Just picked up a damnnation at the GP this weekend. I'm super happy because now I have a legitimate sweeper. In other news, I went 3-0 at Moderm on Wednesday. Best Tron, Jund Death Shadow, and Tron.
Great job RCSavant! I still need to pick up another foil Fatal Push for my deck...
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Level 1 Judge
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
I totally forgot to Include 4 Snapcaster and 2 Torrential Gearhulk. Those should be in the list.
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Level 1 Judge
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
Any thoughts? I think I'll probably end up switching a Terminate in for one of the Fatal Pushs in the long run, but short term i want to test them out. With that in mind I'll probably also drop back down to 10 fetches when I do that. Sideboard is a work in progress at the moment.
I don't know if I have asked you before, but why not go for 4/4/1 fetches instead of 3/3/2? I would also still prefer 3 CPT instead of 2 CPT and 2 WF (to balance the numbers with my previous suggestion. Also I assume you'll go for a 2nd Fatal push cutting a Terminate? 3 Spell Snare is a meta decision? Why not 2 Snares and 4 serums?
My fetches are expeditions so it takes a while to find them to change the configuration
I will be adding another fatal Push and the 3rd Snare is in there in place of the missing fatal Push.
I really like how fast Wandering Fumarole closes and I don't like getting color screwed by having too many Tar Pits.
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Level 1 Judge
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
Ran this list last modern after retooling it a bit more. Decided not to even bother with Dark Intimations after testing it some more, it's just not nearly as close to a mini-cruel as I thought it would be without that life gain and I personally feel like it's just not good enough for Modern unless the next Bolas is insane. Ended up going 1/2, but somehow still managed to place. Games I played were against Taking Turns, Esper Control, and Mardu Midrange.
First game playing against this guy with Grixis. In the first few weeks that the guy started playing Turns, I was on Rakdos Burn and would always 2/0 him, but that wasn't the case this time. Matchup was pretty rough once he got his engine going and him dropping Time Warp with Dictate of Kruphix out was usually a death sentence. Game 2 was a bit closer once I brought in my extractions, but not by much. Ended up making the mistake of thinking that I could kneecap him a bit by taking Time Warp when I should've taken Part the Waterveil instead to stop his damage plan and it ended up costing me the game in the end when he punched me to death. Painful 0/2
Good, old fashioned control matchup against my rival. Think of it as the ending fight of Revenge of the Sith, but without bad writing. It always ends with some huge counter war or with a big Planeswalker ult race or something. Game 1 was smooth, lots of countering and lots of removal. Fatal Push came in handy against his tar pits and I ended up winning the match through snapcaster beats, bolts, and a Cruel Ultimatum with him at five life as the finishing touch. Game 2 was more in his favor once the Leylines were boarded in, but I've evolved past the point of just folding to them. Almost, ALMOST, got the game with Batterskull, but I ****ed up and couldn't bounce it to my hand when it got hit with a Detention Sphere. Game ended when I died to Geist of Saint Traft's merciless beatdown. Game 3 was fun as hell. Brought in the Fulminators and starting popping off his lands and recurring them with Kommand. Things got even better when I got Jace, Architect of Thought out and raced to his ultimate. Ended up popping his ult, grabbing Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker from my deck and Elspeth, Sun's Champion from his and ticking them both up. Won 2/1.
This was the same guy that was on the 4-Color Midrange I've mentioned here before. G1 was pretty heavy against him, I killed and counter all of his creatures and planeswalker and got the win through a combination of Snap-Bolts and Kalitas landing hits. G2 was okay up until I got hit with Lost Legacy naming Cruel. I didn't think much of it at the time, but staring down a board of Spirit tokens from Lingering Souls made me think otherwise. Ended up losing the second game to a spirit beating. G3 was pure madness. Lost Legacy came out hitting my Cryptics this time and my opponent ended up boarding in Sorin, Solemn Visitor to gain life and pump his team. This was also on top of the Chandra, Torch of Defiance running rampant on his field. I ended up drawing Cruel and Bolas off of AV, but couldn't cast either because Chandra was within Ult range and my opponent had just enough on board for lethal anyways. After burning Chandra down with a bolt, I dropped Cruel to start reversing the damage. Then I dropped another Cruel. Then I snapped back Cruel twice. Now that would've been it, but my opponent still survived with about 10 life and then somehow managed to topdeck another Lost Legacy, this time naming Bolas the turn before I was going to drop him and take the game back. That was the straw that broke the camel's back and the point where I pretty much ran out of ammo thanks to a Sorin emblem keeping me from having any creatures on board for long. Ended up dying to Chandra's emblem. 1/2.
Overall, I really like the 3/3 visions split. It counteracted a lot of the issues I had before when I was on 4 SV, 2 Think Twice when I would be down on cards mid game. Surgical Extraction's also fun, I was squeamish about running it since I've always been pretty All-or-Nothing as far as grave hate goes, but I'm definitely in favor of it now that I've gotten testing in. Only thing I kind of want to change now is maybe my counter suite. I'm starting to take a look at Spell Snare again and maybe moving the Squalls to the main. Only thing I'm concerned about is having the wrong counter for bad situations and losing out on the bait capabilities I get with Mana Leak late game. Also need to ask, is Keranos worth running anymore? I barely ever really bring him in these days and it seems like I could get rid of him for something else at this point.
Quick sick brag story, I just won a game against bogles on a mull to 1 vs their mull to 5. The first spell I cast was Cryptic Command on turn 5 countering their Daybreak Coronet and drawing a card. Two turns later Torrential Gearhulk allows me to counter another Coronet and bounce their turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity. I drew my 7th land and slammed the Cruel Ultimatum I had drawn turn 2 making them sac a Gladecover Scout with 4 Umbras and discard down to 1.
Ok, so they didn't play their first creature till turn 3 but I'm still pretty pleased with myself.
I would still run Keranos to crush the fair decks and give you a clock in Control mirrors.
I will say that beating Bogles always feels good.
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Level 1 Judge
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
Hey Lil_Bolas, I had a question about what foil/promo cards you have been using. For Cruel ultimatums, I have a set of both Foil Original and FTV20. Which should I use? Also, I have foil Alara Terminates, but also the Full Art promos. Which should I use there? As always, thanks a bunch.
I use pack foil Cruel Ultimatums, FNM Promo Terminates and judge foils that I have received.
On another note I see that the Grixis Control guys have gone to a 3/3 Split between terminate and Fatal Push in some cases.
Private Mod Note
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Level 1 Judge
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
On another note I see that the Grixis Control guys have gone to a 3/3 Split between terminate and Fatal Push in some cases.
I think that is rather excessive in a deck with 4 bolts and 3 K.Commands. In Grixis I used to run the standard 3 terminates/1 EE. I would rather go into 2/2 Terminate/push rather than 3/3 cause I really don't know what to cut from a standard grixis control list.
I was just commenting on a list I saw on MTG Goldfish. I would not personally go with a 3/3 split. I am on 3 Terminate and 2 fatal push.
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Level 1 Judge
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
3 Terminates and 2 Pushes is what I'm on at the moment, and it's been preforming amazingly. Having fewer dead cards is necessary in beating Tron, which my meta is heavily infeasted with.
First off, I did the San Diego regionals this weekend with my boys. Didn't top score but I went 4-4-1, second best record after our Tron player, and I consider that a huge step up compared to my 2-4 back during the PPTQ last October. List I ran is relatively similar to the last one I posted, though I was missing out on Tarns, Ancestrals, and Fulminators which I ended up substituting with Bloostained Mires, the 4 SV/2 Think Twice package, and Molten Rains, respectively. Also added in a 3rd Cryptic and replaced Ob Nix with Liliana, the Last Hope who did wonders against the midrange decks that I played against. Definitely prompted some changes that I'll go over in a sec.
On the other hand, my past two FNMs were solid 3/1 wins. This time I was running the last list I posted, but with Ob benched out in favor of a singleton Electrolyze since I didn't have time to proxy Lili and because not getting my contract renewed means I'm on a budget until I can get another source of income. It was okay, but that's not saying much since it only really showed up in my hand three or four times. Definitely seems like if I could've swapped that slot with anything, I'd have taken Lili or another Kolaghan's.
Anyways, my matches went like this.
No idea why, but I misplayed hard this game. Ran a damnation with no mana open into a field with Mausoleum Wanderer staring at me. Game 2 was also rough, hit Spell Queller with my surgicals instead of Drogskol Captain and ended up staring down a Captain and a Phantasmal Image pretending to be a Captain. I boarded in Ashiok this time around and figured I might be able to steal some of his spirits, but Ash whiffed on the first two upticks and only got a Phantasmal Image on the third that couldn't stop the ghost onslaught that eventually killed me. Lost 0/2
I thought this would end up being a pretty long match once I found out what I was up against, but it wasn't. First few turns were a back and forth slough of counterspells and lightning bolts. Lost Tasigur at one point when I was gambling against his last card not being a removal spell. Once I drew into two Kommands back to back, it got fun. Every end step, I'd throw Kommand at him to keep his hand clear while my own hand was refilled thanks to the two Ancestrals I suspended two turns away from each other. By about turn 9 when my opponent was hellbent, I dropped Nicol Bolas and started going to town on his land base. He ended up conceding once I got into Ult Range. Game 2 started the same as Game 1, but with a Pithing Needle naming Bolas. Bit of a mistake once I drew into my Tar Pits. Pulled the same Kommand nonsense around turn 6, but I popped the needle and got Snapcaster involved and started beating his face in. Turn 8 lead into a clear path for Big Boss again and the game ended the same way the last one did. 2-0
Went into this match thinking it'd be nightmarish, but it was everything I could've asked for. The hand I kept after mulling to 6 was two dual lands, an Ancestral, two Mana Leaks, and a Remand. This proved hilarious. Turn 1, I suspended Ancestral, Turn 2, I remanded a Voice of Resurgence and drew into a Cryptic off the Remand, turn 3 I played a land on my turn and leaked that same Voice, Turn 4, I leaked a frigging Siege Rhino, and Turn 5, I was rolling in a restocked hand thanks to Ancestral. Ended up winning the game after dropping Bolas and dealing lethal with Cruel Ult a turn later. Game 2 was a lot closer. Didn't have any answers for a Grim Flayer early on, ended up getting my face pummeled to 2 life. Nearly died at one point to that Flayer and a Goyf until I drew into Damnation. Then I nearly died to a Collective Brutality if I didn't have a Cryptic in hand when it went onto the stack. My opponent also did Pithing Needle on Bolas. Again. This time it actually screwed me because I had him in hand and wasn't able to cast him without him sitting there or dying to whatever creatures he might've topped because of the needle. Ended up popping off a Cruel Ult to regain the life I lost to the beatings and drew into Kommand and another Cruel. After those shenanigans, I ended up dropping Bolas with little to no resistance and managed to get his ult off. 2-0
Now, this matchup is fun because the guy piloting Mill secretly hates me because I made his life miserable playing 8-Rack one FNM a year ago. Game 1 was nightmarish. Expended 2 bolts early on to kill off Hedron Crabs before he could get any mill off of them. Ate a Glimpse the Unthinkable at Turn 3, at which point I started lobbing my Burn in his direction. Around T4, I delved everything to get Tasigur into play and start going for beatings. Didn't see much in the way of heavy mill, just a Manic Scribe that he was too reliant on to mill me once I started swinging in with both Tasigur and one of my Tar Pits. Game ended when I swung for four with Tasigur unblocked and bolted him to the face for lethal. Game 2 was nothing special, ended up getting milled hard by Mind Funerals with a Leyline of the Void on the field. Lost to that same card when it milled out everything left in my deck with three lands already hit. Game 3 is my crowning moment of the night. Brought in Fulminators thinking I could try to keep him off of lands or something and just beat him down until the time came to sac them. The one Fulminator I played that game went all the way for the touchdown. Met zero board resistance and just kept hitting in for 2 each turn while lobbing Electrolyze faceward to get card draw. Meanwhile my hand was two bolts, two mana leaks, and a Countersquall. Last turn of the game, I go to bolt him on end step, he responds with a hardcast Archive Trap, and I casually Countersquall his trap and drop him to one life after the bolt. Dude concedes right there and the salt flows hard. Won 2-1
So it was a good night. Ended up coming up with an altered list after these past few weeks worth of testing:
I am toying with my sideboard at the moment. Meta is mostly big mana and Esper decks now.
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Level 1 Judge
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
Cuts
-2 Remand: Had to make room for squall and having another Cryptic now kind of makes them redundant. Sucks a little because chaining Remands into a Leak or Cryptic was fun, but oh well.
-1 Mana Leak: While I'd love to make these Spell Snares, I'd much rather have the two mana counter that can hit everything. My bad luck with Snare has also continued to be a problem, so I'd rather take the gamble with leak.
-1 Ob Nixilis Reignited: Maybe he'll come back some day, but right now, he has been slacking. Either he shows up in my hand T1 and takes a space from a spell or he comes up when I need a Cruel or a Cryptic and while I'm below 10 life. Sad to cut him since he's done the work before, but changes must be made.
-1 Keranos, God of Storms: I know it was suggested I keep him in for the fair decks, but after using him enough recently, it just feels like he's two slow, especially against decks that run Souls or spam small bodies en masse.
Adds
+2 Countersquall to the main: Finally coming back to the main after two years of being SB material. I'm kind of glad it's becoming meta, that shock attached to the negate effect can make differences against decks like Tron or Scapeshift where we have to be aggressive with our bolts and beats in game 1.
+1 Cryptic Command: I've tasted the more-than-two-cryptics kool-aid and I can't go back now. Three feels like a decent number, though I wouldn't mind pushing four.
+1 Liliana, the Last Hope: Cheap to cast, kills off X/1s as a plus ability, retrieves Snapcasters from the grave while simultaneously filling it a bit, Ult can win the game, pretty much everything I'd like in a planeswalker. Also casts on curve with Jace which is nice for protecting the two of them.
+2 Dispel: Pretty much just a replacement for Squall now that it's in the main, also a cheap answer for instant speed burn and for the control mirror match.
+1 Izzet Staticaster: My new answer for tokens now that it's showing up more in my meta. Kind of wish I had this before, would've saved my life multiple times against Fae, Junk, and Mardu.
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-Modern- UUBBBRR Cruel Control BRG BRgBurn BR URStorm
-Commander- B Chainer, Dementia Master - Reanimator U Teferi, Temporal Archmage - Calimari Tribal [Retired] GB Ishkanah, Grafwidow - Delirium/Tokens
What do you guys think about spell stutter sprite? I am not an expert on this deck, but with modern being overloaded with 1 cmc spells and answers right now, I think that it seems pretty good, especially considering that it scales as the game goes on, without depending on the graveyard in any way in multiples. It also gives a 1/1 beater with flying, but from testing it is SUPER good if you throw a batterskull on it. Just curious to see what you guys think about it.
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
3 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Island
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Wandering Fumarole
2 Steam Vents
2 Swamp
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Mountain
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Kolaghan's Command
3 Terminate
2 Damnation
1 Fatal Push
Counter Spells
4 Cryptic Command
3 Spell Snare
2 Countersquall
Card Advantage
3 Serum Visions
3 Ancestral Vision
2 Cruel Ultimatum
Creatures
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Torrential Gearhulk
2 Anger of the Gods
3 Collective Brutality
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Keranos, God of Storms
2 Fulminator Mage
2 Vandalblast
2 Dispel
2 Surgical Extraction
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
No creatures? That's passing up some sweet Ultimatum value!
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Spell Snare
3x Countersquall
2x Terminate
2x Think Twice
3x Kolaghan's Command
3x Cryptic Command
1x Anger of the Gods
2x Damnation
2x Cruel Ultimatum
4x Snapcaster Mage
2x Torrential Gearhulk
1x Blood Crypt
2x Bloodstained Mire
3x Creeping Tar Pit
3x Island
1x Mountain
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
2x Steam Vents
2x Swamp
2x Watery Grave
Any thoughts? I think I'll probably end up switching a Terminate in for one of the Fatal Pushs in the long run, but short term i want to test them out. With that in mind I'll probably also drop back down to 10 fetches when I do that. Sideboard is a work in progress at the moment.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
I will be adding another fatal Push and the 3rd Snare is in there in place of the missing fatal Push.
I really like how fast Wandering Fumarole closes and I don't like getting color screwed by having too many Tar Pits.
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
1x Blood Crypt
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Cascade Bluffs
2x Creeping Tar Pit
3x Island
1x Mountain
4x Polluted Delta
3x Scalding Tarn
3x Steam Vents
2x Swamp
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Watery Grave
Artifacts
1x Engineered Explosives
Instants
2x Cryptic Command
2x Fatal Push
2x Kolaghan's Command
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Mana Leak
2x Remand
3x Terminate
3x Ancestral Vision
2x Cruel Ultimatum
1x Damnation
3x Serum Visions
Creatures
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3x Snapcaster Mage
1x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Planeswalkers
1x Jace, Architect of Thought
1x Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
1x Ob Nixilis Reignited
2x Anger of the Gods
1x Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
1x Batterskull
2x Collective Brutality
2x Countersquall
1x Dreadbore
2x Fulminator Mage
1x Keranos, God of Storms
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Vandalblast
Ran this list last modern after retooling it a bit more. Decided not to even bother with Dark Intimations after testing it some more, it's just not nearly as close to a mini-cruel as I thought it would be without that life gain and I personally feel like it's just not good enough for Modern unless the next Bolas is insane. Ended up going 1/2, but somehow still managed to place. Games I played were against Taking Turns, Esper Control, and Mardu Midrange.
Overall, I really like the 3/3 visions split. It counteracted a lot of the issues I had before when I was on 4 SV, 2 Think Twice when I would be down on cards mid game. Surgical Extraction's also fun, I was squeamish about running it since I've always been pretty All-or-Nothing as far as grave hate goes, but I'm definitely in favor of it now that I've gotten testing in. Only thing I kind of want to change now is maybe my counter suite. I'm starting to take a look at Spell Snare again and maybe moving the Squalls to the main. Only thing I'm concerned about is having the wrong counter for bad situations and losing out on the bait capabilities I get with Mana Leak late game. Also need to ask, is Keranos worth running anymore? I barely ever really bring him in these days and it seems like I could get rid of him for something else at this point.
UUBBBRR Cruel Control
BRG BRgBurn
BR URStorm
-Commander-
B Chainer, Dementia Master - Reanimator
U Teferi, Temporal Archmage - Calimari Tribal [Retired]
GB Ishkanah, Grafwidow - Delirium/Tokens
Ok, so they didn't play their first creature till turn 3 but I'm still pretty pleased with myself.
I will say that beating Bogles always feels good.
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
On another note I see that the Grixis Control guys have gone to a 3/3 Split between terminate and Fatal Push in some cases.
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
First off, I did the San Diego regionals this weekend with my boys. Didn't top score but I went 4-4-1, second best record after our Tron player, and I consider that a huge step up compared to my 2-4 back during the PPTQ last October. List I ran is relatively similar to the last one I posted, though I was missing out on Tarns, Ancestrals, and Fulminators which I ended up substituting with Bloostained Mires, the 4 SV/2 Think Twice package, and Molten Rains, respectively. Also added in a 3rd Cryptic and replaced Ob Nix with Liliana, the Last Hope who did wonders against the midrange decks that I played against. Definitely prompted some changes that I'll go over in a sec.
On the other hand, my past two FNMs were solid 3/1 wins. This time I was running the last list I posted, but with Ob benched out in favor of a singleton Electrolyze since I didn't have time to proxy Lili and because not getting my contract renewed means I'm on a budget until I can get another source of income. It was okay, but that's not saying much since it only really showed up in my hand three or four times. Definitely seems like if I could've swapped that slot with anything, I'd have taken Lili or another Kolaghan's.
Anyways, my matches went like this.
So it was a good night. Ended up coming up with an altered list after these past few weeks worth of testing:
1x Blood Crypt
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Cascade Bluffs
2x Creeping Tar Pit
3x Island
1x Mountain
4x Polluted Delta
3x Scalding Tarn
3x Steam Vents
2x Swamp
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Watery Grave
Artifact (1)
1x Engineered Explosives
Instant (18)
2x Countersquall
3x Cryptic Command
2x Fatal Push
2x Kolaghan's Command
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Mana Leak
3x Terminate
3x Ancestral Vision
2x Cruel Ultimatum
1x Damnation
3x Serum Visions
Planeswalker (3)
1x Jace, Architect of Thought
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
1x Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
Creature (5)
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3x Snapcaster Mage
1x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2x Anger of the Gods
1x Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
1x Batterskull
2x Collective Brutality
2x Dispel
1x Dreadbore
2x Fulminator Mage
1x Izzet Staticaster
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Vandalblast
Gotta leave for class right now, but I'll edit this post in a few hours to explain my changes.
UUBBBRR Cruel Control
BRG BRgBurn
BR URStorm
-Commander-
B Chainer, Dementia Master - Reanimator
U Teferi, Temporal Archmage - Calimari Tribal [Retired]
GB Ishkanah, Grafwidow - Delirium/Tokens
I am toying with my sideboard at the moment. Meta is mostly big mana and Esper decks now.
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
Cuts
-2 Remand: Had to make room for squall and having another Cryptic now kind of makes them redundant. Sucks a little because chaining Remands into a Leak or Cryptic was fun, but oh well.
-1 Mana Leak: While I'd love to make these Spell Snares, I'd much rather have the two mana counter that can hit everything. My bad luck with Snare has also continued to be a problem, so I'd rather take the gamble with leak.
-1 Ob Nixilis Reignited: Maybe he'll come back some day, but right now, he has been slacking. Either he shows up in my hand T1 and takes a space from a spell or he comes up when I need a Cruel or a Cryptic and while I'm below 10 life. Sad to cut him since he's done the work before, but changes must be made.
-1 Keranos, God of Storms: I know it was suggested I keep him in for the fair decks, but after using him enough recently, it just feels like he's two slow, especially against decks that run Souls or spam small bodies en masse.
Adds
+2 Countersquall to the main: Finally coming back to the main after two years of being SB material. I'm kind of glad it's becoming meta, that shock attached to the negate effect can make differences against decks like Tron or Scapeshift where we have to be aggressive with our bolts and beats in game 1.
+1 Cryptic Command: I've tasted the more-than-two-cryptics kool-aid and I can't go back now. Three feels like a decent number, though I wouldn't mind pushing four.
+1 Liliana, the Last Hope: Cheap to cast, kills off X/1s as a plus ability, retrieves Snapcasters from the grave while simultaneously filling it a bit, Ult can win the game, pretty much everything I'd like in a planeswalker. Also casts on curve with Jace which is nice for protecting the two of them.
+2 Dispel: Pretty much just a replacement for Squall now that it's in the main, also a cheap answer for instant speed burn and for the control mirror match.
+1 Izzet Staticaster: My new answer for tokens now that it's showing up more in my meta. Kind of wish I had this before, would've saved my life multiple times against Fae, Junk, and Mardu.
UUBBBRR Cruel Control
BRG BRgBurn
BR URStorm
-Commander-
B Chainer, Dementia Master - Reanimator
U Teferi, Temporal Archmage - Calimari Tribal [Retired]
GB Ishkanah, Grafwidow - Delirium/Tokens
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/developing-legacy/770827-primer-legacy-pili-pala