Initially I was running 3 Simian Spirit Guides, then 2, then none. There isn't as much pressure to accelerate into the cascade as there is for other cascade decks (Hypergenesis and Living End). While they are content to just dump a bunch of fatties into play and ride that to victory, we want/need to continue to control the game after we Balance. Thus, the speed and card-disadvantage of SSG seems bad to me.
Also, Greater Gargadon started at 4, went to 3, and now 2 where he will likely stay. The only real benefit GG provides most games is a way to sacrifice excess lands to make our Restore Balance better. I rarely found myself in a position where I wanted to sacrifice most/all my board to accelerate out a 9/7 beater, and in most cases Kiora and the Keyrune proved to be fine win-conditions. Simic Keyrune especially was impressive, and benefits from multiple Ardent Pleas.
That's a pretty interesting take that I kind of like. Go even more control heavy.
The mana base is interesting. It's a little less flexible than the pure basic and basic-fetch approach, and the pain definitely can be an issue, but sometimes being able to fix multiple colors and use the mana the turn you play the fetch can be the difference between sneaking a cascade in when they're tapped out and getting blown out by a counter the next turn. You're also down to 12 Borderposts plus 2 keyrunes. Have you had issues drawing enough posts to reliably keep your land down on board?
Not entirely sure I like Electrolyze in this context. With 6 board wipes (and 8 more spells that are guaranteed chances to get there), you don't really need to be killing 1 and 2 toughness dorks on a 1 for 1 or even 2 for 1 basis. Nor sending damage to the dome. I know the card draw is the big attraction, but I think I'd rather have the final Beast Within or maybe a couple Maelstrom Pulses and be able to guarantee that a big beater can be killed or a non-creature threat like a planeswalker can be wiped out, not just set back.
How has Voidslime worked out for you? I like the idea of counters in the deck, but my instinct would be to merge this with the Perplex transmute plan and actually use Perplex as a counter more often. Voidslime is obviously flexible, but the UUG casting cost seems pretty restrictive.
Off the top of my head, these seem like other possibilities for usable counters.
Dissolve and Dissipate are arguably the best 3 mana counters in general.
Counterflux does double duty as storm hate and can't be counter-countered by things like Dispel.
Stoic Rebuttal can't be cascaded into by accident, but is often 2 mana when cast in this deck.
Thoughtbind, Convolute, Vex all work against almost everything this deck cares to counter, are not color intensive (no UU), and their drawbacks are largely ignorable in this deck.
At cmc 4, there's not really any options that are remotely viable for a Balance deck. Cryptic Command is good, but triple blue is too hard for this deck to reliably get. Rewind would be good, but in any borderpost-based deck, you can't untap posts with Rewind, meaning it stops being "free" and is instead just an overpriced Cancel. And none of the rest offer enough value for paying 4 mana for in this format or for this deck. Plasm Capture probably comes closest, but is even more color intensive than Cryptic. I kind of like Put Away as a way to shuffle Balances back in, but really that's sort of christmasland thinking.
That's a pretty interesting take that I kind of like. Go even more control heavy.
The mana base is interesting. It's a little less flexible than the pure basic and basic-fetch approach, and the pain definitely can be an issue, but sometimes being able to fix multiple colors and use the mana the turn you play the fetch can be the difference between sneaking a cascade in when they're tapped out and getting blown out by a counter the next turn. You're also down to 12 Borderposts plus 2 keyrunes. Have you had issues drawing enough posts to reliably keep your land down on board?
Not entirely sure I like Electrolyze in this context. With 6 board wipes (and 8 more spells that are guaranteed chances to get there), you don't really need to be killing 1 and 2 toughness dorks on a 1 for 1 or even 2 for 1 basis. Nor sending damage to the dome. I know the card draw is the big attraction, but I think I'd rather have the final Beast Within or maybe a couple Maelstrom Pulses and be able to guarantee that a big beater can be killed or a non-creature threat like a planeswalker can be wiped out, not just set back.
How has Voidslime worked out for you? I like the idea of counters in the deck, but my instinct would be to merge this with the Perplex transmute plan and actually use Perplex as a counter more often. Voidslime is obviously flexible, but the UUG casting cost seems pretty restrictive.
Off the top of my head, these seem like other possibilities for usable counters.
Dissolve and Dissipate are arguably the best 3 mana counters in general.
Counterflux does double duty as storm hate and can't be counter-countered by things like Dispel.
Stoic Rebuttal can't be cascaded into by accident, but is often 2 mana when cast in this deck.
Thoughtbind, Convolute, Vex all work against almost everything this deck cares to counter, are not color intensive (no UU), and their drawbacks are largely ignorable in this deck.
At cmc 4, there's not really any options that are remotely viable for a Balance deck. Cryptic Command is good, but triple blue is too hard for this deck to reliably get. Rewind would be good, but in any borderpost-based deck, you can't untap posts with Rewind, meaning it stops being "free" and is instead just an overpriced Cancel. And none of the rest offer enough value for paying 4 mana for in this format or for this deck. Plasm Capture probably comes closest, but is even more color intensive than Cryptic. I kind of like Put Away as a way to shuffle Balances back in, but really that's sort of christmasland thinking.
I haven't had any noticeable problems with the mana + artifacts so far. I think the ability to use my fetch-lands immediately has definitely made up for the lose of life. And, I do occasionally have to wait a turn or two in order to maintain 3 mana-artifacts post Balance, but it hasn't been too much of an issue. Also, sometimes it's worth it to nuke 1 or 2 or my own lands in order to wipe out my opponent ASAP and these fetch-lands let me do that quicker. I could see some tweaking in the future though, for sure.
I agree about Electrolyze. I think I have plenty of ways to answer creatures and I really like the idea of a couple more counters to stop my opponent's progress of rebuilding after a Balance. I like Dissolve the most out of the ones you've mentioned so I think I'll try that for now. I also like that this will lessen my reliance on R mana, and push me even more into a Bant (WUG) shell, as I already don't use B.
Something to consider with voidslime though is you can target triggers...though if you're going away from that consider counterflux as it can give you game against storm...
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Something to consider with voidslime though is you can target triggers...though if you're going away from that consider counterflux as it can give you game against storm...
Oh yeah, for sure. I occasionally use it as a very expensive Stifle on fetch-lands. I've liked Voidslime so far and will continue to run it - I was just planning on replacing the Electrolyze in the above list with Dissolve for additional counters.
Why? SSG allows you to force your opponent to ditch an extra card or two and Gargadon allows you to deal with excess lands so that your opponent is left.
Pretty sure Voidslime allows you to nerf Storm triggers.
What I learned in the six matches I had against Infect is that we are dead in the water to them unless you can:
a.) Go First and Cascade on turn 2 or 3 if they don't outright kill you on turn 2.
b.) Wait for them to pump like crazy and then Cascade in response.
That would be reason enough to keep SSG in. Also Affinity is a problem unless you are running March of the Machines.
Bogles however, was actually a pretty easy match.
Merfolk was rough. I am batting a 33% win rate against them, mostly on account of Cursecatcher and being able to combat it with Simian Spirit Guide.
While a unique list, it will never put up any results. Cutting win-cons for counter is just bad. Instead of attacking them while they try to rebuild after a balance you want to stall them further .. rather than just dropping a threat and riding to victory. By adding counters you are just adding further variance to the long game. I am very ok with Perplex since it transmutes but ... thats just wrong for what the deck wants to do. And it does happen every page or so "look at X list with X amount of Borderposts" with like 5 different cards. In fairness that list is a little different but still suffers the same thing all Borderpost lists have ... lack of threats. Delay the opponent all you want, you still have to win.
While a unique list, it will never put up any results. Cutting win-cons for counter is just bad. Instead of attacking them while they try to rebuild after a balance you want to stall them further .. rather than just dropping a threat and riding to victory. By adding counters you are just adding further variance to the long game. I am very ok with Perplex since it transmutes but ... thats just wrong for what the deck wants to do. And it does happen every page or so "look at X list with X amount of Borderposts" with like 5 different cards. In fairness that list is a little different but still suffers the same thing all Borderpost lists have ... lack of threats. Delay the opponent all you want, you still have to win.
I think the point is that he's going to a more true control oriented list rather than just a control combo with what are essentially midrange finishers. A lot of control decks only run a few threats total. UWR Control tends to win with Colonades or maybe snapcasters beating in plus a little incidental burn. You don't need a lot of threats if you can basically guarantee that they'll never have an answer, either because you counter it or because you balanced it away or balanced away the lands they needed to play it.
In this case he's got a couple Simic Keyrunes, the remaining Gargadons, and 3 Kioras. 5 of those are fairly quick threats if they come online. 9 power beaters is usually a 2 turn clock in most games, especially with an Ardent Plea in play. The Keyrunes are slower but almost impossible to remove. The one downside I see is that decks like UWR control tend to be running lots of 1 and 2 cost counters and have draw like Sphinx's Revelation, while this list is only packing Thirsts and a couple Thieves' Fortunes, which is pretty paltry in comparison, and the counters are all CMC to avoid messing up the cascade. But, on the flip side, the Balance combos will keep small threats off the board and drastically slow rebuilding as you keep wiping their land. It's not guaranteed to work, but I wouldn't write it off without some more serious testing.
That said, I do agree with Spitlebug that I would want to keep the SSGs. Being able to surprise pay for a Cursecatcher, Spell Pierce, etc can reverse a blowout in progress, as can the surprise Violent Outburst.
I can see going down on Gargadons, though I'd probably want 3 just to help ensure I see one within the first few turns. I've rarely won of Gargadons myself, as usually I get a concession first, or alternately I see one of my planeswalkers like Tezzeret who can close the game out before the Gargadon un-suspends. I also tend to be a little more aggressive with my sacrificing of lands to ensure a perfect Armageddon during Balances than some.
I am not even sure I would classify this as a combo deck. It really plays out more like a control deck. It has all the same sort of decision process as control builds, just we tend not to focus on counters, but rather battlefield control and denial of resources.
Lack of threats is a huge problem with the deck as is the general makeup of the borderpost build in requiring X borderposts and X cascade spells to be effective.
This deck will get there eventually. It is just a small matter of time before the cards that break it out will be printed.
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My Modern decks: B/R/G Living End G/R/B G/R Tron R/G U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
As ever, control and combo and midrange are not really exclusive, but parts of a number of spectrums.
Restore Balance decks have elements of both combo and control, and how much depends on the build. Post heavy decks are mostly like tap-out control, except that the primary "tap out" board wipe is a 2 card combo that also happens to have some attached stone rains/armageddon on it. B07's build goes even further, adding 2 more traditional 4 mana wipes and a small array of permission control style counters. At that point it's very much a "real" control deck, which happens to use a combo as part of the control package.
By comparison, builds which rely more on Gargadon and a package of suspend creatures like Nihilith are more combo oriented, especially those with fewer borderposts and more lands. The synergies of feeding lands to Gargadon or bouncing them with Cloudskate to enable full Armageddon off of balance, which in turn feeds Nihilith to let it come down faster as well, and now you're more into mid-range-ish combo territory that happens to have control elements as part of its more combo oriented finisher.
For pure Control decks having very few threats is expected, going all the way back to "The Deck", which ran literally only 2 Serra Angels as its entire kill condition and "Counterpost" which could only kill with a Kjeldoran Outpost. In current Standard, a lot of UWx control decks win off of 2 or 3 Elspeths and nothing else, or perhaps 1 additional Mutavault or an Aetherling. Having 7 threats is light, but it's definitely not undoable. The prime reason you'd need more is if you don't have a reliable way to dig to them (more draw helps here, which b07's build adds over most builds) or if you can't control the board reliably enough (2 extra boardwipes and some counters is the plan here).
I'm not saying it's the be-all of Restore Balance based builds, but it definitely seems like it could be a legitimate way to go, assuming that the additions let you reliably keep control until one of the few threats does land and begin going to work.
I did bump Greater Gargadon back up to 3, and it feels better here. The ability to sac lands is more relevant than I thought when first testing, and an additional threat is always nice.
Cleaned up the spell suite. Electrolyze was first to go, and Voidslime after that. Although the casting cost wasn't too hard, Dissolve having a slightly easier casting cost and scrying has pushed it past equal and into the realm of almost always better.
The lands were simplified as well, incorporating the basic fetch-lands along with a set of Scalding Tarn to help smooth out the mana some, and not have draws where I was staring at a dual land wishing I could play my Borderposts.
I am all for testing new stuff. It's the part of brewing I like the most.
I am somewhat dismayed at how badly the matchup with Infect is. I don't want to meta based on it but I wonder if there is a synergistic way we can deal with them without crippling this deck.
Sadly, Leeches isn't Modern legal and that's the only way I know of to deal with poison counters other than Melira, Sylvok Outcast and maybe Spellskite. Anyone have any ideas?
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My Modern decks: B/R/G Living End G/R/B G/R Tron R/G U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
I love how much talk their has been around this deck, I built it a while ago and didn't do very well with it, however I love the changes the TopWizard has and I am planning on running his 60 with a slight Sideboard change this friday.
As for the Infect match up, For mono green infect we have a very hard time as they just simply go as fast as possible for the win, but if we manage a balance they should have to few lands to quickly recoup.
For Black/green we have to worry about Abrupt decay on Borderposts. The only way i really see beating infect is with a T2 balance into managing to land a quick threat/keeping them off lands. Sadly i cant think of any silver bullets in this case. What if we had another card to cascade into for this matchup? might that manage to help in some way?
Spellskite is so effective vs infect that much like the Kor Firewalker against burn tech that was featured in a few decks, that might almost be worth if Infect is heavy in your meta. It also does a reasonable job against Burn decks, can mess up Twin builds which otherwise have enough counter magic to stop you, and isn't exactly horrible against other super fast aggro decks that don't care about having more than 1 or 2 lands after the first turn or so, like certain Zoo or Merfolk builds.
You can cast it before counters are up on turn 2, or cascade into it in the matchups where it matters most.
Could reasonably Cascade into Spellskite since the infect matchup, life totals mean virtually nothing (except corner cases of Noble Heirarch). They like to run Rancor which is a real pain too.
Only problem? We'd have to hold them off for a bajillion turns while Gargadon comes off Suspend, while you die to Inkmoth Nexus.
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My Modern decks: B/R/G Living End G/R/B G/R Tron R/G U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
I am all for testing new stuff. It's the part of brewing I like the most.
I am somewhat dismayed at how badly the matchup with Infect is. I don't want to meta based on it but I wonder if there is a synergistic way we can deal with them without crippling this deck.
Sadly, Leeches isn't Modern legal and that's the only way I know of to deal with poison counters other than Melira, Sylvok Outcast and maybe Spellskite. Anyone have any ideas?
Hmm, adding a couple Dismembers might help. They are usually pretty threat-light. Other than that, just Melira like you said, or running some more 3cmc sweepers - Firespout for instance would be easy to cast and should kill all infect creatures.
Spellskite should buy you the time to find a Beast Within, which answers almost everything Infect can throw at you, if you can keep their Hexproof/Protection spells locked down with Spellskite. Worst case, you can beast your own land to get a 3/3 blocker to chump for a turn against a Glistener or Plague Myr. You can also keep cascading to hit Balance eventually. If you're aggressive about not leaving lands in play on your side, even if they manage to keep a creature, they'll have no mana. And that leaves only Mutagenic Growth for pump, and not enough mana for Apostle's Blessing with which to save it from Beast/Pulse/Electrolyze/etc. If they're clever and save an Inkmoth by animating it with a Spellskite out, they'll still need to topdeck a land to turn the Inkmoth on for attacking.
Blood Moon also helps, as it turns off Inkmoth as well, and any non-mono G Infect build will probably only have 1 or 2 basics. Meanwhile, this deck cares very little, between having mostly basics in play and Borderposts.
@spitlebug: I have never actually played against Infect since it does not exist in my meta, but I really don't see how it would be that big of a problem. Now, I can see Nexus being annoying as hell to remove but they don't have that many threats. I would think any number of Dismember or preferably Beast Within, they just blow their wad and you blow it up. Even though the casting costs are tough, some more alternative answers are Sudden Death and Sudden Spoiling which probably fall in danger of cute things but, would be pretty awesome. Another great option when running the Borderpost version is what I use as a kill card itself Goblin Charbelcher will essentially lock them out of the game assuming turn 3 Balance. But by nature of how explosive that deck is, there will definitely be variance but I don't see any reason the deck isn't capable of at least 50/50 or better matchups against a deck with so few threats.
@b07: Do you like Kiora? It seems like a house with a solid clock, but also quite fragile. The only real planeswalkers I liked in the deck were Vraska the Unseen and Garruk Relentless, how has it been performing?
I will be taking my suspend version to my local cardshop and will report back regardless of the outcome tonight.
It could just bad draws on my part, but game 1 usually ends with me having a loose keep and expecting to get a turn or two to draw a cascade card only to be blown out by a T2 infect kill.
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My Modern decks: B/R/G Living End G/R/B G/R Tron R/G U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
As for my tournament on thursday ...when 0-2 drop. I played against Merfolk and lost (0-2) after not drawing threats ... random but fair. Not a good matchup but not the worst. Next round was Doran Junk and lost 1-2. Stole first game easily with GG and his SB .. which I know he had, took second with Chalice of the Void. For the record, throughout the match I could not draw threats. Even game 1 I struggled. G3 was a massacre, we laughed later after we both mull to 6 and he opens the perfect hand ... t1 discard + Chalice, turn 2 Treefolk, turn 3 Doran + discard ... not ideal.
Then I got the bye on round 3 and dropped. Its fair enough. I have played combo for years and know variance, I really didn't have good draws but neither matchup was not within reach of winning. Cards weren't with me. I will post my list if people want to see it but, the reason I haven't is i don't want to clutter the thread with lists. 24 lands and suspenders, pretty basic. Just was not my night. I kept 1 7-card hand ... it is what it is.
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I only play blue for Brainstorm and combo.
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4 Ardent Plea
4 Fieldmist Borderpost
3 Firewild Borderpost
1 Mistvein Borderpost
2 Simic Keyrune
4 Wildfield Borderpost
2
2 Greater Gargadon
3 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
23
3 Beast Within
2 Electrolyze
4 Restore Balance
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Thieves' Fortune
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Violent Outburst
2 Voidslime
1 Forest
1 Hallowed Fountain
3 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Stomping Ground
Initially I was running 3 Simian Spirit Guides, then 2, then none. There isn't as much pressure to accelerate into the cascade as there is for other cascade decks (Hypergenesis and Living End). While they are content to just dump a bunch of fatties into play and ride that to victory, we want/need to continue to control the game after we Balance. Thus, the speed and card-disadvantage of SSG seems bad to me.
Also, Greater Gargadon started at 4, went to 3, and now 2 where he will likely stay. The only real benefit GG provides most games is a way to sacrifice excess lands to make our Restore Balance better. I rarely found myself in a position where I wanted to sacrifice most/all my board to accelerate out a 9/7 beater, and in most cases Kiora and the Keyrune proved to be fine win-conditions. Simic Keyrune especially was impressive, and benefits from multiple Ardent Pleas.
Still tweeking the sideboard, but it will probably contain some number of Ghostly Prison and Dismember for creature matchups, and Leyline of Sanctity for combo.
That's a pretty interesting take that I kind of like. Go even more control heavy.
The mana base is interesting. It's a little less flexible than the pure basic and basic-fetch approach, and the pain definitely can be an issue, but sometimes being able to fix multiple colors and use the mana the turn you play the fetch can be the difference between sneaking a cascade in when they're tapped out and getting blown out by a counter the next turn. You're also down to 12 Borderposts plus 2 keyrunes. Have you had issues drawing enough posts to reliably keep your land down on board?
Not entirely sure I like Electrolyze in this context. With 6 board wipes (and 8 more spells that are guaranteed chances to get there), you don't really need to be killing 1 and 2 toughness dorks on a 1 for 1 or even 2 for 1 basis. Nor sending damage to the dome. I know the card draw is the big attraction, but I think I'd rather have the final Beast Within or maybe a couple Maelstrom Pulses and be able to guarantee that a big beater can be killed or a non-creature threat like a planeswalker can be wiped out, not just set back.
How has Voidslime worked out for you? I like the idea of counters in the deck, but my instinct would be to merge this with the Perplex transmute plan and actually use Perplex as a counter more often. Voidslime is obviously flexible, but the UUG casting cost seems pretty restrictive.
Off the top of my head, these seem like other possibilities for usable counters.
At cmc 4, there's not really any options that are remotely viable for a Balance deck. Cryptic Command is good, but triple blue is too hard for this deck to reliably get. Rewind would be good, but in any borderpost-based deck, you can't untap posts with Rewind, meaning it stops being "free" and is instead just an overpriced Cancel. And none of the rest offer enough value for paying 4 mana for in this format or for this deck. Plasm Capture probably comes closest, but is even more color intensive than Cryptic. I kind of like Put Away as a way to shuffle Balances back in, but really that's sort of christmasland thinking.
I haven't had any noticeable problems with the mana + artifacts so far. I think the ability to use my fetch-lands immediately has definitely made up for the lose of life. And, I do occasionally have to wait a turn or two in order to maintain 3 mana-artifacts post Balance, but it hasn't been too much of an issue. Also, sometimes it's worth it to nuke 1 or 2 or my own lands in order to wipe out my opponent ASAP and these fetch-lands let me do that quicker. I could see some tweaking in the future though, for sure.
I agree about Electrolyze. I think I have plenty of ways to answer creatures and I really like the idea of a couple more counters to stop my opponent's progress of rebuilding after a Balance. I like Dissolve the most out of the ones you've mentioned so I think I'll try that for now. I also like that this will lessen my reliance on R mana, and push me even more into a Bant (WUG) shell, as I already don't use B.
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Oh yeah, for sure. I occasionally use it as a very expensive Stifle on fetch-lands. I've liked Voidslime so far and will continue to run it - I was just planning on replacing the Electrolyze in the above list with Dissolve for additional counters.
Why? SSG allows you to force your opponent to ditch an extra card or two and Gargadon allows you to deal with excess lands so that your opponent is left.
Pretty sure Voidslime allows you to nerf Storm triggers.
What I learned in the six matches I had against Infect is that we are dead in the water to them unless you can:
a.) Go First and Cascade on turn 2 or 3 if they don't outright kill you on turn 2.
b.) Wait for them to pump like crazy and then Cascade in response.
That would be reason enough to keep SSG in. Also Affinity is a problem unless you are running March of the Machines.
Bogles however, was actually a pretty easy match.
Merfolk was rough. I am batting a 33% win rate against them, mostly on account of Cursecatcher and being able to combat it with Simian Spirit Guide.
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
I think the point is that he's going to a more true control oriented list rather than just a control combo with what are essentially midrange finishers. A lot of control decks only run a few threats total. UWR Control tends to win with Colonades or maybe snapcasters beating in plus a little incidental burn. You don't need a lot of threats if you can basically guarantee that they'll never have an answer, either because you counter it or because you balanced it away or balanced away the lands they needed to play it.
In this case he's got a couple Simic Keyrunes, the remaining Gargadons, and 3 Kioras. 5 of those are fairly quick threats if they come online. 9 power beaters is usually a 2 turn clock in most games, especially with an Ardent Plea in play. The Keyrunes are slower but almost impossible to remove. The one downside I see is that decks like UWR control tend to be running lots of 1 and 2 cost counters and have draw like Sphinx's Revelation, while this list is only packing Thirsts and a couple Thieves' Fortunes, which is pretty paltry in comparison, and the counters are all CMC to avoid messing up the cascade. But, on the flip side, the Balance combos will keep small threats off the board and drastically slow rebuilding as you keep wiping their land. It's not guaranteed to work, but I wouldn't write it off without some more serious testing.
That said, I do agree with Spitlebug that I would want to keep the SSGs. Being able to surprise pay for a Cursecatcher, Spell Pierce, etc can reverse a blowout in progress, as can the surprise Violent Outburst.
I can see going down on Gargadons, though I'd probably want 3 just to help ensure I see one within the first few turns. I've rarely won of Gargadons myself, as usually I get a concession first, or alternately I see one of my planeswalkers like Tezzeret who can close the game out before the Gargadon un-suspends. I also tend to be a little more aggressive with my sacrificing of lands to ensure a perfect Armageddon during Balances than some.
Lack of threats is a huge problem with the deck as is the general makeup of the borderpost build in requiring X borderposts and X cascade spells to be effective.
This deck will get there eventually. It is just a small matter of time before the cards that break it out will be printed.
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
Restore Balance decks have elements of both combo and control, and how much depends on the build. Post heavy decks are mostly like tap-out control, except that the primary "tap out" board wipe is a 2 card combo that also happens to have some attached stone rains/armageddon on it. B07's build goes even further, adding 2 more traditional 4 mana wipes and a small array of permission control style counters. At that point it's very much a "real" control deck, which happens to use a combo as part of the control package.
By comparison, builds which rely more on Gargadon and a package of suspend creatures like Nihilith are more combo oriented, especially those with fewer borderposts and more lands. The synergies of feeding lands to Gargadon or bouncing them with Cloudskate to enable full Armageddon off of balance, which in turn feeds Nihilith to let it come down faster as well, and now you're more into mid-range-ish combo territory that happens to have control elements as part of its more combo oriented finisher.
For pure Control decks having very few threats is expected, going all the way back to "The Deck", which ran literally only 2 Serra Angels as its entire kill condition and "Counterpost" which could only kill with a Kjeldoran Outpost. In current Standard, a lot of UWx control decks win off of 2 or 3 Elspeths and nothing else, or perhaps 1 additional Mutavault or an Aetherling. Having 7 threats is light, but it's definitely not undoable. The prime reason you'd need more is if you don't have a reliable way to dig to them (more draw helps here, which b07's build adds over most builds) or if you can't control the board reliably enough (2 extra boardwipes and some counters is the plan here).
I'm not saying it's the be-all of Restore Balance based builds, but it definitely seems like it could be a legitimate way to go, assuming that the additions let you reliably keep control until one of the few threats does land and begin going to work.
I did bump Greater Gargadon back up to 3, and it feels better here. The ability to sac lands is more relevant than I thought when first testing, and an additional threat is always nice.
Cleaned up the spell suite. Electrolyze was first to go, and Voidslime after that. Although the casting cost wasn't too hard, Dissolve having a slightly easier casting cost and scrying has pushed it past equal and into the realm of almost always better.
The lands were simplified as well, incorporating the basic fetch-lands along with a set of Scalding Tarn to help smooth out the mana some, and not have draws where I was staring at a dual land wishing I could play my Borderposts.
4 Ardent Plea
4 Fieldmist Borderpost
4 Firewild Borderpost
2 Simic Keyrune
4 Wildfield Borderpost
3
3 Greater Gargadon
3 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
22
3 Beast Within
3 Dissolve
4 Restore Balance
2 Supreme Verdict
2 Thieves' Fortune
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Violent Outburst
4 Evolving Wilds
1 Forest
2 Island
2 Mountain
1 Plains
4 Scalding Tarn
I am somewhat dismayed at how badly the matchup with Infect is. I don't want to meta based on it but I wonder if there is a synergistic way we can deal with them without crippling this deck.
Sadly, Leeches isn't Modern legal and that's the only way I know of to deal with poison counters other than Melira, Sylvok Outcast and maybe Spellskite. Anyone have any ideas?
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
As for the Infect match up, For mono green infect we have a very hard time as they just simply go as fast as possible for the win, but if we manage a balance they should have to few lands to quickly recoup.
For Black/green we have to worry about Abrupt decay on Borderposts. The only way i really see beating infect is with a T2 balance into managing to land a quick threat/keeping them off lands. Sadly i cant think of any silver bullets in this case. What if we had another card to cascade into for this matchup? might that manage to help in some way?
You can cast it before counters are up on turn 2, or cascade into it in the matchups where it matters most.
Only problem? We'd have to hold them off for a bajillion turns while Gargadon comes off Suspend, while you die to Inkmoth Nexus.
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
Hmm, adding a couple Dismembers might help. They are usually pretty threat-light. Other than that, just Melira like you said, or running some more 3cmc sweepers - Firespout for instance would be easy to cast and should kill all infect creatures.
edit: Or even Electrolyze.
Blood Moon also helps, as it turns off Inkmoth as well, and any non-mono G Infect build will probably only have 1 or 2 basics. Meanwhile, this deck cares very little, between having mostly basics in play and Borderposts.
@b07: Do you like Kiora? It seems like a house with a solid clock, but also quite fragile. The only real planeswalkers I liked in the deck were Vraska the Unseen and Garruk Relentless, how has it been performing?
I will be taking my suspend version to my local cardshop and will report back regardless of the outcome tonight.
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
As for my tournament on thursday ...when 0-2 drop. I played against Merfolk and lost (0-2) after not drawing threats ... random but fair. Not a good matchup but not the worst. Next round was Doran Junk and lost 1-2. Stole first game easily with GG and his SB .. which I know he had, took second with Chalice of the Void. For the record, throughout the match I could not draw threats. Even game 1 I struggled. G3 was a massacre, we laughed later after we both mull to 6 and he opens the perfect hand ... t1 discard + Chalice, turn 2 Treefolk, turn 3 Doran + discard ... not ideal.
Then I got the bye on round 3 and dropped. Its fair enough. I have played combo for years and know variance, I really didn't have good draws but neither matchup was not within reach of winning. Cards weren't with me. I will post my list if people want to see it but, the reason I haven't is i don't want to clutter the thread with lists. 24 lands and suspenders, pretty basic. Just was not my night. I kept 1 7-card hand ... it is what it is.