MTG Salvation

Him (at my end step after I sacrificed Mindslaver):
16 life
13 lands, two available mana (both white and blue), two of them Colonnades
Gideon of the Trials, Jace, Gideon Jura, Snapcaster in play
Jace, Gideon of the Trials, 2x Path, Serum Visions, Detention Sphere, fetchland in hand, he draws a Cryptic on his draw step

Activate Trails, Path, fail to find.
Activate Jura, Path, fail to find
Play Fetch and crack, fail to find.
Jace fateseal him
D Sphere Jace
Cast Jace, Cryptic Counter Bounce his land.

WWW
UUUUUU
4

That's all 13 lands.

So he has a Trials Serum visions, colonnade in hand. and you can ballista to kill it plus him after swinging sacrifice next turn.

There's an argument for Jace brainstorm shuffle away his good cards, but without other information about the game this is cleaner.

Guys Your ideas about steel wall card?
I'm lookin for some hard survive tech against aggro (zoo/burn and other fast ones), It's worth to include them mainboard? (spellskite is a 1 turn too slow, and chalicies also can come too late especially against zoo matchup where we exacly need chalice on 2)

Anybody tests this weird steely wallyies (I remember that Pierakor ran some in the SB), do You?

That's why I'm tinkering with steel wall - It's surprisingly good agaist aggro, and not bad first turn play at all (we can dump it to thirst where we don't need early blocker). I started with 3 mainboard - my local meta is full of aggro nowdays (PPL are afraid of jaces and they supposed to shift into hyper aggros). Ofc walls are bad against control/combo but we are already cool there (in midrange matchups I found them at last good - blocking creatures like bloodbraid elf is not that bad). It's an attempt to increase the turn 1 interaction - what makes me happy and It's somehow correct from what We all think about the future of the Mono-U tron.
I'm not satisfied about chalices atm - blocking 1 CMC spells often isn't enough and against the new zoo deck it's just too slow even on play (they play too much 2cmc "manabears") - I'm right now with 1 mainboard (along with 2 trinket mages to have some options on putting it in the mid/late game) and 2 in the SB.

@okoSheep
Nope i never run that kind of list before. But indeed i got inspirered of these older lists flying around the internet with couple old datestamps on them.
Padeem could indeed instead be in a second spellskite slot.

Overall was fun to play, i recommend it if ur "boarded" of normal u tron but cant leave the deck, haha

I'm new to the discussion and have been playing a little with a proxy Mono-U Tron deck to see how it works. I need a lot more reps before I can comment about how well it plays, but I did have one thought re. the Steel Wall.

How about Thing In the Ice as an 0/4 blocker? It costs 2 mana and a blue, but it has a lot of upside. There are a lot of cantrips in the deck and so flipping it is not unrealistic.

@Steel Wall

For 1 CMC more, why not play Spellskite? It has the same 0/4 body, but has the added benefit of spell redirects.

There was a big discussion about Steel Wall 2 years ago in this primer, mostly initiated by me starting to play 2 Steel Walls in my sb and also trying Sidisi's Faithful. I don't mind to give you a quick summary:
1. One mana is less than two mana.
2. Against fast creature decks (burn, zoo) you need to do something in the early turns.
3. Turn 2 you already are doing stuff (Condescend, Spatial, Repeal)
4. To better this MU you need to do something good turn1.

So comparing Steel Wall, Sidisi's Faithful, Oona's Gatewarden to TITI, Spellskite, etc doesn't make sense. You are playing these 1 drops to play them turn1 against fast decks, turn 2 you already have many things to do with your mana. If you do have the 1 drops in your starting hand they will buy you a lot of time in those MUs. I really liked them when RG Zoo and Naya Burn where the 2 most popular decks!
I have a good example of how much the Steel Wall can do in one of my old videos on MGS
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY_MGs_C-yQ&feature=youtu.be&list=PL2jQrD9SkZONsMYAXyOa8yy-_wn65bE9o&t=525

Quote from pierakor »

There was a big discussion about Steel Wall 2 years ago in this primer, mostly initiated by me starting to play 2 Steel Walls in my sb and also trying Sidisi's Faithful. I don't mind to give you a quick summary:
1. One mana is less than two mana.
2. Against fast creature decks (burn, zoo) you need to do something in the early turns.
3. Turn 2 you already are doing stuff (Condescend, Spatial, Repeal)
4. To better this MU you need to do something good turn1.

So comparing Steel Wall, Sidisi's Faithful, Oona's Gatewarden to TITI, Spellskite, etc doesn't make sense. You are playing these 1 drops to play them turn1 against fast decks, turn 2 you already have many things to do with your mana. If you do have the 1 drops in your starting hand they will buy you a lot of time in those MUs. I really liked them when RG Zoo and Naya Burn where the 2 most popular decks!
I have a good example of how much the Steel Wall can do in one of my old videos on MGS
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY_MGs_C-yQ&feature=youtu.be&list=PL2jQrD9SkZONsMYAXyOa8yy-_wn65bE9o&t=525

I get that. 1 CMC < 2 CMC and lets you cast it T1, prior to doing anything else, besides an Expedition Map. However, there are only so many SB slots available, so if you can choose something that has more utility across a greater number of matchups that are poor, why not use it? Assumption being, Spellskite provide more utility across a greater number of bad MUs than Steel Wall.

Epiphany for me was always just a win more card. It sat around in my hand forever because TFK was more relevant and by the time I was going to cast it I had usually already lost or won. Don't get me wrong, it certainly shined more than once but aside from those games I felt it was more useful to have the interaction/versatility found in Supreme Will

I think a lot of people were on that same train of thought as well

Used to run epiphany when SOI was released and It wasn't bad card at all - nowdays for me, supreme will is just way better option to dig (with useful "mana leak" option). Ofc epiphany is way better with tron online but I think that we shouldn't evalute CA cards only for their big mana effectiveness.
@steel wall: Yea, like Pier, Bloody and others said - the whole thing is the CMC. 1 or 2 mana "not a big difference" You say? Unfortunately it is a big difference, If You didn't feel it - good for You but when You will face this kind of hyper aggro (turn 3/4 kill deck) You will miss that little 0/4 which is still a wall
And as Bloody wrote - we already got plenty of 2 cmc plays so TBH spellskite isn't way to go. And the new aggro wave is commin...bloodbraid elf leads them and they are much more scary than Mr. J aka 4-mana-StormMyBrain.

Yeah, I hear that. My older son plays Goblins and I dread that matchup. A 1-mana play from the board that holds up the aggro is nice. I am still trying to judge the effectiveness balanced with other cards. I'm getting good mileage out of Chalice of the Void and Ratchet Bomb in those situations right now; would adding more of those cards be better? I dunno.

I'm struggling with the black to get Engineered Explosives up to 2 counters. I know people like it, but River of Tears has pretty much made me cry on more than one occasion (see what I did there!). Turn 3, dying for a blue source as my 3rd land and I draw it, putting off blue spells another turn. Ugh, still testing things out. I like the options.

Quote from BloodyRabbit_01 »

Simply put, when you bring a card for a specific matchup (red based fast aggro) you do so because you need to shore up the critical turn for your survival: the first. From turn two on, we already have plenty of moves, while on turn one we can only rely on Dismember and playing (not cracking) Explosive or Map. It doesn’t really matter if Spellskite is a better card compared to Steel Wall. We need Wall on turn one, not Spellskite on turn two. It’s our “Fatal Push” against red based, simply put. Would you cut Push for Hero’s Downfall because the latter is “the best card”? I don’t think so.

I don't disagree that having a T1 wall in 0/4 shell against fast aggro is better than T2. The point was, relative strength in # of bad matchups.

Again, we have 15 SB slots, so we can't always choose the best card for every single bad MU to have in the side, due to that limitation. Some of those slots come down to balancing quality with versatility.

If your meta is full of fast creature aggro decks and 0 spell based aggro, then, obviously, Spellskite is a poor choice over Steel Wall.

However, in its current state, do you believe that Steel Wall is a better choice than something like Spellskite, given the relative versatility of the 2, distribution of MUs in which the two are strong/weak, etc.?

I don't think so. Spellskite absolutely wrecks Bogles, which is seeing a lot of coverage lately. There are other decks, like Burn, that suffer against Skite.

I what matches, other than fast red aggro, are you going to want Steel Wall over Spellskite? If you run Hangarback Walker, would you also want Steel Wall?

Pie mentioned this same, or a similar, conversation about Steel Wall was had 2 years ago. Why are we coming back to the same cards and trying to jam them in the deck, instead of considering new things? I know Spellskite isn't any newer than Steel Wall, but Hangarback Walker is, Walking Ballista is, and I'm sure there are others.

It just seems like there is a lot of suggesting going on, within a vacuum and not considering the composition of the entire decklist. BloodyRabbit commented on the JPN List having a fairly cohesive MB strategy, with specific SB hate. Yet, here we are talking about adding cards in without prefacing the conversation with the primary decklist being considered, which cards you would remove in order to incorporate the card being suggested, or why that card outweighs other options.

@Rabbit

I guess I have to disagree with you on this and that's fine, imo. I don't want to get into a protracted argument over 2 cards, so I'll just leave it with this:

Having played Skite in the Burn matchup and against Bogles, it does absolute wonders. Yes, it is a turn slower than Wall, but it's ability to stabilize the board against Burn has, for me (which I understand is anecdotal), been wonderful. Unless the Burn player's hand lines up perfectly, Spellskite does work, but in situations where they have a perfect hand, neither Skite nor Wall would have mattered. In the games that either of those cards would have mattered, I would rather have Skite.

I understand your argument that a T1 Wall v a Guide or Eidelon beats is better. However, I think the T2 + interaction Skite provides is superior in a larger number of turns and thus provides a greater net benefit, in a wider array of Burn matches than a T1 Wall. Add in the additional benefits it provides in other matches, and I think Skite wins out over Wall.

Regardless of that, I think there are other cards I would rather have in my sideboard than either of these. This is has to do with by MB composition, which is an amalgamation of the JPN and "Stock" lists of Pie and Shock, based on my local meta.

We'll see how that goes this Thursday during Modern night at my LGS, I guess...

This is currently what I plan on taking this Wednesday to my lgs. I decided to cut trinket mage and solemn due to how slow it felt to play either. I cut gemstone and a thirst due to thnkr's data and replaced them with another river of tears (as to not lower the potential for ee) and a third supreme will. I moved the second mindslaver to the sb so that I could add a spell burst and the trinket mage was replaced with another copy of it's most common target (for me). Without solemn and only one talisman, I really felt that I needed to bump to 25 lands, so I moved tec edge to the mb. With so many irritating lands in my meta (caverns), I decided to increase the mb land hate to 3 with a spreading seas. To fit this I cut a remand (though I'm not sure I like this change and may cut the spell burst for the remand back). With the mb set this way, there's only 5 cards I can't play in the first three turns.
Anyone have any suggestion to improve? I probably could use another chalice and/or ee, but they happen to be more than I can afford atm and don't feel I really need them just yet. They'd probably replace the recall and spell pierce.

EDIT: I should note that this list was based off shok's, obviously.

@Funslaver, I added quite a few games/matches to the spreadsheet, and some of the numbers did change a little. A quick summary:

• - Gemstone Caverns numbers went up. I adjusted my personal list to reflect this, one in the main and one in the side.
• - Thirst for Knowledge is in the positives now, so I've updated my list to include one.
• - Oblivion Stone's gone down, decreased down to one.
• - Walking Ballista is now among the higher scoring cards, so increased to three.
• - Spatial Contortion dropped, cut down to one.
• - Repeal and Remand are both among higher scoring cards, increased number to four each.
• - Chalice of the Void increased, added back to the main.
• - Wurmcoil Engine tanked, cut down to one.
• - Dismember is now in the positives, so added back to the main.
• - Field of Ruin has some decent numbers, better than straight Island. Added one. Same with Oboro.
• - Finally got some Trinket Mage numbers. Looking good so far, added one.
• - The diminishing returns on Expedition Map isn't looking so good, but I don't know that cutting any of those is a good idea. The individual numbers on it validate keeping four in the deck, at least for now, in my opinion.

So, as of right now, my list based on the numbers looks like this:



I still have another ~175 matches of data to enter, currently at 313 games. I also added a tab to the spreadsheet where I can edit a list and use the diminishing returns values for cards to tune it. I hope to get a few games in at some point, but between work, family, entering data, etc., there's not a whole lot of time available. I figure the data would be more useful to everyone than some results of me trying to pilot it, so that anyone can use the data as a tool to tweak as they see fit.

Quote from Darkx87 »

@Rabbit

I guess I have to disagree with you on this and that's fine, imo. I don't want to get into a protracted argument over 2 cards, so I'll just leave it with this:

Having played Skite in the Burn matchup and against Bogles, it does absolute wonders. Yes, it is a turn slower than Wall, but it's ability to stabilize the board against Burn has, for me (which I understand is anecdotal), been wonderful. Unless the Burn player's hand lines up perfectly, Spellskite does work, but in situations where they have a perfect hand, neither Skite nor Wall would have mattered. In the games that either of those cards would have mattered, I would rather have Skite.

I understand your argument that a T1 Wall v a Guide or Eidelon beats is better. However, I think the T2 + interaction Skite provides is superior in a larger number of turns and thus provides a greater net benefit, in a wider array of Burn matches than a T1 Wall. Add in the additional benefits it provides in other matches, and I think Skite wins out over Wall.

I think you are missing the curve factor, of course skite and thing are better overall creatures but when you have a skite in opening hand what's your turn 1 play? When you drop skite turn 2 what do you counter turn 2? When you now have turn 3 counter when do you thirst? Dropping skite on turn 2 into eidlon which should of been countered seems like you gave the game away? I love skite, just not for use descibed.

1 wall-->2condescend/remand/chalice-->3 will/thirst/mage is usually burn dead...in skite scenario you are much slower vs burn on curve.

There's no question in my mind if I'm playing either of those card for aggro control it's steel wall

@Cntrlalsup

Plan v Blood Moon?

I have been running Agnara's latest list for the last 2 days. I am back to 100% winrate vs midrange. Instead I am getting kicked in by these UR Moon/Pyro decks. I know they're not but you'd swear they're all running 4x Ceremonious / 4x Dispel in the sideboard. It's harder than UW/Jeskai because not only can they try and sneak in a Blood Moon (maindeck mind you) but they win off incremental value with Pyromancer. Even if you Chalice on 1 to shut off cantrips and sideboard counterspells you have to answer it ASAP. Chalice on 2 doesn't help much. Is Chalice even good here? I keep trying it and it might be a mistake. It's hard to board against them because I want to bring in Dismembers/Spatials but where do the cuts come? Walking Ballista is good if you can get it under them, but he's hard to protect in that matchup.

Long story short: UW/Jeskai = ezpz gg. UR Pyro/Breach/Moon = aggravating.

@Cntrlalsup

Splashing other colour, especially Green, goes against the playstyle of U-Tron. The idea sounds so great, to introduce more consistent ways to dig for Tron, but it doesn't work out well in real life. First of all, a good Magic deck is all about its manabase. Playing UG Tron is VERY painful when it comes to the manabase. U-Tron already struggles with its U sources because more than half the manabase is colourless. Second, when will we ever play Sylvan Scrying or Ancient Stirrings over Condescend, Remand, or Repeal? We are a deck that needs to leave mana open to use our counterspells. And what is Ancient Stirrings gonna find for us that Thirst for Knowledge will not? The probability to miss on Ancient Stirrings is much greater with U-Tron as blue spells take up 16-20 slots (roughly 1/3 of the deck). Compare that to a Gx Tron where everything but 6-8 slots are utilized by Ancient Stirrings. What are we going to do with all that Tron mana? What's the plan against Burn/Aggro? What does G actually add that's so overwhelmingly good that we're willing to sacrifice our curve and our manabase?

@ topkyle

UR Pyro/Breach/Moon gets destroyed by Chalice on 1 and 2, especially after SB.
Post-board they bring in 3-5 1-CMC counterspells and they already use 4/4 split between Opt and Serum Visions.
Walking Ballista is great against Pyro, especially post-board as they bring in 1-2 Cliques in.
I have found that against Breach/Moon, TKS has been an all-star if you can delay the Blood Moon, but Chalice is the all star in the matchup.