On think twice/Remand/insert 2 drop, I just keep coming back to augur of bolas. He's an all star with his digging power that consistently gets you to an ultimatum. Think twice is too weak. Remand is still a strong possibility but competes with mana leak, Running too much permission can lead to a problem on its own since it's easy to stick an early threat and beat face without playing into a counter.
@elMochaLatte, I think Augur of Bolas is a great inclusion. He digs like Telling Time but sticks around to take a Bolt or to block like a merfolk meat shield. I'm convinced that more digging and raw draw power is crucial to this deck's gameplan and Think Twice just isn't it. I'm still very much on the fence with Electrolyze, however. It's a good card, for sure, but I think I prefer Magma Jet. Time and testing will tell, though. I may like Electrolyze better paired with Augur or Telling Time, simply because I can set up the cantrip. The worst part about Electro was drawing a land when I didn't need it or some other irrelevant spell, which happened pretty frequently.
I definitely feel like Think Twice is the wrong card for this deck. Drawing two cards for 5 mana (or 4 with Snapcaster) is extremely underwhelming. Telling Time was really valuable last week but I think Augur may replace it just for the sake of having an additional blocker in the early game, which can be crucial to survival against beatdown strategies.
Also, nice Countersquall in the sideboard. I was sifting through my cards last week and considered swapping out Counterflux for Countersquall against control since there are no combo decks around in my meta. Good call!
. Early Blocker
. Beats are relevant, generally will get at least a few points of damage in before opposing control decks give in and 2-1 themselves by removing him. 3 for 1 if you can swing in for at least 3 points
. Digs like crazy, way more efficient for the mana cost than think twice will ever be
. Makes other burn spells more relevant not only in terms of tempo (damage to the face) but also in terms of how effective they are as removal (as you mentioned)
Switched back and forth between Augur, think twice, and remand for a long time now. The downsides of Augur over think twice/remand is that he's sorcery speed and I'd rather have think twice when I'm hurtin for a land. So far I feel it's safe to say that augur is the best of the 3 since he does so much and is undisputably the best top-deck (most of the time). Remand loses a lot of its luster when you're on the draw and running too much permission (Remand + Mana leak + CC) can result in a world of hurt against a lot of decks.
On countersquall, it's how I usually beat burn decks since the damage dealt on top of the virtual life gain is easily a 2 for 1, especially considering our back up game-plan being the counter-burn/tempo strategy. It's also very cross-applicable as a sideboard card against
. 8 Rack
. Blue Moon
. Living End
. Control Mirrors
. Combo
. Tron
. Mill
Basically anything that's cross-applicable while helping with the bad match-ups will always give me a strong incentive to run it in the sideboard. In the end though, evaluation of cards that are worthy of slots takes a lot of playtesting and qualitative assessments, despite that I highly recommend it and hope that my evaluation seems well-reasoned enough
I believe that geths verdict is an all around better card than terminate even if I do run into situations where I can't kill the creature I want to due to 2 or more being on board. Even if I'd rather have terminate against aggressive decks, geths verdict has these pros
. Hexproof/eldrazi/infect as you mentioned
. The damage dealt by it is relevant making it never dead. Subpar against a storm or 8rack deck but I would take subpar over dead always. It basically is more cohesive with our backup tempo/counterburn strategy
@elMochaLatte, you bring up a really crucial point about Augur: he's the best top-deck. This deck can be notoriously bad when it comes to top-decking and Augur really does help that a lot. Great point, I'm definitely sold.
As far as Countersquall goes, your reasoning is definitely sound. The life loss is definitely relevant, and especially so in countering a burn spell. It's also nice to be able to counter a spell in the control mirror because the life loss is especially relevant, I think. Control decks in this format are brutal on themselves because of fetchlands and shocklands. The extra two points of damage can, in some cases, mean the difference between winning and losing.
Also, I'm assuming you run Stone Rain instead of Sowing Salt for Tron, correct? I know Sowing Salt is generally too slow for the format (or at least too slow for a deck that doesn't ramp), so Stone Rain seems effective enough to keep them off their combo. Do you bring it in against control as well?
While I'm staring at your sideboard, why Ratchet Bomb over EE?
As for Geth's Verdict, I run both Geth's Verdict and Terminate. I have considered running more than two Terminate, actually. Last week when playing against Rock when he dropped a late-game Knight of the Reliquary I was dying for a Terminate (he had 2 Spirit tokens as well). Thrun sucks, however. I don't run Damnation so he can be a real pain to get rid of without the sac effects.
Damnation over aotg is going to help a lot since it's way better, aotg is practically a t6 spell since we're typically only playing red for less mana intensive spells, you need 19 red sources to consistently cast aotg on t3. If you're not running the same mana base then just go for terminate instead of g verdict since verdict is pretty mana intensive itself. If you want to consistently see something at least once per game then play 3 copies. I'd run 3 terminate for sure.
Ratchet bomb over engineered explosives since ee won't really be able to pop a blood moon if you draw it after moon resolves or don't even have both a basic island and swamp. R bomb also frees up some mana and can pop Permanents over 3cmc. Ee is a better topdeck and definitely a better choice against affinity for example, but I'm not worried about that matchup, we already do well against aggressive strategies imo so I'm prioritizing the blood moon/choke problem. For these reasons I place r bomb higher in the scale of cross
applicability
As for sowing salt, it won't be consistently cast on t4 without 18 red sources and a t4 land destruction spell is too slow against the nut draw. Maybe i shouldn't be playing a full set of stone rain since it might not be necessary considering seize and squall but it's definitely better than sowing salt imho. As sideboard cards I would entertain dissolve, dissipate, counterflux, and or hero's downfall since any of these are more cross applicable than stone rain. Leaning towards dissolve since it pulls its weight against tron, and it's the best counterspell against burn; the other matchup we need to truly worry about while giving another edge against other unfair decks as a hard counter with free library manipulation attached
I would totally rather play Damnation over Anger; the price tag is what is stopping me at this point.
Agreed with your assessment of Ratchet Bomb. EE definitely wasn't good enough against Hatebears. It's not a great top-deck, however. It may take out the threats on the board but it'll take 2-4 turns to do so which is why I haven't been running it. But maybe I'll give it another try.
Dissolve is nice for the scry (but I love scrying). I already run counterflux in the side in case a storm deck shows up. Otherwise it's a fine counter. I'll have to post an updated list later.
Now that I'm beginning to consider it, I want to discuss telling time vs augur of bolas, I believe that augur > Think twice and remand easily as far as library manipulation goes
Telling time has the same digging power as augur with the upsides of being able to grab a land if need be and being instant speed, making it interact better with other instant speed 2 drops (while they're both in hand)
Augur offers both defensive and offensive options but he's sorcery speed, which makes him awkward when you have a mana leak/terminate in hand. He also can't grab lands or artifacts (in my case would be batterskull or r bomb out of the board). Definitely going to play around with both or at least be asking myself which one I would rather have according to the situations I run into. At least for my build on paper, Telling Time seems like a better choice
Now that I'm beginning to consider it, I want to discuss telling time vs augur of bolas, I believe that augur > Think twice and remand easily as far as library manipulation goes
Telling time has the same digging power as augur with the upsides of being able to grab a land if need be and being instant speed, making it interact better with other instant speed 2 drops (while they're both in hand)
Augur offers both defensive and offensive options but he's sorcery speed, which makes him awkward when you have a mana leak/terminate in hand. He also can't grab lands or artifacts (in my case would be batterskull or r bomb out of the board). Definitely going to play around with both or at least be asking myself which one I would rather have according to the situations I run into. At least for my build on paper, Telling Time seems like a better choice
I prefer Condescend to all of these in Control decks.
Greetings everybody i am new to this forum while still very familiar to modern. Is is my first time making a control deck and want to get some general feedback. The deck is technically 4 color splashing white for path to exile and wear // tear in the sideboard.
4 colors might be pushing it a bit. Especially with so many of your lands coming in tapped it's gonna be easy to fall too far behind. Maybe if the mana base were tweaked it could work but with the intense color requirements of the deck I think it'll be too inconsistent.
I don't mind playing condescend as a 1 of over a 4th leak or augur/telling time. It's a good miser but not desirable in multiples due to you having to hold open a ton of mana to do so, it can get especially awkard w snapcasters too
@elMochaLatte, Telling Time made a huge difference in pretty much every game because it allowed me to get exactly what I wanted (sometimes a land). I'm definitely convinced that it's miles above Think Twice and would run it over Think Twice any day but I still wanna test out Augur to see if his defensive value is worth running over Telling Time.
I would love to run both Augur and Telling Time but there's just no room.
After playing a few games, Magma Jet is a champ. I like it a lot better than Electrolyze. Cheaper, and I get to choose my next draw. Suffer the Past won me 2 games, and the Hellkite won me another. For the games that go long I'm sold on being able to tutor other win conditions basically at will. End of turn "let me find a win condition real quick" is kinda good. I didn't even cast an Ultimatum in these 4 games :/
2-0 vs Tron Gifts
1-0 vs Slivers
1-0 vs some black infect 8 rack variant.
If the scry 2 and 1 less makes m jet better than electrolyze then I'd test out mjet and alchemy as a lib manipulation suite over think twice/electrolyze
If the scry 2 and 1 less makes m jet better than electrolyze then I'd test out mjet and alchemy as a lib manipulation suite over think twice/electrolyze
Yeah, I'm definitely done with Think Twice. IMO if you don't want to drop Electrolyze, just run Jets in place of the Think Twices. Yeah you lose the card advantage in terms of card numbers, but potentially selecting your next draw and killing a creature or doing 2 damage to the face for the same 2 mana to maybe draw a card you need is superior.
Has this deck even placed consistently in anything of note? Like a 'Cruel Control' deck and not some random Grixis / Teachings deck? PTQ top 8? 4-0 a daily now and then?
Not trolling but in two years of playing heaps Modern, grinding out PTQs and playing at a few Modern GPs, I've never seen a Cruel Control deck with any results to let me think: "Hey... This deck is a player."
I haven't seen it in a week or two, but for awhile a Cruel deck consistently popped up in the mtgo dailies with a 3-1 or 4-0 finish. No, its not UWR. I also don't play competitively, just with friends at at a local store, so this is a fun deck for me to play. I assume many others are in the same boat.
Has this deck even placed consistently in anything of note? Like a 'Cruel Control' deck and not some random Grixis / Teachings deck? PTQ top 8? 4-0 a daily now and then?
Not trolling but in two years of playing heaps Modern, grinding out PTQs and playing at a few Modern GPs, I've never seen a Cruel Control deck with any results to let me think: "Hey... This deck is a player."
I know it at least won 3 GPTs belonging to GP Richmond and it does put up enough numbers to keep it in Established.
For now at least. Next set release it could get demoted though.
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Modern: UW Control
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It's also 3 mana.
Modern requires creatures to be flexible, fast, or at least do something even if it gets bolted.
Skulker does none of those things. It probably has a place in standard.
Updated
3 Augur of Bolas
3 Snapcaster Mage
Instants (19)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mana Leak
3 Geth's Verdict
4 Electrolyze
4 Cryptic Command
Sorcery (9)
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Damnation
3 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Marsh Flats
4 Steam Vents
1 Blood Crypt
1 Watery Grave
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Swamp
2 Island
1 Mountain
4 Thoughtseize
3 Countersquall
4 Stone Rain
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Batterskull
2 Ratchet Bomb
Recent 4-0 UB teachings list, 4th one down (taken from the teachings thread)
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/modern-daily-2014-07-12
This one is interesting, I would personally just run the full set of seize and IOK but that's just me
I definitely feel like Think Twice is the wrong card for this deck. Drawing two cards for 5 mana (or 4 with Snapcaster) is extremely underwhelming. Telling Time was really valuable last week but I think Augur may replace it just for the sake of having an additional blocker in the early game, which can be crucial to survival against beatdown strategies.
Also, nice Countersquall in the sideboard. I was sifting through my cards last week and considered swapping out Counterflux for Countersquall against control since there are no combo decks around in my meta. Good call!
GBW Nic-Fit GBW
UBRWG Dredge UBRWG
Modern:
R RDW R
UBW Esper Control UBW
EDH:
BG Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord BG
. Early Blocker
. Beats are relevant, generally will get at least a few points of damage in before opposing control decks give in and 2-1 themselves by removing him. 3 for 1 if you can swing in for at least 3 points
. Digs like crazy, way more efficient for the mana cost than think twice will ever be
. Makes other burn spells more relevant not only in terms of tempo (damage to the face) but also in terms of how effective they are as removal (as you mentioned)
Switched back and forth between Augur, think twice, and remand for a long time now. The downsides of Augur over think twice/remand is that he's sorcery speed and I'd rather have think twice when I'm hurtin for a land. So far I feel it's safe to say that augur is the best of the 3 since he does so much and is undisputably the best top-deck (most of the time). Remand loses a lot of its luster when you're on the draw and running too much permission (Remand + Mana leak + CC) can result in a world of hurt against a lot of decks.
On countersquall, it's how I usually beat burn decks since the damage dealt on top of the virtual life gain is easily a 2 for 1, especially considering our back up game-plan being the counter-burn/tempo strategy. It's also very cross-applicable as a sideboard card against
. 8 Rack
. Blue Moon
. Living End
. Control Mirrors
. Combo
. Tron
. Mill
Basically anything that's cross-applicable while helping with the bad match-ups will always give me a strong incentive to run it in the sideboard. In the end though, evaluation of cards that are worthy of slots takes a lot of playtesting and qualitative assessments, despite that I highly recommend it and hope that my evaluation seems well-reasoned enough
. Hexproof/eldrazi/infect as you mentioned
. The damage dealt by it is relevant making it never dead. Subpar against a storm or 8rack deck but I would take subpar over dead always. It basically is more cohesive with our backup tempo/counterburn strategy
Might still switch to terminate though
As far as Countersquall goes, your reasoning is definitely sound. The life loss is definitely relevant, and especially so in countering a burn spell. It's also nice to be able to counter a spell in the control mirror because the life loss is especially relevant, I think. Control decks in this format are brutal on themselves because of fetchlands and shocklands. The extra two points of damage can, in some cases, mean the difference between winning and losing.
Also, I'm assuming you run Stone Rain instead of Sowing Salt for Tron, correct? I know Sowing Salt is generally too slow for the format (or at least too slow for a deck that doesn't ramp), so Stone Rain seems effective enough to keep them off their combo. Do you bring it in against control as well?
While I'm staring at your sideboard, why Ratchet Bomb over EE?
As for Geth's Verdict, I run both Geth's Verdict and Terminate. I have considered running more than two Terminate, actually. Last week when playing against Rock when he dropped a late-game Knight of the Reliquary I was dying for a Terminate (he had 2 Spirit tokens as well). Thrun sucks, however. I don't run Damnation so he can be a real pain to get rid of without the sac effects.
GBW Nic-Fit GBW
UBRWG Dredge UBRWG
Modern:
R RDW R
UBW Esper Control UBW
EDH:
BG Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord BG
Ratchet bomb over engineered explosives since ee won't really be able to pop a blood moon if you draw it after moon resolves or don't even have both a basic island and swamp. R bomb also frees up some mana and can pop Permanents over 3cmc. Ee is a better topdeck and definitely a better choice against affinity for example, but I'm not worried about that matchup, we already do well against aggressive strategies imo so I'm prioritizing the blood moon/choke problem. For these reasons I place r bomb higher in the scale of cross
applicability
As for sowing salt, it won't be consistently cast on t4 without 18 red sources and a t4 land destruction spell is too slow against the nut draw. Maybe i shouldn't be playing a full set of stone rain since it might not be necessary considering seize and squall but it's definitely better than sowing salt imho. As sideboard cards I would entertain dissolve, dissipate, counterflux, and or hero's downfall since any of these are more cross applicable than stone rain. Leaning towards dissolve since it pulls its weight against tron, and it's the best counterspell against burn; the other matchup we need to truly worry about while giving another edge against other unfair decks as a hard counter with free library manipulation attached
Agreed with your assessment of Ratchet Bomb. EE definitely wasn't good enough against Hatebears. It's not a great top-deck, however. It may take out the threats on the board but it'll take 2-4 turns to do so which is why I haven't been running it. But maybe I'll give it another try.
Dissolve is nice for the scry (but I love scrying). I already run counterflux in the side in case a storm deck shows up. Otherwise it's a fine counter. I'll have to post an updated list later.
GBW Nic-Fit GBW
UBRWG Dredge UBRWG
Modern:
R RDW R
UBW Esper Control UBW
EDH:
BG Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord BG
Telling time has the same digging power as augur with the upsides of being able to grab a land if need be and being instant speed, making it interact better with other instant speed 2 drops (while they're both in hand)
Augur offers both defensive and offensive options but he's sorcery speed, which makes him awkward when you have a mana leak/terminate in hand. He also can't grab lands or artifacts (in my case would be batterskull or r bomb out of the board). Definitely going to play around with both or at least be asking myself which one I would rather have according to the situations I run into. At least for my build on paper, Telling Time seems like a better choice
I prefer Condescend to all of these in Control decks.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Artifacts
1 Batterskull
Instants
2 Consume the Meek
1 Counterflux
3 Cryptic Command
2 Electrolyze
1 Far // Away
1 Hero's Downfall
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mana Leak
3 Mystical Teachings
2 Path to Exile
1 Spell Snare
1 Terminate
2 Forbidden Alchemy
2 Cruel Ultimatum
Lands
1 Blood Crypt
2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Dreadship Reef
2 Island
1 Molten Slagheap
4 Reflecting Pool
2 Steam Vents
3 Vivid Crag
4 Vivid Creek
3 Vivid Marsh
2 Watery Grave
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Izzet Staticaster
2 Echoing Truth
1 Rakdos Charm
2 Wear // Tear
1 Jace Beleren
1 Slaughter Games
2 Sowing Salt
2 Thoughtseize
I would love to run both Augur and Telling Time but there's just no room.
GBW Nic-Fit GBW
UBRWG Dredge UBRWG
Modern:
R RDW R
UBW Esper Control UBW
EDH:
BG Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord BG
2-0 vs Tron Gifts
1-0 vs Slivers
1-0 vs some black infect 8 rack variant.
Yeah, I'm definitely done with Think Twice. IMO if you don't want to drop Electrolyze, just run Jets in place of the Think Twices. Yeah you lose the card advantage in terms of card numbers, but potentially selecting your next draw and killing a creature or doing 2 damage to the face for the same 2 mana to maybe draw a card you need is superior.
I haven't seen it in a week or two, but for awhile a Cruel deck consistently popped up in the mtgo dailies with a 3-1 or 4-0 finish. No, its not UWR. I also don't play competitively, just with friends at at a local store, so this is a fun deck for me to play. I assume many others are in the same boat.
I know it at least won 3 GPTs belonging to GP Richmond and it does put up enough numbers to keep it in Established.
For now at least. Next set release it could get demoted though.