Actually I'm running the exact amount of required white sources, it's the blue that I'm skimping on. 22u (cryptic) and 18w (wrath) is the correct amount, but I want to run heavy on basics and keeping 3 GQs in the list. I'm fully aware of the correct numbers as I'm ALWAYS the one *****ing at people's esper lists and terribad mana bases. If I wasn't scared of dozens of manlands and academy ruins showing up in droves it'd be -1 GQ -1 plains, +1 island +1 gate and maybe cutting a glacial for a 3rd fountain to help out turn 1 AV. However, I've found that AV is just as good being suspended on 1 as it is on 5, the 3 think twice and 2 remand make sure that I'm never wanting for more cards in the early game. Sure AV is at it's best on turn 1, but in a control deck it's completely serviceable later on so long as you're still running supplemental card draw like I am. If ancestral and sphinx was the only draw I had you can bet your ass I'd be starting at 14.
A good rule of thumb is to count fragile mana producers (e.g., Birds of Paradise or Deathrite Shaman) as half a colored mana source, to count any cheap cantrip (e.g., Remand or Peek) as 0.25 colored sources, and to count any cheap scry card (e.g., Temples) as 0.2 colored sources.
This was the only way he could match his assumptions with live data. Very few 3-color decks actually meet his requirements without taking into account cantrips or mana creatures. In Modern we're pretty spoiled so it's easy to make happen, but technically he's suggesting you can get away with less than 20 blue, and less than 16 white. I personally run 21/17/12, and I can only remember being color screwed once in the last couple of months. Got knocked out the GP by drawing Plains -> Plains -> Swamp -> Ghost Quarter. I'm actually considering going down to 25 land, though I want to try out Thirst for Knowledge first. The mana in this deck is easy, and these days I feel the majority of games are lost to extreme cases of mana flood. I'm loathe to even keep a 5-lander with this deck, and as a guy who only has played Control (or Combo) in a sanctioned event, that's saying a lot.
Wanted to point out that countering Ulamog isn't how you beat Eldrazi. I'd much prefer Negate to any other 2 CMC counter against them (except the maindeck Logic Knot, of course). The games you win against Eldrazi are the ones where you disrupt the mana, and countering Sylvan Scrying or Expedition Map can create those game states. Even if you don't run Vendilion Clique, you can still easily take over a game if you can stall them till turn 7 or 8 when your Revelations and Snapcaster -> Cryptic is up. Last match I had against Eldrazi I won 2-0 after racing with Elspeth. Never even saw a Clique.
This could change if Thought-Knot is a 4-of maindeck going forward.
Actually I'm running the exact amount of required white sources, it's the blue that I'm skimping on. 22u (cryptic) and 18w (wrath) is the correct amount, but I want to run heavy on basics and keeping 3 GQs in the list. I'm fully aware of the correct numbers as I'm ALWAYS the one *****ing at people's esper lists and terribad mana bases. If I wasn't scared of dozens of manlands and academy ruins showing up in droves it'd be -1 GQ -1 plains, +1 island +1 gate and maybe cutting a glacial for a 3rd fountain to help out turn 1 AV. However, I've found that AV is just as good being suspended on 1 as it is on 5, the 3 think twice and 2 remand make sure that I'm never wanting for more cards in the early game. Sure AV is at it's best on turn 1, but in a control deck it's completely serviceable later on so long as you're still running supplemental card draw like I am. If ancestral and sphinx was the only draw I had you can bet your ass I'd be starting at 14.
A good rule of thumb is to count fragile mana producers (e.g., Birds of Paradise or Deathrite Shaman) as half a colored mana source, to count any cheap cantrip (e.g., Remand or Peek) as 0.25 colored sources, and to count any cheap scry card (e.g., Temples) as 0.2 colored sources.
This was the only way he could match his assumptions with live data. Very few 3-color decks actually meet his requirements without taking into account cantrips or mana creatures. In Modern we're pretty spoiled so it's easy to make happen, but technically he's suggesting you can get away with less than 20 blue, and less than 16 white. I personally run 21/17/12, and I can only remember being color screwed once in the last couple of months. Got knocked out the GP by drawing Plains -> Plains -> Swamp -> Ghost Quarter. I'm actually considering going down to 25 land, though I want to try out Thirst for Knowledge first. The mana in this deck is easy, and these days I feel the majority of games are lost to extreme cases of mana flood. I'm loathe to even keep a 5-lander with this deck, and as a guy who only has played Control (or Combo) in a sanctioned event, that's saying a lot.
Wanted to point out that countering Ulamog isn't how you beat Eldrazi. I'd much prefer Negate to any other 2 CMC counter against them (except the maindeck Logic Knot, of course). The games you win against Eldrazi are the ones where you disrupt the mana, and countering Sylvan Scrying or Expedition Map can create those game states. Even if you don't run Vendilion Clique, you can still easily take over a game if you can stall them till turn 7 or 8 when your Revelations and Snapcaster -> Cryptic is up. Last match I had against Eldrazi I won 2-0 after racing with Elspeth. Never even saw a Clique.
This could change if Thought-Knot is a 4-of maindeck going forward.
Apparently I can't get away from office hours today. Math Masters student with an emphasis in algebra and combinatorics stepping in here:
Karsten's charts apply for most typical builds of esper draw-go, and if you count all the "cantrips" in the deck as 1/6th of a card (including esper charm/think twice/cryptic) you get pretty much exactly spot on for my mana base, and it runs silky smooth and has for a while.
The simple fact is, unless your deck has a very wonky curve (e.g. standard co-co builds with a billion three drops) or a ton of mana dorks, you can use karsten's numbers +/- 1 and they are correct. Y'all complaining about it drove me to try to engineer a decklist that falls outside of those margins. You know what I came up with? EDH decklists and legacy ANT. That's it. The reason is that there isn't enough variance in a 60 card stack with a sufficient number of lands for its spells to actually make it not work. EDH decklists break all the rules anyway, so nobody cares about those. And everyone in that format either plays green, is a mono/2 color deck, or has a huge focus on mana fixing as part of the damn deck design. Legacy ANT breaks it wide open because of all the LED's and lotus petals and stuff screwing up the math. But that deck is 1/3 mana 1/3 rituals 1/3 cantrips to begin with, so none of the rules even apply there anyway. The deck is designed to make statistics as irrelevant as possible.
Moral of the story: Use karsten's table if you're anywhere from not-lazy to interested, and if you're interested in crunching through some graduate level combinatorics, you can come out to numbers that are slightly different from karsten's and still all within +/- 1. As a grad student in mathematics who has the matlab code ready to execute to do things the hard way, I advocate just using karsten's tables. I have a copy of them laminated and on the wall over my screen actually. Free access to a lamination machine cuz teaching freshman classes =)
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Hello once again, my fellow Esper mages! I am back once again, this time after a near mental breakdown from witnessing the banned list update. And since I am now more level-headed and am not running around proclaiming that the sky is falling, here is my official opinions on the B&R update;
Eye of Ugin; YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!
Ancestral Vision; I am still not convinced that Storm or Ad Nauseum won't try to find a way to make that card work in either deck (I am assuming that it will work better in the latter, but am still paranoid about the former), but all in all, I like the idea of more control decks being in the format - or at least, as close to control as most Modern players are comfortable with being.
Sword of the Meek; An interesting choice. It will be interesting to see how people approach the deck in terms of the different variations that could possibly come out of it. Luckily for us, it seems from what people on the forum are saying that we should be pretty well-positioned to beat it, thanks to Stony Silence, Night of Soul's Betrayal and certain graveyard hate cards, so the only thing I am worried about is being able to acquire a sufficient amount of Night of Soul's Betrayal.
And now, to post my "current" decklist. The reason for the qoutation marks is because I am currently trying to configure the deck for a GPT this Saturday (I would love to read any and all feedback on my decklist, matchup analysis', etc). As per usual, in case I done goof on the list in the post, here is a link to the list on TappedOut; http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/03-01-16-esper-control-modern/
Now, as previously stated, I am going to a GPT this weekend (Saturday, to be exact), and I am trying to prepare as best as I can. However, there are two issues; 1) I am worried about certain matchups that I would like to touch on, and 2) I am considering some options for the main/side, and would like an opinion on either of those subjects, assuming you feel like doing just that. First, the matchups;
I am currently worried about ThopterSword (since I currently do not own any Nights, and only own one Curse of Death's Hold), Storm (because I despise that deck, and hate to lose against it), Infect, Bogles (to some extent), Ad Nauseum, Grishoalbrand, Lantern Control and Burn. I have not played against Lantern, Ad Nauseum or Bogles yet, my Burn win percentage seems to be 40/60 atm (that is including all the times I have played against Burn), Infect seems a little worse (but it was better when I used to run Runed Halo in the main), ThopterSword is new to the meta, and therefore I have not played against it, I have played against Grishoalbrand once, and I have never won a game against Storm (a fact that infuriates me to no end). If anyone can share any insight on any of those matchups in particular, I would greatly appreciate it. And now, for the card considerations;
Cavern of Souls; This is mainly because of the predicted spike of people playing blue-based control decks. I feel like having the ability to have my Snapcasters, Cliques or Teferi resolve no matter what should be a useful tool to combat them with. And if you feel like I need to add more creatures to make it work, I currently own three Vendilion Cliques, two Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and a playset of Snapcaster Mages.
Leyline of Sanctity; It seems like a card that I should consider, since it seems like it helps in a good amount of the matchups that I have specified. One thing that I am not certain of is do I run two or a playset? (i currently own three) I have seen people post lists with two in the main, but I have also heard that Leyline is a card you want the full playset of, so that you get it in your opener more consistently.
Runed Halo; I love this card. I really do. But I am not sure if I can afford the space to be able to run it, or what to cut for it. I currently own two.
Calciform Pools; This is kinda along the same rationale for Cavern of Souls; to help me out against control decks.
Detention Sphere; This is supposed to be Anguished Unmaking, but I don't own any yet. I have seen people recently posting lists with these kinds of Vindicate-type effects as a one-of, and am not sure if I should either. If I were to play it, it would probably be in the sideboard.
Nephalia Drownyard; This is mostly for against Lantern Control, but I don't think that I need to devote a sideboard slot just for that matchup.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant; I am mostly considering this Elspeth just so that I have another clock to side in against combo.
Jace, Architect of Thought; Jace is mostly a consideration as a poor man's Nights with potential upside.
Grave Titan; The Gravy Train has been a long-time consideration for sideboard inclusion, but like the current state of Runed Halo and Sun's Champion, I don't know if I have room for it/what to cut for it.
Disdainful Stroke; Another card that I have considered adding to the sideboard in the past, Stroke seems like a card that has some potential in the new meta. I also want to play a game where I need to draw into one, and then start singing the lyrics to " The Stroke".
Shadow of Doubt; I know the applications of the card, but I am not entirely convinced about the possible inclusion to the deck. The same could also be said about Hallowed Moonlight, but I only own SoD.
Also, and this is off-topic, but does anyone on this forum play Pauper? And if so, would you be interested in taking a look at a Grixis version of the Teachings deck that I have been brewing? I have been playing it on MTGO for a couple of months and a little bit in paper, and now would like to broaden out and get feedback on possible improvements to the deck, or if it is flat-out worse than the traditional Dimir Teachings list. Here is the list if you want to check it out; http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/pauper-grixis-teachings/
And that is all that I have to say for now. And for the umpteenth time, any feedback is greatly appreciated
Went 0-2 drop last night, losing to white hatebears and then RB vampires :/
Basically in both games aether vial was a big problem. Vampires had turn 1 cavern of souls as well in both losses. Are these two cards as difficult to handle as they seem? In both matches all of my counterspells pretty much turned dead leaving me stuck trying to draw supreme verdict or lose the game - and even verdict wasn't mind blowing since they could still just vial in a new threat afterwards thus forcing me to also have a path to exile.
Basically if you take the counterspells away from this deck its quite terrible and that's effectively what a turn one cavern and vial will do? With merfolk you can still maybe spell snare or remand a spreading seas but otherwise yeah
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Went 0-2 drop last night, losing to white hatebears and then RB vampires :/
Basically in both games aether vial was a big problem. Vampires had turn 1 cavern of souls as well in both losses. Are these two cards as difficult to handle as they seem? In both matches all of my counterspells pretty much turned dead leaving me stuck trying to draw supreme verdict or lose the game - and even verdict wasn't mind blowing since they could still just vial in a new threat afterwards thus forcing me to also have a path to exile.
Basically if you take the counterspells away from this deck its quite terrible and that's effectively what a turn one cavern and vial will do? With merfolk you can still maybe spell snare or remand a spreading seas but otherwise yeah
Against a deck like Vampires or Merfolk you should be pretty heavily favoured. Sure, they can make your countermagic bad or useless, but Cryptic still taps the team, and ultimately you just blow up the board.
Hatebears can be a bit more difficult because they have Thalia which can really muck up your day, but their creature quality isn't that good, aside from the taxing effects.
These matchups revolve around board sweepers, not counterspells.
"He plays in a walk in humidor so keep his foils from bending. He once kept an all land hand just to know what it felt like to be mana flooded. He uses power nine for ante. He is the most interesting magic playing in the world." Old man, "I don't always tap basic lands for mana, but when i do, I tap Gurus."
Thank you very much @TheAnnihilator0798 for your feedback!
Today and tomorrow I'm going to test the 4th spell snare over the 3rd snapcaster and condemn over dismember, in order to define which is better for sunday.
For the sideboard, I would like to include 2x pithing needle or 2x runed halo as versatile answers instead of NoSB and CoDH. Do you think that extirpate/surgical extraction are too specific answers for an unknown meta?
I've since switched to Rest in Peace (yet to be evaluated as I have yet to see it in a sb game yet), but I'm honestly not sure that I want it over Extirpate. That said, I have used Surg a lot, and it really is a good general answer -- it hoses lots of things that you wouldn't have thought of, but things that could show up at your shop anyways. Things like MonoG devotion, UR Nivmagus combo, Modern Belcher (after a counter/Thoughtseize), Grishoalbrand (it seems like more of a Open/GP deck to me), Enchantment Prison, etc. At a local level, people are more willing to try out decks centered around a few certain cards. So, I would feel comfortable bringing a Surg effect into an unknown meta.
As for NoSB, I felt like I wanted 2-3 of those effects when I played them, but it just didn't seem like what I wanted against some of the ThopSwo decks -- something like Extirpate has more use against the Tezzerator shell (you can get Lili/Tezzeret/Bridge as well as the ThopSwo combo, making Surg much more useful -- especially as a Snap-target). Against the control shells with ThopSwo, NoSB is just a 4 mana sorcery that doesn't actually stop them from winning -- it just hoses the eighth of their deck that they can pitch to Thirst for Knowledge anyways, and decreases your Colonnade clock. I won't consider CoDH because a 5-mana sorcery is just never gonna happen against the quick decks that the -1/-1 is good against.
First, I want to levy some criticisms to the list: I don't mind the mainboard Clique and Deprive, they seem okay. I do think you want the 4th Cryptic in there, however. My first inclination was cut either the Deprive or the -- please don't hurt me stokpile -- 4th Spell Snare. Other than that, I really don't like Teferi -- I've played with him, and he just doesn't do anything anywhere but U matchups. But in said U matchups, he's just never going to resolve. I wouldn't play Cavern to try to make him better either. I'd love to see the 3rd Clique or another Baneslayer in that slot.
I am currently worried about ThopterSword (since I currently do not own any Nights, and only own one Curse of Death's Hold), Storm (because I despise that deck, and hate to lose against it), Infect, Bogles (to some extent), Ad Nauseum, Grishoalbrand, Lantern Control and Burn. I have not played against Lantern, Ad Nauseum or Bogles yet, my Burn win percentage seems to be 40/60 atm (that is including all the times I have played against Burn), Infect seems a little worse (but it was better when I used to run Runed Halo in the main), ThopterSword is new to the meta, and therefore I have not played against it, I have played against Grishoalbrand once, and I have never won a game against Storm (a fact that infuriates me to no end). If anyone can share any insight on any of those matchups in particular, I would greatly appreciate it. And now, for the card considerations;
Leyline of Sanctity solves a lot of your concerns, but you already have a fine card for the job in your sideboard -- Rest in Peace. (It could be an Extirpate too, if you wanted, but ultimately it doesn't matter.) If you really expected ThopSwo, Storm, Grishoalbrand, and Lantern Control to make a presence, play the 3rd RiP and call it a day. If you play Leyline too, it hoses Burn/Grishoalbrand/AdNaus and any deck that plays a dedicated suite of discard (BGx, Grixis "Control", and most ThopSwo decks) You have Stony Silence for Lantern too, so I wouldn't sweat it too much. If you want some experience against Lantern, download XMage and make a lobby titled "need testing against Lantern Control" or something. I've played against Lantern on XMage more than in real life, so I'm pretty confident you'd get someone to play.
As for the Infect matchup, you really just need more Condemns/Dispels -- I used to lose to Infect with the standard 4 Path list but a good 2 Condemns in the board (often with 1 in the main) made the matchup much more favorable. You still get awkward lands+Esper Charm/Logic Knot hands on the draw, but if you ever draw a hand with 2 1-mana removal spells in it, it's actually very hard to lose. Condemn does some to help the Burn matchup too, but I've yet to find something that gives me an acceptable WP against them -- the best has been the T0 Leyline with Dispel/Snare to defend it, but I've still lost after creature beats, and they can still Atarka's Command you out since it doesn't target. Hell, my Burn opponent even Skullcracked himself so I didn't gain life from my Sphinx's Rev (I didn't even know you could do that).
Cavern of Souls; This is mainly because of the predicted spike of people playing blue-based control decks. I feel like having the ability to have my Snapcasters, Cliques or Teferi resolve no matter what should be a useful tool to combat them with. And if you feel like I need to add more creatures to make it work, I currently own three Vendilion Cliques, two Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and a playset of Snapcaster Mages.
Leyline of Sanctity; It seems like a card that I should consider, since it seems like it helps in a good amount of the matchups that I have specified. One thing that I am not certain of is do I run two or a playset? (i currently own three) I have seen people post lists with two in the main, but I have also heard that Leyline is a card you want the full playset of, so that you get it in your opener more consistently.
Runed Halo; I love this card. I really do. But I am not sure if I can afford the space to be able to run it, or what to cut for it. I currently own two.
Calciform Pools; This is kinda along the same rationale for Cavern of Souls; to help me out against control decks.
Detention Sphere; This is supposed to be Anguished Unmaking, but I don't own any yet. I have seen people recently posting lists with these kinds of Vindicate-type effects as a one-of, and am not sure if I should either. If I were to play it, it would probably be in the sideboard.
Nephalia Drownyard; This is mostly for against Lantern Control, but I don't think that I need to devote a sideboard slot just for that matchup.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant; I am mostly considering this Elspeth just so that I have another clock to side in against combo.
Jace, Architect of Thought; Jace is mostly a consideration as a poor man's Nights with potential upside.
Grave Titan; The Gravy Train has been a long-time consideration for sideboard inclusion, but like the current state of Runed Halo and Sun's Champion, I don't know if I have room for it/what to cut for it.
Disdainful Stroke; Another card that I have considered adding to the sideboard in the past, Stroke seems like a card that has some potential in the new meta. I also want to play a game where I need to draw into one, and then start singing the lyrics to " The Stroke".
Shadow of Doubt; I know the applications of the card, but I am not entirely convinced about the possible inclusion to the deck. The same could also be said about Hallowed Moonlight, but I only own SoD.
I don't mind Cavern, but I'm not sure that the manabase can support another colorless land (for spells, at least). My first inclination is that you could sb it, but I'm not sure you actually need it tbh. I've killed a lot of control opponents by baiting out counters with a Clique, Remanding my own Clique in rsp, and then being set up for an eot Esper Charm with counter backup the next turn. On the same note, I've also just tempo'd out control opponents with Clique because they played around that line. So you may not actually need Cavern.
I've already spoken at length about Leyline, so tl;dr: I like it.
About Halo, I like it too, but I'd fit 3 Condemns in the 75 before considering Halo.
Elspeth 6 -- you can sb one for the BGx matchup if you want to, but I've found recently that you just never want to tap out on your turn. So, take that as you will.
Calciform Pools -- eh, I'm sortof indifferent about this card. I've just never been interested enough in it to really test it.
D-Sphere -- I don't see why anyone would run this over Anguished Unmaking now (other than card availability), but I certainly am a fan of AU.
Drownyard -- I don't see how this helps you against Lantern? They'll mill you faster, and you'll just be giving them things to Academy Ruins back. I suppose you could pair it with Extirpate/Surg for a possible knockout sequence for Bridge, but I prefer Thoughtseize to Drownyard in that instance. As for Drownyard, it's slow, and doesn't really do anything helpful. Not a fan. Unless you target yourself to end the match on time.
Knight-Errant -- I feel like the 3rd Clique is just better.
Jace, AoT -- Why? You already have 4 Snares and 2 RiP for ThopSwo, so I'm not sure exactly what this card does -- it does seem great against Abzan Midrange tho.
Gravy Train -- I like Elspeth in the board better, since she doesn't die to creature removal.
Stroke -- I could see it over the Negate, I'll have to test it myself.
SoD -- Meh, you have Remand, so you don't really need more cantrips. And Remand is better now that U is back in the meta -- especially U with Ancestral Vision.
@ s4uare
Yes nothing stops ulamog from being effective, but when he resolves without a path in your hand the game ends. Nothing stops a resolved ugin from being effective either, and the 4 path to exile we have to remove ulamog will not save us there. Stroke does. Also TKS is gaining popularity with tron players and is in general a pain in the ass so having one more counter spell for them is one more bump to our chances of winning. And yes many of the other cards I mentioned aren't GG when they resolves they're still bad for us and I'd like to prevent that from happening if possible. It's like spell snare in a sense, sure we can get choked up on them but we will always have a target and that target is always relevant.
Stroke is far more versatile than negate in some matches which is why I included it because you never know what you'll have to stop against them so the versatility is important. It's not a strict upgrade of course because stroke can't hit dispel or other negates which is why both are included side by side. I don't believe any of us expect to see 3x dispel and 2x negate in the average sideboard so being shy on that effect is acceptable.
One final scenario to show why stroke is a fine card to run over negates 3-4 is against the various CoCO and chord decks. Against them we already enjoy bringing in dispel/negate to easily answer their instant speed threats which are their only real weapon against us. But stroke can also hit reveilark (damn that's hard to spell), red cap, and kiki. Sure a resolved red cap isn't a big deal but it's still another thing that negate doesn't hit while the other 2 are serious trouble for us if they hit the board. And once again negate does not stop them. Obviously we have path and verdict, but why in the world wouldn't you want another card that can hit everything that is important? That's sort of the essence of control and why we're not on UWR or grixis, we wan our cards matter and negate only helps against some of them. Stroke is a perfectly fine card to run next to negate because neither is strictly better than the other. They're similar but ever so slightly different and that difference is important.
@ Cipher
I've had many 2 and 3 color mana bases built using his assumptions of soft sources like cantrips and scrying (including my first few UW mana bases) and they all had WAY more problems than I'm comfortable with. It's certainly possible that I hit the bad end of rng in the 15+ games I jammed with them before I moved on I admit. But even if it was just bad luck there's still the case that you have to actually cast your cantrips and cast your scry spells or play your tapped scry lands. We don't always have the luxury of time to durdle, many games require us to interact with the board starting turn 1 and we have to hope that our mana comes together. Sometimes you have to spell snare on turn 2 and not cast think twice, sometimes you have to logic knot on 3 rather than esper charm or flash back think twice. The only soft source I'd actually account for are sry lands and serum visions because control decks often don't have the luxury of doing nothing while we fix our mana in the first 4 turns. I prefer to be on the safer side of that interaction. As for specific colors I prefer to have my white solid rather than blue because matches where white is your main interactive color means that removal is what you want and wrath is your most important card next to a path-snapcaster-path sequence. In those matches stumbling on white is game over where as the matches where you need lots of blue you almost always have time to draw into it and cast your cantrips with the primary exception being tron. We have time to find our blue mana when we need it, when we need white mana we need it right now.
I'm well aware that Karsten's math is not 100% perfect due to the insane amount of variables and how they all effect one another making a completely reliable, simple, guaranteed to work rule of "play 20" nearly impossible. So we all need to decide which direction we want to err on and just how far in that direction we're willing to lean and what we give up by doing so. I've made the choice to have my white mana be close to 90% without having to rely on other soft sources to keep it that way while not completely gutting my blue since I usually have time for those soft sources to help me out. I've lost a ton of games to my white being late or the second white being a colonnade, I've never once had that problem with blue.
As for your thoughts on eldrazi tron, yes countering ulamog isn't how we win. But letting it resolve isn't either, we win by answering their threats and stroke is yet another answer that stops way more than path does. Perhaps be play against them differently, but I have literally never had success fighting the mana. Esper and UW just are not fast enough to make that a winning strategy reliably without some kind of surgical action making it literally impossible for their mana to come online. I've always beaten them by answering all of their threats just like every other deck and slamming the door before they got to eye of ugin. Now that eye is gone, so long as we don't get caught with our pants down on turn 3, it's elementary to answer all of their threats and win at our leisure which is our plan against virtually everyone else. And once again, stroke stops all of their threats. Negate does not.
Lastly the idea of going down to 25 lands if reasonable if your deck is built to work with that. I've done it before and it worked out as well as you are thinking, but the down side was I had to play with more do nothing cantrips (I'm officially going to start abbreviating that now) in addition to what I mentioned earlier, you have to actually cast the cantrips rather than interacting. If you have to cast an anticipate or telling time rather than a path on turn 2 to find your lands you can easily be in big trouble if you don't have a wrath to catch you up. And even then you're taking extra damage that puts you ever so closer into burn out range. Personally I've lost more games to not hitting my 4th land to wrath or cryptic-fog than I have to flooding out with nothing to do.
But if you plan to give it a go I strongly recommend telling time over the other options of cantrips to help you find mana and action. I've tried serum visions and every game it was unplayable garbage after turn 2. Anticipate was nice unless I needed lands and a specific type of interaction which is when I moved over to telling time. It gets you what you need and sets up a land drop the following turn, very solid card if filtering is what you're looking for. I often find myself wondering if compulsion would be a playable card in modern control lists to assist with filtering. Perhaps it'll be reprinted next set and we can find out for real.
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And on that day, Garfield said unto the world "Go ye forth and durdle!"
@ ThatDooderGuy
Never cut the 4th cryptic!! Even though deprive is almost a pet card for me at this point, I'd still cut it for the final cryptic. With remands, knots, and snares your turn 2/3 spell interaction is fine but cryptic is always awesome to get out of sticky situations. And since you're down a wrath in the main you might need it to fog/draw a touch more than you would before so the 4th copy is especially important for your list.
The Gravy Train only has 1 speed! GO!
For disdainful stroke see my previous walls of text talking about them. And don't run shadow of doubt, the deck doesn't need any DNC and scapeshift isn't popular enough for it to be worthwhile. Same with all the other "gotcha!" spells. Completely unnecessary. Remand though is a solid call right now with AV being set free and I (for the first time ever) recommend a pair in the deck.
With 2 stony and 2 rip in addition to all of your other interaction you should be fine against any dedicated thopter decks. The only ones to be worried about are the UB tezz/liliana decks and the BuG midrange ones with the combo jammed in. That being said you should be fine with your current set up. In your main you have 2 GQ to stop academy ruins and a giant pile of hard counters for both halves of the combo. As a quick aside, fight over the thopter foundry not the sword because that one can easily come back all by itself, the foundry is what they need to work at. In the sideboard that you currently have listed, you also have up to 6 cards that stop the combo dead in it's tracks. Stony/rip are a complete shut down of operations while purge and negate stop 1 cast of the foundry while you chain draw spells to find the big stop signs.
I agree with others in that cavern is not necessary, It plus Teferi is a 2 card combo that you have no way of searching up in time for it to be relevant so it'll most likely hurt you more than help. I'd run a dispel or negate in its place if you want more action against counter magic but in all honesty you should have a second purge or unmaking in the side. You're too light on non creature removal and we just got a new toy to play with so having a second copy of something that kills liliana, blood moon, pyromancer's ascension, and karn is pretty important. On that note a single unmaking in the main is a great idea and you can replace the purge in the side with one if you want. The life matters, but so does the versatility and 3 cmc and we're soft to the problems that unmaking solves. Great choice now that abrupt decay is en vogue once again.
Jace aot is a fine card and still works wonders against thopters. If you're really afraid of the deck it's a fine choice, but you're already well set up without him.
You really don't need any extra oomph against control. A MD clique, another in the side with more counters and discard is plenty to get through everything they have. Remember that the typical deck you'll be across from is a midrange deck is disguise. Ignore grixis and UWR as control, treat them and spell based midrange decks with one draw spell in the 75. Charms and discard backed up with think twice crushes them.
In esper calciform pools is a terrible card. Our mana is tight and as I mentioned before, with all the discard we have we don't need any extra help against control. It's only ever a consideration in straight UW and even in there I've always hated the card when I tried it out.
My last comment is I don't like the tar pit. I've been burned so many times with a 5th tap land that I stopped running them all together favoring even a basic island in their place. The colonnades and kitties are enough to end the game and with enough 2 cmc spells you can stop or delay most scary spells long enough for either cryptic to be online or to smack them with colonnades in the case of walkers.
With all of your other considerations your thoughts are mostly spot on. A lot are cute but not needed and/or not impactful enough. I agree with most of what TheAnnihilator0798 said on your ideas, I just wanted to add in a few more fine details.
@ TheAnnihilator0798
You need not fear my wrath of cutting the 4th snare, even when twin was a thing I didn't like 4 snares. Even though I don't run 4 myself I'd never begrudge somebody from doing so, the card is extremely good and does a lot of work. I just find myself wanting to shore up another aspect of my list while amelk0 has been talking about putting the 4th in the side which I can also agree with. I think the bottom line is we always start with 3 copies and go from there.
On the topic of the BGx match, it's usually fine to tap out against them mid game but early it's definitely a big risk. But once you're at 6 mana dropping elspeth on curve is fine since the only thing they can do that makes you worry is cast maelstrom pulse AND liliana. What else could they have that would really be a problem for you? Olivia would be annoying, but she's just another flying dork that dies to removal, batterskull doesn't beat elspeth either. In fact outside of outright killing her, BGx literally has nothing that actually beats her that I've seen. And before you try and get cheeky by saying "night of souls' betrayal beats Elle!" no sane person brings that in against a deck that has shown zero 1/1 dorks aside from a single clique so nyah!
When you have access to cards that are so drastically more powerful than everything they have available it's fine to tap out against them because they likely only have 1-2 ways to remove them in their entire 75. So the upside is then "untap and win 98% of the time" which are odds I'm perfectly happy to bet any match on.
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And on that day, Garfield said unto the world "Go ye forth and durdle!"
Sure, stroke is more versatile against Tron, but Negate is way more versatile as a whole. Negate hits Burn, Infect, Lantern, Chord, U decks, Living End, Grishoalbrand, Gifts, 8 rack, storm, ad nauseam, Bg/x if you feel inclined and of course, Tron. Stroke is only relevant in some of these match ups, and while better against Tron, is it really that much of an upside? They run 2-3 Umalogs and we run tons of permission. With Negate you don't have to waste as many Cryptics or Knots against Karn or Ugin, and Clique or Thoughtseize can nab Umalog more frequently since there are more answers for Karn and Ugin.
After watching Donny last night and testing since around 10 this morning, I've started tinkering with U/B control. Seeing as how we allow u/w brewing here I figured this would pass also bc of the nature of the deck.
Basically, spell snares become some number of inquisition of kozilek type effects (right now I'm on 3 inquisition and one duress) and here's where it gets spicy:
Running Jace Architect main with a couple Curse effects is really good in this meta.
For example, affinity and infect, 2 of the most popular and powerful decks in the format, immediately fold to a single resolved curse of deaths hold / night of souls betrayal. Also, against decks like Merfolk, having jace giving their team -1/-0 stacks really well with a curse effect, basically neutering their whole team with a -2/-1 that they can't really fight through. This is also good because these cards aren't a one-and-done effect like a wrath, they are static for the whole game.
I'll have a list up later when I'm not on my phone so that card tags will work, but for now I'll say I also stopped playing damnations in favor of The almighty black sun's zenith. Things can't be regenerated with black Suns zenith either, and we get a few perks from this, mainly the ability to play a turn 3 board sweep against affinity, infect, boggles, etc, and also the fact that they recycle back into the deck, so late game when we need to find another board sweep, we still technically have them all in our deck with a higher chance now of drawing into one.
Finishers are just 3 grave Titans, or two grave Titans and a wurmcoil. Worked for wafo and matignon at worlds, works fine here too.
Before anyone calls this "tap out, or midrange" because we play something other than white sun zenith as a finisher, please educate yourself.
We're running a play set of mana leak (this is fine because we can actually end games relatively easy with grave Titan)
Somewhere between 2-3 cryptic command , and probably also one main deck negate
Along with 4 IOK / Duress Effects that we use to preemptively win counter wars, etc.
Possibly choosing to run a pair of augur of bolas over snapcaster Mage, seeing as how our wrath effects all shuffle back in, curse effects can't be snapped, and lots of increased graveyard hate around now that thopter is around.
As for your thoughts on eldrazi tron, yes countering ulamog isn't how we win. But letting it resolve isn't either, we win by answering their threats and stroke is yet another answer that stops way more than path does. Perhaps be play against them differently, but I have literally never had success fighting the mana. Esper and UW just are not fast enough to make that a winning strategy reliably without some kind of surgical action making it literally impossible for their mana to come online. I've always beaten them by answering all of their threats just like every other deck and slamming the door before they got to eye of ugin. Now that eye is gone, so long as we don't get caught with our pants down on turn 3, it's elementary to answer all of their threats and win at our leisure which is our plan against virtually everyone else. And once again, stroke stops all of their threats. Negate does not.
Lastly the idea of going down to 25 lands if reasonable if your deck is built to work with that. I've done it before and it worked out as well as you are thinking, but the down side was I had to play with more do nothing cantrips (I'm officially going to start abbreviating that now) in addition to what I mentioned earlier, you have to actually cast the cantrips rather than interacting. If you have to cast an anticipate or telling time rather than a path on turn 2 to find your lands you can easily be in big trouble if you don't have a wrath to catch you up. And even then you're taking extra damage that puts you ever so closer into burn out range. Personally I've lost more games to not hitting my 4th land to wrath or cryptic-fog than I have to flooding out with nothing to do.
But if you plan to give it a go I strongly recommend telling time over the other options of cantrips to help you find mana and action. I've tried serum visions and every game it was unplayable garbage after turn 2. Anticipate was nice unless I needed lands and a specific type of interaction which is when I moved over to telling time. It gets you what you need and sets up a land drop the following turn, very solid card if filtering is what you're looking for. I often find myself wondering if compulsion would be a playable card in modern control lists to assist with filtering. Perhaps it'll be reprinted next set and we can find out for real.
Don't know what to say. I've found pressuring Tron's early development with Negate, Stony Silence, Clique, etc, the most reliable way to win. If you don't counter Expedition Maps and Sylvan Scrying...they get Eye of Ugin. They were basically the best "threats" Tron had against a Control deck, and Disdainful Stroke doesn't counter them. Not that it matters anymore. Whatever Eye-less Tron deck is left over should be a 60/40 matchup, like Scapeshift.
You get mana screwed with this deck? More than you get flooded? Win or lose, I think the majority of games with this deck end with you still holding lands in your hand. The games I lose I normally die with, say 2 lands. This is about the only deck I've played where I have games where I die with 3-4, though. Perhaps you're prone to keeping 1 or 2 landers that have no draw or cantrips.
If I cut a land it's going to be for more disruption, most likely. I just made a change to 2 maindeck Thirst for Knowledge in the flex slots. The reason being the way you can pitch excess land. We'll see whether 3 mana is worth if you're not going up in card count, but Careful Consideration worked great for me a while back and had a similar issue. When you add flooding to the "wrong half of your deck" conundrum, Careful Consideration was putting in work for me. Especially maindeck.
I bet people even board in Stony Silence if they see a Thirst.
Sure, stroke is more versatile against Tron, but Negate is way more versatile as a whole. Negate hits Burn, Infect, Lantern, Chord, U decks, Living End, Grishoalbrand, Gifts, 8 rack, storm, ad nauseam, Bg/x if you feel inclined and of course, Tron. Stroke is only relevant in some of these match ups, and while better against Tron, is it really that much of an upside? They run 2-3 Umalogs and we run tons of permission. With Negate you don't have to waste as many Cryptics or Knots against Karn or Ugin, and Clique or Thoughtseize can nab Umalog more frequently since there are more answers for Karn and Ugin.
I do think it's worth it for tron since even though eye is banned, it's still a terrible match up for us. I want something in my SB that shines against them but isn't only for them and stroke fits the bill better than other options. Yes it's not as good as negate against the other matches which is why I run both even though most of the ones you listed I either have a solid plan against already like living end/storm or am willing to just ignore because they're too fringe like 8 rack.
Speaking of fringe, the only things in ad naus that negate hits that stroke doesn't are unlife, pact, cantrips, and lotus bloom. All of which are cards not named ad nauseum. The only possible consideration is if they decide to run 4 silence effects then I'd concede that negate is better, but until then it's not the case. Against gifts it once again stops the namesake card in gifts unvigen which is the only important card and any of their fatties. Everything else like loam, thopter swords, and raven's crime have recursion of some kind so neither spell matters there without a rest in peace in play and in that case neither counterspell matters at all because they can't win.
Against goryo's it still hits through the breech so is still a relevant card there and with 3 snare, 2 negate, 2 knot, 2 rest in peace, 2 snapcaster I don't think that's such a horrible place to be. Against chord I already explained why it's better there. The only important decks you mentioned where negate is strictly better than stroke are burn, lantern, storm, and infect. And of those only burn and infect are especially popular. This is why I play 2 and 2, not 4 negate 0 stroke or 2 dispel and 2 negate.
Lastly, one thing that people tend to forget about dispel is that dispel is great at winning a counter fight, but it is rarely able to start one. If you're sitting on 2 dispel scapeshift will resolve, karn will resolve, ancestral vision will resolve. That's why in the past we've run a split of the two and is why I'm running a split of negate and stroke. I'm more afraid of decks with big mana spells and big mana creatures rather than big spells and cheap instants. Different cards do different things against different decks.
EDIT: If we just go and count all of the spells negate tags that stroke won't it'll be a long day on gatherer. Instead count the important spells one hits that the other doesn't and, compare the overlap, and how much of each are in the same deck.
Don't know what to say. I've found pressuring Tron's early development with Negate, Stony Silence, Clique, etc, the most reliable way to win. If you don't counter Expedition Maps and Sylvan Scrying...they get Eye of Ugin. They were basically the best "threats" Tron had against a Control deck, and Disdainful Stroke doesn't counter them. Not that it matters anymore. Whatever Eye-less Tron deck is left over should be a 60/40 matchup, like Scapeshift.
You get mana screwed with this deck? More than you get flooded? Win or lose, I think the majority of games with this deck end with you still holding lands in your hand. The games I lose I normally die with, say 2 lands. This is about the only deck I've played where I have games where I die with 3-4, though. Perhaps you're prone to keeping 1 or 2 landers that have no draw or cantrips.
If I cut a land it's going to be for more disruption, most likely. I just made a change to 2 maindeck Thirst for Knowledge in the flex slots. The reason being the way you can pitch excess land. We'll see whether 3 mana is worth if you're not going up in card count, but Careful Consideration worked great for me a while back and had a similar issue. When you add flooding to the "wrong half of your deck" conundrum, Careful Consideration was putting in work for me. Especially maindeck.
I bet people even board in Stony Silence if they see a Thirst.
I never said I lose most to mana screw, I lose to specifically not hitting the 4th land for an important spell or sequence of spells. Very similar, but it's hardly semantics. We can beat a lot of decks while we're stuck on 4 lands up to turn 10 just fine even though it's super close. As for sketchy keeps, the only 1 land hands I keep are when I know what I'm against and I have at least 3 pieces of 1 mana interaction that are VERY good like 1 path and 2 snares against affinity. I think that's a reasonable keep albeit it far from ideal. 2 land hands follow the same reasoning, but I'm a bit more likely to keep them in the dark if I have two think twice and a snare or a path, but if I don't have that as a bare minimum I always send it back without hesitating.
I've tried thirst in the past and I was never impressed with it, it's like what amelk0 said about lingering souls. It's always just 'fine.' Never great, never the card you need, but it always does something that's at least useful. Regardless I'd still rather have an anticipate or telling time just for the situation where you need a land and you're staring at the spell you cut a land for.
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And on that day, Garfield said unto the world "Go ye forth and durdle!"
After watching Donny last night and testing since around 10 this morning, I've started tinkering with U/B control. Seeing as how we allow u/w brewing here I figured this would pass also bc of the nature of the deck.
Basically, spell snares become some number of inquisition of kozilek type effects (right now I'm on 3 inquisition and one duress) and here's where it gets spicy:
Running Jace Architect main with a couple Curse effects is really good in this meta.
For example, affinity and infect, 2 of the most popular and powerful decks in the format, immediately fold to a single resolved curse of deaths hold / night of souls betrayal. Also, against decks like Merfolk, having jace giving their team -1/-0 stacks really well with a curse effect, basically neutering their whole team with a -2/-1 that they can't really fight through. This is also good because these cards aren't a one-and-done effect like a wrath, they are static for the whole game.
I'll have a list up later when I'm not on my phone so that card tags will work, but for now I'll say I also stopped playing damnations in favor of The almighty black sun's zenith. Things can't be regenerated with black Suns zenith either, and we get a few perks from this, mainly the ability to play a turn 3 board sweep against affinity, infect, boggles, etc, and also the fact that they recycle back into the deck, so late game when we need to find another board sweep, we still technically have them all in our deck with a higher chance now of drawing into one.
Finishers are just 3 grave Titans, or two grave Titans and a wurmcoil. Worked for wafo and matignon at worlds, works fine here too.
Before anyone calls this "tap out, or midrange" because we play something other than white sun zenith as a finisher, please educate yourself.
We're running a play set of mana leak (this is fine because we can actually end games relatively easy with grave Titan)
Somewhere between 2-3 cryptic command , and probably also one main deck negate
Along with 4 IOK / Duress Effects that we use to preemptively win counter wars, etc.
Possibly choosing to run a pair of augur of bolas over snapcaster Mage, seeing as how our wrath effects all shuffle back in, curse effects can't be snapped, and lots of increased graveyard hate around now that thopter is around.
List soon
First thing's first. I'm glad to see people are still exploring other options! Even if we all come back to our home plane of Esper, it's good to have new experiences. They jar something inside us and allow us to grow. That being said, Y U NO PATH TO EXILE!? If nothing else that is the card that is worth breaking your mana for. It is literally the best removal spell printed since swords to plowshares in alpha. But if you want to stick to purely UB and not Technically Esper I can give you a few thoughts on what I've done in the past.
First you want another resilient finisher outside of grave titan. You know how much I love that card, but as your only game ender it can be rather precarious against removal heavy decks, especially ones with wraths in them. I'd suggest a Batterskul or two and/or some walkers that can literally kill your opponent. I wouldn't count jace AoT as a finisher either even though he can act as one if you end up going VERY long. I'd have to do some looking because I can't actually think of one off hand that I'd be happy with.
I love black zenith! Back when pod was a thing I ran one in esper even though BB is hard to do early and was very impressed with it. The two major downsides it has is that first you can't rebuy it with a snapcaster mage. It's important to have "extra" copies of a wrath just in case. Second is that creatures are kinda large these days so 2BB kill all the things without regeneration is a big deal with damnation that a -2/-2 doesn't always do. I'd strongly suggest you go 2/2 on them and see how it works out. Again, I'm not saying BSZ is a bad choice, but it does have it's limitations and you'd want to have access to a card that covers them.
I can't really comment on trading discard for snares without playing it thoroughly, but it does raise some concerns. Discard is a bad top deck and when it's live they can still have two copies of something bad for you that a snare could help you stop. This is all just in theory of course so I'm willing to be proven wrong by play testing but I'd be worried none the less.
I would never trade snaps for augur or bolas. Especially with your curse effects because augur doesn't worth with them either. Snappy is too strong to not have some number in the list. And with discard snappy becomes even better since you have much more cheap spells to work with.
Since you're only UB dismember becomes a much better removal option since you can pay full price for it a lot easier. But if that's still an issue smother and doom blade are great alternatives. Smother hits almost everything in the format including man lands and prevents regeneration if that counts for anything. Also there is very little of note that doom blade can't hit. There's bob, tasigur and red cap that blade won't kill that you're sure to see often but other than that I can't really think of anything off hand. Tasigur isn't even played all that much anymore for that matter so DB might just be the card you want next to some number of disfigures or dimir charm. That said I would definitely not be heavy on disfigures, any removal spell that can't kill a goyf makes me incredibly uneasy unless it has other redeeming factors.
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And on that day, Garfield said unto the world "Go ye forth and durdle!"
Just to be clear stroke is relevant in some of the match ups I listed, and I wasn't arguing that. I was just listing match ups that Negate was good in; not match ups that Negate was good, and Stroke was bad.
After watching Donny last night and testing since around 10 this morning, I've started tinkering with U/B control. Seeing as how we allow u/w brewing here I figured this would pass also bc of the nature of the deck.
Basically, spell snares become some number of inquisition of kozilek type effects (right now I'm on 3 inquisition and one duress) and here's where it gets spicy:
Running Jace Architect main with a couple Curse effects is really good in this meta.
For example, affinity and infect, 2 of the most popular and powerful decks in the format, immediately fold to a single resolved curse of deaths hold / night of souls betrayal. Also, against decks like Merfolk, having jace giving their team -1/-0 stacks really well with a curse effect, basically neutering their whole team with a -2/-1 that they can't really fight through. This is also good because these cards aren't a one-and-done effect like a wrath, they are static for the whole game.
I'll have a list up later when I'm not on my phone so that card tags will work, but for now I'll say I also stopped playing damnations in favor of The almighty black sun's zenith. Things can't be regenerated with black Suns zenith either, and we get a few perks from this, mainly the ability to play a turn 3 board sweep against affinity, infect, boggles, etc, and also the fact that they recycle back into the deck, so late game when we need to find another board sweep, we still technically have them all in our deck with a higher chance now of drawing into one.
Finishers are just 3 grave Titans, or two grave Titans and a wurmcoil. Worked for wafo and matignon at worlds, works fine here too.
Before anyone calls this "tap out, or midrange" because we play something other than white sun zenith as a finisher, please educate yourself.
We're running a play set of mana leak (this is fine because we can actually end games relatively easy with grave Titan)
Somewhere between 2-3 cryptic command , and probably also one main deck negate
Along with 4 IOK / Duress Effects that we use to preemptively win counter wars, etc.
Possibly choosing to run a pair of augur of bolas over snapcaster Mage, seeing as how our wrath effects all shuffle back in, curse effects can't be snapped, and lots of increased graveyard hate around now that thopter is around.
List soon
First thing's first. I'm glad to see people are still exploring other options! Even if we all come back to our home plane of Esper, it's good to have new experiences. They jar something inside us and allow us to grow. That being said, Y U NO PATH TO EXILE!? If nothing else that is the card that is worth breaking your mana for. It is literally the best removal spell printed since swords to plowshares in alpha. But if you want to stick to purely UB and not Technically Esper I can give you a few thoughts on what I've done in the past.
First you want another resilient finisher outside of grave titan. You know how much I love that card, but as your only game ender it can be rather precarious against removal heavy decks, especially ones with wraths in them. I'd suggest a Batterskul or two and/or some walkers that can literally kill your opponent. I wouldn't count jace AoT as a finisher either even though he can act as one if you end up going VERY long. I'd have to do some looking because I can't actually think of one off hand that I'd be happy with.
I love black zenith! Back when pod was a thing I ran one in esper even though BB is hard to do early and was very impressed with it. The two major downsides it has is that first you can't rebuy it with a snapcaster mage. It's important to have "extra" copies of a wrath just in case. Second is that creatures are kinda large these days so 2BB kill all the things without regeneration is a big deal with damnation that a -2/-2 doesn't always do. I'd strongly suggest you go 2/2 on them and see how it works out. Again, I'm not saying BSZ is a bad choice, but it does have it's limitations and you'd want to have access to a card that covers them.
I can't really comment on trading discard for snares without playing it thoroughly, but it does raise some concerns. Discard is a bad top deck and when it's live they can still have two copies of something bad for you that a snare could help you stop. This is all just in theory of course so I'm willing to be proven wrong by play testing but I'd be worried none the less.
I would never trade snaps for augur or bolas. Especially with your curse effects because augur doesn't worth with them either. Snappy is too strong to not have some number in the list. And with discard snappy becomes even better since you have much more cheap spells to work with.
Since you're only UB dismember becomes a much better removal option since you can pay full price for it a lot easier. But if that's still an issue smother and doom blade are great alternatives. Smother hits almost everything in the format including man lands and prevents regeneration if that counts for anything. Also there is very little of note that doom blade can't hit. There's bob, tasigur and red cap that blade won't kill that you're sure to see often but other than that I can't really think of anything off hand. Tasigur isn't even played all that much anymore for that matter so DB might just be the card you want next to some number of disfigures or dimir charm. That said I would definitely not be heavy on disfigures, any removal spell that can't kill a goyf makes me incredibly uneasy unless it has other redeeming factors.
Path to Exile isn't extremely relevant right now against a lot of the meta.
Sure it's great against goyf's and man lands, but there's no twin running rampant that we have to interact with at instant speed. It's awful against affinty, Infect see's it coming a mile away, it's ok vs burn, not great vs. thopter decks at ALL, great against Gb/x sure, but there seem to be more decks that are either swarm decks like affinity, or decks with excellent ways to get around path (like infect), or decks where path just isn't very relevant (griselbrand can go off at instant speed, blue moon is popular now, etc) I feel fine with a Dismember and maybe a couple Smother in this metagame.
Curse of Death's Hold and Night of Souls' Betrayal effects just happen to be really good against this metagame because they are static and once we find one we don't normally have to clamor to find another just to stay on top of the threats.
I know it sounds dumb to a lot of you guys, but Jace, Architect of Thought followed up by a curse effect is actually very backbreaking for a lot of decks, because -2/-1 is really hard to fight through for decks like CoCo or merfolk or elves, and IMPOSSIBLE for affinity or infect which lose on the spot (two of the most over represented and powerful / popular decks of the format, by the way)
Not to mention thopters are just running around all over the place and we now have a natural defense against that, as well as mana leaks, duress, negate, and cryptic commands for tezzeret. (Creeping Tar Pit has been known to kill a few planeswalkers also)
As a control deck, we have to be tailored to fit the metagame, so that's where these choices are coming from. Sure, in a vaccuum you'd rather be jamming Path's and stuff, but that's not the world we live in, nor the metagame we play in.
Also I'm in love with Black Sun's Zenith, I typically find most of the creatures I need to sweep are NOT bigger than x/2, although there could be something to be said for a 1-of damnation or something if you feel like you want that safety valve.
2 Grave Titan and 1 Wurmcoil Engine are Jund's worst nightmare, now I need your constructive help on how to beat burn from the sideboard in conjunction with the maindeck counterspells and Inquisitions. Go!
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People forget about Karsten's other suggestion:
This was the only way he could match his assumptions with live data. Very few 3-color decks actually meet his requirements without taking into account cantrips or mana creatures. In Modern we're pretty spoiled so it's easy to make happen, but technically he's suggesting you can get away with less than 20 blue, and less than 16 white. I personally run 21/17/12, and I can only remember being color screwed once in the last couple of months. Got knocked out the GP by drawing Plains -> Plains -> Swamp -> Ghost Quarter. I'm actually considering going down to 25 land, though I want to try out Thirst for Knowledge first. The mana in this deck is easy, and these days I feel the majority of games are lost to extreme cases of mana flood. I'm loathe to even keep a 5-lander with this deck, and as a guy who only has played Control (or Combo) in a sanctioned event, that's saying a lot.
Wanted to point out that countering Ulamog isn't how you beat Eldrazi. I'd much prefer Negate to any other 2 CMC counter against them (except the maindeck Logic Knot, of course). The games you win against Eldrazi are the ones where you disrupt the mana, and countering Sylvan Scrying or Expedition Map can create those game states. Even if you don't run Vendilion Clique, you can still easily take over a game if you can stall them till turn 7 or 8 when your Revelations and Snapcaster -> Cryptic is up. Last match I had against Eldrazi I won 2-0 after racing with Elspeth. Never even saw a Clique.
This could change if Thought-Knot is a 4-of maindeck going forward.
Here's what I had sleeved up, and what I advocate playing:
1x Creeping Tar Pit
4x Flooded Strand
3x Island
1x Plains
1x Swamp
3x Drowned Catacombs
3x Hallowed Fountain
2x Watery Grave
1x Ghost Quarter
3x Polluted Delta
4x Think Twice
2x Hallowed Moonlight
2x Snapcaster Mage
2x Sphinx's Revelation
4x Path to Exile
3x Supreme Verdict
2x Logic Knot
2x Remand
4x Spell Snare
4x Cryptic Command
3x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Night of Souls' Betrayal
1x Curse of Death's Hold
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Planar Cleansing
2x Pithing Needle
2x Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1x Dispel
1x Negate
1x Grave Titan
1x ashiok, nightmare weaver
5-0 vs Junk Company (2-0), Jund (2-0), Abzan (2-1), Merfolk (2-1), and Burn (2-1).
Feeling good.
Apparently I can't get away from office hours today. Math Masters student with an emphasis in algebra and combinatorics stepping in here:
Karsten's charts apply for most typical builds of esper draw-go, and if you count all the "cantrips" in the deck as 1/6th of a card (including esper charm/think twice/cryptic) you get pretty much exactly spot on for my mana base, and it runs silky smooth and has for a while.
The simple fact is, unless your deck has a very wonky curve (e.g. standard co-co builds with a billion three drops) or a ton of mana dorks, you can use karsten's numbers +/- 1 and they are correct. Y'all complaining about it drove me to try to engineer a decklist that falls outside of those margins. You know what I came up with? EDH decklists and legacy ANT. That's it. The reason is that there isn't enough variance in a 60 card stack with a sufficient number of lands for its spells to actually make it not work. EDH decklists break all the rules anyway, so nobody cares about those. And everyone in that format either plays green, is a mono/2 color deck, or has a huge focus on mana fixing as part of the damn deck design. Legacy ANT breaks it wide open because of all the LED's and lotus petals and stuff screwing up the math. But that deck is 1/3 mana 1/3 rituals 1/3 cantrips to begin with, so none of the rules even apply there anyway. The deck is designed to make statistics as irrelevant as possible.
Moral of the story: Use karsten's table if you're anywhere from not-lazy to interested, and if you're interested in crunching through some graduate level combinatorics, you can come out to numbers that are slightly different from karsten's and still all within +/- 1. As a grad student in mathematics who has the matlab code ready to execute to do things the hard way, I advocate just using karsten's tables. I have a copy of them laminated and on the wall over my screen actually. Free access to a lamination machine cuz teaching freshman classes =)
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
Eye of Ugin; YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!
Ancestral Vision; I am still not convinced that Storm or Ad Nauseum won't try to find a way to make that card work in either deck (I am assuming that it will work better in the latter, but am still paranoid about the former), but all in all, I like the idea of more control decks being in the format - or at least, as close to control as most Modern players are comfortable with being.
Sword of the Meek; An interesting choice. It will be interesting to see how people approach the deck in terms of the different variations that could possibly come out of it. Luckily for us, it seems from what people on the forum are saying that we should be pretty well-positioned to beat it, thanks to Stony Silence, Night of Soul's Betrayal and certain graveyard hate cards, so the only thing I am worried about is being able to acquire a sufficient amount of Night of Soul's Betrayal.
Lodestone Golem; Wait - people still play Vintage?
And now, to post my "current" decklist. The reason for the qoutation marks is because I am currently trying to configure the deck for a GPT this Saturday (I would love to read any and all feedback on my decklist, matchup analysis', etc). As per usual, in case I done goof on the list in the post, here is a link to the list on TappedOut; http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/03-01-16-esper-control-modern/
And now, the list;
1 Condemn
4 Path to Exile
3 Supreme Verdict
Permission
3 Cryptic Command
2 Logic Knot
1 Deprive
2 Remand
4 Spell Snare
Card Advantage
4 Esper Charm
4 Think Twice
2 Sphinx's Revelation
Creature
1 Vendilion Cliqoe
All of the above
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 White Sun's Zenith
Lands
4 Celestial Colonnade
1 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Flooded Strand
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Godless Shrine
2 Hallowed Fountain
3 Island
2 Plains
3 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Celestial Purge
2 Dispel
1 Negate
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
2 Thoughtseize
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Wrath of God
Now, as previously stated, I am going to a GPT this weekend (Saturday, to be exact), and I am trying to prepare as best as I can. However, there are two issues; 1) I am worried about certain matchups that I would like to touch on, and 2) I am considering some options for the main/side, and would like an opinion on either of those subjects, assuming you feel like doing just that. First, the matchups;
I am currently worried about ThopterSword (since I currently do not own any Nights, and only own one Curse of Death's Hold), Storm (because I despise that deck, and hate to lose against it), Infect, Bogles (to some extent), Ad Nauseum, Grishoalbrand, Lantern Control and Burn. I have not played against Lantern, Ad Nauseum or Bogles yet, my Burn win percentage seems to be 40/60 atm (that is including all the times I have played against Burn), Infect seems a little worse (but it was better when I used to run Runed Halo in the main), ThopterSword is new to the meta, and therefore I have not played against it, I have played against Grishoalbrand once, and I have never won a game against Storm (a fact that infuriates me to no end). If anyone can share any insight on any of those matchups in particular, I would greatly appreciate it. And now, for the card considerations;
Cavern of Souls; This is mainly because of the predicted spike of people playing blue-based control decks. I feel like having the ability to have my Snapcasters, Cliques or Teferi resolve no matter what should be a useful tool to combat them with. And if you feel like I need to add more creatures to make it work, I currently own three Vendilion Cliques, two Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and a playset of Snapcaster Mages.
Leyline of Sanctity; It seems like a card that I should consider, since it seems like it helps in a good amount of the matchups that I have specified. One thing that I am not certain of is do I run two or a playset? (i currently own three) I have seen people post lists with two in the main, but I have also heard that Leyline is a card you want the full playset of, so that you get it in your opener more consistently.
Runed Halo; I love this card. I really do. But I am not sure if I can afford the space to be able to run it, or what to cut for it. I currently own two.
Elspeth, Sun's Champion; The same reasoning for Runed Halo.
Calciform Pools; This is kinda along the same rationale for Cavern of Souls; to help me out against control decks.
Detention Sphere; This is supposed to be Anguished Unmaking, but I don't own any yet. I have seen people recently posting lists with these kinds of Vindicate-type effects as a one-of, and am not sure if I should either. If I were to play it, it would probably be in the sideboard.
Nephalia Drownyard; This is mostly for against Lantern Control, but I don't think that I need to devote a sideboard slot just for that matchup.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant; I am mostly considering this Elspeth just so that I have another clock to side in against combo.
Jace, Architect of Thought; Jace is mostly a consideration as a poor man's Nights with potential upside.
Grave Titan; The Gravy Train has been a long-time consideration for sideboard inclusion, but like the current state of Runed Halo and Sun's Champion, I don't know if I have room for it/what to cut for it.
Disdainful Stroke; Another card that I have considered adding to the sideboard in the past, Stroke seems like a card that has some potential in the new meta. I also want to play a game where I need to draw into one, and then start singing the lyrics to " The Stroke".
Shadow of Doubt; I know the applications of the card, but I am not entirely convinced about the possible inclusion to the deck. The same could also be said about Hallowed Moonlight, but I only own SoD.
Also, and this is off-topic, but does anyone on this forum play Pauper? And if so, would you be interested in taking a look at a Grixis version of the Teachings deck that I have been brewing? I have been playing it on MTGO for a couple of months and a little bit in paper, and now would like to broaden out and get feedback on possible improvements to the deck, or if it is flat-out worse than the traditional Dimir Teachings list. Here is the list if you want to check it out; http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/pauper-grixis-teachings/
And that is all that I have to say for now. And for the umpteenth time, any feedback is greatly appreciated
Basically in both games aether vial was a big problem. Vampires had turn 1 cavern of souls as well in both losses. Are these two cards as difficult to handle as they seem? In both matches all of my counterspells pretty much turned dead leaving me stuck trying to draw supreme verdict or lose the game - and even verdict wasn't mind blowing since they could still just vial in a new threat afterwards thus forcing me to also have a path to exile.
Basically if you take the counterspells away from this deck its quite terrible and that's effectively what a turn one cavern and vial will do? With merfolk you can still maybe spell snare or remand a spreading seas but otherwise yeah
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
Against a deck like Vampires or Merfolk you should be pretty heavily favoured. Sure, they can make your countermagic bad or useless, but Cryptic still taps the team, and ultimately you just blow up the board.
Hatebears can be a bit more difficult because they have Thalia which can really muck up your day, but their creature quality isn't that good, aside from the taxing effects.
These matchups revolve around board sweepers, not counterspells.
I've since switched to Rest in Peace (yet to be evaluated as I have yet to see it in a sb game yet), but I'm honestly not sure that I want it over Extirpate. That said, I have used Surg a lot, and it really is a good general answer -- it hoses lots of things that you wouldn't have thought of, but things that could show up at your shop anyways. Things like MonoG devotion, UR Nivmagus combo, Modern Belcher (after a counter/Thoughtseize), Grishoalbrand (it seems like more of a Open/GP deck to me), Enchantment Prison, etc. At a local level, people are more willing to try out decks centered around a few certain cards. So, I would feel comfortable bringing a Surg effect into an unknown meta.
As for NoSB, I felt like I wanted 2-3 of those effects when I played them, but it just didn't seem like what I wanted against some of the ThopSwo decks -- something like Extirpate has more use against the Tezzerator shell (you can get Lili/Tezzeret/Bridge as well as the ThopSwo combo, making Surg much more useful -- especially as a Snap-target). Against the control shells with ThopSwo, NoSB is just a 4 mana sorcery that doesn't actually stop them from winning -- it just hoses the eighth of their deck that they can pitch to Thirst for Knowledge anyways, and decreases your Colonnade clock. I won't consider CoDH because a 5-mana sorcery is just never gonna happen against the quick decks that the -1/-1 is good against.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
Giant word wall ahead!
First, I want to levy some criticisms to the list: I don't mind the mainboard Clique and Deprive, they seem okay. I do think you want the 4th Cryptic in there, however. My first inclination was cut either the Deprive or the -- please don't hurt me stokpile -- 4th Spell Snare. Other than that, I really don't like Teferi -- I've played with him, and he just doesn't do anything anywhere but U matchups. But in said U matchups, he's just never going to resolve. I wouldn't play Cavern to try to make him better either. I'd love to see the 3rd Clique or another Baneslayer in that slot.
Leyline of Sanctity solves a lot of your concerns, but you already have a fine card for the job in your sideboard -- Rest in Peace. (It could be an Extirpate too, if you wanted, but ultimately it doesn't matter.) If you really expected ThopSwo, Storm, Grishoalbrand, and Lantern Control to make a presence, play the 3rd RiP and call it a day. If you play Leyline too, it hoses Burn/Grishoalbrand/AdNaus and any deck that plays a dedicated suite of discard (BGx, Grixis "Control", and most ThopSwo decks) You have Stony Silence for Lantern too, so I wouldn't sweat it too much. If you want some experience against Lantern, download XMage and make a lobby titled "need testing against Lantern Control" or something. I've played against Lantern on XMage more than in real life, so I'm pretty confident you'd get someone to play.
As for the Infect matchup, you really just need more Condemns/Dispels -- I used to lose to Infect with the standard 4 Path list but a good 2 Condemns in the board (often with 1 in the main) made the matchup much more favorable. You still get awkward lands+Esper Charm/Logic Knot hands on the draw, but if you ever draw a hand with 2 1-mana removal spells in it, it's actually very hard to lose. Condemn does some to help the Burn matchup too, but I've yet to find something that gives me an acceptable WP against them -- the best has been the T0 Leyline with Dispel/Snare to defend it, but I've still lost after creature beats, and they can still Atarka's Command you out since it doesn't target. Hell, my Burn opponent even Skullcracked himself so I didn't gain life from my Sphinx's Rev (I didn't even know you could do that).
I don't mind Cavern, but I'm not sure that the manabase can support another colorless land (for spells, at least). My first inclination is that you could sb it, but I'm not sure you actually need it tbh. I've killed a lot of control opponents by baiting out counters with a Clique, Remanding my own Clique in rsp, and then being set up for an eot Esper Charm with counter backup the next turn. On the same note, I've also just tempo'd out control opponents with Clique because they played around that line. So you may not actually need Cavern.
I've already spoken at length about Leyline, so tl;dr: I like it.
About Halo, I like it too, but I'd fit 3 Condemns in the 75 before considering Halo.
Elspeth 6 -- you can sb one for the BGx matchup if you want to, but I've found recently that you just never want to tap out on your turn. So, take that as you will.
Calciform Pools -- eh, I'm sortof indifferent about this card. I've just never been interested enough in it to really test it.
D-Sphere -- I don't see why anyone would run this over Anguished Unmaking now (other than card availability), but I certainly am a fan of AU.
Drownyard -- I don't see how this helps you against Lantern? They'll mill you faster, and you'll just be giving them things to Academy Ruins back. I suppose you could pair it with Extirpate/Surg for a possible knockout sequence for Bridge, but I prefer Thoughtseize to Drownyard in that instance. As for Drownyard, it's slow, and doesn't really do anything helpful. Not a fan. Unless you target yourself to end the match on time.
Knight-Errant -- I feel like the 3rd Clique is just better.
Jace, AoT -- Why? You already have 4 Snares and 2 RiP for ThopSwo, so I'm not sure exactly what this card does -- it does seem great against Abzan Midrange tho.
Gravy Train -- I like Elspeth in the board better, since she doesn't die to creature removal.
Stroke -- I could see it over the Negate, I'll have to test it myself.
SoD -- Meh, you have Remand, so you don't really need more cantrips. And Remand is better now that U is back in the meta -- especially U with Ancestral Vision.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
Yes nothing stops ulamog from being effective, but when he resolves without a path in your hand the game ends. Nothing stops a resolved ugin from being effective either, and the 4 path to exile we have to remove ulamog will not save us there. Stroke does. Also TKS is gaining popularity with tron players and is in general a pain in the ass so having one more counter spell for them is one more bump to our chances of winning. And yes many of the other cards I mentioned aren't GG when they resolves they're still bad for us and I'd like to prevent that from happening if possible. It's like spell snare in a sense, sure we can get choked up on them but we will always have a target and that target is always relevant.
Stroke is far more versatile than negate in some matches which is why I included it because you never know what you'll have to stop against them so the versatility is important. It's not a strict upgrade of course because stroke can't hit dispel or other negates which is why both are included side by side. I don't believe any of us expect to see 3x dispel and 2x negate in the average sideboard so being shy on that effect is acceptable.
One final scenario to show why stroke is a fine card to run over negates 3-4 is against the various CoCO and chord decks. Against them we already enjoy bringing in dispel/negate to easily answer their instant speed threats which are their only real weapon against us. But stroke can also hit reveilark (damn that's hard to spell), red cap, and kiki. Sure a resolved red cap isn't a big deal but it's still another thing that negate doesn't hit while the other 2 are serious trouble for us if they hit the board. And once again negate does not stop them. Obviously we have path and verdict, but why in the world wouldn't you want another card that can hit everything that is important? That's sort of the essence of control and why we're not on UWR or grixis, we wan our cards matter and negate only helps against some of them. Stroke is a perfectly fine card to run next to negate because neither is strictly better than the other. They're similar but ever so slightly different and that difference is important.
@ Cipher
I've had many 2 and 3 color mana bases built using his assumptions of soft sources like cantrips and scrying (including my first few UW mana bases) and they all had WAY more problems than I'm comfortable with. It's certainly possible that I hit the bad end of rng in the 15+ games I jammed with them before I moved on I admit. But even if it was just bad luck there's still the case that you have to actually cast your cantrips and cast your scry spells or play your tapped scry lands. We don't always have the luxury of time to durdle, many games require us to interact with the board starting turn 1 and we have to hope that our mana comes together. Sometimes you have to spell snare on turn 2 and not cast think twice, sometimes you have to logic knot on 3 rather than esper charm or flash back think twice. The only soft source I'd actually account for are sry lands and serum visions because control decks often don't have the luxury of doing nothing while we fix our mana in the first 4 turns. I prefer to be on the safer side of that interaction. As for specific colors I prefer to have my white solid rather than blue because matches where white is your main interactive color means that removal is what you want and wrath is your most important card next to a path-snapcaster-path sequence. In those matches stumbling on white is game over where as the matches where you need lots of blue you almost always have time to draw into it and cast your cantrips with the primary exception being tron. We have time to find our blue mana when we need it, when we need white mana we need it right now.
I'm well aware that Karsten's math is not 100% perfect due to the insane amount of variables and how they all effect one another making a completely reliable, simple, guaranteed to work rule of "play 20" nearly impossible. So we all need to decide which direction we want to err on and just how far in that direction we're willing to lean and what we give up by doing so. I've made the choice to have my white mana be close to 90% without having to rely on other soft sources to keep it that way while not completely gutting my blue since I usually have time for those soft sources to help me out. I've lost a ton of games to my white being late or the second white being a colonnade, I've never once had that problem with blue.
As for your thoughts on eldrazi tron, yes countering ulamog isn't how we win. But letting it resolve isn't either, we win by answering their threats and stroke is yet another answer that stops way more than path does. Perhaps be play against them differently, but I have literally never had success fighting the mana. Esper and UW just are not fast enough to make that a winning strategy reliably without some kind of surgical action making it literally impossible for their mana to come online. I've always beaten them by answering all of their threats just like every other deck and slamming the door before they got to eye of ugin. Now that eye is gone, so long as we don't get caught with our pants down on turn 3, it's elementary to answer all of their threats and win at our leisure which is our plan against virtually everyone else. And once again, stroke stops all of their threats. Negate does not.
Lastly the idea of going down to 25 lands if reasonable if your deck is built to work with that. I've done it before and it worked out as well as you are thinking, but the down side was I had to play with more do nothing cantrips (I'm officially going to start abbreviating that now) in addition to what I mentioned earlier, you have to actually cast the cantrips rather than interacting. If you have to cast an anticipate or telling time rather than a path on turn 2 to find your lands you can easily be in big trouble if you don't have a wrath to catch you up. And even then you're taking extra damage that puts you ever so closer into burn out range. Personally I've lost more games to not hitting my 4th land to wrath or cryptic-fog than I have to flooding out with nothing to do.
But if you plan to give it a go I strongly recommend telling time over the other options of cantrips to help you find mana and action. I've tried serum visions and every game it was unplayable garbage after turn 2. Anticipate was nice unless I needed lands and a specific type of interaction which is when I moved over to telling time. It gets you what you need and sets up a land drop the following turn, very solid card if filtering is what you're looking for. I often find myself wondering if compulsion would be a playable card in modern control lists to assist with filtering. Perhaps it'll be reprinted next set and we can find out for real.
Never cut the 4th cryptic!! Even though deprive is almost a pet card for me at this point, I'd still cut it for the final cryptic. With remands, knots, and snares your turn 2/3 spell interaction is fine but cryptic is always awesome to get out of sticky situations. And since you're down a wrath in the main you might need it to fog/draw a touch more than you would before so the 4th copy is especially important for your list.
The Gravy Train only has 1 speed! GO!
For disdainful stroke see my previous walls of text talking about them. And don't run shadow of doubt, the deck doesn't need any DNC and scapeshift isn't popular enough for it to be worthwhile. Same with all the other "gotcha!" spells. Completely unnecessary. Remand though is a solid call right now with AV being set free and I (for the first time ever) recommend a pair in the deck.
With 2 stony and 2 rip in addition to all of your other interaction you should be fine against any dedicated thopter decks. The only ones to be worried about are the UB tezz/liliana decks and the BuG midrange ones with the combo jammed in. That being said you should be fine with your current set up. In your main you have 2 GQ to stop academy ruins and a giant pile of hard counters for both halves of the combo. As a quick aside, fight over the thopter foundry not the sword because that one can easily come back all by itself, the foundry is what they need to work at. In the sideboard that you currently have listed, you also have up to 6 cards that stop the combo dead in it's tracks. Stony/rip are a complete shut down of operations while purge and negate stop 1 cast of the foundry while you chain draw spells to find the big stop signs.
I agree with others in that cavern is not necessary, It plus Teferi is a 2 card combo that you have no way of searching up in time for it to be relevant so it'll most likely hurt you more than help. I'd run a dispel or negate in its place if you want more action against counter magic but in all honesty you should have a second purge or unmaking in the side. You're too light on non creature removal and we just got a new toy to play with so having a second copy of something that kills liliana, blood moon, pyromancer's ascension, and karn is pretty important. On that note a single unmaking in the main is a great idea and you can replace the purge in the side with one if you want. The life matters, but so does the versatility and 3 cmc and we're soft to the problems that unmaking solves. Great choice now that abrupt decay is en vogue once again.
Jace aot is a fine card and still works wonders against thopters. If you're really afraid of the deck it's a fine choice, but you're already well set up without him.
You really don't need any extra oomph against control. A MD clique, another in the side with more counters and discard is plenty to get through everything they have. Remember that the typical deck you'll be across from is a midrange deck is disguise. Ignore grixis and UWR as control, treat them and spell based midrange decks with one draw spell in the 75. Charms and discard backed up with think twice crushes them.
In esper calciform pools is a terrible card. Our mana is tight and as I mentioned before, with all the discard we have we don't need any extra help against control. It's only ever a consideration in straight UW and even in there I've always hated the card when I tried it out.
My last comment is I don't like the tar pit. I've been burned so many times with a 5th tap land that I stopped running them all together favoring even a basic island in their place. The colonnades and kitties are enough to end the game and with enough 2 cmc spells you can stop or delay most scary spells long enough for either cryptic to be online or to smack them with colonnades in the case of walkers.
With all of your other considerations your thoughts are mostly spot on. A lot are cute but not needed and/or not impactful enough. I agree with most of what TheAnnihilator0798 said on your ideas, I just wanted to add in a few more fine details.
@ TheAnnihilator0798
You need not fear my wrath of cutting the 4th snare, even when twin was a thing I didn't like 4 snares. Even though I don't run 4 myself I'd never begrudge somebody from doing so, the card is extremely good and does a lot of work. I just find myself wanting to shore up another aspect of my list while amelk0 has been talking about putting the 4th in the side which I can also agree with. I think the bottom line is we always start with 3 copies and go from there.
On the topic of the BGx match, it's usually fine to tap out against them mid game but early it's definitely a big risk. But once you're at 6 mana dropping elspeth on curve is fine since the only thing they can do that makes you worry is cast maelstrom pulse AND liliana. What else could they have that would really be a problem for you? Olivia would be annoying, but she's just another flying dork that dies to removal, batterskull doesn't beat elspeth either. In fact outside of outright killing her, BGx literally has nothing that actually beats her that I've seen. And before you try and get cheeky by saying "night of souls' betrayal beats Elle!" no sane person brings that in against a deck that has shown zero 1/1 dorks aside from a single clique so nyah!
When you have access to cards that are so drastically more powerful than everything they have available it's fine to tap out against them because they likely only have 1-2 ways to remove them in their entire 75. So the upside is then "untap and win 98% of the time" which are odds I'm perfectly happy to bet any match on.
Basically, spell snares become some number of inquisition of kozilek type effects (right now I'm on 3 inquisition and one duress) and here's where it gets spicy:
Running Jace Architect main with a couple Curse effects is really good in this meta.
For example, affinity and infect, 2 of the most popular and powerful decks in the format, immediately fold to a single resolved curse of deaths hold / night of souls betrayal. Also, against decks like Merfolk, having jace giving their team -1/-0 stacks really well with a curse effect, basically neutering their whole team with a -2/-1 that they can't really fight through. This is also good because these cards aren't a one-and-done effect like a wrath, they are static for the whole game.
I'll have a list up later when I'm not on my phone so that card tags will work, but for now I'll say I also stopped playing damnations in favor of The almighty black sun's zenith. Things can't be regenerated with black Suns zenith either, and we get a few perks from this, mainly the ability to play a turn 3 board sweep against affinity, infect, boggles, etc, and also the fact that they recycle back into the deck, so late game when we need to find another board sweep, we still technically have them all in our deck with a higher chance now of drawing into one.
Finishers are just 3 grave Titans, or two grave Titans and a wurmcoil. Worked for wafo and matignon at worlds, works fine here too.
Before anyone calls this "tap out, or midrange" because we play something other than white sun zenith as a finisher, please educate yourself.
We're running a play set of mana leak (this is fine because we can actually end games relatively easy with grave Titan)
Somewhere between 2-3 cryptic command , and probably also one main deck negate
Along with 4 IOK / Duress Effects that we use to preemptively win counter wars, etc.
Possibly choosing to run a pair of augur of bolas over snapcaster Mage, seeing as how our wrath effects all shuffle back in, curse effects can't be snapped, and lots of increased graveyard hate around now that thopter is around.
List soon
Don't know what to say. I've found pressuring Tron's early development with Negate, Stony Silence, Clique, etc, the most reliable way to win. If you don't counter Expedition Maps and Sylvan Scrying...they get Eye of Ugin. They were basically the best "threats" Tron had against a Control deck, and Disdainful Stroke doesn't counter them. Not that it matters anymore. Whatever Eye-less Tron deck is left over should be a 60/40 matchup, like Scapeshift.
You get mana screwed with this deck? More than you get flooded? Win or lose, I think the majority of games with this deck end with you still holding lands in your hand. The games I lose I normally die with, say 2 lands. This is about the only deck I've played where I have games where I die with 3-4, though. Perhaps you're prone to keeping 1 or 2 landers that have no draw or cantrips.
If I cut a land it's going to be for more disruption, most likely. I just made a change to 2 maindeck Thirst for Knowledge in the flex slots. The reason being the way you can pitch excess land. We'll see whether 3 mana is worth if you're not going up in card count, but Careful Consideration worked great for me a while back and had a similar issue. When you add flooding to the "wrong half of your deck" conundrum, Careful Consideration was putting in work for me. Especially maindeck.
I bet people even board in Stony Silence if they see a Thirst.
I do think it's worth it for tron since even though eye is banned, it's still a terrible match up for us. I want something in my SB that shines against them but isn't only for them and stroke fits the bill better than other options. Yes it's not as good as negate against the other matches which is why I run both even though most of the ones you listed I either have a solid plan against already like living end/storm or am willing to just ignore because they're too fringe like 8 rack.
Speaking of fringe, the only things in ad naus that negate hits that stroke doesn't are unlife, pact, cantrips, and lotus bloom. All of which are cards not named ad nauseum. The only possible consideration is if they decide to run 4 silence effects then I'd concede that negate is better, but until then it's not the case. Against gifts it once again stops the namesake card in gifts unvigen which is the only important card and any of their fatties. Everything else like loam, thopter swords, and raven's crime have recursion of some kind so neither spell matters there without a rest in peace in play and in that case neither counterspell matters at all because they can't win.
Against goryo's it still hits through the breech so is still a relevant card there and with 3 snare, 2 negate, 2 knot, 2 rest in peace, 2 snapcaster I don't think that's such a horrible place to be. Against chord I already explained why it's better there. The only important decks you mentioned where negate is strictly better than stroke are burn, lantern, storm, and infect. And of those only burn and infect are especially popular. This is why I play 2 and 2, not 4 negate 0 stroke or 2 dispel and 2 negate.
Lastly, one thing that people tend to forget about dispel is that dispel is great at winning a counter fight, but it is rarely able to start one. If you're sitting on 2 dispel scapeshift will resolve, karn will resolve, ancestral vision will resolve. That's why in the past we've run a split of the two and is why I'm running a split of negate and stroke. I'm more afraid of decks with big mana spells and big mana creatures rather than big spells and cheap instants. Different cards do different things against different decks.
EDIT: If we just go and count all of the spells negate tags that stroke won't it'll be a long day on gatherer. Instead count the important spells one hits that the other doesn't and, compare the overlap, and how much of each are in the same deck.
I never said I lose most to mana screw, I lose to specifically not hitting the 4th land for an important spell or sequence of spells. Very similar, but it's hardly semantics. We can beat a lot of decks while we're stuck on 4 lands up to turn 10 just fine even though it's super close. As for sketchy keeps, the only 1 land hands I keep are when I know what I'm against and I have at least 3 pieces of 1 mana interaction that are VERY good like 1 path and 2 snares against affinity. I think that's a reasonable keep albeit it far from ideal. 2 land hands follow the same reasoning, but I'm a bit more likely to keep them in the dark if I have two think twice and a snare or a path, but if I don't have that as a bare minimum I always send it back without hesitating.
I've tried thirst in the past and I was never impressed with it, it's like what amelk0 said about lingering souls. It's always just 'fine.' Never great, never the card you need, but it always does something that's at least useful. Regardless I'd still rather have an anticipate or telling time just for the situation where you need a land and you're staring at the spell you cut a land for.
First thing's first. I'm glad to see people are still exploring other options! Even if we all come back to our home plane of Esper, it's good to have new experiences. They jar something inside us and allow us to grow. That being said, Y U NO PATH TO EXILE!? If nothing else that is the card that is worth breaking your mana for. It is literally the best removal spell printed since swords to plowshares in alpha. But if you want to stick to purely UB and not Technically Esper I can give you a few thoughts on what I've done in the past.
First you want another resilient finisher outside of grave titan. You know how much I love that card, but as your only game ender it can be rather precarious against removal heavy decks, especially ones with wraths in them. I'd suggest a Batterskul or two and/or some walkers that can literally kill your opponent. I wouldn't count jace AoT as a finisher either even though he can act as one if you end up going VERY long. I'd have to do some looking because I can't actually think of one off hand that I'd be happy with.
I love black zenith! Back when pod was a thing I ran one in esper even though BB is hard to do early and was very impressed with it. The two major downsides it has is that first you can't rebuy it with a snapcaster mage. It's important to have "extra" copies of a wrath just in case. Second is that creatures are kinda large these days so 2BB kill all the things without regeneration is a big deal with damnation that a -2/-2 doesn't always do. I'd strongly suggest you go 2/2 on them and see how it works out. Again, I'm not saying BSZ is a bad choice, but it does have it's limitations and you'd want to have access to a card that covers them.
I can't really comment on trading discard for snares without playing it thoroughly, but it does raise some concerns. Discard is a bad top deck and when it's live they can still have two copies of something bad for you that a snare could help you stop. This is all just in theory of course so I'm willing to be proven wrong by play testing but I'd be worried none the less.
I would never trade snaps for augur or bolas. Especially with your curse effects because augur doesn't worth with them either. Snappy is too strong to not have some number in the list. And with discard snappy becomes even better since you have much more cheap spells to work with.
Since you're only UB dismember becomes a much better removal option since you can pay full price for it a lot easier. But if that's still an issue smother and doom blade are great alternatives. Smother hits almost everything in the format including man lands and prevents regeneration if that counts for anything. Also there is very little of note that doom blade can't hit. There's bob, tasigur and red cap that blade won't kill that you're sure to see often but other than that I can't really think of anything off hand. Tasigur isn't even played all that much anymore for that matter so DB might just be the card you want next to some number of disfigures or dimir charm. That said I would definitely not be heavy on disfigures, any removal spell that can't kill a goyf makes me incredibly uneasy unless it has other redeeming factors.
Path to Exile isn't extremely relevant right now against a lot of the meta.
Sure it's great against goyf's and man lands, but there's no twin running rampant that we have to interact with at instant speed. It's awful against affinty, Infect see's it coming a mile away, it's ok vs burn, not great vs. thopter decks at ALL, great against Gb/x sure, but there seem to be more decks that are either swarm decks like affinity, or decks with excellent ways to get around path (like infect), or decks where path just isn't very relevant (griselbrand can go off at instant speed, blue moon is popular now, etc) I feel fine with a Dismember and maybe a couple Smother in this metagame.
Curse of Death's Hold and Night of Souls' Betrayal effects just happen to be really good against this metagame because they are static and once we find one we don't normally have to clamor to find another just to stay on top of the threats.
I know it sounds dumb to a lot of you guys, but Jace, Architect of Thought followed up by a curse effect is actually very backbreaking for a lot of decks, because -2/-1 is really hard to fight through for decks like CoCo or merfolk or elves, and IMPOSSIBLE for affinity or infect which lose on the spot (two of the most over represented and powerful / popular decks of the format, by the way)
Not to mention thopters are just running around all over the place and we now have a natural defense against that, as well as mana leaks, duress, negate, and cryptic commands for tezzeret. (Creeping Tar Pit has been known to kill a few planeswalkers also)
As a control deck, we have to be tailored to fit the metagame, so that's where these choices are coming from. Sure, in a vaccuum you'd rather be jamming Path's and stuff, but that's not the world we live in, nor the metagame we play in.
Also I'm in love with Black Sun's Zenith, I typically find most of the creatures I need to sweep are NOT bigger than x/2, although there could be something to be said for a 1-of damnation or something if you feel like you want that safety valve.
2 Grave Titan and 1 Wurmcoil Engine are Jund's worst nightmare, now I need your constructive help on how to beat burn from the sideboard in conjunction with the maindeck counterspells and Inquisitions. Go!