Spreading Seas; I can imagine its awesome against Tron, what are some other good uses for it?
I'm strongly against ojutai. He doesn't kill quickly enough, is sorcery speed, doesnt come with an ETB and doesn't protect you well enough from dying against some of the more common matchups. He will also still die to several of the removal spells that are mediocre against us in game one. A single gideon or an additional restoration angel are significantly better in my mind.
D Sphere is a card I like simply as a catch all. It takes care of everything from storm, gets key enchantments against bogles, is great against lantern (bridge is how they win), provides an additional spot removal spell against the aggro matchups, deals with lingering souls/tokens, and, as you mentioned, allows us to handle resolved planeswalkers. It comes out during a few matchups, but in such a draw heavy build, I like having access to one.
It's one of the absolute best cards in the format against tron, a deck that is gaining in popularity and is probably slightly favored against us. Seas is good against a lot of decks - strong in the mirror, good against twin by taking them off double red or killing lighthouse while not making us lose a land, great against jund/junk to kill manlands and stop turn 3 lilianna, kills green sources/pendelhaven/inkmoth against infect, kills affinitys man lands, stops the double lands from the eldrazi deck, and it gets cavern and mutavault against fish. The color screw is an underrated facet that will come up against decks like living end, burn, zoo, bogles and coco (it also gets gavony). Finally, we can target ourselves when they have a blood moon in play to turn cryptic and snap back on.
what are your thoughts on Ojutai as a finisher? and why the Timely Reinforcements in the side, seeing as Burn is something we can't lose to?
I'm lighter on walls/finks than most builds, so game one burn is slightly favored and I need to make absolutely sure to have a very strong sideboard config against them because of how popular burn is. Timely is also exceptional against zoo.
Gotcha, thanks for clearing that up. Don't you think there's better options for the second Sphinx's Rev? A second Shadow of Doubt perhaps? Third Finks? They've always overperformed for me.
Thanks for the in depth explanation of why does cards are so good keezy.
Would love to play with Flickerwisp&Detention Sphere, but even w/o blinking it it still does it's job. I've never tried it because there was a tendency in this thread that its not that good. Ignoring the value, it's just such a flavorful classic u/w kind of card which makes me want to play it.
The second Sphinx's Revelation seems a bit odd to me, since I never want to hold two of them in hand at anytime. But I0m sure you have your reasons.
Im a big fan of Prairie Stream as a 1 of. In my games I tend to have access to 2 basics rather quickly with playing 8 of them, then the card becomes a dual land which is sweet. Additionally its an alternative to fetch out tapped instead of a Hallowed Fountain, which you can still get at a later time if need be.
How do you get by with no wrath effects main? Your list appears to be two cards short as well
Somehow they didnt copy from my list, I run 3 Supreme Verdict Main. I exchanged the 4th Supreme Verdict with a Wrath of God because I encountered Welding Jar and Thrun, the Last Troll
What do people think about a UW control deck that runs Meddling Mages alongside the new Reflector Mage and even Phyrexian Revoker to lock decks out ala Lantern Control?
@TheAller: Read Keezy's explanation on the spreading seas.
I agree with your statement on the GQ, just would like to hear some arguments for Tec Edges.
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Modern: GNykthos Devotion - Eldrazi Tron - RW Boros Burn - UW UW Control
I've tried Prairie Stream - I agree with Aller that its a bad Glacial. I run 3 Glacial and one Temple, with only a single Hallowed Fountain alongside 4 fetches, 8 basics, Mystic gate, 4 Colonnades and 4 GQ. That being said its not bad at all - just less effective IMO. The scry on Temple is really powerful and I am going to test two.
I dislike the idea of main deck Spreading Seas, without having tested them myself. I also dislike Aven main deck because it dies to all removal and makes the matches it's not effective in bad. It's fine to side in for all the matches its good.
I am using 2 Shadow of Doubt, which makes GQ much better than Tec Edge. Tec is a lot better vs Scape and Twin, so I would say it depends what you are expecting. GQ quite a bit better vs tron and bloom for speed.
Reflector Mage is for UW Value Control (the Phil Silberman Sun Titan/Emeria deck), not straight UW control.
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what are your thoughts on Ojutai as a finisher? and why the Timely Reinforcements in the side, seeing as Burn is something we can't lose to?
I use ojutai exclusively and even though I really like the card I find ojutai better on paper than in practice. very fragile despite the pseudo hexproof. can't block tasigur/seige rhino. doesn't do anything when he comes in play.
I'm going to swap him with the new linvala when I get her. seems like the finisher this deck needs. a timely strapped on a 5/5 flyer seems like everything we want.
And any other combo decks. Being a deck with answers to all the decks in the format, I find it poor to play like a midrange deck. I'd prefer to play Bant with Geist, Elspeth and Goyf if I wanted to tap out.
Finks is amazing and allows us to have a strong burn matchup and aggro is fine. So that's a concession, but 3 D-Sphere is too much. We don't have enough pressure to justify casting Sphere on single threats under normal circumstance. Having better catch all answers like Mana Leak is better because it can hit anything and is relevant in a broader application.
Read up the last 5 pages or so to see discussion on Ojutai, as well as land choices and draw-go reasoning.
I too started my build with Watanabes list, but the format has shifted since, and improvements have been made. If you have different results from testing, then please by all means let us know what's working for you with your choices.
I find ghost quarter better against the field, I prefer having interaction with Bloom and Tron. Plus Shadow of Doubt. Edge is fine, its really a personal/meta call.
Ojutai is also totally fine, I really like him but most of the time it feels win more. Elspeth and Gideon feel much better in the matches where Ojutai is relevant.
I would say that Ensaring Bridge, while problematic of course, should not be a reason to maindeck three Dsphere. I know my meta has a larger share of combo decks, but its miserable against Twin, Scapeshift, Burn, Bloom. If it works for you, then Godspeed.
I've found verdict to work for most applications, outside something like Keranos. I use celestial purge vs that
Condescend is a card I want to playtest in the future as well @ThisBorzi. There's no way to generate tons of mana but with 26 lands the land drops should be pretty consisting. I imagine it's not the best card on the draw, on the play it seems good.
With that many creatures you could try out Sun Titan. I agree with other posters that you need some amount of Mana Leak in there, maybe making space by taking out Remand.
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Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Gotcha, thanks for clearing that up. Don't you think there's better options for the second Sphinx's Rev? A second Shadow of Doubt perhaps? Third Finks? They've always overperformed for me.
To me, if you've made the decision to run the first rev you should be running the second. It's not a card that was thrown in by happenstance, it becomes a rev deck in a lot of matchups. My deck, I realize, is on the more extreme end of the draw go spectrum for uw but you want to see at least one in the vast majority of matchups, and, with dispel growing to be more popular and iok being still widely played, the deck needs to fight through the first one of these and eventually resolve a rev to win. I've been fine with the one shadow main, I would not play two however. In a strategy that builds towards revs (again this is contextual for my build) think twice is the best cantrip that we have available but sprinkling a mix of walls, seas, and shadows is a good move in my mind because they will all be strong in specific matchups.
What does everyone think about the new Bx Eldrazi deck that lots of people are jumping on? Any testing results to discuss?
I have a Modern League started, and I know there's at least one of those running around. This seems like another deck that Spreading Seas would be powerful against, so I can see an argument if the deck becomes a staple. My deck is locked in for the league, but discussion would help
The deck seems solid. Our removal does matchup well to the deck, as even ulamog can eat a path. The deck does have pretty high snapcaster resistance, however.
What do you guys think about those new colorless cards that are coming in OGW?
I believe our deck can cast them quite easily, specially those manabases with Mystic Gate (with Ghost Quarter and Calciform Pools we can have 9 sources of colorless mana)
Anybody play Myth Realized? I took a break for the past year or so, but before I left I played a UW control with Myth. It lets you play 1 cheap card that potentially gets huge, both for blocking and attacking. It's also a mana sink for the draw-go style. I want to get back into MTGO, and am wondering if this is still viable.
Anybody play Myth Realized? I took a break for the past year or so, but before I left I played a UW control with Myth. It lets you play 1 cheap card that potentially gets huge, both for blocking and attacking. It's also a mana sink for the draw-go style. I want to get back into MTGO, and am wondering if this is still viable.
Thanks!
I've followed this thread for a while, but haven't taken an active part of it. However, when I saw you mention Myth Realized I had to comment, as I've been playing / testing the card for quite a while now - Mythic Command.
I truly believe that the card has potential, and that it is too easily dismissed. My plan is to post my primer on this forum once it's finished, but if you have any questions about the list feel free to ask them over at my deck site on tappedout - as I'm not checking this thread too frequently.
But please, don't let the "parrots" mentioning "dies to Abrupt Decay" keep you away form - at the very least - testing the card. It's just a mindless assumption, and not as real of an issue as people tend to believe.
Well I wish you good luck in making your project work, but up until now Myth Realized isn't really showing up in any relevant top 8, so I'm just sticking with reality. The fact it dies to Decay is not a "mindless assumption", it is a fact, and it is relevant. Not that it is the only or even the main issue this card has.
Well thank you! (assuming no sarcasm).
First, it didn't mean to lash out against you, my reply was meant for zachawry - all I see whenever Myth is mentioned is "it dies to abrupt decay" as the counter argument, it was a general solicitation to give the card a chance. I honestly think the card should be tested more, but that's based on my experience with it.
Abrupt Decay is seen in 14,3% decks at 2,7 copies on average. The way I've built the list, Myth is the only target for Decay - which has a bad day against Lingering Souls and Colonnade. In the matchups where decay might be a problem I can just board out some of the Myths. But honestly, I rarely do, as they've won me games where the GBx player didn't have the decay, or it simply didn't matter because Myth only costed me one mana.
While yes, it doesn't have any relevant abilities, does allow the deck to run a higher spell density and a more focused control game. You drop it early, then proceed to play your counters, sweepers and removal - eventually swing with a huge beat-stick.
However, the card shouldn't be slot into the midrange variant of UW Control. It requires its own environment. So based on that it's hard to say whichever path is best, unless more people are willing to test it. I could go on and on, with more reasons why I believe the card has potential, but most of it is already written at my tappedout page. I do my best to prove its relevance, however it'll take me a while.
Edit: I'd be interested to hear what you believe are the main issues with the card. Do you have experience with it?
I guess the "dies to Abrupt Decay" here hurts a bit more than usual. Snapcaster, Wall of Omens, Clique and Finks all die to Abrupt. But by the time they get targeter they already gave us some value. We can even pseudo-counter Abrupt Decay by blinking any of them and getting even more value. Myth cannot be saved from Abrut unless if it is reseted.
Usually a control deck wants a very resilient threat as a win-con (or something that grants us card advantage). Myth can only attack (or block) and does nothing else for us. I guess its place is something like a UW Tempo deck, but I'm not sure about how viable this would be.
That being said, if the card is working for you, then keep going. But be careful with the trap of "It won me many games", cause maybe there's another card that would make your deck win many more, even not being the card that dealt the most damage to the opponent.
----------------------------
So, in 6 days we're getting a new B&R announcement. There are lots of talks about unbanning Stoneforge Mystic. If it came to be, do you guys think it will have some place in UW Control/Midrange? If so, what equipments should we pack with her?
Propably because he has only 2 Kitchen Finks Mainboard.
I'm wondering about the Ojutai as well.
Additionally @Keezy: What are some of the common targets for the Detention Sphere. I can imagine Liliana of the veil Karn Liberated Ugin, the spirit dragon are really good targets, but what else?
Spreading Seas; I can imagine its awesome against Tron, what are some other good uses for it?
I'm strongly against ojutai. He doesn't kill quickly enough, is sorcery speed, doesnt come with an ETB and doesn't protect you well enough from dying against some of the more common matchups. He will also still die to several of the removal spells that are mediocre against us in game one. A single gideon or an additional restoration angel are significantly better in my mind.
D Sphere is a card I like simply as a catch all. It takes care of everything from storm, gets key enchantments against bogles, is great against lantern (bridge is how they win), provides an additional spot removal spell against the aggro matchups, deals with lingering souls/tokens, and, as you mentioned, allows us to handle resolved planeswalkers. It comes out during a few matchups, but in such a draw heavy build, I like having access to one.
It's one of the absolute best cards in the format against tron, a deck that is gaining in popularity and is probably slightly favored against us. Seas is good against a lot of decks - strong in the mirror, good against twin by taking them off double red or killing lighthouse while not making us lose a land, great against jund/junk to kill manlands and stop turn 3 lilianna, kills green sources/pendelhaven/inkmoth against infect, kills affinitys man lands, stops the double lands from the eldrazi deck, and it gets cavern and mutavault against fish. The color screw is an underrated facet that will come up against decks like living end, burn, zoo, bogles and coco (it also gets gavony). Finally, we can target ourselves when they have a blood moon in play to turn cryptic and snap back on.
I'm lighter on walls/finks than most builds, so game one burn is slightly favored and I need to make absolutely sure to have a very strong sideboard config against them because of how popular burn is. Timely is also exceptional against zoo.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
Would love to play with Flickerwisp&Detention Sphere, but even w/o blinking it it still does it's job. I've never tried it because there was a tendency in this thread that its not that good. Ignoring the value, it's just such a flavorful classic u/w kind of card which makes me want to play it.
The second Sphinx's Revelation seems a bit odd to me, since I never want to hold two of them in hand at anytime. But I0m sure you have your reasons.
Im a big fan of Prairie Stream as a 1 of. In my games I tend to have access to 2 basics rather quickly with playing 8 of them, then the card becomes a dual land which is sweet. Additionally its an alternative to fetch out tapped instead of a Hallowed Fountain, which you can still get at a later time if need be.
I would really love to hear the thoughts on Tectonic Edge vs Ghost Quarter.
My current decklist im planning to play in a real tournament after getting first place in a 10ppl fun tournament.
1 Calciform Pools
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Flooded Strand
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Glacial Fortress
1 Hallowed Fountain
5 Island
1 Mystic Gate
3 Plains
1 Temple of Enlightenment
Instant & Sorceries (20)
2 Cryptic Command
3 Mana Leak
1 Negate
4 Path to Exile
1 Shadow of Doubt
3 Spell Snare
1 Sphinx's Revelation
2 Think Twice
3 Supreme Verdict
4 Kitchen Finks
3 Restoration Angel
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Wall of Omens
Enchantments (2)
1x Detention Sphere
1x Spreading Seas
Planeswalker (2)
1 Gideon Jura
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Celestial Purge
1 Disdainful Stroke
2 Dispel
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Flashfreeze
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Rest in Peace
2x Spellskite
2x Stony Silence
1x Wrath of God
Somehow they didnt copy from my list, I run 3 Supreme Verdict Main. I exchanged the 4th Supreme Verdict with a Wrath of God because I encountered Welding Jar and Thrun, the Last Troll
Modern: Eldrazi CB,
Meddling Mage is sideboard tech at best and Revoker only sees fringe play in Chord / Company decks as far as I'm aware.
It sounds very flimsy to me overall, seeing as all these lock pieces are very easy to remove for pretty much any deck out there.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
I agree with your statement on the GQ, just would like to hear some arguments for Tec Edges.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
I dislike the idea of main deck Spreading Seas, without having tested them myself. I also dislike Aven main deck because it dies to all removal and makes the matches it's not effective in bad. It's fine to side in for all the matches its good.
I am using 2 Shadow of Doubt, which makes GQ much better than Tec Edge. Tec is a lot better vs Scape and Twin, so I would say it depends what you are expecting. GQ quite a bit better vs tron and bloom for speed.
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I use ojutai exclusively and even though I really like the card I find ojutai better on paper than in practice. very fragile despite the pseudo hexproof. can't block tasigur/seige rhino. doesn't do anything when he comes in play.
I'm going to swap him with the new linvala when I get her. seems like the finisher this deck needs. a timely strapped on a 5/5 flyer seems like everything we want.
And any other combo decks. Being a deck with answers to all the decks in the format, I find it poor to play like a midrange deck. I'd prefer to play Bant with Geist, Elspeth and Goyf if I wanted to tap out.
Finks is amazing and allows us to have a strong burn matchup and aggro is fine. So that's a concession, but 3 D-Sphere is too much. We don't have enough pressure to justify casting Sphere on single threats under normal circumstance. Having better catch all answers like Mana Leak is better because it can hit anything and is relevant in a broader application.
Read up the last 5 pages or so to see discussion on Ojutai, as well as land choices and draw-go reasoning.
I too started my build with Watanabes list, but the format has shifted since, and improvements have been made. If you have different results from testing, then please by all means let us know what's working for you with your choices.
Ojutai is also totally fine, I really like him but most of the time it feels win more. Elspeth and Gideon feel much better in the matches where Ojutai is relevant.
I would say that Ensaring Bridge, while problematic of course, should not be a reason to maindeck three Dsphere. I know my meta has a larger share of combo decks, but its miserable against Twin, Scapeshift, Burn, Bloom. If it works for you, then Godspeed.
I've found verdict to work for most applications, outside something like Keranos. I use celestial purge vs that
Condescend is a card I want to playtest in the future as well @ThisBorzi. There's no way to generate tons of mana but with 26 lands the land drops should be pretty consisting. I imagine it's not the best card on the draw, on the play it seems good.
With that many creatures you could try out Sun Titan. I agree with other posters that you need some amount of Mana Leak in there, maybe making space by taking out Remand.
And btw; Wrath of God looks pretty epic in a white sleeve: http://imgur.com/1yxSnKR
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
To me, if you've made the decision to run the first rev you should be running the second. It's not a card that was thrown in by happenstance, it becomes a rev deck in a lot of matchups. My deck, I realize, is on the more extreme end of the draw go spectrum for uw but you want to see at least one in the vast majority of matchups, and, with dispel growing to be more popular and iok being still widely played, the deck needs to fight through the first one of these and eventually resolve a rev to win. I've been fine with the one shadow main, I would not play two however. In a strategy that builds towards revs (again this is contextual for my build) think twice is the best cantrip that we have available but sprinkling a mix of walls, seas, and shadows is a good move in my mind because they will all be strong in specific matchups.
I have a Modern League started, and I know there's at least one of those running around. This seems like another deck that Spreading Seas would be powerful against, so I can see an argument if the deck becomes a staple. My deck is locked in for the league, but discussion would help
I believe our deck can cast them quite easily, specially those manabases with Mystic Gate (with Ghost Quarter and Calciform Pools we can have 9 sources of colorless mana)
Eldrazi Displacer seems like a nice creature for us.
Commander: WUBRG Superfriends, GW Rhys Tokens, WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon
Kitchen Table (now that's real Magic): WUBRG Domain, GU Biovisionary, UB Korlash Grandeur, UW Merfolk Mill
Thanks!
I've followed this thread for a while, but haven't taken an active part of it. However, when I saw you mention Myth Realized I had to comment, as I've been playing / testing the card for quite a while now - Mythic Command.
I truly believe that the card has potential, and that it is too easily dismissed. My plan is to post my primer on this forum once it's finished, but if you have any questions about the list feel free to ask them over at my deck site on tappedout - as I'm not checking this thread too frequently.
But please, don't let the "parrots" mentioning "dies to Abrupt Decay" keep you away form - at the very least - testing the card. It's just a mindless assumption, and not as real of an issue as people tend to believe.
Well thank you! (assuming no sarcasm).
First, it didn't mean to lash out against you, my reply was meant for zachawry - all I see whenever Myth is mentioned is "it dies to abrupt decay" as the counter argument, it was a general solicitation to give the card a chance. I honestly think the card should be tested more, but that's based on my experience with it.
Abrupt Decay is seen in 14,3% decks at 2,7 copies on average. The way I've built the list, Myth is the only target for Decay - which has a bad day against Lingering Souls and Colonnade. In the matchups where decay might be a problem I can just board out some of the Myths. But honestly, I rarely do, as they've won me games where the GBx player didn't have the decay, or it simply didn't matter because Myth only costed me one mana.
While yes, it doesn't have any relevant abilities, does allow the deck to run a higher spell density and a more focused control game. You drop it early, then proceed to play your counters, sweepers and removal - eventually swing with a huge beat-stick.
However, the card shouldn't be slot into the midrange variant of UW Control. It requires its own environment. So based on that it's hard to say whichever path is best, unless more people are willing to test it. I could go on and on, with more reasons why I believe the card has potential, but most of it is already written at my tappedout page. I do my best to prove its relevance, however it'll take me a while.
Edit: I'd be interested to hear what you believe are the main issues with the card. Do you have experience with it?
Usually a control deck wants a very resilient threat as a win-con (or something that grants us card advantage). Myth can only attack (or block) and does nothing else for us. I guess its place is something like a UW Tempo deck, but I'm not sure about how viable this would be.
That being said, if the card is working for you, then keep going. But be careful with the trap of "It won me many games", cause maybe there's another card that would make your deck win many more, even not being the card that dealt the most damage to the opponent.
----------------------------
So, in 6 days we're getting a new B&R announcement. There are lots of talks about unbanning Stoneforge Mystic. If it came to be, do you guys think it will have some place in UW Control/Midrange? If so, what equipments should we pack with her?
Commander: WUBRG Superfriends, GW Rhys Tokens, WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon
Kitchen Table (now that's real Magic): WUBRG Domain, GU Biovisionary, UB Korlash Grandeur, UW Merfolk Mill