On a different note...
I've always liked Sundering Titan in this deck somewhere in the 75. Mainly because I feel that he covers for Iona in matchups where opposing decks have removal in 2 colors. Those decks are usually 3+ color decks and sundering titan is great against those. These are the decks that I feel are more common nowadays. u/r twin, uwr control, scapeshift, affinity, GR tron, burn, delver, jund, junk, birthing pod. Sundering titan is really bad against (u/r twin, affinity, GR tron, burn, delver). But hes quite good against uwr control, scapeshift, jund, junk, birthing pod. Against pod, elesh norn is likely better and against Jund, Iona on black is okay. But sundering titan is an artifact, something we can hardcast and another reanimation target.
Most people are playing 1 batterskull, 1 wurmcoil in the main nowadays. While these life linking creatures would SEEM pretty good in matchups where opponent has a lot of burn, I find them too slow against delver/burn unless you have t3 tron and against a lot of decks, they are okay, they are rarely dead, lifelink seems to be relevant a lot but its not really good in any matchup I feel (cus I mentioned its too slow), but its okay in a lot of matchups. I'm planning to cut one of these 2 and add a sundering titan.
Or I can put him in the sideboard. Thoughts?
1) Remove either batterskull/wurmcoil and add sundering titan to the main (if so, which one do I cut) OR
2) Add him to the sideboard
On a different note...
I've always liked Sundering Titan in this deck somewhere in the 75. Mainly because I feel that he covers for Iona in matchups where opposing decks have removal in 2 colors. Those decks are usually 3+ color decks and sundering titan is great against those. These are the decks that I feel are more common nowadays. u/r twin, uwr control, scapeshift, affinity, GR tron, burn, delver, jund, junk, birthing pod. Sundering titan is really bad against (u/r twin, affinity, GR tron, burn, delver). But hes quite good against uwr control, scapeshift, jund, junk, birthing pod. Against pod, elesh norn is likely better and against Jund, Iona on black is okay. But sundering titan is an artifact, something we can hardcast and another reanimation target.
Most people are playing 1 batterskull, 1 wurmcoil in the main nowadays. While these life linking creatures would SEEM pretty good in matchups where opponent has a lot of burn, I find them too slow against delver/burn unless you have t3 tron and against a lot of decks, they are okay, they are rarely dead, lifelink seems to be relevant a lot but its not really good in any matchup I feel (cus I mentioned its too slow), but its okay in a lot of matchups. I'm planning to cut one of these 2 and add a sundering titan.
Or I can put him in the sideboard. Thoughts?
1) Remove either batterskull/wurmcoil and add sundering titan to the main (if so, which one do I cut) OR
2) Add him to the sideboard
Sundering Titan is a reasonable card, and I've played him before. It really depends on your meta because he does fill a bit of a niche role. Of the matchups you listed where he's good against:
UWR Control - generally speaking, you should be able to win without Gifts Combo since they're playing a slow control deck. It's a favourable matchup either way.
UWR Midrange - This is a different story, and he's much better here. I'm talking lists with like Geist or even some of the more midrange Delver lists (including RUG, which is popular again).
Scapeshift - Another place that he's fine, though usually the combo isn't so reliable, since they do play a ton of counters and durdle a bunch the first few turns. If he lands, great, but I suspect you'll have a bit of trouble getting him down reliably.
Jund - I'd rather play Iona naming black because red and green don't have removal for her.
Junk - Yeah, another matchup where Sundering Titan is really good.
Pod - I'd rather go for Elesh Norn because she's much safer. They tend to not MB any Paths (though potentially sideboard), and it's a toss up whether they have any artifact hate in the MB (like a Pridemage or something). You're really risking it with Sundering Titan, especially since they can win through it. Neither Pod list can win through Elesh Norn.
Sundering Titan is just as slow as either of them, so what it boils down to is how much of the meta he's good against for you. If he's going to be boarded in quite a lot, then sure, it makes sense. If you're going to play 50% fast decks, he's probably not worth putting in the MB. At either rate, he's absolutely a reasonable card to play.
hi guys! i'm playng UTRON , but i like the UWtron idea. what is the current more competitive list of this deck ?
Take the deck from the primer and add in some more Timely Reinforcements for all the Burn. I expect the primer list will be okay once the ban list gets updated. It's hard for me to see Treasure Cruise surviving based on its percentage in decks.
On a different note...
I've always liked Sundering Titan in this deck somewhere in the 75. Mainly because I feel that he covers for Iona in matchups where opposing decks have removal in 2 colors. Those decks are usually 3+ color decks and sundering titan is great against those. These are the decks that I feel are more common nowadays. u/r twin, uwr control, scapeshift, affinity, GR tron, burn, delver, jund, junk, birthing pod. Sundering titan is really bad against (u/r twin, affinity, GR tron, burn, delver). But hes quite good against uwr control, scapeshift, jund, junk, birthing pod. Against pod, elesh norn is likely better and against Jund, Iona on black is okay. But sundering titan is an artifact, something we can hardcast and another reanimation target.
Most people are playing 1 batterskull, 1 wurmcoil in the main nowadays. While these life linking creatures would SEEM pretty good in matchups where opponent has a lot of burn, I find them too slow against delver/burn unless you have t3 tron and against a lot of decks, they are okay, they are rarely dead, lifelink seems to be relevant a lot but its not really good in any matchup I feel (cus I mentioned its too slow), but its okay in a lot of matchups. I'm planning to cut one of these 2 and add a sundering titan.
Or I can put him in the sideboard. Thoughts?
1) Remove either batterskull/wurmcoil and add sundering titan to the main (if so, which one do I cut) OR
2) Add him to the sideboard
Sundering Titan is a reasonable card, and I've played him before. It really depends on your meta because he does fill a bit of a niche role. Of the matchups you listed where he's good against:
UWR Control - generally speaking, you should be able to win without Gifts Combo since they're playing a slow control deck. It's a favourable matchup either way.
UWR Midrange - This is a different story, and he's much better here. I'm talking lists with like Geist or even some of the more midrange Delver lists (including RUG, which is popular again).
Scapeshift - Another place that he's fine, though usually the combo isn't so reliable, since they do play a ton of counters and durdle a bunch the first few turns. If he lands, great, but I suspect you'll have a bit of trouble getting him down reliably.
Jund - I'd rather play Iona naming black because red and green don't have removal for her.
Junk - Yeah, another matchup where Sundering Titan is really good.
Pod - I'd rather go for Elesh Norn because she's much safer. They tend to not MB any Paths (though potentially sideboard), and it's a toss up whether they have any artifact hate in the MB (like a Pridemage or something). You're really risking it with Sundering Titan, especially since they can win through it. Neither Pod list can win through Elesh Norn.
Sundering Titan is just as slow as either of them, so what it boils down to is how much of the meta he's good against for you. If he's going to be boarded in quite a lot, then sure, it makes sense. If you're going to play 50% fast decks, he's probably not worth putting in the MB. At either rate, he's absolutely a reasonable card to play.
hi guys! i'm playng UTRON , but i like the UWtron idea. what is the current more competitive list of this deck ?
Take the deck from the primer and add in some more Timely Reinforcements for all the Burn. I expect the primer list will be okay once the ban list gets updated. It's hard for me to see Treasure Cruise surviving based on its percentage in decks.
A lot of the things you said are true and I totally agree. I just want to add something to the POD matchup analysis for sundering titan. The newer pod lists (look at the top 3 that top8 GP Madrid) are playing less combo heavy and they are playing more value based creatures with pod including more fat targets such as restoration angel, anafenza, siege rhinos etc. All of which survive elesh norn. In addition, they are starting to main deck some number of path to exiles as they are playing a slower value orientated game now, which is also good vs elesh norn. Elesh norn is still great in the matchup, just less of a "guaranteed" win then before, this is where sundering titan could be good in this matchup. They are playing more big creatures in order to survive the bolt/tons of burn spells that the delver decks are playing, which indirectly also makes elesh norn worse if she can't wrath their creatures.
Most people are running 1 wurmcoil and 1 batterskull in the main deck or some number of these cards. They are just another "big" thing to do, and lifelink helps us survive till later game. But what matchups are these cards actually really good in? If they were in my sideboard lets say, what matchups would I board them in? They are rarely completely dead/useless, but they also don't seem very good in any particular matchup as well.
U/R delver & burn- they are okay here if you have them early, if you have to cast them without tron, I find them often too slow.
U/R twin/tarmo twin- Twin has lots of creatures to tap them down from attacking, and we can't often tap out for these cards on our main phase without risk of dying to their combo. Post board they also have disenchant effects which makes batterskull much worse.
UWR control- This matchup is slow enough and they try to burn us out/kill us before emrakul. But they have path for wurmcoil, batterskull is okay I find.
Scapeshift- Both of these basically do nothing besides being beaters, unless u can get your life total to more then 36 life in my experience. I've attacked with wurmcoil 2 times and still lost to scapeshift combo.
Affinity- Both of these cards are okay here, affinity usually isn't super super fast at killing, but a lot of their threats have evasion and wurmcoil/batterskull can't block them.
Jund/Junk- Wurmcoil is very good against Jund, but Jund isn't very popular anymore. Batterskull is okay against jund, not really the best because it just dies to tarmogoyf a lot of times. Junk has path for wurmcoil.
Pod- these creatures are okay in the matchup, not really ground breaking like an elesh norn or sundering titan but not bad either.
G/R tron - neither are very good, just another beater
I'm thinking of cutting one or both for other slots that do more.
I gotta disagree. You don't need fetches/cheap cmc spells to be playing dig. You just need a crapload of mana. It's not like scapeshift plays that many more 1cmc spells than UW tron does. Right?
What happens is, it's a serious threat on the order of Sphinx's Rev when you have 4 or 5 mana EOT, but unlike Sphinx. You're able to jam it earlier if things aren't going your way, you're more often able to get a better card selection, because the deck isn't filled with threats, you only net 2-3 good cards on a Rev for 7 or so. It's another way to be flexible (especially with gifts) in long games. Dig functions more as a late game card, and the fact that you seem to be missing that point as "we don't have the ability to cast it on t3/t4 ever for double blue basically", says: you don't respect the gameplan. We're a control deck. We're looking for finishers. Dig gives us options like Rev, like Gifts, to find what we need in a way that's meaningful.
That said: the only thing in my list that I can come up with is I want 3 Timely Reinforcements MB right now without blinking.
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Not just fetches, Scapeshift also plays ramp spells (STE, Search for Tomorrow), which feed their graveyard. Signets don't.
In this deck you're already forced to play 4 Gifts and Thirst for Knowledge. There isn't enough room for more draw spells.
That's exactly what I'm saying to people. You can cut Sphinx's if you play it for Dig, but you don't want 10 draw spells. You already don't have many spells that interact with an opponent. An average list might play double Wrath, 4 Path, a bounce Spell, and 5 counters. That's like 12 spells that interact in a deck of 60. If you look at UWR Control (without the creatures), they might play 4 Bolt, 4 Path, 4 Helix, which is already as much, and that doesn't factor in the 10 counters they'll play or the 4 Electrolyzes either.
Not just fetches, Scapeshift also plays ramp spells (STE, Search for Tomorrow), which feed their graveyard. Signets don't.
In this deck you're already forced to play 4 Gifts and Thirst for Knowledge. There isn't enough room for more draw spells.
That's exactly what I'm saying to people. You can cut Sphinx's if you play it for Dig, but you don't want 10 draw spells. You already don't have many spells that interact with an opponent. An average list might play double Wrath, 4 Path, a bounce Spell, and 5 counters. That's like 12 spells that interact in a deck of 60. If you look at UWR Control (without the creatures), they might play 4 Bolt, 4 Path, 4 Helix, which is already as much, and that doesn't factor in the 10 counters they'll play or the 4 Electrolyzes either.
On the topic of interation. All the other controlish comboish decks in the format such as uwr control, scapeshift, uw control, twin mono blue tron, play from 8-10 counters. Why does uw tron only play 4-5. Thid hads always bothered me. Sure u can interact after their spells resolve but it makes twin and scapeshift much worse in game1 i wanna cut some cards to add more counters.
Not just fetches, Scapeshift also plays ramp spells (STE, Search for Tomorrow), which feed their graveyard. Signets don't.
In this deck you're already forced to play 4 Gifts and Thirst for Knowledge. There isn't enough room for more draw spells.
That's exactly what I'm saying to people. You can cut Sphinx's if you play it for Dig, but you don't want 10 draw spells. You already don't have many spells that interact with an opponent. An average list might play double Wrath, 4 Path, a bounce Spell, and 5 counters. That's like 12 spells that interact in a deck of 60. If you look at UWR Control (without the creatures), they might play 4 Bolt, 4 Path, 4 Helix, which is already as much, and that doesn't factor in the 10 counters they'll play or the 4 Electrolyzes either.
On the topic of interation. All the other controlish comboish decks in the format such as uwr control, scapeshift, uw control, twin mono blue tron, play from 8-10 counters. Why does uw tron only play 4-5. Thid hads always bothered me. Sure u can interact after their spells resolve but it makes twin and scapeshift much worse in game1 i wanna cut some cards to add more counters.
They also don't need to play Map or Signet. The composition of our deck just doesn't allow us to play that many counters because we don't have space. What do you propose we cut out?
Not just fetches, Scapeshift also plays ramp spells (STE, Search for Tomorrow), which feed their graveyard. Signets don't.
In this deck you're already forced to play 4 Gifts and Thirst for Knowledge. There isn't enough room for more draw spells.
That's exactly what I'm saying to people. You can cut Sphinx's if you play it for Dig, but you don't want 10 draw spells. You already don't have many spells that interact with an opponent. An average list might play double Wrath, 4 Path, a bounce Spell, and 5 counters. That's like 12 spells that interact in a deck of 60. If you look at UWR Control (without the creatures), they might play 4 Bolt, 4 Path, 4 Helix, which is already as much, and that doesn't factor in the 10 counters they'll play or the 4 Electrolyzes either.
On the topic of interaction. All the other controlish comboish decks in the format such as uwr control, scapeshift, uw control, twin mono blue tron, play from 8-10 counters. Why does uw tron only play 4-5. Thid has always bothered me. Sure u can interact after their spells resolve but it makes twin and scapeshift much worse in game1 i wanna cut some cards to add more counters.
They also don't need to play Map or Signet. The composition of our deck just doesn't allow us to play that many counters because we don't have space. What do you propose we cut out?
Mono U tron also plays 4 talisman and 4 maps, they run 9 counters mainboard. Although not 100% the same, scapeshift runs 4 tribe elder and 4 search for tomorrow (similar to talisman and maps for mana sources/ramping) and they run 9-11 counters main.
Most UW tron decks nowadays are running 2-3 wraths, 1 timely, 1 oring, 1 wurmcoil, 1 batterskull, 1 revelation. I could see cutting oring and going down to 1 wrath and cutting either batterskull or wurmcoil to add more remands/condescends. I am going to test it.
If you want to go less extreme on the "high # of counters list" you could play 2 condescends and add back a batterskull or remove sphinx's rev instead of batterskull. In my "threat" slots I have Emrakul, Elesh norn, Iona (which I think are staples), then at the moment I have wurmcoil and sphinx's rev, it could easily be wurmcoil + batterskull or sundering titan
It surprises me that as a late game control tron deck in modern, our deck has half the amount of counters as every other blue control/combo based deck in the format and it makes some matchups very bad because we do not have enough permission/interaction such as scapeshift.
Most UW tron decks nowadays are running 2-3 wraths, 1 timely, 1 oring, 1 wurmcoil, 1 batterskull, 1 revelation. I could see cutting oring and going down to 1 wrath and cutting either batterskull or wurmcoil to add more remands/condescends. I am going to test it.
Below is a sample decklist.
...
If you want to go less extreme on the "high # of counters list" you could play 2 condescends and add back a batterskull or remove sphinx's rev instead of batterskull. In my "threat" slots I have Emrakul, Elesh norn, Iona (which I think are staples), then at the moment I have wurmcoil and sphinx's rev, it could easily be wurmcoil + batterskull or sundering titan
It surprises me that as a late game control tron deck in modern, our deck has half the amount of counters as every other blue control/combo based deck in the format and it makes some matchups very bad because we do not have enough permission/interaction such as scapeshift.
The deck is indeed light on counterspells, especially the lists with 4 remands. I know they are supposed to help stalling into a gamewinning lategame bomb but sometimes it doesnt work that way and i would like to be able to engage into a counterwar or defend my Iona/Elesh.
That said, i dont like cutting the wraths. Natural turn 3/4 wrath is a strong play that i want to access to. But i guess its fine going down to 1 or to play more timely. I also dont like cutting oring when you dont play a maindeck bounce -I think you need at least 1 bounce/oring effect (cyclonic rift for me atm)-
If you want more counters you can :
- Spell Burst: fine early game and awesome later when it can counter 2 spells a turn. Serve me well as a 1 of.
- Try to diversify your counter suite to be able to gifts for counters. Instead of playing 4 Remand 1 Condescend maybe something like 2 Remand 1 Condescend 1 Spell Burst 1 Snare/Dispel/Negate/Leak/Delay/...(1 Snapcaster) so that your 4 Gifts become additionnal counters.
If you want to keep all those cards, what do you propose we cut?
Having answers to something after it has resolved (repeal/oring/wrath) is better in some situations then counters, but also worse in others, against twin and scapeshift specifically, its very much worse, deceiver has already tapped down one of our limited color sources, making it very hard to defend the combo, against scapeshift its even worse. And you mentioned it feels very hard to resolve the gifts combo in some matchups such as vs twin/scapeshift because the opponents have 8-10+ counters, we have 4 and they are mostly remands, which means if I remand my opponents remand, he can just recast it, especially scapeshift with lots of mana.
If you want a little more permission you can try to either play spell burst or cut some Remand to diversify your counter suite -and be able to Gifts for 4 counters-. There are idd some matchup where you can't really Gifts for combo, and its nice to be able to Gifts for counters.
If i were to play a counter heavy list i would play something very similar to your list but with a more diverse counter suite. Something like this i guess:
25 Lands
4 Signet, 3 Map
4 Gifts, 4 Tfk
4 Path, 2 Wrath, 1 Timely
1 Unburial, 1 Iona, 1 Elesh Norn
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Remand
1 Condescend
1 Spell Burst
1 Negate
1 Mana Leak
1 Batterskull
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Mindslaver
With Snapcaster and Cyclonic Rift i'm fine going down to 2 wrath. Also i dont like Sphinx revelation and i prefer Batterskull/Mindslaver/Ruins to Wurmcoil/Emrakul/Eye but either way is fine.
Then cut a pair of Remand for a few one-of counters. The goal is to be able to use Gifts as a counter lategame (or to build up a counter wall by gifting eot). With 6 counters + snap + gifts you have quite a bunch of stack interaction (be careful, you are often limited by blue mana).
I personally wouldn't play negate and mana leak in the main even if it does work well with the whole gifts thing. These counters are just too weak/situational I feel. Condescend and remand lets us advance our own game plan with drawing a card and scrying. I could see maybe playing 1 spell burst, although unlikely in my opinion. I also don't see anything wrong with only having 1 wrath in the main, its good in some matchups (Jund/Junk/POD/Affinity) but mostly dead in a lot of (Scapeshift, Twin, UWR control, Tron matchups/Burn) others. Just to name some more common matchups. I think I'd be fine with 1 wrath main, and then playing 1-2 wrath effects in the sideboard, counters are better vs a larger portion of the field then wrath is in game 1. The 1 timely is not the worst in the main, its not bad in a lot of matchups that wrath is good in and there are lots of burn/delvers nowadays, and timely is great vs both those decks.
I'm also not sure about snapcaster ATM, as you said he makes spells cost an extra blue and more mana, which is relevant when you are trying to condescend things. I'm not saying hes bad, just not sure about him right now, I tested him in the past and ultimately decided to take him out, although there are situations where hes great if you like snapcaster block path another threat etc.
Well Remand and Condescend are situational as well. They are a lot of situations where i wish Remand was something else. (maybe i don't have enough experience yet and i'm not piloting the deck properly but) i think our game plan can be confusing at times. Basically we try to overpower our opponent by having superior mana, gamebreaking cretures and strong specialized answers all tied together by 4Gifts+4Tft. Sometimes yes you stall until an Iona or Emrakul show up and win the game for you but its often a combinaison of all thoses factors that lead to a win. I dont think our inevitability is that strong and often Remand doesnt do so much for us. I think beeing able to get the most value out of Gifts is our strongest point.
I guess 1 Wrath is fine as long as you play Snapcaster or cyclonic rift (so you can gifts for snap/wrat/timely/path) but i just prefer to run 2. You can always use Tft to discard unnecessary cards and board them out when they are not needed. Yes counters are more versatile but they are also a lot powerful and i feel we want to be doing powerful things. I can see why you wouldn't want to play Snap but for me he is often great and almost never bad, i really like him.
That said, i need to spend more time playing specific matchups but this is how i feel playing in an open field.
The difference is, remand and condescend work well with our tron engine because they allow us to dig deeper into our deck and filter away cards we don't want. They are definitely the best counters for this deck.
I think it is a VERY bad idea to play anything less than 3 Remands. In a grand majority of cases remand is almost a hard counter with the prevalence of delve spells around. Especially when playing against snapcaster mage. I completely disagree that Remand is doesn't work with what the deck is trying to do. You're buying time to gain mana advantage to slam fatties on the table. Period. It's the exact same methodology that Twin uses Remand with. You buy time until you control the board and 'win the game'.
Re: Playing Gifts/Remand turn 3. It's situational, as always. If it's just that you're using Remand for value, play gifts. If it's significantly more advantageous for you, then play it. That's the skill of the card. I just played a game vs Pod where I was on the play, T2, they play BoP before they make their land drop. Do you Remand there? If they don't have a land drop, it essentially buys you 2 turns. If they do, you draw a card, and that's only if they have an untapped green land in hand. But why would they keep a 1 lander without ramp? If you're not reading into it and merely using it for value, then Remand will seem significantly less valued.
That said. I've missed Emrakul. I've been playing without Emrakul for the better part of 2 weeks, and I want Emrakul in my sideboard, without Eye of Ugin. Now, you're saying: BUT WHY?
Two words: Dig Through Time (for answers). When you're in a position to use Emrakul, you'll be in a position to Dig for Emrakul (or in reality a 'third' answer after Mindslaver, Fatty X, and Emrakul). It's worked actually relatively well, with sub 30 cards in your deck, you have a 1/4 chance of finding Emrakul, and Gifting for Emrakul is still a thing when you need to rebuy spells/enchantments. It's another strong option without committing another land to the mix.
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Hey guys, really enjoying playing the deck. I had a couple cards I wanted to bring in for discussion.
1) Glen Elendra Archmage - Does anyone have experience playing with this card? I've seen it in the board of some of LSV's lists. 2 counter spells and a blocker seems good in theory!
2) I have been play testing with Prognostic Sphinx in the main and it has been pretty sweet as a one of. I've even been able to discard Unburial rites a few times to ensure our combo happens. I was wondering if anyone has also played with it, or can tell me why it is incorrect to play with.
How goes everything? Sorry I've been away, busy with school and Hearthstone. I did manage to get to legend in Hearthstone last month though, that was cool. Anyways, let's see what's up.
If you want a little more permission you can try to either play spell burst or cut some Remand to diversify your counter suite -and be able to Gifts for 4 counters-. There are idd some matchup where you can't really Gifts for combo, and its nice to be able to Gifts for counters.
If i were to play a counter heavy list i would play something very similar to your list but with a more diverse counter suite. Something like this i guess:
25 Lands
4 Signet, 3 Map
4 Gifts, 4 Tfk
4 Path, 2 Wrath, 1 Timely
1 Unburial, 1 Iona, 1 Elesh Norn
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Remand
1 Condescend
1 Spell Burst
1 Negate
1 Mana Leak
1 Batterskull
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Mindslaver
With Snapcaster and Cyclonic Rift i'm fine going down to 2 wrath. Also i dont like Sphinx revelation and i prefer Batterskull/Mindslaver/Ruins to Wurmcoil/Emrakul/Eye but either way is fine.
Then cut a pair of Remand for a few one-of counters. The goal is to be able to use Gifts as a counter lategame (or to build up a counter wall by gifting eot). With 6 counters + snap + gifts you have quite a bunch of stack interaction (be careful, you are often limited by blue mana).
The problem with changing the counter package is as follows:
1. Remand is the best counter, it draws and delays, which is exactly what we need. I still like 4, but I don't think 2 is the correct number by any means.
2. Spell Burst is rather slow sometimes.
3. Spell Burst, Mana Leak, and Negate are all situational counters. Sometimes they're wonderful, and other times they don't really do all that much. Buyer beware I suppose.
I do like having 4 counters for Gifts, but usually out of the sideboard. I don't think Negate is a MB playable card because of how often it's dead. It's one of those things where you should actually win more game 1s because of how strong your Gifts combo or Emrakul/Mindslaver is. Generally speaking, the decks that can counter aren't going to be the decks that beat Emrakul, since we beat most control decks. I think only Delver and those sort of tempo blue decks are the problems. Twin might be in the same camp, but it's like a 50/50 so it's not that bad.
Well Remand and Condescend are situational as well. They are a lot of situations where i wish Remand was something else. (maybe i don't have enough experience yet and i'm not piloting the deck properly but) i think our game plan can be confusing at times. Basically we try to overpower our opponent by having superior mana, gamebreaking cretures and strong specialized answers all tied together by 4Gifts+4Tft. Sometimes yes you stall until an Iona or Emrakul show up and win the game for you but its often a combinaison of all thoses factors that lead to a win. I dont think our inevitability is that strong and often Remand doesnt do so much for us. I think beeing able to get the most value out of Gifts is our strongest point.
I guess 1 Wrath is fine as long as you play Snapcaster or cyclonic rift (so you can gifts for snap/wrat/timely/path) but i just prefer to run 2. You can always use Tft to discard unnecessary cards and board them out when they are not needed. Yes counters are more versatile but they are also a lot powerful and i feel we want to be doing powerful things. I can see why you wouldn't want to play Snap but for me he is often great and almost never bad, i really like him.
That said, i need to spend more time playing specific matchups but this is how i feel playing in an open field.
The difference is, remand and condescend work well with our tron engine because they allow us to dig deeper into our deck and filter away cards we don't want. They are definitely the best counters for this deck. [/quote]Remand and Condescend are much less situational. Remand is almost always okay, since you generally don't have cards that need to be dealt with permanently. Condescend is also fine simply because it scales better than most cards.
I disagree with shifting weight into Gifts. Gifts is already a ton of value, and I would prefer to stall out the game. I suppose that in this meta, we might not have time for either, so I'll assume TC gets banned and we're back to a more normal meta. So in those cases, you really do want to just stall out because you have tons of time to find cards. If you're playing for Gifts to be good, you're probably making the individual cards worse. Why do you want to increase Gifts value? You already get so much value just casting it once anyways, and half the time it just finds the combo.
I'm not overly a fan of a single Wrath either, I like having the third option. I used to run Cyclonic Rift as that option because it had earlier implications and also dealt with non-land stuff (like Planeswalkers). It worked fairly well for me. Snapcaster doesn't seem any better than the Verdict, and Verdict didn't really do well for me in testing.
I also disagree that counters are super powerful. Sometimes, yes, but not all the time. Sometimes having more versatile cards is better. Oblivion Ring and Repeal are fine cards because you're almost always going to need to deal with some permanent, even in those combo decks like Storm and Ascendancy.
I'm a bit lost here. I thought digging and filtering cards works well with, like, every deck ever ? We can afford to play a pair of condescend because of the mana advantage we generate, but they are several decks that use Remand a lot better than we do. The only reason its the best counter for the deck is because its arguably the best counter avaible in modern, not because it works particularly well with it..
There are a lot of times i would rather have Negate or Mana Leak than Remand when playing the deck. Am i the only one who find Remand akward when you have it up turn 3 with mana for Gifts/Thirst ? There is hardly any reason to play Remand over Thirst or Gifts just to stall for one turn. It also doesn't do much against decks like scapeshift, twin or tron.
That said, if it works for you then fine, you dont need to try anything else i guess.
FI here is what i'll be testing for some time :
2 Remand
1 Condescend
1 Spell Burst
1 Negate
1 Snapcaster
Digging works better with our deck than most because we're half a combo deck. That is, we value it higher than others because it does more for us. Trying to find Tron lands or Gifts for combo is better than, say Delver, that might filter into a Bolt. I agree with you that Remand is an insane card, but it is still good here. Considering you're trying to just buy time until you have enough mana that you can answer stuff, or can Gifts combo, it's really insane in this deck. It does exactly what you want it to do.
Sure, Remand is awkward on 3 mana sometimes, but so is Mana Leak or Negate, if you're going to put it like that. It's not as if your other counters make the inefficiency any better.
Tron is a bad matchup either way, and unless you're going to put a lot into winning that matchup I wouldn't expect to win. Against Twin, Remand is perfectly fine, in my opinion. They're going to have counters too you know. And against Scapeshift it's the same problem, they'll have counters as well. Remand being cheaper than theirs is very helpful. I wouldn't expect them to go off without counters, and since Scapeshift and Cryptic cost 4, you should be okay.
Hey guys, really enjoying playing the deck. I had a couple cards I wanted to bring in for discussion.
1) Glen Elendra Archmage - Does anyone have experience playing with this card? I've seen it in the board of some of LSV's lists. 2 counter spells and a blocker seems good in theory!
2) I have been play testing with Prognostic Sphinx in the main and it has been pretty sweet as a one of. I've even been able to discard Unburial rites a few times to ensure our combo happens. I was wondering if anyone has also played with it, or can tell me why it is incorrect to play with.
Appreciate it guys!
I haven't had experience with Glen Elendra, but it doesn't seem awful. A blocker with counters isn't so bad, and I think it has some merit. I guess before when DRS was a card it's not as good, but it might be okay now. I'm just debating whether a more expensive, more general card is better. I generally want my counters to be cheap is all, and Glen Elendra sort of has a big ticket before she does anything. I suppose it's worth testing at the least.
I don't see Prognostic Sphinx as something I want to play. It's one of those slow grind cards that I want to win the game over several turns. Sure, Scry 3 is nice, but I really don't want to keep discarding cards, we don't have that kind of luxury in this deck. It's a 5 mana card in Modern that doesn't do much when you play it. The way I see it, you never want to reanimate it and you never cast it until you have Tron because of how little it impacts. If I'm only going to cast it with Tron and three blue sources, I'm looking at much better options. Basically, I don't think I'm going to want to tap out to it since I might lose as a result. Chances are you don't get to 7 and no Tron often, so expect to be at 10 mana at the earliest (because I still need to leave up some mana). Depending on what I have, it might be later (because Signet gives one of each where we need double blue here). At 10 mana, I can play a giant Sphinx's Revelation or chain Gifts together. Like at 10 mana, I don't want to play this and slowly gain value, I want to look towards closing out the game. Sure, you get some small value being able to pitch Unburial Rites, but I don't see myself wanting a 5th Thirst, which is what this card would proxy as.
The problem with changing the counter package is as follows:
1. Remand is the best counter, it draws and delays, which is exactly what we need. I still like 4, but I don't think 2 is the correct number by any means.
2. Spell Burst is rather slow sometimes.
3. Spell Burst, Mana Leak, and Negate are all situational counters. Sometimes they're wonderful, and other times they don't really do all that much. Buyer beware I suppose.
I do like having 4 counters for Gifts, but usually out of the sideboard. I don't think Negate is a MB playable card because of how often it's dead. It's one of those thing where you should actually win more game 1s because of how strong your Gifts combo or Emrakul/Mindslaver is. Generally speaking, the decks that can counter aren't going to be the decks that beat Emrakul, since we beat most control sdecks. I think only Delver and those sort of tempo blue decks are the problems. Twin might be in the same camp, but it's like a 50/50 so it's not that bad.
I don't really disagree, but he wanted to play more counters and i still think that using gifts as a pseudo counter is the way to do it in this deck. If you want 4 Remands 4 Condescends i guess playing Utron is the way to go.
Also i think you overestimate a bit how situationnals are some counters compared to reamand (in my testing Negate was almost never dead). Remand is still our best choice, yea, but its not that much better than the rest. Also i don't think Spell Burst is slow, you just need to recognize when you want to use it asap and when you want to get value from the buyback ability.
I really like my current counter suite (2 Remand / 1 Condescend / 1 Spell Burst / 1 Snapcaster). Against blue control decks i often gifts for counters when they let it resolve since going for unburial rites is just too risky.
Control decks also seems harder to me than what you describe. Its quite a difficult matchup in my book since they quite easily sneak some damage in with snap/bolt/electrolyze/resto/colonnade/geist while keeping counters/dig up most of the time. Emrakul is often 1 turn too slow in those matchs (he would be soooo good at 13 manas...)
We don't want to play 8 counters, and I don't think anyone should really want to. We want to have a more versatile package to answer things rather than only counters. If you look at Mono U Tron, which is a version of our deck that basically took out Paths and Wraths in order to play more counters, they have a problem answering things in play. Once something resolves, it's actually very difficult for them to answer. Repeal and the likes are fine, but they're not as good as you think.
Negate is a very good card, I won't deny that. I've had as many as 3 in my sideboard before. The only problem I have is that against some decks, it will underperform. Against Pod, it only counters Pod and Chord. Against Affinity, it counters Plating, Ensoul, and the draw spell. Against Zoo, you'd much rather answer the creature, and their only spells are reactionary spells; Negating a Bolt is not how you'll win the game.
Against most control decks, you don't really need to go for counters because you can simply answer them in the late game. Decks like UWR Control are very slow, so you get to Emrakul before they get to win, assuming you do answer some stuff along the way as you should. So in those decks, the combo is actually bad. The decks where the combo is good sometimes is like UWR Delver or UWR Midrange (ala Geist) because you lose a lot faster. In my testing, UWR Control (without so many creatures) was an easy win, as were similar control decks like Teachings and Grixis Control. UWR Flash was close to even, but UWR Midrange and UWR Delver were slightly in their favour. This is from what I recall, it's been a while since I've tested any of these matchups (or even played Magic, I've been so busy).
Quote from darksteel88 »
I also disagree that counters are super powerful. Sometimes, yes, but not all the time. Sometimes having more versatile cards is better. Oblivion Ring and Repeal are fine cards because you're almost always going to need to deal with some permanent, even in those combo decks like Storm and Ascendancy
Yea, i meant "Yes counters are more versatile but they are also a lot less powerful". With this deck i don't want to counter everything i just want to overpower my opponent. Oblivion ring is fine but the fact they can answer it is sometimes annoying.[/Quote]
Sure, Oblivion Ring can be answered, but how often? It's bad against Karn, and it's bad against Abrupt Decay. Outside of that, people don't generally have answers. Perhaps in the sideboard from cards like Wear//Tear or Disenchant, but how often do you see those? I'm not going to deny that Oblivion Ring being answered can certainly be a problem, but it's also a very good answer sometimes. How often are you going to have that answer for Liliana? Oblivion Ring was very good against her way back when. Part of the value in these cards is that you can Gifts for them after the fact. Like if you're on the play and pass the turn with 4 mana and your opponent plays Liliana, what do you do? If you have Gifts and no counter, you can maybe find Oblivion Ring, but you can't find a counter to answer her. Because you're playing Gifts, having 1-of silver bullets becomes very powerful. It's why some people have gone as far as to put triple Oblivion Ring effects in their deck (though I don't like it).
Quote from darksteel88 »
Sure, Remand is awkward on 3 mana sometimes, but so is Mana Leak or Negate, if you're going to put it like that. It's not as if your other counters make the inefficiency any better.
Tron is a bad matchup either way, and unless you're going to put a lot into winning that matchup I wouldn't expect to win. Against Twin, Remand is perfectly fine, in my opinion. They're going to have counters too you know. And against Scapeshift it's the same problem, they'll have counters as well. Remand being cheaper than theirs is very helpful. I wouldn't expect them to go off without counters, and since Scapeshift and Cryptic cost 4, you should be okay.
Ok i will try to explain again. Remand is akward on 3 mana when you have thirst or on 4 mana when you have gifts because :
- you Remand your opponent play instead of playing thirst/gifts. Next turn your opponent will replay his spell and then you cast your thirst/gifts. There is no real reason to do so and you should just cast your thirst/gifts in the first place. Remand gives you no option here.
- with a hard counter you have the option to answer your opponent play and delay your gifts/thirst for a turn or let it resolve and answer with thirst/gifts. You have the option to answer your opponent play or advance your own gameplan. [/quote]
Exactly how much better is a hard counter though? Won't your opponent just have another play next turn? I'm not expecting my opponent to raise his hands like "oh, you had a Mana Leak, you got me" and just concede. When I counter their card, they're going to follow up with something else on the following turn. So let's look at the trade off.
I'm trading drawing a card for my opponent having an extra card. In our deck, most of the time, us seeing more cards is better than them having more cards. They're not drawing more cards, just having access to the same card again. In some cases when the card we countered was really good against us (like Geist), I'd agree that the Remand is worse, because Mana Leaking a Geist is really good. But in some scenarios, Remand is better because that extra card might be very good for us. When you consider that the card could be something like Tron land, that's insane for us. In general, we value card draw more than our opponents, and because we just need to stall, Remand ends up better than Mana Leak.
The awkwardness still exists in the exact same way. They're still doing something next turn and I still had that choice of counter or draw cards. It's not changing my plans really, the tradeoff is still going to be there. It really boils down to how good their card is. You'll probably just have to ask yourself "if this resolves, will I lose?".
Btw thanks a lot for the help and explainations! My main deck is almost figured out, after a bit more testing i'll move on to the sideboard.
But before i leave you alone i would just like your opinion on Wall of Omens. I didn't found anything in the thread about it but i would like to hear some experience if you guys have tried to toy with it. Yea there is no synergy here with resto here but he is still good at stalling on his own (and since he cantrips never rly dead).
Here is my try on a wall build. So far it is testing nicely. It plays very few dead cards and can still overpower pretty much everything in the late game. Walls are doing a fine job but without Wrath effect, cyclonic rift become very important and using it the best way possible becomes essential. I may add one extra copy. Let me know what you think of it (with some testing if possible).
I can see Wall of Omens working, it's done wonders for me in UWR Control and UWR Twin. It really depends on your meta because sometimes Remands are much better. Against decks like Zoo, your Wall is going to win you games, but against decks like UWR Control, Remand will do a lot better for you.
I don't like adding a second Cyclonic Rift. It's nice to fetch from Gifts but that's about it. I never advocate for second copies of cards unless the card is absolutely insane. Rift, from my testing, was not that kind of card. Yes, it did some work, but not enough to justify a second copy. There's a reason I played it for a long time. It does depend slightly on the meta though, because Spellskite can sometimes be played a lot, and Spellskite is good against it. The same applies for Spell Snare since Spell Snare can still counter the Overload.
Hey there. I'm a long time Utron player, but since the meta shift to delver I haven't played the deck much because it's just too annoying to beat that deck consistently (in my opinion). However, I'm constantly building decks and thought it might be more worthwhile to take my Utron list and splice some white into it for some early game removal.
My belief with Utron has always been to try and lean on tron as little as possible. What I mean by this is I want to play a deck that will do reasonably fine without tron, and then when I get tron online to gain a lot more power. What this amounts to in general are pretty conservative lists which don't focus as heavily on the high CC bombs that most lists like to play. Instead I focus on Oblivion Stones and Batterskulls, both of while are very playable without tron, but then become amazing with tron. (Oblivion stone, to me, is one of the main reasons to play tron because with an active tron it often just resets the game for you.)
Some notes here. I think sunlances might be a bit too deep in the main, but I very much like my 1 mana removal. I think it gives me the early removal consistency that I want.
Condescend, at least in UW tron, is not a popular card. Given how important tron often is and the importance of finding the right cards at the right time, I would not want to run less than 4 (as most people with straight Utron do). Having "hard counters" for the late game is highly important too.
No mana rocks. I've never liked the mana artifacts for a couple reasons. First, its usually not great for turn 2 when you're trying to keep countermagic up. Second, it really exposes you to artifact removal (especially stony silence is a pain), which can be a real problem. Especially if you have to count on that artifact for your colored sources. Lastly, and most importantly, is that it plays horribly with oblivion stone, which is just way more useful to have in my opinion. I'm not playing gifts, so ramping into it is far less relevant as well.
No gifts. I just don't think it's necessary and I think it makes the deck less consistent and clunkier. It's splashy for sure, but not really what I need in my opinion. I'd rather just play oblivion stones to hit more creatures. It also is much worse when you cut azorious signet. I haven't really longed for this card in any of my Utron playing, and now having white to actually play it I don't think I need it.
3 Batterskull/1 Wurmcoil win-conditions. When taking an approach as I try (less reliance on tron), wanting to reduce the cc of your win-cons is very important. But, it's also important to play things that are strong when you do have tron. This is why I really like batterskull. It impacts the board very quickly when it hits play, and is very reasonable without tron. It's very reasonable to just play some control spells in the early turns, land a Batterskull on 5 mana and be in a good position. Especially since I'm not running any tutors I find running all the higher cc is just not worth it.
In particular I'm not running minslaver. It's certainly won a few games for me, but honestly I rarely win with the card. I think the cost is just too high and generally when I'm at the point to setup slaverlock I could win with basically anything. Especially now that colonnades give you a lot of late game threat density (thanks maps!) I think it's simply unneeded. There are too many matchups where it's a liability and mostly just gets pitched to thirst for knowledge for me nowadays.
3 Spell Burst. Not sold on it yet, but it does a few things I really like. First is that it's a hard counter, this is important to me for many reasons (useful versus combo, gives you the counter density to make burn very easy, etc.). Second is that, just like batterskull, it's a very reasonable card without tron, but becomes amazing with tron. I had repeal in this slot in my Utron lists, but given how I added more creature hate I wanted some more flexible cards in my deck. Definitely the numbers I'm least sold on. I do like that it can protect skull/wurmcoil from 1-2cc answers pretty easily.
Dig Through Time: I don't know how I feel about this card. It's awful early, but setting up tron can be really important. I think 1 of might better than 2.
Currently my sideboard is just a sample board--adding white changes up my list quite a lot, so I'm not really sure what strengths and weaknesses I need to cover anymore.
Just replying to S_Valtrix because the post was long.
One of the great things about UW Tron is that with Gifts Combo, you can win without ever assembling Tron. That's generally different from Mono U Tron because you almost always need it. Unless you win off a single hardcast Sundering Titan or Platinum Angel or something like that, you need Tron for Mindslaver. Both decks will function similarly with and without Tron in other respects though; we're both control decks that get much stronger when Tron is an option.
I think 3 Batterskull is too many. It's not THAT good of a card and 3-ofs are always awkward with Gifts. I would much sooner play something like Sundering Titan over one of them. If you are this concerned about aggro, run Timely in the main. A 3-drop aggro answer vs a 5-drop aggro answer is huge, and Batterskull can be on the slow side sometimes because it requires a lot of mana to keep it active.
Sunlance seems way too deep in my opinion, as you pointed out. Timely is generally going to do more in this slot for you I'd think.
I think Condescend as a 4-of is really greedy. It's a mana-intensive card and will eat half a turn up to cast it, sometimes a whole turn. You would much rather play only a couple. I think you're probably left in a Mono U Tron mindset where you have to find cards and hold them, but with UW Tron you can Gifts and go find them. The same applies for Spell Burst. Playing 7 expensive counters is a lot, and to do so you took out a lot of the core, like Azorius Signet, which is surprisingly important. I suppose you did take out Gifts completely, which I dislike, but it does make the other choices more reasonable. Still, the other cards are really slow, and you can only counter one or two cards per turn at most in the mid game, which will be a problem.
You also took out the Gifts Combo, so now your deck is relying fairly heavily on just Batterskull basically. We're not meant to be a slow control deck, we want to be a faster one. The whole point of playing Tron is that you gain access to win conditions that are near impossible to stop because of their high mana cost. Why bother having mana consistency issues with a deck playing half colourless lands? You can just play UWR Control and put in Batterskulls.
Oblivion Ring is an interesting card. It does work much better in your list, but it's also an expensive Wrath. If you think about it, it costs 8 in total. So essentially, you're trading the option to kill faster for the option to kill more. What cards or decks make you want to have that option? I can't really think it's good against Delver or the likes.
I certainly feel like you're going to stumble a bit on coloured sources.
It's an interesting choice, and I've always felt like Mono U Tron really ought to splash white for Path. I see merit to it but I'm not sold on it. I think Gifts Combo is just a really cool way to win and steal games, especially in this stupid Delver/Burn meta. You can easily steal games with Iona/Elesh Norn as it stands, and your game has to grind out a lot, which I think might be troubling sometimes.
I've always liked Sundering Titan in this deck somewhere in the 75. Mainly because I feel that he covers for Iona in matchups where opposing decks have removal in 2 colors. Those decks are usually 3+ color decks and sundering titan is great against those. These are the decks that I feel are more common nowadays. u/r twin, uwr control, scapeshift, affinity, GR tron, burn, delver, jund, junk, birthing pod. Sundering titan is really bad against (u/r twin, affinity, GR tron, burn, delver). But hes quite good against uwr control, scapeshift, jund, junk, birthing pod. Against pod, elesh norn is likely better and against Jund, Iona on black is okay. But sundering titan is an artifact, something we can hardcast and another reanimation target.
Most people are playing 1 batterskull, 1 wurmcoil in the main nowadays. While these life linking creatures would SEEM pretty good in matchups where opponent has a lot of burn, I find them too slow against delver/burn unless you have t3 tron and against a lot of decks, they are okay, they are rarely dead, lifelink seems to be relevant a lot but its not really good in any matchup I feel (cus I mentioned its too slow), but its okay in a lot of matchups. I'm planning to cut one of these 2 and add a sundering titan.
Or I can put him in the sideboard. Thoughts?
1) Remove either batterskull/wurmcoil and add sundering titan to the main (if so, which one do I cut) OR
2) Add him to the sideboard
Sundering Titan is a reasonable card, and I've played him before. It really depends on your meta because he does fill a bit of a niche role. Of the matchups you listed where he's good against:
UWR Control - generally speaking, you should be able to win without Gifts Combo since they're playing a slow control deck. It's a favourable matchup either way.
UWR Midrange - This is a different story, and he's much better here. I'm talking lists with like Geist or even some of the more midrange Delver lists (including RUG, which is popular again).
Scapeshift - Another place that he's fine, though usually the combo isn't so reliable, since they do play a ton of counters and durdle a bunch the first few turns. If he lands, great, but I suspect you'll have a bit of trouble getting him down reliably.
Jund - I'd rather play Iona naming black because red and green don't have removal for her.
Junk - Yeah, another matchup where Sundering Titan is really good.
Pod - I'd rather go for Elesh Norn because she's much safer. They tend to not MB any Paths (though potentially sideboard), and it's a toss up whether they have any artifact hate in the MB (like a Pridemage or something). You're really risking it with Sundering Titan, especially since they can win through it. Neither Pod list can win through Elesh Norn.
Sundering Titan is just as slow as either of them, so what it boils down to is how much of the meta he's good against for you. If he's going to be boarded in quite a lot, then sure, it makes sense. If you're going to play 50% fast decks, he's probably not worth putting in the MB. At either rate, he's absolutely a reasonable card to play.
Take the deck from the primer and add in some more Timely Reinforcements for all the Burn. I expect the primer list will be okay once the ban list gets updated. It's hard for me to see Treasure Cruise surviving based on its percentage in decks.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
A lot of the things you said are true and I totally agree. I just want to add something to the POD matchup analysis for sundering titan. The newer pod lists (look at the top 3 that top8 GP Madrid) are playing less combo heavy and they are playing more value based creatures with pod including more fat targets such as restoration angel, anafenza, siege rhinos etc. All of which survive elesh norn. In addition, they are starting to main deck some number of path to exiles as they are playing a slower value orientated game now, which is also good vs elesh norn. Elesh norn is still great in the matchup, just less of a "guaranteed" win then before, this is where sundering titan could be good in this matchup. They are playing more big creatures in order to survive the bolt/tons of burn spells that the delver decks are playing, which indirectly also makes elesh norn worse if she can't wrath their creatures.
U/R delver & burn- they are okay here if you have them early, if you have to cast them without tron, I find them often too slow.
U/R twin/tarmo twin- Twin has lots of creatures to tap them down from attacking, and we can't often tap out for these cards on our main phase without risk of dying to their combo. Post board they also have disenchant effects which makes batterskull much worse.
UWR control- This matchup is slow enough and they try to burn us out/kill us before emrakul. But they have path for wurmcoil, batterskull is okay I find.
Scapeshift- Both of these basically do nothing besides being beaters, unless u can get your life total to more then 36 life in my experience. I've attacked with wurmcoil 2 times and still lost to scapeshift combo.
Affinity- Both of these cards are okay here, affinity usually isn't super super fast at killing, but a lot of their threats have evasion and wurmcoil/batterskull can't block them.
Jund/Junk- Wurmcoil is very good against Jund, but Jund isn't very popular anymore. Batterskull is okay against jund, not really the best because it just dies to tarmogoyf a lot of times. Junk has path for wurmcoil.
Pod- these creatures are okay in the matchup, not really ground breaking like an elesh norn or sundering titan but not bad either.
G/R tron - neither are very good, just another beater
I'm thinking of cutting one or both for other slots that do more.
What happens is, it's a serious threat on the order of Sphinx's Rev when you have 4 or 5 mana EOT, but unlike Sphinx. You're able to jam it earlier if things aren't going your way, you're more often able to get a better card selection, because the deck isn't filled with threats, you only net 2-3 good cards on a Rev for 7 or so. It's another way to be flexible (especially with gifts) in long games. Dig functions more as a late game card, and the fact that you seem to be missing that point as "we don't have the ability to cast it on t3/t4 ever for double blue basically", says: you don't respect the gameplan. We're a control deck. We're looking for finishers. Dig gives us options like Rev, like Gifts, to find what we need in a way that's meaningful.
That said: the only thing in my list that I can come up with is I want 3 Timely Reinforcements MB right now without blinking.
In this deck you're already forced to play 4 Gifts and Thirst for Knowledge. There isn't enough room for more draw spells.
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Big Johnny.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
On the topic of interation. All the other controlish comboish decks in the format such as uwr control, scapeshift, uw control, twin mono blue tron, play from 8-10 counters. Why does uw tron only play 4-5. Thid hads always bothered me. Sure u can interact after their spells resolve but it makes twin and scapeshift much worse in game1 i wanna cut some cards to add more counters.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
Mono U tron also plays 4 talisman and 4 maps, they run 9 counters mainboard. Although not 100% the same, scapeshift runs 4 tribe elder and 4 search for tomorrow (similar to talisman and maps for mana sources/ramping) and they run 9-11 counters main.
Most UW tron decks nowadays are running 2-3 wraths, 1 timely, 1 oring, 1 wurmcoil, 1 batterskull, 1 revelation. I could see cutting oring and going down to 1 wrath and cutting either batterskull or wurmcoil to add more remands/condescends. I am going to test it.
Below is a sample decklist.
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
4 Celestial Colonnade
3 Seachrome Coast
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Wurmcoil Engine
Artifacts: 7
3 Expedition Map
4 Azorius Signet
Instants: 20
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Path to Exile
4 Remand
3 Condescend
1 Sphinx's Revelation
1 Wrath of God
1 Day of Judgment
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Unburial Rites
If you want to go less extreme on the "high # of counters list" you could play 2 condescends and add back a batterskull or remove sphinx's rev instead of batterskull. In my "threat" slots I have Emrakul, Elesh norn, Iona (which I think are staples), then at the moment I have wurmcoil and sphinx's rev, it could easily be wurmcoil + batterskull or sundering titan
It surprises me that as a late game control tron deck in modern, our deck has half the amount of counters as every other blue control/combo based deck in the format and it makes some matchups very bad because we do not have enough permission/interaction such as scapeshift.
If you want to keep all those cards, what do you propose we cut?
Having answers to something after it has resolved (repeal/oring/wrath) is better in some situations then counters, but also worse in others, against twin and scapeshift specifically, its very much worse, deceiver has already tapped down one of our limited color sources, making it very hard to defend the combo, against scapeshift its even worse. And you mentioned it feels very hard to resolve the gifts combo in some matchups such as vs twin/scapeshift because the opponents have 8-10+ counters, we have 4 and they are mostly remands, which means if I remand my opponents remand, he can just recast it, especially scapeshift with lots of mana.
I personally wouldn't play negate and mana leak in the main even if it does work well with the whole gifts thing. These counters are just too weak/situational I feel. Condescend and remand lets us advance our own game plan with drawing a card and scrying. I could see maybe playing 1 spell burst, although unlikely in my opinion. I also don't see anything wrong with only having 1 wrath in the main, its good in some matchups (Jund/Junk/POD/Affinity) but mostly dead in a lot of (Scapeshift, Twin, UWR control, Tron matchups/Burn) others. Just to name some more common matchups. I think I'd be fine with 1 wrath main, and then playing 1-2 wrath effects in the sideboard, counters are better vs a larger portion of the field then wrath is in game 1. The 1 timely is not the worst in the main, its not bad in a lot of matchups that wrath is good in and there are lots of burn/delvers nowadays, and timely is great vs both those decks.
I'm also not sure about snapcaster ATM, as you said he makes spells cost an extra blue and more mana, which is relevant when you are trying to condescend things. I'm not saying hes bad, just not sure about him right now, I tested him in the past and ultimately decided to take him out, although there are situations where hes great if you like snapcaster block path another threat etc.
The difference is, remand and condescend work well with our tron engine because they allow us to dig deeper into our deck and filter away cards we don't want. They are definitely the best counters for this deck.
Re: Playing Gifts/Remand turn 3. It's situational, as always. If it's just that you're using Remand for value, play gifts. If it's significantly more advantageous for you, then play it. That's the skill of the card. I just played a game vs Pod where I was on the play, T2, they play BoP before they make their land drop. Do you Remand there? If they don't have a land drop, it essentially buys you 2 turns. If they do, you draw a card, and that's only if they have an untapped green land in hand. But why would they keep a 1 lander without ramp? If you're not reading into it and merely using it for value, then Remand will seem significantly less valued.
That said. I've missed Emrakul. I've been playing without Emrakul for the better part of 2 weeks, and I want Emrakul in my sideboard, without Eye of Ugin. Now, you're saying: BUT WHY?
Two words: Dig Through Time (for answers). When you're in a position to use Emrakul, you'll be in a position to Dig for Emrakul (or in reality a 'third' answer after Mindslaver, Fatty X, and Emrakul). It's worked actually relatively well, with sub 30 cards in your deck, you have a 1/4 chance of finding Emrakul, and Gifting for Emrakul is still a thing when you need to rebuy spells/enchantments. It's another strong option without committing another land to the mix.
1) Glen Elendra Archmage - Does anyone have experience playing with this card? I've seen it in the board of some of LSV's lists. 2 counter spells and a blocker seems good in theory!
2) I have been play testing with Prognostic Sphinx in the main and it has been pretty sweet as a one of. I've even been able to discard Unburial rites a few times to ensure our combo happens. I was wondering if anyone has also played with it, or can tell me why it is incorrect to play with.
Appreciate it guys!
The problem with changing the counter package is as follows:
1. Remand is the best counter, it draws and delays, which is exactly what we need. I still like 4, but I don't think 2 is the correct number by any means.
2. Spell Burst is rather slow sometimes.
3. Spell Burst, Mana Leak, and Negate are all situational counters. Sometimes they're wonderful, and other times they don't really do all that much. Buyer beware I suppose.
I do like having 4 counters for Gifts, but usually out of the sideboard. I don't think Negate is a MB playable card because of how often it's dead. It's one of those things where you should actually win more game 1s because of how strong your Gifts combo or Emrakul/Mindslaver is. Generally speaking, the decks that can counter aren't going to be the decks that beat Emrakul, since we beat most control decks. I think only Delver and those sort of tempo blue decks are the problems. Twin might be in the same camp, but it's like a 50/50 so it's not that bad.
The difference is, remand and condescend work well with our tron engine because they allow us to dig deeper into our deck and filter away cards we don't want. They are definitely the best counters for this deck. [/quote]Remand and Condescend are much less situational. Remand is almost always okay, since you generally don't have cards that need to be dealt with permanently. Condescend is also fine simply because it scales better than most cards.
I disagree with shifting weight into Gifts. Gifts is already a ton of value, and I would prefer to stall out the game. I suppose that in this meta, we might not have time for either, so I'll assume TC gets banned and we're back to a more normal meta. So in those cases, you really do want to just stall out because you have tons of time to find cards. If you're playing for Gifts to be good, you're probably making the individual cards worse. Why do you want to increase Gifts value? You already get so much value just casting it once anyways, and half the time it just finds the combo.
I'm not overly a fan of a single Wrath either, I like having the third option. I used to run Cyclonic Rift as that option because it had earlier implications and also dealt with non-land stuff (like Planeswalkers). It worked fairly well for me. Snapcaster doesn't seem any better than the Verdict, and Verdict didn't really do well for me in testing.
I also disagree that counters are super powerful. Sometimes, yes, but not all the time. Sometimes having more versatile cards is better. Oblivion Ring and Repeal are fine cards because you're almost always going to need to deal with some permanent, even in those combo decks like Storm and Ascendancy.
Digging works better with our deck than most because we're half a combo deck. That is, we value it higher than others because it does more for us. Trying to find Tron lands or Gifts for combo is better than, say Delver, that might filter into a Bolt. I agree with you that Remand is an insane card, but it is still good here. Considering you're trying to just buy time until you have enough mana that you can answer stuff, or can Gifts combo, it's really insane in this deck. It does exactly what you want it to do.
Sure, Remand is awkward on 3 mana sometimes, but so is Mana Leak or Negate, if you're going to put it like that. It's not as if your other counters make the inefficiency any better.
Tron is a bad matchup either way, and unless you're going to put a lot into winning that matchup I wouldn't expect to win. Against Twin, Remand is perfectly fine, in my opinion. They're going to have counters too you know. And against Scapeshift it's the same problem, they'll have counters as well. Remand being cheaper than theirs is very helpful. I wouldn't expect them to go off without counters, and since Scapeshift and Cryptic cost 4, you should be okay.
I haven't had experience with Glen Elendra, but it doesn't seem awful. A blocker with counters isn't so bad, and I think it has some merit. I guess before when DRS was a card it's not as good, but it might be okay now. I'm just debating whether a more expensive, more general card is better. I generally want my counters to be cheap is all, and Glen Elendra sort of has a big ticket before she does anything. I suppose it's worth testing at the least.
I don't see Prognostic Sphinx as something I want to play. It's one of those slow grind cards that I want to win the game over several turns. Sure, Scry 3 is nice, but I really don't want to keep discarding cards, we don't have that kind of luxury in this deck. It's a 5 mana card in Modern that doesn't do much when you play it. The way I see it, you never want to reanimate it and you never cast it until you have Tron because of how little it impacts. If I'm only going to cast it with Tron and three blue sources, I'm looking at much better options. Basically, I don't think I'm going to want to tap out to it since I might lose as a result. Chances are you don't get to 7 and no Tron often, so expect to be at 10 mana at the earliest (because I still need to leave up some mana). Depending on what I have, it might be later (because Signet gives one of each where we need double blue here). At 10 mana, I can play a giant Sphinx's Revelation or chain Gifts together. Like at 10 mana, I don't want to play this and slowly gain value, I want to look towards closing out the game. Sure, you get some small value being able to pitch Unburial Rites, but I don't see myself wanting a 5th Thirst, which is what this card would proxy as.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
We don't want to play 8 counters, and I don't think anyone should really want to. We want to have a more versatile package to answer things rather than only counters. If you look at Mono U Tron, which is a version of our deck that basically took out Paths and Wraths in order to play more counters, they have a problem answering things in play. Once something resolves, it's actually very difficult for them to answer. Repeal and the likes are fine, but they're not as good as you think.
Negate is a very good card, I won't deny that. I've had as many as 3 in my sideboard before. The only problem I have is that against some decks, it will underperform. Against Pod, it only counters Pod and Chord. Against Affinity, it counters Plating, Ensoul, and the draw spell. Against Zoo, you'd much rather answer the creature, and their only spells are reactionary spells; Negating a Bolt is not how you'll win the game.
Against most control decks, you don't really need to go for counters because you can simply answer them in the late game. Decks like UWR Control are very slow, so you get to Emrakul before they get to win, assuming you do answer some stuff along the way as you should. So in those decks, the combo is actually bad. The decks where the combo is good sometimes is like UWR Delver or UWR Midrange (ala Geist) because you lose a lot faster. In my testing, UWR Control (without so many creatures) was an easy win, as were similar control decks like Teachings and Grixis Control. UWR Flash was close to even, but UWR Midrange and UWR Delver were slightly in their favour. This is from what I recall, it's been a while since I've tested any of these matchups (or even played Magic, I've been so busy).
Yea, i meant "Yes counters are more versatile but they are also a lot less powerful". With this deck i don't want to counter everything i just want to overpower my opponent. Oblivion ring is fine but the fact they can answer it is sometimes annoying.[/Quote]
Sure, Oblivion Ring can be answered, but how often? It's bad against Karn, and it's bad against Abrupt Decay. Outside of that, people don't generally have answers. Perhaps in the sideboard from cards like Wear//Tear or Disenchant, but how often do you see those? I'm not going to deny that Oblivion Ring being answered can certainly be a problem, but it's also a very good answer sometimes. How often are you going to have that answer for Liliana? Oblivion Ring was very good against her way back when. Part of the value in these cards is that you can Gifts for them after the fact. Like if you're on the play and pass the turn with 4 mana and your opponent plays Liliana, what do you do? If you have Gifts and no counter, you can maybe find Oblivion Ring, but you can't find a counter to answer her. Because you're playing Gifts, having 1-of silver bullets becomes very powerful. It's why some people have gone as far as to put triple Oblivion Ring effects in their deck (though I don't like it).
Ok i will try to explain again. Remand is akward on 3 mana when you have thirst or on 4 mana when you have gifts because :
- you Remand your opponent play instead of playing thirst/gifts. Next turn your opponent will replay his spell and then you cast your thirst/gifts. There is no real reason to do so and you should just cast your thirst/gifts in the first place. Remand gives you no option here.
- with a hard counter you have the option to answer your opponent play and delay your gifts/thirst for a turn or let it resolve and answer with thirst/gifts. You have the option to answer your opponent play or advance your own gameplan. [/quote]
Exactly how much better is a hard counter though? Won't your opponent just have another play next turn? I'm not expecting my opponent to raise his hands like "oh, you had a Mana Leak, you got me" and just concede. When I counter their card, they're going to follow up with something else on the following turn. So let's look at the trade off.
I'm trading drawing a card for my opponent having an extra card. In our deck, most of the time, us seeing more cards is better than them having more cards. They're not drawing more cards, just having access to the same card again. In some cases when the card we countered was really good against us (like Geist), I'd agree that the Remand is worse, because Mana Leaking a Geist is really good. But in some scenarios, Remand is better because that extra card might be very good for us. When you consider that the card could be something like Tron land, that's insane for us. In general, we value card draw more than our opponents, and because we just need to stall, Remand ends up better than Mana Leak.
The awkwardness still exists in the exact same way. They're still doing something next turn and I still had that choice of counter or draw cards. It's not changing my plans really, the tradeoff is still going to be there. It really boils down to how good their card is. You'll probably just have to ask yourself "if this resolves, will I lose?".
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
I can see Wall of Omens working, it's done wonders for me in UWR Control and UWR Twin. It really depends on your meta because sometimes Remands are much better. Against decks like Zoo, your Wall is going to win you games, but against decks like UWR Control, Remand will do a lot better for you.
I don't like adding a second Cyclonic Rift. It's nice to fetch from Gifts but that's about it. I never advocate for second copies of cards unless the card is absolutely insane. Rift, from my testing, was not that kind of card. Yes, it did some work, but not enough to justify a second copy. There's a reason I played it for a long time. It does depend slightly on the meta though, because Spellskite can sometimes be played a lot, and Spellskite is good against it. The same applies for Spell Snare since Spell Snare can still counter the Overload.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
My belief with Utron has always been to try and lean on tron as little as possible. What I mean by this is I want to play a deck that will do reasonably fine without tron, and then when I get tron online to gain a lot more power. What this amounts to in general are pretty conservative lists which don't focus as heavily on the high CC bombs that most lists like to play. Instead I focus on Oblivion Stones and Batterskulls, both of while are very playable without tron, but then become amazing with tron. (Oblivion stone, to me, is one of the main reasons to play tron because with an active tron it often just resets the game for you.)
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Tower
4 Expedition Map
4 Celestial Colonnade
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Flooded Strand
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Academy Ruins
2 Seachrome Coast
1 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Batterskull
//Control
4 Path to Exile
2 Sunlance
3 Remand
4 Condescend
4 Oblivion Stone
2 Dig Through Time
4 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Spell Burst
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Negate
2 Disdainful Stroke
1 Sunlance
1 Perilous Vault
2 Flashfreeze
1 Pithing Needle
2 Spellskite
Some notes here. I think sunlances might be a bit too deep in the main, but I very much like my 1 mana removal. I think it gives me the early removal consistency that I want.
Condescend, at least in UW tron, is not a popular card. Given how important tron often is and the importance of finding the right cards at the right time, I would not want to run less than 4 (as most people with straight Utron do). Having "hard counters" for the late game is highly important too.
No mana rocks. I've never liked the mana artifacts for a couple reasons. First, its usually not great for turn 2 when you're trying to keep countermagic up. Second, it really exposes you to artifact removal (especially stony silence is a pain), which can be a real problem. Especially if you have to count on that artifact for your colored sources. Lastly, and most importantly, is that it plays horribly with oblivion stone, which is just way more useful to have in my opinion. I'm not playing gifts, so ramping into it is far less relevant as well.
No gifts. I just don't think it's necessary and I think it makes the deck less consistent and clunkier. It's splashy for sure, but not really what I need in my opinion. I'd rather just play oblivion stones to hit more creatures. It also is much worse when you cut azorious signet. I haven't really longed for this card in any of my Utron playing, and now having white to actually play it I don't think I need it.
3 Batterskull/1 Wurmcoil win-conditions. When taking an approach as I try (less reliance on tron), wanting to reduce the cc of your win-cons is very important. But, it's also important to play things that are strong when you do have tron. This is why I really like batterskull. It impacts the board very quickly when it hits play, and is very reasonable without tron. It's very reasonable to just play some control spells in the early turns, land a Batterskull on 5 mana and be in a good position. Especially since I'm not running any tutors I find running all the higher cc is just not worth it.
In particular I'm not running minslaver. It's certainly won a few games for me, but honestly I rarely win with the card. I think the cost is just too high and generally when I'm at the point to setup slaverlock I could win with basically anything. Especially now that colonnades give you a lot of late game threat density (thanks maps!) I think it's simply unneeded. There are too many matchups where it's a liability and mostly just gets pitched to thirst for knowledge for me nowadays.
3 Spell Burst. Not sold on it yet, but it does a few things I really like. First is that it's a hard counter, this is important to me for many reasons (useful versus combo, gives you the counter density to make burn very easy, etc.). Second is that, just like batterskull, it's a very reasonable card without tron, but becomes amazing with tron. I had repeal in this slot in my Utron lists, but given how I added more creature hate I wanted some more flexible cards in my deck. Definitely the numbers I'm least sold on. I do like that it can protect skull/wurmcoil from 1-2cc answers pretty easily.
Dig Through Time: I don't know how I feel about this card. It's awful early, but setting up tron can be really important. I think 1 of might better than 2.
Currently my sideboard is just a sample board--adding white changes up my list quite a lot, so I'm not really sure what strengths and weaknesses I need to cover anymore.
One of the great things about UW Tron is that with Gifts Combo, you can win without ever assembling Tron. That's generally different from Mono U Tron because you almost always need it. Unless you win off a single hardcast Sundering Titan or Platinum Angel or something like that, you need Tron for Mindslaver. Both decks will function similarly with and without Tron in other respects though; we're both control decks that get much stronger when Tron is an option.
I think 3 Batterskull is too many. It's not THAT good of a card and 3-ofs are always awkward with Gifts. I would much sooner play something like Sundering Titan over one of them. If you are this concerned about aggro, run Timely in the main. A 3-drop aggro answer vs a 5-drop aggro answer is huge, and Batterskull can be on the slow side sometimes because it requires a lot of mana to keep it active.
Sunlance seems way too deep in my opinion, as you pointed out. Timely is generally going to do more in this slot for you I'd think.
I think Condescend as a 4-of is really greedy. It's a mana-intensive card and will eat half a turn up to cast it, sometimes a whole turn. You would much rather play only a couple. I think you're probably left in a Mono U Tron mindset where you have to find cards and hold them, but with UW Tron you can Gifts and go find them. The same applies for Spell Burst. Playing 7 expensive counters is a lot, and to do so you took out a lot of the core, like Azorius Signet, which is surprisingly important. I suppose you did take out Gifts completely, which I dislike, but it does make the other choices more reasonable. Still, the other cards are really slow, and you can only counter one or two cards per turn at most in the mid game, which will be a problem.
You also took out the Gifts Combo, so now your deck is relying fairly heavily on just Batterskull basically. We're not meant to be a slow control deck, we want to be a faster one. The whole point of playing Tron is that you gain access to win conditions that are near impossible to stop because of their high mana cost. Why bother having mana consistency issues with a deck playing half colourless lands? You can just play UWR Control and put in Batterskulls.
Oblivion Ring is an interesting card. It does work much better in your list, but it's also an expensive Wrath. If you think about it, it costs 8 in total. So essentially, you're trading the option to kill faster for the option to kill more. What cards or decks make you want to have that option? I can't really think it's good against Delver or the likes.
I certainly feel like you're going to stumble a bit on coloured sources.
It's an interesting choice, and I've always felt like Mono U Tron really ought to splash white for Path. I see merit to it but I'm not sold on it. I think Gifts Combo is just a really cool way to win and steal games, especially in this stupid Delver/Burn meta. You can easily steal games with Iona/Elesh Norn as it stands, and your game has to grind out a lot, which I think might be troubling sometimes.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer