budget version? Still having the Jaces in though.
Liliana, the Last Hope is a card I was thinking is worth testing. She plays a lot of roles: she can get back creatures or if you protect her long enough she can just win the game with her ultimate. Her +1 is pretty good too.
Another card that I really enjoyed when playing UB was Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver. I won't tell you she's amazing but I had a lot of fun, and she's pretty cheap too.
Cards I cut are 1 snapcaster / Clique / Search for Azcanta / Polluted Delta / 1 Cryptic / Thoughtseize / Liliana / SB: Explosives / SB: Surgical
Expensive cards that are still in the deck are: Snapcaster / Cryptic / Damnation / Jace (but it sounds like you already have Jace).
I think at minimum the deck needs a couple of each of the cards in this list. These are your main sources of card advantage (Glimmer of Genius is a pretty bad card). The deck could potentially survive without Snapcaster Mage but you would want more Cryptics / Damnations to supplement that. After you have this list Polluted Delta and Search for Azcanta are probably the most important upgrades to get.
At least most recently. Now forgive me for sounding stupid but if i where to pick this deck up, budget version or not. How well will i do or what should be my approach with this deck vs theirs?
From my experience Jund and the Rock are good match ups. Assassin's trophy / Blood braid elf / Liliana of the veil are the cards you want to stop if you can. BBE is why thoughtseize is important for the deck. You can't counter both the BBE and the cascade spell.
Humans is tough, especially if you're new to blue control decks. They will probably have an answer for your Damnation so don't rely on them to win the game for you.
First, sorry for my english, not my birth langage.
I don't know why but all my posts from the previous subject doesn't exist anymore.
I am ok with @Spellcheck when he said "UW Miracles/Control" is a strictly better "Control" Deck, my conclusion from 2-3 Month with it is "UB" have more tools to go in "Midrange-ish" with a Draw&Go style than a "Pure control".
I am also ok with @old_bag_o_bones advices. (just i don't like Ashiok xD)
UB Control is a "Snapcaster-CrypticCommand-deck" with some black threats(Bitterblossom, Delve) to steal some games with some efficient things like Push (Better than PtE where you don't find recursive threats or big threats). i can't say is a good deck, this is one of the more difficult deck i played, i tried many Options, at the end ; Cryptic command, Jace, Clique, Snap, Push, Bitterblossom, DelveThreats were the cards i always wanted to see.
if you can play 4 cryptic, go ahead, i know this is not always easy but this is our best cards here because we always want to use cryptic, mostly when our opponent is ahead.
x2-3 Snapcaster is good, you will always find some degenerate things to do with it to go ahead in the game !
x1-2 Clique is very good, this is a clock and in a deck where you want to grind each points of life, this is a good choice.
x2-3 Delve creatures, i don't find the better choice, Gurmag angler have a better clock but sometimes Tasigur give your a better options in the late game, a split is an options.
x3-4 Cryptic command, your best card in this deck, i think, if i can, i run 4.
x2-3 Jace, because this is the best PW, i prefer 3 than 2 because sometimes you just want to tappout turn 4 and find something for the next turn quickly.
x2-3 Bitterblossom, i love Faeries, i love Bitterblossom, this card is hard to play because of the loss of life but a powerful edge against control/midrange deck. This is need practice.
x6-8 Spot removal, x4Push, x2Hero's Downfall, x1-2Cast down/Dismember ; Board wipe in black are not powerful like White color (Settle the wreckage/Supreme verdict) but spot removal in black seems a little better, you can get the board clear with one and one and snap to re-use your spot and put pressure against many deck.
x1-2 Board wipe, x1 Damnation, x1 Languish, because of meddling mage in your local metagame, you can add a third.
x4 Serum visions or Opt, depends on your preference, i'm a huge fan of Opt for the moment, because Draw&Go play-style.
If i use Frank Carsten articles, you need 19 Blue sources for a turn 4 Cryptic(90%) and 15 black sources for a turn 4 Damnation(92.5%) (14 for turn 1 Push).
Here you got 18 Blue sources and 15 Black sources, with 24 land for find your turn 4-Land 80.6%On the Draw / 71.3%On the Play, with Opt you have a better % of each ;
x4 Polluted delta
x4 Field of ruin
x4 Creeping tar pit
x3 Watery grave
x2 Drowned catacomb
x5 Island
x2 Swamp
If you really like UB and want to play with it, you will take the more hardest way for a Ux Snapcaster-Cryptic deck but at a FNM level this can works very good, need a lot of practices, more than others Ux(x) decks, in my opinion.
Thanks @BabiBabiBidi I'll see what i will do with this deck once i have the better economy for it. But i went with the budget version of it @old_bag_o_bones fixed it into. I fin Ashiok has been really strong against my friends decks so far. They all have standard decks like Esper Midrange, Esper Angels, Sultai and Grul ramp. But no modern metadecks at least so i havent gotten the practise vs that particular format.
@old_bag_o_bones Stated that the U/B Deck is good match ups vs Jund and the Rock. But i havent played any FNM yet but im going to this friday. Soim just wondering when i meet these specific decks or pherhaps, 8-rack or Dredge. What should be my starting hand and gameplay (plan) against them.
Thanks for the replies guys, very much appreciated!
It's tough to say what you want to do game 1 against an unknown opponent. The main thing is you usually want 3 lands and something to do the first few turns. So Serum Visions / Thoughtseize / Fatal Push / Counterspells are things you want to look for. You can't keep a hand of 4 lands / Jace / Cryptic / Damnation. You'll never do anything with that. You need hands that do something even if it's just a serum that can dig for more stuff.
Against Jund your opening hand it's too important since it's going to be discarded quickly. Serum Visions is great becuase you can set up your top decks and they can't get Thoughtseized off the top of your deck haha. You'll also want some removal for their creatures if you can.
Same with 8rack. Your opener isn't too important. Just try to set up your plays with Serum Visions. Planeswalkers are great in the match up so try to defend them from discard spells with counterspells of your own.
For Dredge you want graveyard hate in your opener (pretty straight forward, I know). If you can discard their first faithless looting effect and counter their second you should be OK to start setting things up. If you can't stop their lootings you need graveyard hate.
Thanks mate, i always try to have the best curve i can get. I will have to just jump in and try my best with the cards i have. I guess Ashiok turn 3 is good to mill dredge into exile? Not really any good creatures to fetch with him but we wont be getting any of em at least.
This will be my first try with a more proper modern deck so we see how it goes
Hey just wanna give an update on my FNM yesterday, I did fairly well and managed a 5th place winning a couple of packs and a promo card! I did some experimenting on the budget version of the deck. And what i did was remove one spell snare and glimmer of geinus for Mission Briefing and it was one of the key cards that won me 2 of my games. Maybe i should just keep them? the surveil helped me get the right draw and its like kinda having 2 extra snapcasters. Was about to loose to a freakin blood moon, realised i had no counters in my hand i nearly resolved the blood moon until i saw the mission briefing in my hand. And just turned the game around form there. What do you guys think?
Mission Briefing (or Discovery/ ) are really nice card to play.
There are several options to reduce the costs of decks like these.
One of them is to up the number of GOOD cantrips to find the soilutions
you need to find.
IF you want to test/ like Briefings/ Discovery I highly recommend trying Thought Scours.
They enable your Delve threats nicely, play well with Tasigur's ability and offer food for Snaps and
Briefings.
Also BabiBabiBidi mentioned something intersting (at least for you ) Languish is not only a GOOD addition to Damnation(s) but also
kills things of that are indestructible (Spirits anyone?)
With more testing recenlty i found Liliana of the veil + Jace, the mind sculptor awesome together. (And many tricks like bounce opponent creature then force to discard as exemple)
I like the idea of Discovery/Dispersal for the two mods in standard i like it but i don't know if it works well in modern, that need a try.
Any feedback on improvements will be helpfull
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/9269-u-b-control
Seems like you have a good start but there are some weird cards (Doomfall / bauble / tormod's crypt) that you should probably cut.
That's considering you don't mind netdecking and expending money in getting the best deck. If you just want to improve yours with minimum expending, I think you play too many finishers (3 walkers, 2 big creatures, 2 expensive black sorceries) and I would cut at least the black sorceries. Mind Stone and 2 mana counterspells don't combine well. With Talisman of Dominance you can at least cast Spell Snare or Fatal Push the turn you play it, but you can't cycle it later, so I would cut the mana rocks entirely and play 4th copies of Serum Visions and Fatal Push; the remaining slot could be an extra land in case you feel mana screwed often.
Control decks aren't goldfishing against the wall, so in the end the best way to know what works better is practicing against the decks you want to defeat later in tournaments to tune it.
Currently sleeved:
WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
Creature (7)
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 The Scarab God
1 Grave Titan
2 Gurmag Angler
Enchantment (2)
2 Search for Azcanta
Land (24)
4 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
2 Field of Ruin
3 Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
3 Mind Stone
Instant (14)
3 Fatal Push
4 Mana Leak
1 Negate
3 Remand
1 Hero's Downfall
2 Cryptic Command
Sorcery (7)
3 Serum Visions
2 Collective Brutality
1 Beacon of Unrest
1 Army of the Damned
Planeswalker (3)
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Spell Snare
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Countersquall
1 Hero's Downfall
2 Collective Brutality
2 Damnation
Looking at the creatures 3 snapcaster is good but the other guys are probably not the best in your build. Scarab God and Titan are only good in the grindy match ups. I'm not sure about your meta but over all you won't run into too many of those decks. Gurmag is an option but I think tasigur is better.
Looking at the lands I think you want 2 more field of ruin and more basics. I would cut Catacombs and Darkslick Shores for the most part. Darkslick isn't great in a slow deck like this and Catacomb gets worse the more you have.
I'm not a fan of Mind Stone because I'm going to suggest you cut all the expensive cards in your deck.
The instants look pretty good but Remand is a bit strange. You'll want at least 3 Cryptic.
You should cut Beacon and Army of the Damned. Neither are modern playable. They are just way too expensive.
Ob is also quite expensive but he can be good in the right match ups.
For the sideboard, these are all good cards. I would play the Damnations mainboard. It's tough to know what sideboard cards you should run without knowing your meta better though.
So after the changes I would play something like this:
Creature (6)
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Artifact (1)
1 Nihil Spellbomb
Enchantment (2)
2 Search for Azcanta
Land (24)
4 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Drowned Catacomb
4 Field of Ruin
5 Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
4 Fatal Push
1 Cast Down
2 Mana Leak
2 Countersquall
1 Remand
1 Hero's Downfall
3 Cryptic Command
Sorcery (10)
4 Serum Visions
2 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality
2 Damnation
Planeswalker (3)
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Spell Snare
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Countersquall
1 Hero's Downfall
3 Unmoored Ego
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
I had to fill in some slots so let me know if you have any questions on my choices.
But my question to one of the changes is the Liliana Planeswalker. How does she fit in with the deck? what does she do?
And is there any way to turn this deck into more budget? Im saving up money to buy the deck i end up building but other than the budget version of 8 rack i have nothing else to play at fmn. Any suggestion to turn this into a budget version? Still having the Jaces in though.
Another card that I really enjoyed when playing UB was Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver. I won't tell you she's amazing but I had a lot of fun, and she's pretty cheap too.
A budget build might look something like this:
2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Artifact (2)
2 Nihil Spellbomb
Land (24)
4 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Drowned Catacomb
4 Field of Ruin
6 Island
4 Swamp
3 Watery Grave
Instant (16)
4 Fatal Push
1 Spell Snare
1 Cast Down
2 Mana Leak
2 Countersquall
1 Remand
2 Hero's Downfall
2 Cryptic Command
1 Glimmer of Genius
4 Serum Visions
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Damnation
Planeswalker (4)
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Dispel
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Extirpate
2 Countersquall
3 Unmoored Ego
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
Cards I cut are 1 snapcaster / Clique / Search for Azcanta / Polluted Delta / 1 Cryptic / Thoughtseize / Liliana / SB: Explosives / SB: Surgical
Expensive cards that are still in the deck are: Snapcaster / Cryptic / Damnation / Jace (but it sounds like you already have Jace).
I think at minimum the deck needs a couple of each of the cards in this list. These are your main sources of card advantage (Glimmer of Genius is a pretty bad card). The deck could potentially survive without Snapcaster Mage but you would want more Cryptics / Damnations to supplement that. After you have this list Polluted Delta and Search for Azcanta are probably the most important upgrades to get.
I already have most of these cards for the budget version except the planeswalker, creatures and some of the other nonland cards.
Im thinking of trying to trade some of my most valuable cards at my LGS. But before i consider and start trading i have one last question.
I play FNM almost every friday and i wanna go for something more competetive.
At my LGS ppl play...
Jund: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-jund-46470#paper
The Rock: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-jund-46470#paper
And Humans: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-humans-46452#paper
At least most recently. Now forgive me for sounding stupid but if i where to pick this deck up, budget version or not. How well will i do or what should be my approach with this deck vs theirs?
Thanks for taking time mate, really appreciated!
From my experience Jund and the Rock are good match ups. Assassin's trophy / Blood braid elf / Liliana of the veil are the cards you want to stop if you can. BBE is why thoughtseize is important for the deck. You can't counter both the BBE and the cascade spell.
Humans is tough, especially if you're new to blue control decks. They will probably have an answer for your Damnation so don't rely on them to win the game for you.
First, sorry for my english, not my birth langage.
I don't know why but all my posts from the previous subject doesn't exist anymore.
I am ok with @Spellcheck when he said "UW Miracles/Control" is a strictly better "Control" Deck, my conclusion from 2-3 Month with it is "UB" have more tools to go in "Midrange-ish" with a Draw&Go style than a "Pure control".
I am also ok with @old_bag_o_bones advices. (just i don't like Ashiok xD)
UB Control is a "Snapcaster-CrypticCommand-deck" with some black threats(Bitterblossom, Delve) to steal some games with some efficient things like Push (Better than PtE where you don't find recursive threats or big threats). i can't say is a good deck, this is one of the more difficult deck i played, i tried many Options, at the end ; Cryptic command, Jace, Clique, Snap, Push, Bitterblossom, DelveThreats were the cards i always wanted to see.
if you can play 4 cryptic, go ahead, i know this is not always easy but this is our best cards here because we always want to use cryptic, mostly when our opponent is ahead.
x2-3 Snapcaster is good, you will always find some degenerate things to do with it to go ahead in the game !
x1-2 Clique is very good, this is a clock and in a deck where you want to grind each points of life, this is a good choice.
x2-3 Delve creatures, i don't find the better choice, Gurmag angler have a better clock but sometimes Tasigur give your a better options in the late game, a split is an options.
x3-4 Cryptic command, your best card in this deck, i think, if i can, i run 4.
x2-3 Jace, because this is the best PW, i prefer 3 than 2 because sometimes you just want to tappout turn 4 and find something for the next turn quickly.
x2-3 Bitterblossom, i love Faeries, i love Bitterblossom, this card is hard to play because of the loss of life but a powerful edge against control/midrange deck. This is need practice.
x6-8 Spot removal, x4Push, x2Hero's Downfall, x1-2Cast down/Dismember ; Board wipe in black are not powerful like White color (Settle the wreckage/Supreme verdict) but spot removal in black seems a little better, you can get the board clear with one and one and snap to re-use your spot and put pressure against many deck.
x1-2 Board wipe, x1 Damnation, x1 Languish, because of meddling mage in your local metagame, you can add a third.
x4 Serum visions or Opt, depends on your preference, i'm a huge fan of Opt for the moment, because Draw&Go play-style.
If i use Frank Carsten articles, you need 19 Blue sources for a turn 4 Cryptic(90%) and 15 black sources for a turn 4 Damnation(92.5%) (14 for turn 1 Push).
Here you got 18 Blue sources and 15 Black sources, with 24 land for find your turn 4-Land 80.6%On the Draw / 71.3%On the Play, with Opt you have a better % of each ;
x4 Polluted delta
x4 Field of ruin
x4 Creeping tar pit
x3 Watery grave
x2 Drowned catacomb
x5 Island
x2 Swamp
If you really like UB and want to play with it, you will take the more hardest way for a Ux Snapcaster-Cryptic deck but at a FNM level this can works very good, need a lot of practices, more than others Ux(x) decks, in my opinion.
@old_bag_o_bones Stated that the U/B Deck is good match ups vs Jund and the Rock. But i havent played any FNM yet but im going to this friday. Soim just wondering when i meet these specific decks or pherhaps, 8-rack or Dredge. What should be my starting hand and gameplay (plan) against them.
Thanks for the replies guys, very much appreciated!
Against Jund your opening hand it's too important since it's going to be discarded quickly. Serum Visions is great becuase you can set up your top decks and they can't get Thoughtseized off the top of your deck haha. You'll also want some removal for their creatures if you can.
Same with 8rack. Your opener isn't too important. Just try to set up your plays with Serum Visions. Planeswalkers are great in the match up so try to defend them from discard spells with counterspells of your own.
For Dredge you want graveyard hate in your opener (pretty straight forward, I know). If you can discard their first faithless looting effect and counter their second you should be OK to start setting things up. If you can't stop their lootings you need graveyard hate.
This will be my first try with a more proper modern deck so we see how it goes
There are several options to reduce the costs of decks like these.
One of them is to up the number of GOOD cantrips to find the soilutions
you need to find.
IF you want to test/ like Briefings/ Discovery I highly recommend trying Thought Scours.
They enable your Delve threats nicely, play well with Tasigur's ability and offer food for Snaps and
Briefings.
Also BabiBabiBidi mentioned something intersting (at least for you )
Languish is not only a GOOD addition to Damnation(s) but also
kills things of that are indestructible (Spirits anyone?)
Regards,
Mad
I like the idea of Discovery/Dispersal for the two mods in standard i like it but i don't know if it works well in modern, that need a try.
Now i think i want to start from this list so ; https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1696490#paper