No doubt I drop a few leagues. Hell, I drop at 0-1 if i get frustrated with the series of events that transpired. That being said, I'm like Maverick in Top Gun with this deck. I'm always running random things and maintain a really good success rate. I do not play outside of what is on stream, occasional league or two , and my reputation speaks for itself. I bring a knife to a gun fight online game 1 and we hold our own. I am not claiming unstoppable status. I will claim I win a hell of a lot more than I lose and an average 3-2 finish league is well below the set standards. I've always said "play what cards you like to play and that fit your style". There is no right right or wrong. The "core" of the deck has remained the same it seems since it's inception. I am not the end of the be all of what to play, but I am usually on point on how to keep this thing competitive. I am very glad that everyone can interpret the base of this deck and put whatever cards they want to win with and make it competitive. I say keep winning and keep trying out new cards as it can only expand your knowledge and the communities.
I finally had a good result after a bit of adapting to the new meta.
This is my current set up. Its a bit of a mix of Shoks deck and ideas from others. I have been championing the talismans the whole time. Gifts ungiven makes my head hurt :/... I tried playing gifts storm but it was hard work to try to work out the best cards to get in each situation.
3-0 LGS
2-1 vs Scapeshift.
I find this match up extremely close and always a great match
2-0 vs Lantern
Its a good match up.. just takes forever. I don't need to attack to win and I can instant speed cantrip. Pithing needle is key on both sides of this match up.
2-0 vs Humans
Turn 3 tron both games.. better lucky than good. He didn't quite have enough pressure to stop me.
Game 1 I landed Platinum angel and lived in fear of reflector mage but he didn't find it before I found mindslaver lock. Game 2: He flooded a bit and couldn't deal with all of my wraths post board. (he still got me to 6). Humans is hard work..
Unfortunately sideboard slots are too tight :|. The opportunity cost is low for colourless land in the deck. I have tried a bunch of other lands in that slot this one is the most impactful.
I'm impressed you remember me! I don't even remember being super active.
Perhaps I haven't played enough, but I've never been unhappy with 4 OStones. It's saved me so many games where other cards just could not have. It is expensive, but I don't find unreasonably so. If you have tron you can easily board wipe. And without it, using it on turn 5 is still very reasonable. OStone recursion locks are also very real, especially game 1. It just fits so perfectly as a card that I can always use, but which gets that much better with tron.
I know Mindslaver can be very powerful, but I've never really felt it to be necessary. Have you ever played without it? When I played with it in my deck, it rarely was actually how I won the game, and more often just hurt me as a dead/slow card. Mindslaver lock takes a long time to get to anyway, so I feel like it's okay to rely on other win conditions which can affect the board sooner. I did use one in my sideboard for awhile, but felt I didn't need it at all. Especially now, a lot of decks are running field of ruin, I think mindslaver lock is relatively unreliable. I just don't have trouble closing out games. And now with ballistas, even maps turn into game-ending cards.
I have been considering reducing and/or removing Batterskull. It is a card I dearly love, but this deck has new options which are probably worth considering. But I need to figure out the new meta first.
Glad you like gatewarden! I think it's highly underrated as a creature roadblock Your options with the creature are less than classical removal, but I'm willing to pay that price for the speed. I think it complements a set of 2-3 spatial distortions and 1-2 dismember very well.
So many 1 of in the list makes me concerned about seeing what you need when you need it. With only 1 gift they are not really even toolbox targets.
Marginalizing or removing the slavers for balista is the new done thing?
As a follow on from swapping ballista in, swapping the treasure mage for trinket mage to find singleton chalice or 2-3 of balista?
Winning with Slaverlock 40% of the time isn't the same as needing slaver to win over another card. It is certainly powerful in some matchups, but those are also the matchups that I'm least concerned about. The aggressive decks are what I worry about, and I always want to maximize my effectiveness vs. them.
I'll have to try it again since it's been so long since I've played consistently. Although I don't really care for treasure mage, which seems important for using slaver.
One of my favorite Gifts packages is Ugin/Ostone/Explosives/other, against decks like Mardu Pyro or Elves.
Gifts also has great synergy with Slaverlock. Most of the time, it doesn't matter whether Mindslaver goes to the grave or to hand, as academy ruins just brings it back. Also, if you fetch three threats and a map, people will probably give you the map, which means you can find academy ruins. If you tutor directly for academy ruins, they'll bin it. My all-purpose package for this is Slaver/Map/Ugin/Ballista.
On another note, I've been testing with Aetherspouts and Aetherize recently. Aetherspouts is great, amazing even, when resolved against creature-based aggro decks, but it's clunky in my non-talisman list, and I don't think it's a card worth warping the deck around. Aetherize is a good 1-of in the sideboard. Great against Hollow One, good against non-Affinity aggro (and Ballistas/Spatials do good work against affinity). At the very least, it stalls a turn, which sometimes can be enough to slam a stabilizer.
Grixis to me seems like a pretty bad matchup. They have a lot of counters and can actually take us to the long game through the value in Kolaghan's Command, Snapcasters, Azcanta, and Cryptics. Plus lots of field of ruin makes the mana advantage difficult. What would be the best sideboard option against them? I don't mind a narrow answer, since several players are on this at my local meta. I was thinking one of the 7 mana uncounterable creatures:
Sphinx looks the best to me, since flying closes out the game quickly (no snappy blocks), they can't interact with besides cryptic taps, and makes their counterspells worthless.
My experience with Grixis differs from yours, it seems. I've found the matchup to be pretty decent. I normally don't really try much to get Tron online, and just try to consistently make my land drops and hold up mana to counter their threats. I don't mind their counters, just their threats, because without those, they just can't win and we have inevitability. Although, our experiences might be different because of the particular builds of Grixis that we run into. Here is the typical build that I've played against.
Game 1: I kept a pretty medium hand with 2 tron lands a blue source and multiple counter spells. He was playing a kind of slower version with LoTV and an okay amount of hand disruption. Platinum Angel kept me alive at -8 and prayed he didn't have a path. Played wurmcoil and the stablized at 2. I won off the back of Ugin and a well timed Mindslaver to play Lilly and -2 target himself.
Side: IN- 2 Negate, 1 Wurmcoil, 1 All is Dust. OUT - 1 Map, 1 Sundering Titan, 1 Dismember, 1 MindSlaver
Game 2: Game Two looked pretty similar. Ugin slammed on turn 5 pretty much won the game on the spot.
1-0
Round 2: Ad Nauseum
Game 1: I know the guy well and he pretty only plays this deck. I joked about having a chalice on t1 game 1 and it happened. I played it on zero my turn one ( on the draw). I played mindslaver on turn 6 with 4 mana up but decided to hold up remand instead of cracking it. He had the mana to go off and I allowed him to do so. I remanded his lightning storm and he was 2 lands short of killing me and scooped em up.
Side: IN - 1 Chalice, 2 Negate, 1 Spyglass. OUT - 1 Sundering Titan, 2 Map, 1 Mind Slaver
Game 2: On the draw again, I mulled to 6 and then scried a chalice to the top. Played it on turn 1 again and the game looked very similar.
2-0
Note: He misplayed pretty hard both games and probably should have won game 2 but it happens.
Round 3: RG Tron
Game 1: I played next to him the game before so I knew he was on this and kept a decent hand against him. I countered all of his threat and then landed a mindslaver and cracked it on turn 6. He scooped when i cracked the slaver. He was dead regardless though as I had the academy ruins in my hand to avoid it being Ulamog-ed.
Game 2: This was a great game. We went back and forth with cantrips and me countering thought-knot seers. I field of ruined him and then he played blood sun. I spreading seas-ed him twice before he drew o-stone and I was found without a counter spell. He blew up the world after saving his bloodsun with the fate counter. He then was able to cast Ulamog and I scooped em up. Life totals haven't changed yet even though two games were over haha.
Game 3: He has yet to see a chalice and didn't think to play around it and he had kept a hand with 1 land and 6 one-mana cantrips. My turn two I played chalice on 1. Turn 3 I played treasure mage to get wurmcoil. He proceeded to discard the next several turns and I missed land drops. got him to 8 with treasure mage before seeing a 3rd tron land on my side. He ended the game with 2 lands and one of them being an island. I felt kind of bad but a win is a win.
3-0
Cards I felt that I could change:
sundering titan. - although this card feels great in a meta with lots of GDS and Jund my meta at this lgs has one of each and a whole bunch of other decks it does nothing against. I will probably replace with a 2nd walking ballista or put my sideboard wurmcoil in the main and figure out something else fun for the sideboard.
Cards I love:
Hangarback walker - although I didn't use it this tournament. My roommates played Mardu Pyromancer and 8-rack and we have multiple 8 rack players in the meta. This card always feels gas when ever I play it. Its great in the midrange matchup and is a great threat to sac to smallpox or Lilly -2.
Round 1 Living End 2-1
Game one I keep a hand that is light on interaction. My opponent resolves an early fulminator to set up a quick living end. Game two I am able to deploy a chalice on zero and back it up with a turn three wurmcoil. Game three I have a counter magic heavy hand as well as a chalice. They are never able to resolve a living end and I ride a beast token to the win.
This matchup seems great on paper, but has given me some issues in the past. Fortunately chalice did what it needed to do and he couldn't find removal for it in time.
Round 2 Green Tron 1-2
Game one I have an interactive hand and get rolled over by a turn 4 ulamaog. Game two we both ghost quarter and surgical each others mines before we can establish tron. His had is full of expensive threats and I take him out of the game with the crucible ghost quarter lock. Game three I have turn 1 chalice for 1 with gemstone caverns but he has sylvan scrying into world breaker into karn.
Statistically probably my worst matchup and one I was hoping to dodge. Maybe I should be playing damping sphere.
Round 3 Madcap Moon 2-0 Game one I am able to counter his blood moon and repeal his emperion wurmcoil beats close the game out. Game two I have a hand full of counter magic and he falls behind on land drops. back to back mindslavers take him out of the game.
The less good blue moon deck. I think this matchup is fine but I honestly just drew extremely well.
Round 4 Vizer Company 0-2
Game one I have a quick chalice on one start beating in with a wurmcoil, but I dont have interaction outside of the chalice and he combos off. Game two I mull to 6 with two lands and never see a third.
Typically a pretty competitive matchup. Sometimes these things happen in magic.
Round 5 Burn 2-0
Game one chalice on one cuts off a decent chunk of his hand and a few counter spells buy me time to get wurmcoil into play. game two I have natural tron spatial for his goblin guide and turn four wurmcoil.
Finally a matchup Im happy to see. The pierakor style lists really feel strong against burn.
Round 6 Jund 2-1 Game one wurmcoil and academy ruins end up being too much for him to handle. Game two he has a lot of fulminator pressure causing me to stumble on mana and tarmogoyf takes care of the rest. Game three I am able to counter his lillys and end up repealing his dark confidant twice. Slaver lock is established shortly after.
Another good matchup, harder with blood braid but still a deck I'm happy to see across the table. The second maindeck wurmcoil is great here.
Round 7 Grixis Midrange 2-1 Game one he resolves a snap caster on turn 2 after I crack my map and field of ruin keeps me off tron. He is able to protect the snap and close out the game. Game two I am able to assemble tron and win the counter wars. my opponent resolves jace and taps out to counter my flashed in gearhulk allowing me to establish a slaver lock. Game three I have to mull to 5, but remanding my opponents jace on turns 4 and 5 brings me right back into the game. I make him tap out for jace with condescend to create a window to resolve and crack a mindslaver. I am able to empty his hand and remove his jace putting me far enough ahead that he cant come back. Gearhulk closes out the game.
One of the more troublesome midrange decks with k command and field of ruin and snapcaster but still favourable. Gearhulk was a big difference maker in this match creating openings for me to resolve other threats.
Overall record 5-2 16th place.
Aetherspouts was a bad call for this list, I think it is too slow without the 3 talismans. Going forward I will be trying out damping sphere in the sideboard in place of the summary dismissals. 4 chalice is excessive for the current meta I think a 1/1 split is correct. Gearhulk was a solid performer and consistently generated value. I am happy with the position of our deck in the current meta especially if people start shying away from green tron with the extreme number of damping spheres in players sideboards.
Jace has been rewarding and cooperative with not turning up when I lack UU, he also wins games I was running a Search, it was just a busted card too, although not being a real 'impulse' came up surprisingly often in decision making... can't work out what I replaced it with when I neeed search for 1v1 so it must have been a 61st card!
Was running 3 Filigree, but enjoying them and the idea of them less and less, given I've been seeing success without Snapcast/Gearhulk I might look at dedicated grave hate with Leyline nonsense. Or Hurkyls. It's hard to make cuts/changes though when one just a draws really good card each turn
Oh and I've been loving Oblivion Sower, after testing them in legacy, tried it out here, HUGE butt at 5/8 stops most things short of Gurmag+Bolt, ultimate blowouts include finish my Tron with their tron and doing a Sundering titan impersonation with Ghost Quarter + Tec Edge and winning with their Celestial Colonade, he wiffs a bit too.
I really do dig Oblivion Sower as a fun-of. I don't think it's actually good, but it really is a reasonable body. Just comes down too late against the one deck you really care about (G Tron).
Jokers where you at bb? Saw you put up another 5-0 with a stock-ish list. Do you remember your match-ups? Being able to rip off multiple 5-0 finishes is definitely impressive with the amount of Humans and Hollow One around so I'm wondering how you did it or if it's just volume. Did Damping Sphere do any work for you?
Round 1 Affinity 2-0
Round 2 GW Value Town 2-1
Round 3 Humans 2-0
Round 4 Hollow One 2-0
Round 5 Storm 2-1
Damping sphere was great in the match against storm and is particularly good when combined with chalice.
I really like aetherspouts and still want to try to make it work. It has stolen me plenty of games especially against affinity and merfolk.
The humans and hollow one matchups have been feeling much better lately. I'm not sure how much of that is more inexperienced players have been picking those decks up vs me just becoming more comfortable with the match.
How is everyone liking damping sphere? i've thought about picking up 1-2 of them to aid me in the tron matchup. we surprisingly have no storm players at my lgs (used to have 3). I guess I could also see it having a small edge against ad naus?
I've always wanted to use Commandeer against tron. Stealing a Karn Liberated would be so good. I know it's not worth it though, but it's always so tempting.
Fair enough. I actually do run just U tron...or at least I’m in the process of building it. I only asked because people do seem to run Progress with no white spells - which I do understand is primarily to have other rocks that make blue.
I thought keeping lands up is nice, which is why I’ve seen Unwind in some blue sideboards.
But yeah looking at that it seems like a reanimator package and a 5 mana walker that doesn’t really aide reanimator won’t be that beneficial for the deck.
This is my current set up. Its a bit of a mix of Shoks deck and ideas from others. I have been championing the talismans the whole time.
Gifts ungiven makes my head hurt :/... I tried playing gifts storm but it was hard work to try to work out the best cards to get in each situation.
1 Academy Ruins
1 Gemstone Caverns
6 Island
1 River of Tears
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Field of Ruin
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
Spells = 19
4 Condescend
1 Cyclonic Rift
2 Spatial Contortion
1 Consign//memory
3 Remand
2 Repeal
2 Supreme Will
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Chalice of the Void
4 Expedition Map
1 Mindslaver
1 Oblivion Stone
2 Talisman of Dominance
Creatures = 9
1 Platinum Angel
2 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Sundering Titan
1 Treasure Mage
1 Trinket Mage
1 Walking Ballista
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Torrential gearhulk
Planeswalkers = 1
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Dismember
2 Negate
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Filigree Familiar
1 Aetherize
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Mindslaver
1 Ugin, the spirit dragon
3-0 LGS
2-1 vs Scapeshift.
I find this match up extremely close and always a great match
2-0 vs Lantern
Its a good match up.. just takes forever. I don't need to attack to win and I can instant speed cantrip. Pithing needle is key on both sides of this match up.
2-0 vs Humans
Turn 3 tron both games.. better lucky than good. He didn't quite have enough pressure to stop me.
Game 1 I landed Platinum angel and lived in fear of reflector mage but he didn't find it before I found mindslaver lock. Game 2: He flooded a bit and couldn't deal with all of my wraths post board. (he still got me to 6). Humans is hard work..
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
I'm impressed you remember me! I don't even remember being super active.
Perhaps I haven't played enough, but I've never been unhappy with 4 OStones. It's saved me so many games where other cards just could not have. It is expensive, but I don't find unreasonably so. If you have tron you can easily board wipe. And without it, using it on turn 5 is still very reasonable. OStone recursion locks are also very real, especially game 1. It just fits so perfectly as a card that I can always use, but which gets that much better with tron.
I know Mindslaver can be very powerful, but I've never really felt it to be necessary. Have you ever played without it? When I played with it in my deck, it rarely was actually how I won the game, and more often just hurt me as a dead/slow card. Mindslaver lock takes a long time to get to anyway, so I feel like it's okay to rely on other win conditions which can affect the board sooner. I did use one in my sideboard for awhile, but felt I didn't need it at all. Especially now, a lot of decks are running field of ruin, I think mindslaver lock is relatively unreliable. I just don't have trouble closing out games. And now with ballistas, even maps turn into game-ending cards.
I have been considering reducing and/or removing Batterskull. It is a card I dearly love, but this deck has new options which are probably worth considering. But I need to figure out the new meta first.
Glad you like gatewarden! I think it's highly underrated as a creature roadblock
So many 1 of in the list makes me concerned about seeing what you need when you need it. With only 1 gift they are not really even toolbox targets.
Marginalizing or removing the slavers for balista is the new done thing?
As a follow on from swapping ballista in, swapping the treasure mage for trinket mage to find singleton chalice or 2-3 of balista?
I'll have to try it again since it's been so long since I've played consistently. Although I don't really care for treasure mage, which seems important for using slaver.
Gifts also has great synergy with Slaverlock. Most of the time, it doesn't matter whether Mindslaver goes to the grave or to hand, as academy ruins just brings it back. Also, if you fetch three threats and a map, people will probably give you the map, which means you can find academy ruins. If you tutor directly for academy ruins, they'll bin it. My all-purpose package for this is Slaver/Map/Ugin/Ballista.
On another note, I've been testing with Aetherspouts and Aetherize recently. Aetherspouts is great, amazing even, when resolved against creature-based aggro decks, but it's clunky in my non-talisman list, and I don't think it's a card worth warping the deck around. Aetherize is a good 1-of in the sideboard. Great against Hollow One, good against non-Affinity aggro (and Ballistas/Spatials do good work against affinity). At the very least, it stalls a turn, which sometimes can be enough to slam a stabilizer.
Sphinx looks the best to me, since flying closes out the game quickly (no snappy blocks), they can't interact with besides cryptic taps, and makes their counterspells worthless.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Played Saturday Night Magic at my lgs last week at went 3-0!
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
6 Island
1 Tolaria West
2 Field of Ruin
1 Academy Ruins
2 River Of Tears
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
Creatures (8)
1 Walking Ballista
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Treasure Mage
1 Trinket Mage
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Platinum Angel
1 Sundering Titan
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Spells (18)
4 Condescend
3 Repeal
3 Remand
1 Dismember
1 Cyclonic Rift
2 Supreme Will
4 Thirst For Knowledge
Artifacts(8)
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Expedition Map
1 Oblivion Stone
2 Mindslaver
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Hangarback Walker
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Spreading Seas
2 Negate
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
2 Spatial Contortion
2 Dismember
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 All is Dust
Round 1: BW Tokens
Game 1: I kept a pretty medium hand with 2 tron lands a blue source and multiple counter spells. He was playing a kind of slower version with LoTV and an okay amount of hand disruption. Platinum Angel kept me alive at -8 and prayed he didn't have a path. Played wurmcoil and the stablized at 2. I won off the back of Ugin and a well timed Mindslaver to play Lilly and -2 target himself.
Side: IN- 2 Negate, 1 Wurmcoil, 1 All is Dust. OUT - 1 Map, 1 Sundering Titan, 1 Dismember, 1 MindSlaver
Game 2: Game Two looked pretty similar. Ugin slammed on turn 5 pretty much won the game on the spot.
1-0
Round 2: Ad Nauseum
Game 1: I know the guy well and he pretty only plays this deck. I joked about having a chalice on t1 game 1 and it happened. I played it on zero my turn one ( on the draw). I played mindslaver on turn 6 with 4 mana up but decided to hold up remand instead of cracking it. He had the mana to go off and I allowed him to do so. I remanded his lightning storm and he was 2 lands short of killing me and scooped em up.
Side: IN - 1 Chalice, 2 Negate, 1 Spyglass. OUT - 1 Sundering Titan, 2 Map, 1 Mind Slaver
Game 2: On the draw again, I mulled to 6 and then scried a chalice to the top. Played it on turn 1 again and the game looked very similar.
2-0
Note: He misplayed pretty hard both games and probably should have won game 2 but it happens.
Round 3: RG Tron
Game 1: I played next to him the game before so I knew he was on this and kept a decent hand against him. I countered all of his threat and then landed a mindslaver and cracked it on turn 6. He scooped when i cracked the slaver. He was dead regardless though as I had the academy ruins in my hand to avoid it being Ulamog-ed.
IN: 1 Chalice, 1 Surgical, 1 Negate, 2 Spreading Seas, 1 Spyglass. OUT: 1 Remand, 2 Map, 1 Sundering Titan, 1 Mind Slaver, 1 Dismember
Game 2: This was a great game. We went back and forth with cantrips and me countering thought-knot seers. I field of ruined him and then he played blood sun. I spreading seas-ed him twice before he drew o-stone and I was found without a counter spell. He blew up the world after saving his bloodsun with the fate counter. He then was able to cast Ulamog and I scooped em up. Life totals haven't changed yet even though two games were over haha.
Game 3: He has yet to see a chalice and didn't think to play around it and he had kept a hand with 1 land and 6 one-mana cantrips. My turn two I played chalice on 1. Turn 3 I played treasure mage to get wurmcoil. He proceeded to discard the next several turns and I missed land drops. got him to 8 with treasure mage before seeing a 3rd tron land on my side. He ended the game with 2 lands and one of them being an island. I felt kind of bad but a win is a win.
3-0
Cards I felt that I could change:
sundering titan. - although this card feels great in a meta with lots of GDS and Jund my meta at this lgs has one of each and a whole bunch of other decks it does nothing against. I will probably replace with a 2nd walking ballista or put my sideboard wurmcoil in the main and figure out something else fun for the sideboard.
Cards I love:
Hangarback walker - although I didn't use it this tournament. My roommates played Mardu Pyromancer and 8-rack and we have multiple 8 rack players in the meta. This card always feels gas when ever I play it. Its great in the midrange matchup and is a great threat to sac to smallpox or Lilly -2.
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
8 Island
1 Field of Ruin
1 Academy Ruins
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Gemstone Caverns
Creatures (9)
1 Walking Ballista
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Treasure Mage
1 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Platinum Angel
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Spells (18)
4 Condescend
2 Repeal
2 Remand
2 Spatial Contortion
1 Cyclonic Rift
2 Supreme Will
4 Thirst For Knowledge
1 Aetherspouts
Artifacts(8)
2 Chalice of the Void
4 Expedition Map
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Mindslaver
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Crucible of worlds
1 Negate
2 Summary Dismissal
2 Dismember
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Mindslaver
2 hurkyl's recall
1 ghost quarter
Round 1 Living End 2-1
Game one I keep a hand that is light on interaction. My opponent resolves an early fulminator to set up a quick living end. Game two I am able to deploy a chalice on zero and back it up with a turn three wurmcoil. Game three I have a counter magic heavy hand as well as a chalice. They are never able to resolve a living end and I ride a beast token to the win.
This matchup seems great on paper, but has given me some issues in the past. Fortunately chalice did what it needed to do and he couldn't find removal for it in time.
Round 2 Green Tron 1-2
Game one I have an interactive hand and get rolled over by a turn 4 ulamaog. Game two we both ghost quarter and surgical each others mines before we can establish tron. His had is full of expensive threats and I take him out of the game with the crucible ghost quarter lock. Game three I have turn 1 chalice for 1 with gemstone caverns but he has sylvan scrying into world breaker into karn.
Statistically probably my worst matchup and one I was hoping to dodge. Maybe I should be playing damping sphere.
Round 3 Madcap Moon 2-0 Game one I am able to counter his blood moon and repeal his emperion wurmcoil beats close the game out. Game two I have a hand full of counter magic and he falls behind on land drops. back to back mindslavers take him out of the game.
The less good blue moon deck. I think this matchup is fine but I honestly just drew extremely well.
Round 4 Vizer Company 0-2
Game one I have a quick chalice on one start beating in with a wurmcoil, but I dont have interaction outside of the chalice and he combos off. Game two I mull to 6 with two lands and never see a third.
Typically a pretty competitive matchup. Sometimes these things happen in magic.
Round 5 Burn 2-0
Game one chalice on one cuts off a decent chunk of his hand and a few counter spells buy me time to get wurmcoil into play. game two I have natural tron spatial for his goblin guide and turn four wurmcoil.
Finally a matchup Im happy to see. The pierakor style lists really feel strong against burn.
Round 6 Jund 2-1 Game one wurmcoil and academy ruins end up being too much for him to handle. Game two he has a lot of fulminator pressure causing me to stumble on mana and tarmogoyf takes care of the rest. Game three I am able to counter his lillys and end up repealing his dark confidant twice. Slaver lock is established shortly after.
Another good matchup, harder with blood braid but still a deck I'm happy to see across the table. The second maindeck wurmcoil is great here.
Round 7 Grixis Midrange 2-1 Game one he resolves a snap caster on turn 2 after I crack my map and field of ruin keeps me off tron. He is able to protect the snap and close out the game. Game two I am able to assemble tron and win the counter wars. my opponent resolves jace and taps out to counter my flashed in gearhulk allowing me to establish a slaver lock. Game three I have to mull to 5, but remanding my opponents jace on turns 4 and 5 brings me right back into the game. I make him tap out for jace with condescend to create a window to resolve and crack a mindslaver. I am able to empty his hand and remove his jace putting me far enough ahead that he cant come back. Gearhulk closes out the game.
One of the more troublesome midrange decks with k command and field of ruin and snapcaster but still favourable. Gearhulk was a big difference maker in this match creating openings for me to resolve other threats.
Overall record 5-2 16th place.
Aetherspouts was a bad call for this list, I think it is too slow without the 3 talismans. Going forward I will be trying out damping sphere in the sideboard in place of the summary dismissals. 4 chalice is excessive for the current meta I think a 1/1 split is correct. Gearhulk was a solid performer and consistently generated value. I am happy with the position of our deck in the current meta especially if people start shying away from green tron with the extreme number of damping spheres in players sideboards.
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Condescend
4 Expedition Map
Creatures (6)
1 Treasure Mage
1 Trinket Mage
1 Walking Ballista
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Platinum Angel
1 Sundering Titan
1 Oblivion Sower
Planeswalkers (2)
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Spells (6)
2 Repeal
2 Remand
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Supreme Will
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Oblivion Stone
2 Talisman of Dominance
2 Mindslaver
Land (25)
7 Island
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 River of Tears
2 Academy Ruins
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Urza's Tower
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Tower
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Batterskull
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Supreme Will
2 Dismember
2 Filigree Familiar
2 Spreading Seas
4 Spatial Contortion
Jace has been rewarding and cooperative with not turning up when I lack UU, he also wins games
Was running 3 Filigree, but enjoying them and the idea of them less and less, given I've been seeing success without Snapcast/Gearhulk I might look at dedicated grave hate with Leyline nonsense. Or Hurkyls. It's hard to make cuts/changes though when one just a draws really good card each turn
Oh and I've been loving Oblivion Sower, after testing them in legacy, tried it out here, HUGE butt at 5/8 stops most things short of Gurmag+Bolt, ultimate blowouts include finish my Tron with their tron and doing a Sundering titan impersonation with Ghost Quarter + Tec Edge and winning with their Celestial Colonade, he wiffs a bit too.
Jokers where you at bb? Saw you put up another 5-0 with a stock-ish list. Do you remember your match-ups? Being able to rip off multiple 5-0 finishes is definitely impressive with the amount of Humans and Hollow One around so I'm wondering how you did it or if it's just volume. Did Damping Sphere do any work for you?
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
6 Island
1 Tolaria west
1 River of tears
1 Field of Ruin
1 Academy Ruins
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Gemstone Caverns
Creatures (9)
1 Walking Ballista
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Treasure Mage
1 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Platinum Angel
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Spells (17)
4 Condescend
2 Repeal
2 Remand
1 Spatial Contortion
1 Dismember
1 Cyclonic Rift
2 Supreme Will
4 Thirst For Knowledge
Artifacts(9)
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Talisman of dominance
4 Expedition Map
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Mindslaver
1 engineered explosives
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Crucible of worlds
2 damping sphere
1 Dismember
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Mindslaver
2 hurkyl's recall
3 Spreading seas
1 spatial contortion
Round 1 Affinity 2-0
Round 2 GW Value Town 2-1
Round 3 Humans 2-0
Round 4 Hollow One 2-0
Round 5 Storm 2-1
Damping sphere was great in the match against storm and is particularly good when combined with chalice.
I really like aetherspouts and still want to try to make it work. It has stolen me plenty of games especially against affinity and merfolk.
The humans and hollow one matchups have been feeling much better lately. I'm not sure how much of that is more inexperienced players have been picking those decks up vs me just becoming more comfortable with the match.
I felt as though all three abilities are semi relevant
For what it's worth, I don't think Teferi is good in UW tron. It doesn't help any problems.
I thought keeping lands up is nice, which is why I’ve seen Unwind in some blue sideboards.
But yeah looking at that it seems like a reanimator package and a 5 mana walker that doesn’t really aide reanimator won’t be that beneficial for the deck.