I agree... If I was willing to pay 5UU sorcery speed for a creature, I would go for something like the Sphinx of the Final Word, for instance... at least I know it would not be countered and it's a flying 5/5, which is a much better body than a 4/4 zombie.
The Eterinalize doesn't seem relevant enough.
Card filtering is nice, but I can't see why anyone would run this over a Trinket, Treasure or even Trophy mage that grabs something you specifically want.
Cmon guys, we need to pick up our game a bit. Shoktroopa is the only one even keeping this deck on the map in regards to statistics on things like mtg goldfish.
Valentine... yeah kinda. To be fair. There aren't many pilots of the deck so results just don't exist in the same way. I won an IQ with u tron this year... it's a hard deck to pilot at big tournaments cause of general fatigue. So I often just play eldrazi. I think this is a main reason control doesn't have many top 8s... 9 rounds of unforgiving play can be rough.
I am in the invitational. I will be playing eldrazi. If I scrub out I will play U tron in classic probably.
@nickerbean I'll try and find ya in Roanoke if I have free time. You playing the open?
Cmon guys, we need to pick up our game a bit. Shoktroopa is the only one even keeping this deck on the map in regards to statistics on things like mtg goldfish.
I went 5-0 in a competitive league before the weekend, and again just now. I hope one of them shows up on MtgGoldfish. The one I had a few weeks back didn't. Anyone know how decks get selected to get featured on Wizard's site?
Has anyone tried running Telepathy as a 1 of (or more) in this deck?
Haven't been playing long enough to have seen this card before today and for such a cheap cost and such a powerful effect, I'm surprised it isn't in more decks. Holding back casting a Mindslaver because they have a counter + surgical extraction seems worth the 1U investment. No?
Telepathy is definitively worth 1 mana, it is however not worth one card. It doesn't matter if you know exactly how to efficiently play around your opponent's hand if you don't have the resources, in this case cards, to go through with that plan. Every single card needs to do something that has a quick impact on the boardstate. If you play a card that doesn't impact, or prepare the boardstate every turn we'll fall very far behind, which is already a problem the deck can have in various matchups.
For the situation you mentioned about counter + surgical. If i knew nothing else about the game I'd actually be happy in that situation. They spent two cards to deal with the one Mindslaver you had in your hand. It's situations like these that allow us to pull ahead by getting breathing room to pull ahead using Thirst for Knowledge, or by searching up another big artifact with Treasure Mage. The slot used on Telepathy could instead be used on some other big artifact spell somewhere in the deck.
5 for a 4/4 artifact creature, cycling 2, costs 2 less for each card that you cycled or discarded this turn.
Is this useful to us to slow down aggro things, or still too slow?
Card seems better in a madness shell than ours. Situations where we are casting this for less than 5 seem depressing. If you TFK, discard 2 cards and end up with a 4/4 with no abilities that you paid 4 mana for anyway. Or if you discard just 1 card (say, Map), you paid 3 for TFK then 3 for a 4/4 with no abilities which doesn't seem good. Seems like Steel Wall, Filigree Familiar and Silent Arbiter all still play better into our our long term game.
Here's my current list. All the dailies I've been playing for a while resembles this one strongly, with only one or two cards being different daily to daily.
As you can see that despite initially championing Gemstone Caverns as an awesome card I've since cooled on its utility. I believe it was good while I suggested it, but the meta has changed since then, and its utility is now somewhat lower. I used its slot to get another land destruction spell in the mainboard to go with the Crucible of Worlds in the sideboard. I'm still thinking the slot could find some better use and I'm going to test Mirrorpool next.
Unlike kharniverous I just don't believe in using two Mindslaver. I've tried it, and I just get them in my hand too often. It might be that he goes for partial locks earlier in the game more often than I do, but I only really need access to it once, and don't recall having trouble finding one when I wanted. Instead of using multiple Mindslavers I've focused my strategy pulling ahead with a pair of Torrential Gearhulks. The extra deck velocity generated by these two allows for running a leaner and more singleton based strategy than would otherwise be possible. They magnify the power of our sideboard, with cards like Dismember and Spatial Contortion being castable several times. They have a also have a nice size vs most of the other creatures played. They do require that I play extra blue, so I've included a singleton Talisman of Dominance, as well as a Wayfarer's Bauble and a Solemn Simulacrum. You can see reasoning for the bauble earlier in the thread if you search. Together these two cards allow me to reach 6 lands at a decent speed, at which point a lot of the value and payoff cards come online.
Commit/Memory is the real deal, be it by casting it EOT using gearhulk (remember, you can cast Memory this way), or by just as an option to cast later in the game when both sides are down to few resources. If you're after side with the extra ugins in the deck it can in some cases reliably be cast -> finish tron -> cast ugin or O-stone in the same sequence.
I strongly believe that you need one or two Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in the sideboard. If you do it opens up the option of siding out the Treasure Mages in matchups like counters company and elves. You will have enough big spells of the correct type without having to spend the three mana tutoring one up using the treasure mage. Instead using these three mana to cast Thirst lets us find both the tron and the big spell at the same time.
Feek free to ask if you have any other questions. =)
@Agnara Very cool list. Do you find Leylines at a 1 of to be good enough? That is a 11% chance of being in your opening hand. Your obviously making it work, so what is y our secret?
The big thing about Leylines is that they improve the relevant matchups no matter how many of them you run. If you don't play too many of them you simply don't mulligan for them actively. I would be playing more than the singleton, but there's simply not enough space in the list currently, all the other sideboard cards are very useful in their applicable matchups. There's also the point that I tend to sideboard very many cards as a time. Against many decks I replace upwards of 10 cards to adjust my gameplan against theirs. All of the cards are useful in several matchups in various combinations, and are minor upgrades over the replaced mainboard cards.
I got a lot of experience with the deck, as it was one of the first decks i built in modern, before I built the old Birthing Pod deck. I've had it as my main deck for a couple of years now. This plus a good knowledge of the modern format really helps in winning games.
I'm also spending a decent amount of time looking at statistics for chances to draw various combinations of cards. As a result most of the time I got a decent feeling for the chances of topdecking a card of type X at any point in the game, and can plan based on that. I've tinkered with my list quite a lot based on that, and I believe I've found a sweet spot where there is no card function in the deck that can't be accessed after drawing approximately the top third of the deck. To do that we need about three copies of the function. For example, despite running only two mainboard boardwhipes, Ugin and O-Stone, I can find them relatively early using Gifts Ungiven. Alternatively, even though I run only one Mindslaver, it can be found via Treasure Mages. Need to flash something back? 1 snap + 2 gearhulks. Bounce? 2 Repeal + 1 Cyclonic rift. Stabilizer? Wurmcoil + Platinum Angel + Ugin. The unique cards that are harder to find, are in a class of card you never need to actively search for. I very rarely need to look for the Solemn Simulacrum or the Talisman of Dominance.
The effect of having a lot of the deck accessible in the mid-game allows for a lot of strategic decisions that couldn't otherwise be made. For instance if I'm good on mana I can sort-of rely on reaching a boardwhipe "soon".
Most of changes were to the sideboard. However I have switched back to 1 Slaver 2 Wurmcoils. Wurmcoil seems better in a stubborn denial metagame despite players being ready for large creatures. I still have Fabricate and treasure mage to find it.
Ratchet bomb, I get that explosives can be used the turn it is played but I like ratchet bomb plus I can hit x =3 against something like elves. The eldrazi tron players are using it although for them its their only option.
If I had infinite money the familiars would be chalices.
No one else likes aetherize? It is my primary wrath.
Them having a lot of cards in hand means exactly nothing if you got control of the board with new phyrexiaa ugin, or have them slaver-locked.
Actually I was thinking about it and I think I spoke to soon. It's not horrible against decks that make you discard a lot especially if ruins goes down. Or in my case this one mill deck that drives me crazy in my local meta. I'll give it a try. I may even try you're Mirrorpool experiment.
No one else likes aetherize? It is my primary wrath.
I haven't played with Aetherize in a while, though I'm suspecting it's not too great. It has the same mana cost as Commit, but it has none of Commit's flexibility. If they are attacking with a lot of creatures their deck is also likely to have a way to get them back on the table quickly. If they are attacking with one creature, commit is better in every way, and finally if, they are attacking with two, they are about on par with each other since you're not down a card after casting commit.
If you're looking for an instant speed boardwhipe against attacking creatures I'm far more favorable to Ætherspouts. If you cast it you're far more likely to have solved the creature problem in the medium to long term.
How has spell burst performed for you? I really like the card but haven't had much experience with it.
There was a period where Spell Burst wasn't too good. However now that Grixis Death's shadow has become a significant part of the meta I'm liking it a lot again. I can't seem to reliably stop them casting the Death's Shadow using Condescend and similar countermagic. So using two mana on spell burst to stop a Death's shadow is pretty good. The big thing about the spell is that the upside of having it in the right situation is extremely high. Especially now that so many decks runs cheap spells. It's well worth the slot. If there wasn't so many other spells fighting for spots in the deck I'd be tempted to run two.
Most of the time you go 1 for 1 with it, but when countering high impact cmc 1 spells that doesn't feel bad. And any time you get to buy it back you get far ahead.
I've found it particularly useful whenever I've been up against Living End and I don't recall any matchup in particular where its inclusion felt worse than any other counterspell.
Thoughts on this? Mid-game it could be nice. If you have Tron and 1 blue, you could cast this, pick up your island, then just play the island as your first land of the turn (and maybe something else). Also the idea of playing this in response to a Ghost Qtr or something that does land destruction to save the land seems like a nice play.
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Card filtering is nice, but I can't see why anyone would run this over a Trinket, Treasure or even Trophy mage that grabs something you specifically want.
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Valentine... yeah kinda. To be fair. There aren't many pilots of the deck so results just don't exist in the same way. I won an IQ with u tron this year... it's a hard deck to pilot at big tournaments cause of general fatigue. So I often just play eldrazi. I think this is a main reason control doesn't have many top 8s... 9 rounds of unforgiving play can be rough.
I am in the invitational. I will be playing eldrazi. If I scrub out I will play U tron in classic probably.
@nickerbean I'll try and find ya in Roanoke if I have free time. You playing the open?
I went 5-0 in a competitive league before the weekend, and again just now. I hope one of them shows up on MtgGoldfish. The one I had a few weeks back didn't. Anyone know how decks get selected to get featured on Wizard's site?
Haven't been playing long enough to have seen this card before today and for such a cheap cost and such a powerful effect, I'm surprised it isn't in more decks. Holding back casting a Mindslaver because they have a counter + surgical extraction seems worth the 1U investment. No?
For the situation you mentioned about counter + surgical. If i knew nothing else about the game I'd actually be happy in that situation. They spent two cards to deal with the one Mindslaver you had in your hand. It's situations like these that allow us to pull ahead by getting breathing room to pull ahead using Thirst for Knowledge, or by searching up another big artifact with Treasure Mage. The slot used on Telepathy could instead be used on some other big artifact spell somewhere in the deck.
Yeah, pretty excited. I know it's not much but I am undefeated at my lgs for like the last 6 weeks. As long as I don't go 0-3, I'll be happy.
5 for a 4/4 artifact creature, cycling 2, costs 2 less for each card that you cycled or discarded this turn.
Is this useful to us to slow down aggro things, or still too slow?
Card seems better in a madness shell than ours. Situations where we are casting this for less than 5 seem depressing. If you TFK, discard 2 cards and end up with a 4/4 with no abilities that you paid 4 mana for anyway. Or if you discard just 1 card (say, Map), you paid 3 for TFK then 3 for a 4/4 with no abilities which doesn't seem good. Seems like Steel Wall, Filigree Familiar and Silent Arbiter all still play better into our our long term game.
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Talisman of Dominance
4 Expedition Map
Interaction
2 Repeal
4 Condescend
2 Spatial Contortion
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Commit/Memory
2 Remand
1 Spell Burst
2 Chalice of the Void
Value
2 Treasure Mage
1 Gifts Ungiven
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Mindslaver
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Platinum Angel
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Lands
1 Academy Ruins
7 Island
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Tower
4 Urza's Power Plant
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Dismember
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Commit/Memory
2 Squelch
1 Negate
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Spatial Contortion
As you can see that despite initially championing Gemstone Caverns as an awesome card I've since cooled on its utility. I believe it was good while I suggested it, but the meta has changed since then, and its utility is now somewhat lower. I used its slot to get another land destruction spell in the mainboard to go with the Crucible of Worlds in the sideboard. I'm still thinking the slot could find some better use and I'm going to test Mirrorpool next.
Unlike kharniverous I just don't believe in using two Mindslaver. I've tried it, and I just get them in my hand too often. It might be that he goes for partial locks earlier in the game more often than I do, but I only really need access to it once, and don't recall having trouble finding one when I wanted. Instead of using multiple Mindslavers I've focused my strategy pulling ahead with a pair of Torrential Gearhulks. The extra deck velocity generated by these two allows for running a leaner and more singleton based strategy than would otherwise be possible. They magnify the power of our sideboard, with cards like Dismember and Spatial Contortion being castable several times. They have a also have a nice size vs most of the other creatures played. They do require that I play extra blue, so I've included a singleton Talisman of Dominance, as well as a Wayfarer's Bauble and a Solemn Simulacrum. You can see reasoning for the bauble earlier in the thread if you search. Together these two cards allow me to reach 6 lands at a decent speed, at which point a lot of the value and payoff cards come online.
Commit/Memory is the real deal, be it by casting it EOT using gearhulk (remember, you can cast Memory this way), or by just as an option to cast later in the game when both sides are down to few resources. If you're after side with the extra ugins in the deck it can in some cases reliably be cast -> finish tron -> cast ugin or O-stone in the same sequence.
I strongly believe that you need one or two Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in the sideboard. If you do it opens up the option of siding out the Treasure Mages in matchups like counters company and elves. You will have enough big spells of the correct type without having to spend the three mana tutoring one up using the treasure mage. Instead using these three mana to cast Thirst lets us find both the tron and the big spell at the same time.
Feek free to ask if you have any other questions. =)
I got a lot of experience with the deck, as it was one of the first decks i built in modern, before I built the old Birthing Pod deck. I've had it as my main deck for a couple of years now. This plus a good knowledge of the modern format really helps in winning games.
I'm also spending a decent amount of time looking at statistics for chances to draw various combinations of cards. As a result most of the time I got a decent feeling for the chances of topdecking a card of type X at any point in the game, and can plan based on that. I've tinkered with my list quite a lot based on that, and I believe I've found a sweet spot where there is no card function in the deck that can't be accessed after drawing approximately the top third of the deck. To do that we need about three copies of the function. For example, despite running only two mainboard boardwhipes, Ugin and O-Stone, I can find them relatively early using Gifts Ungiven. Alternatively, even though I run only one Mindslaver, it can be found via Treasure Mages. Need to flash something back? 1 snap + 2 gearhulks. Bounce? 2 Repeal + 1 Cyclonic rift. Stabilizer? Wurmcoil + Platinum Angel + Ugin. The unique cards that are harder to find, are in a class of card you never need to actively search for. I very rarely need to look for the Solemn Simulacrum or the Talisman of Dominance.
The effect of having a lot of the deck accessible in the mid-game allows for a lot of strategic decisions that couldn't otherwise be made. For instance if I'm good on mana I can sort-of rely on reaching a boardwhipe "soon".
1 Treasure mage
2 Solemn simulacrum
2 Wurmcoil engine
1 Torrential gearhulk
1 Platinum angel
1 Sundering titan
Planeswalker
1 Ugin, the spirit dragon
Artifacts
4 expedition map
3 talisman of dominance
1 oblivion stone
1 mindslaver
Sorcery
1 fabricate
4 condescend
3 repeal
1 spell burst
3 remand
2 spatial contortion
1 cyclonic rift
4 thirst for knowledge
lands
12 tron lands
6 island
2 ghost quarter
1 minamo, school at the waters edge
1 Academy Ruins
1 Gemstone caverns
1 Chalice of the void
2 Tormod's crypt
2 Negate
2 Ratchet bomb
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Dismember
2 Filagree familiar
2 Aetherize
1 Jester's cap
Most of changes were to the sideboard. However I have switched back to 1 Slaver 2 Wurmcoils. Wurmcoil seems better in a stubborn denial metagame despite players being ready for large creatures. I still have Fabricate and treasure mage to find it.
Ratchet bomb, I get that explosives can be used the turn it is played but I like ratchet bomb plus I can hit x =3 against something like elves. The eldrazi tron players are using it although for them its their only option.
If I had infinite money the familiars would be chalices.
No one else likes aetherize? It is my primary wrath.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Actually I was thinking about it and I think I spoke to soon. It's not horrible against decks that make you discard a lot especially if ruins goes down. Or in my case this one mill deck that drives me crazy in my local meta. I'll give it a try. I may even try you're Mirrorpool experiment.
I haven't played with Aetherize in a while, though I'm suspecting it's not too great. It has the same mana cost as Commit, but it has none of Commit's flexibility. If they are attacking with a lot of creatures their deck is also likely to have a way to get them back on the table quickly. If they are attacking with one creature, commit is better in every way, and finally if, they are attacking with two, they are about on par with each other since you're not down a card after casting commit.
If you're looking for an instant speed boardwhipe against attacking creatures I'm far more favorable to Ætherspouts. If you cast it you're far more likely to have solved the creature problem in the medium to long term.
There was a period where Spell Burst wasn't too good. However now that Grixis Death's shadow has become a significant part of the meta I'm liking it a lot again. I can't seem to reliably stop them casting the Death's Shadow using Condescend and similar countermagic. So using two mana on spell burst to stop a Death's shadow is pretty good. The big thing about the spell is that the upside of having it in the right situation is extremely high. Especially now that so many decks runs cheap spells. It's well worth the slot. If there wasn't so many other spells fighting for spots in the deck I'd be tempted to run two.
Most of the time you go 1 for 1 with it, but when countering high impact cmc 1 spells that doesn't feel bad. And any time you get to buy it back you get far ahead.
I've found it particularly useful whenever I've been up against Living End and I don't recall any matchup in particular where its inclusion felt worse than any other counterspell.
Thoughts on this? Mid-game it could be nice. If you have Tron and 1 blue, you could cast this, pick up your island, then just play the island as your first land of the turn (and maybe something else). Also the idea of playing this in response to a Ghost Qtr or something that does land destruction to save the land seems like a nice play.