MTG Salvation

That's the fundamental problem with a curve counterspell deck. It works 50% of the time and that's why it can feel like you're 50/50 against most decks. Torrential Gearhulk decks in Standard are the same way. Spell Snare used to be great against everything except Tron, which is why it was a 4-of, and it helped keep the dream alive.

The problem is spell-based decks and dead removal, since we already have Supreme Verdict to wipe out the positional advantage we lose early to creature decks.

Quote from kodieyost »

In complete agreement on virtually every point here, Cody. I've been playing Control and Midrange decks for almost 10 years now, and I've been playing them with my best friend/partner the entire time - for most of the last 18 months, he's been on Modern Jund and I was on Esper.

Every decision you make has the chance to be impactful because of the overall power level of Modern. Feeling when something is bait, when something is a last-ditch effort, or when something is immensely crucial - that comes from knowing both your deck and the opponent's deck intimately.

When you have played Uxx control for long enough, you know how to approach the grindy games. You know how to approach the aggro games. You know how to approach the combo games.

Just like Amalek says in the primer, knowing when to choose Mind Rot for Esper Charm is a huge part of mastering this deck - and it's one decision that can't be overvalued, because Mind Rot will singlehandedly win you some games while being completely irrelevant in others. Especially against a competent opponent who will save his most powerful spells for after you've depleted your resources battling his low-cost threats.

You should know what spells you can't afford to let resolve, what creatures can hit you a few times before you get worried, when it's safe to tap all the way out for Rev/Zenith and when you should leave up UU for Logic Knot - if you've played this deck for more than a handful of matches, you should just KNOW how you play against the top tiers and only adjust your gameplay when new data is presented.

Y'all are really laying a beating on Mr. Strawman...poor guy.

My response was to the guy talking about Control mirrors. I said game 1 of Control mirrors in Modern where someone doesn't scoop game 1 have a tendency to go to time, so a sideboard mill package is ill-advised. But if you really feel the need to go on about how you don't think when you play against Jund decks, by all means...

Dead removal vs spells is most of the problem, but dead counterspells due to aether vial and cavern of souls is the other. Everytime I face a cavern it seems so obvious to me that the land should have entered tapped or not provided coloured mana at all. I am fine with people using boseiju to protect spells because its slow and painful - cavern is completely absurd in comparison. People end up using it for the fixing and just incidentally hosing the few people dumb enough to try playing counterspells in modern (ie us)

But yeah when I lay my esper deck out its three piles: removal, counters, card draw (and technicaly a fourth pile of two cards that is win conditions). Too much card draw can sink you too vs fast decks. Burn would like nothing more than t2 think twice t3 esper charm.

So you can actually beat yourself that way too. Which is sad because I normally think of this problem as being a ramp deck thing - all ramp no finisher, all finisher no ramp. Play control you get all draw no answers, all counters no removal, and all removal no counters as ways to autolose. I guess thats the thing - there are no wrong threats only wrong answers and we're on answers.dec

Esper charm on t3 against burn will potentially gain you 6-8 life, if you choose discard mode.

@Cipher - I’m convinced you either play in a mostly-casual LGS setting or get groundpounded by spikes in half your rounds while playing scrubs the remainder. You just present the most trivial points to the thread. Cody articulated a way to power through the monotonous decision chains in MUs like Jund or Control.

Honestly, Control mirrors shouldn’t be that hard. You have Esper charm, nuke their hand until you’re able to resolve a bomb. /thread

Edit: I want to apologize in advance here, this was brash and really uncalled for. I don’t always think about the game from the perspective of someone not as entrenched in the game theory as myself. Leaving original comment for sake of transparency.

IMO, you're right about variance just being part of magic.
We all have games where we just absolutely fail to make an impact (I've once cast both haves of think twice, 2 esper charms, and cryptic command in the tap + draw mode 6 times and never found a wrath vs elves). It happens. Sometimes it happens many times in a row, but theres not really anything you can do about that.

I do think its only a matter of time before wizards prints a few more card draw spells or counterspells we can actually use though. The major new cards we've gotten have been alliance and push, both removal spells, which doesn't always help this problem.

I think thats a little unfair kodie. I feel he's made plenty of interesting/relevant posts, even if this last one isn't among them.

I think that we may need something like a spell pierce for creatures to make Draw-Go viable

There are a lot of things I'd love to see, but one thing I keep coming back to is mental misstep.
Its admittedly one of my favorite cards based on design and such (I recognize that the gameplay of "every deck plays 4" is not terribly desirable, but I do think it could be fixed.
I could see something like an errata making phyrexian mana not contribute to cmc, or a new card that simply cost 0 and had an additional cost of U or 2 life (meaning it could no longer counter itself) though of course decks like infect that fear 1 cmc spells could still play it just fine. Perhaps revealing a blue card from your hand, or even revealing an island from your hand would do it.

Something like that would answer a lot of our problems (hitting things from expedition map to goblin guide to death's shadow to aether vial, to more.
Alternatively, something like U + some additional cost that wasn't mana (phyrexian mana, just life, revealing cards, perhaps discarding/exiling cards, etc) that read "counter target spell with cmc 2 or less" (1 mana expanded spell snare) could do a lot of good as well.

Quote from kodieyost »

Esper charm on t3 against burn will potentially gain you 6-8 life, if you choose discard mode.

@Cipher - I’m convinced you either play in a mostly-casual LGS setting or get groundpounded by spikes in half your rounds while playing scrubs the remainder. You just present the most trivial points to the thread. Cody articulated a way to power through the monotonous decision chains in MUs like Jund or Control.

Honestly, Control mirrors shouldn’t be that hard. You have Esper charm, nuke their hand until you’re able to resolve a bomb. /thread

Edit: I want to apologize in advance here, this was brash and really uncalled for. I don’t always think about the game from the perspective of someone not as entrenched in the game theory as myself. Leaving original comment for sake of transparency.

If I recall, you first came onto this thread and started a flame war, so I won't take your comment too seriously.

Honestly, Control mirrors shouldn’t be that hard. You have Esper charm, nuke their hand until you’re able to resolve a bomb. /thread

Yes, thank you for your insightful, non-trivial commentary.

@Cipher - I’m convinced you either play in a mostly-casual LGS setting or get groundpounded by spikes in half your rounds while playing scrubs the remainder.

No, I only play online and in large paper tournaments when they come to my area. Both are going to be more competitive than whatever FNM you're playing in.

Quote from Cody_X »

There are a lot of things I'd love to see, but one thing I keep coming back to is mental misstep.
Its admittedly one of my favorite cards based on design and such (I recognize that the gameplay of "every deck plays 4" is not terribly desirable, but I do think it could be fixed.
I could see something like an errata making phyrexian mana not contribute to cmc, or a new card that simply cost 0 and had an additional cost of U or 2 life (meaning it could no longer counter itself) though of course decks like infect that fear 1 cmc spells could still play it just fine. Perhaps revealing a blue card from your hand, or even revealing an island from your hand would do it.

Something like that would answer a lot of our problems (hitting things from expedition map to goblin guide to death's shadow to aether vial, to more.
Alternatively, something like U + some additional cost that wasn't mana (phyrexian mana, just life, revealing cards, perhaps discarding/exiling cards, etc) that read "counter target spell with cmc 2 or less" (1 mana expanded spell snare) could do a lot of good as well.

If it was just U for the casting cost instead of Phyrexian mana, I would be fine with it. In general though, I think R&D is and will continue to shy away from "good" spells that allow for wins on the stack. Good creatures can easily be rectified. Spells that are overpowering just have to catch a ban usually.

Re esper charm vs burn you will actually get a land and a searing blaze more often than not on turn 3.

And that in a nutshell is what I struggle with when it comes to mind rotting. Our deck strands removal in their hand that they then pitch to charn. Savvy opponents will also sandbag lands to discard if they can afford to.

Quote from BadMcFadden »

Re esper charm vs burn you will actually get a land and a searing blaze more often than not on turn 3.

And that in a nutshell is what I struggle with when it comes to mind rotting. Our deck strands removal in their hand that they then pitch to charn. Savvy opponents will also sandbag lands to discard if they can afford to.

I think I Mind Rot less often than most; if your opponent is playing a deck that has removal in the first place they're probably trying to win with creatures and I would normally just draw 2. Maybe a better way to put it is: an opponent playing to the board normally means you want to draw into Verdict and Path. Combo decks tend to have more valuable cards left in their hand which is where Mind Rot can become a blowout. Blue decks are a mixed bag depending on whether they're trading cards aggressively and you're hitting land drops, but in general you draw early and Mind Rot later.

Against decks playing creatures, I normally only Mind Rot if:

1) My hand is stacked with card draw
2) I'm about to cast Verdict and want them to untap with no hand
or
3) The game's won and I want to end it with Colonnade, but I know they're holding Pushes or Paths

Mind rot absolutely gets better game 2/3, they're less likely to have as many dead cards there.
In general, mind rot when they have a bunch of cards in hand is kind of mediocre, you're almost guaranteed to get the worst two cards.
I agree with the sentiment that mindrot late/draw early is the baseline.
Some of it is having a handle on what you need vs what they need, how likely they are to have it/how likely you are to draw it, and a lot of it comes down to just feeling.

Decks that play to the board in a fair manner should (generally speaking) be our favorable MUs. I often ended the game with Verdicts in hand because my 2-4 spot removals took care of everything truly threatening.

There isn’t a ton to be said about when to draw or discard, because it is rarely “objectively” correct to do either one. When it is, it’s painfully obvious to even the least experienced players. I err on the side of “discard because I’m going to draw a lot of cards anyway” and discard -> untap, snap + discard is usually pretty huge. Puts them onto the topdeck fairly quickly.

And if they’re discarding removal, then get aggressive with Colonnades!! That’s the #1 thing you see high-level Control players do, they attack with manlands early and often.

Right - I mean the scenario here was I said too much draw is bad vs aggressive decks and gave the example of t2 tt into t3 charm; I meant draw mode but someone assumed discard mode and that ypu could actually be gaining 6-7 effective life with a t3 charm discard vs burn.

That would be early game and vs a deck that plays to the board, so more often than not a t3 mind rot vs burn is going to strip 1-2 dead cards while you continue eating guide/swift/eidolon damage as you cantrip.

I would hope nobody thinks chaining cantrips early on is a good thing vs aggressive decks, but esp not vs burn where so much dmg will come in the form of spells later on. Fighting lava spikes and skulcracks with cryptic commands is horrific enough without spotting them 6 free damage off their dudes in the first 3 turns because you were cantripping instead of casting paths or knots to stem the bleeding.

Quote from BadMcFadden »

Right - I mean the scenario here was I said too much draw is bad vs aggressive decks and gave the example of t2 tt into t3 charm; I meant draw mode but someone assumed discard mode and that ypu could actually be gaining 6-7 effective life with a t3 charm discard vs burn.

That would be early game and vs a deck that plays to the board, so more often than not a t3 mind rot vs burn is going to strip 1-2 dead cards while you continue eating guide/swift/eidolon damage as you cantrip.

I would hope nobody thinks chaining cantrips early on is a good thing vs aggressive decks, but esp not vs burn where so much dmg will come in the form of spells later on. Fighting lava spikes and skulcracks with cryptic commands is horrific enough without spotting them 6 free damage off their dudes in the first 3 turns because you were cantripping instead of casting paths or knots to stem the bleeding.

Using Burn, which will always be one of the worst matchups for any Control deck, as an example is a bit pointless. Burn doesn't really "play to the board", and strategically it has more in common with Storm than an aggro deck. Killing the 1-drops is crucial, but the game is won and lost by the density of spells they manage to play.

But yeah, the matchup is horrible. I used to find that post-board games where I drew Vendilion Clique felt favorable, but I recently cut the card form my list and without pressure, leyline, etc., you're basically stuck hoping they draw like garbage. I don't know that any sideboard configuration is going to swing it enough to make up for the 20/80 game 1 percentage, which is why I don't bother much with sideboard hate.

Seems like it relies kind of heavily on opponents scooping after getting ultimatum-ed once or twice.
In paper, I feel like I'd want something else, atleast the 4th tarpit, etc.
The cruel lists I've played in the past usually played bolts/tasigurs in some numbers, as well.
Is nihil spellbomb a worthy metacall online right now?
Grixis shadow seems totally beatable without it, and dredge is pretty unpopular right now to my knowledge.
Maybe I'll try playing cruel again one of these days, as it might benefit from search/opt enough to be real.

Quote from KimLink »

I know it's a grixis list but wafo did a 5-0 with a really great list : https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/844957#paper

That kind of looks like the proverbial "ham sandwich" to me. Maybe he keeps on it and puts up more results with it, though.

Quote from Cody_X »

Seems like it relies kind of heavily on opponents scooping after getting ultimatum-ed once or twice.
In paper, I feel like I'd want something else, atleast the 4th tarpit, etc.
The cruel lists I've played in the past usually played bolts/tasigurs in some numbers, as well.
Is nihil spellbomb a worthy metacall online right now?
Grixis shadow seems totally beatable without it, and dredge is pretty unpopular right now to my knowledge.
Maybe I'll try playing cruel again one of these days, as it might benefit from search/opt enough to be real.

I've been trying Remand recently, and was considering putting a 1-of Shadow of Doubt maindeck; I hadn't considered Spellbomb.

I think MTGO is random as hell right now, with Death's Shadow and Eldrazi dying down. Out of the last 20 or so games I recorded, there's been 1 Death's Shadow but 6 Thalia decks of different flavors. That's on top of 4 Blood Moon decks, so I'd say that the format is heavy on prison archetypes that don't give a damn about Spellbomb. By the time the GP comes around it could all have changed, and it's probably not happening the same on paper, anyway.

Nothing wrong with playing something like EE main, I guess, but we have counterspells, and its not like liliana is totally unbeatable for us.

And if they tick lili up and up and up to the point they have no cards, with her ability on stack you can bounce with cryptic to make them discard her. Or just to reset her clock if they’ve got cards left. Or bounce so you can catch her with a second counterspell when she comes back down. Wouldn’t dilute combo MUs that much further

I'm home for a couple of weeks over the holidays before shipping out in January for another 14 week school at (another) military base.

I've played some smaller (4-round) events with some very skewed lists to get some data about how some cards play. This is what I'm going to run with for a few events to see how it goes.


1. Search for Azcanta has been powerful. In more than two dozen games where I flipped it in various configurations, the only game I lost while it was active was a very late flip in a control mirror where I was already extremely behind. I don't feel I can cleanly play more than two however.

2. 25 lands. I've been playing 26 forever, but with search being basically half a land, I'm comfortable shaving the 4th colonnade. Having a single UW cycle land is nice, because if I would otherwise get a tapped shockland early it can substitute, and in long games it can be cycled. I wouldn't cut below two hallowed fountains because there are a lot of sequences that leave you wanting access to two of them in the first four turns of the game. With Fatal push in the mix, two watery graves are staying for now.

3. Fatal push has finally made it into my maindeck as removal spells 7 and 8. There are enough decks in the meta now where I want the extra spot removal. Consequently, I cut a think twice for a third logic knot--ideally azcanta fills some of the filtering duty late, and more spot removal powers up more knots. There is some tension with search, but honestly I expect it to play out just fine.

4. Sideboard duress. With the extra spot removal, I'm fine with duress for the combo matchups, backed by extra countermagic. Where I'll get punished in particular is against the company decks--their value engine is good against piles of spot removal without a clock, and there isn't much to do about it.

5. Considerations for tweaks:

Torrential gearhulk was an absolute house in the various shells I jammed it in, but it doesn't play well with azcanta and snapcaster mage. It's on the sidelines for now, along with friends crucible of worlds, academy ruins, and engineered explosives.

I want to find space for a copy of disenchant in the sideboard. Build should still be great against affinity, but KCI might throw some curveballs and lantern control could prove... difficult.

Burn matchup will be tight for sure. I think at this point the plan switches to cutting wraths entirely.

Settle the Wreckage is insane when it's good and very mediocre when it isn't. Honestly not sure if it's better than verdict 4, or a better sideboard card than wrath of god.

Thoughts?