MTG Salvation

Hey, so there are Dominaria spoilers that have been confirmed by Wizards. Of note, I saw the two cards listed below:



Lyra Dawnbringer
3WW
Legendary Creature — Angel
5/5
Flying, first strike, lifelink
Other Angels you control get +1/+1 and have lifelink.

Baneslayer is better.

Damping Sphere
2
Artifact
If a land is tapped for two or more mana, it produces C instead of any other type and amount.
Each spell a player casts costs 1 more to cast for each other spell that player has cast this turn.

Possible SB hoser for Tron and Storm decks?

I was going ot post about some of the spoilers but was afraid it was not allowed. I thought the same thing about damping sphere.

Also,
Wizard's Retort
1UU
Instant
This spell costs 1 less to cast if you control a Wizard.

Counter target spell.

wonder if snaps makes this a viable option to split with logic knot (obv, knot is better turn 2, but this is a better flashback when the opponent is flooded and can just pay for knot, or when knot would otherwise force us to keep spells we want to save for future snaps, like cryptic). Also, all the control faeries (mistbind, spellstutter, clique) are wizards... perhaps a Ux flash aggro-control deck might be viable? Anyway, that'd be too far form our archetype so probably not the place to discuss.

I didn’t list that one because I don’t think Snap is enough. I agree that if we make the deck more creature-centric with fairies, it becomes very intriguing, but we’ll have to revamp the deck to being less spell-centric.

Snap is not enough. It's easy to think with a best case scenario mindset where you have a Snapcaster from flashing back a removal spell on a past turn and then you Counterspell a future play. It's never going to work like that, first and foremost because your opponents will know you're playing that card. If you've randomly a snapcaster on board, they're not just going to play into your counterspell; instead they'll use any of the to that point dead removal spells to kill it. And then you're stuck with another 3-mana counter, at which point you're better off running something like Disallow.





Damping Sphere, on the other hand, I'm really looking forward to. I think it's going to have a pretty big impact on Modern for the following reasons:


1) Nearly every deck can play it, which means you're less likely to play against Tron on average. It's not the same playing a couple of rounds against Ponza versus playing every single round against Damping Sphere decks.


2) Turn 2 is not the same as turn 3 against Tron. If you manage to curve into it regardless of play/draw and they don't have a Nature's Claim, you're winning a lot of time to build up to your hard counters or Field of Ruins.

3) It fits nicely with your strategy in the sense that it taxes opponents trying to beat Cryptic by playing multiple spells in the same turn. It does cost you if your deck relies on being mana-efficient with its removal like Grixis, but its fantastic in Supreme Verdict, low Snapcasster-count shells.

4) It's flexible enough that you'll also want it against Storm and even Xerox decks like Death's Shadow.

I'm not a fan of damping sphere. It's not an upgrade on anything we already had, and it doesn't solve our main problem with tron decks unless you cast it on turn two; i'm not interested in having three copies of it, I'd just play negate/remand/logic knot/mana leak to tag turn 3 karn instead. Especially with field of ruin now.

I played a competitive league and went 4-1 with this list, then played it in a paper four rounder this afternoon and went 4-0.



I beat BB Jund, BB jund, affinity, and some UWR pile with jace and spell queller, and lost to ponza in the league on modo.

In the paper event I beat revolt zoo, 4c jeskai ascendancy, mardu pyromancer with blood moons, and dredge.

I'm pretty happy with where the list is right now, but I haven't played against eldrazi tron or Gx tron of any form so I don't know for sure if it feels like a reasonable matchup or not. Jace was very good at keeping the board stabilized once we get a chance to do so--I didn't experience any of the awkward stabilize-->draw lands/bricks-->lose control and die experiences that were so frustrating prior to jace. Sometimes, he was just a 4 mana brainstorm, but other times he was quite strong. I brainstormed for 7 or 8 turns while at 4 life against zoo and it was enough to turn the tide and eventually stabilize.

Low on manlands, 2 discard spells, dimir charm, no push in the 75, 1 mainboard timely, mainboard leyline, and zenith is all an interesting combination.
I simply can't get behind dimir charm, and I think the mainboard timely is kind of out of place (did you change your mind about souls?)
No cantrips and no think twice also seems a bit brave.
Does only playing 2 discard spells feel awkward? Legacy decks playing brainstorm seem like they're better able to get away with it.

The planeswalker damage redirection change seems like a pretty significant change for this list though. I find it hard to imagine leyline remains mainboard worthy after that, possibly not worth playing at all.
Do you expect to cut them post-dom? What are you eying to replace them with?

I don’t know... Looking at Goldfish, discard spells are in at least 25% of decks right now, with Bolt at about 40% prevalanec. Shutting off four of the top 10 cards is good enough for me to want a couple MD Leylines, especially with how brutal discard can be against our game plan.

There's a very good set of reasons for all of the items you mentioned.

Let me go through the weird stuff one at a time:

2 MB leylines: these have nothing to do with JTMS. Those of you who've been here at all the last couple of years know I play them. It's been a ton of testing, experience, and play with that configuration to get to where I'm at. I attribute my long term win percentage with the deck very heavily to the mainboard esper charms and leylines vs the tech/benefits of most other control builds in modern.

2 thoughtseize: I spent a few weeks on 6 or 7 discard spells in a variety of configurations. I then cut to four, then three, then two. Two is where I decided I wanted to be overall, and it was a choice between collective brutality, thoughtseize, and duress. I eventually determined I wanted thoughtseize to hit cryptic and thought knot seer/tron threats. I started them main because I had good experiences with them + jace bounce against fair decks and I wanted a couple of ways mainboard to get a look at my opponent's hand. They've never been dead; i've not even shuffled them away when I had the option to.

I'm playing a wrath because the MODO account I borrowed only had three verdicts and I wanted to keep it consistent over the last few days. It should be four verdict, we can beat thrun with blessed alliance.

Only two manlands: I won't leave home in UBx in modern without at least one tarpit. It's the jace slayer, and it was pivotal in one match vs UWR. I played the colonnade because the first one is both quite powerful AND a great bait for opposing field of ruin, to maybe leave me with an azcanta for a bit longer against jund. I can't play 7 basics and 3 field of ruin and more creature lands, so I opted to keep the mana disruption and the basics. Having lots of painless lands to fetch is great.

Timely reinforcements mainboard: flex slot plain and simple. I have a lot of revolt zoo and goblins/burn players in my local meta, and it isn't too shabby as a time walk against mardu pyromancer and BR hollow one either.

Zenith: still the best late game win condition. Plain and simple. Everyone is ready for jace and jtms takes a number of turns to put the game out of reach. Wsz is an immediate 6 or 7 for one that nullifies whatever board position your opponent had immediately.

No cantrips/TT: i've been shaving the pure card draw down ever since we got search for azcanta. By packing more actual spells in the deck instead of air, we alleviate the problem of drawing into air a bit AND we reduce our need to hit a million land drops. It plays a lot more like miracles in legacy, where you hit 3 or 4 lands most of the time and kind of stabilize there and only make intermittent land drops for a bit. This hasn't bit me in a control mirror yet, probably because esper has more tools for the control mirror than anyone else to start with.

Dimir charm: is kind of like blessed alliance in that it's modal, castable against everyone (never completely dead) and the portent mode is game over against any nonblue deck with jace out because it virtually guarantees 3-4 turns of a fateseal lock. Instead of being scaleable in power level like alliance, it's just the right cmc to be an early game interactive spell that doesn't fall off lategame.

Guys, I'm be buying the deck probably. I'm facing a lot of Storm, Affinity, Burn and Ad Nauseam. What would you suggest as the best 75 all around for these decks? I'm debating the manlands and I'm thinking about Shambling Vent to hose down Burn. I'm also thinking about having more threats and maybe Lingering Souls to fight Burn and Affinity board presence. I even thought about Ancestral Vision (I guess it's not approved by many ones) just to replace Think Twice. The control package would be classic and the lands also. Maybe something like this :



So I would have some flex spots, like 4-5. What would you suggest?

Thanks !

Well affinity is generally pretty good as long as you don't go overboard vs ad nauseum.
Against burn + combo decks, playing a bunch of leylines seems obvious, as does spell snare.
The best will will depend on exactly how hard you want to metagame.


My first take would be something like that.
Its possible its too metagamed, depends on how much other things you expect.

I really like no Serum Visions or Think Twice in amaleks list, the way the format is right now you need to have the right answers in the right turns (which is why I also love the 2 copies of thoughtseize), and drawing cantrips instead costs you a lot of games. Not playing the colonnade playset feels weird though.

Thanks for the input! I'm not sure about the Leyline mainboard, that feels clunky, but maybe Thouthseize main could be a good thing. Also, I don't own Jace unfortunately, so I'll be Jace-less for the time being I really like the list, it seems smooth. I'd like to squeeze in Negate thought to combat Ad Nauseam, Burn and Affinity. I'm thinking that Spreading Seas could be huge against Burn and even Storm to cut them from Steam Vents. Same thing with Ad Nauseam sometimes if there's no mana rock.

The thing with cantrips is you need the answers fast.
If you have them, then you aren't casting the cantrips.
If you don't have them, you need the cantrips to find them (but you're probably losing anyways because the cantrips slow you down and you don't have to proper answers anyways).

For leyline, amalek has played it in the past, I've played it, other people have played it.
its a bit clunky with jace now, but if you're trying to metagame vs burn/storm/ad naus, its really strong.
I may change my opinion post-dom (as I alluded to in a previous comment).

being jace-less is a bit unfortunate. I would just play a classic draw-go list with leylines (like one of amaleks old lists) then.

Quote from Cody_X »

The thing with cantrips is you need the answers fast.
If you have them, then you aren't casting the cantrips.
If you don't have them, you need the cantrips to find them (but you're probably losing anyways because the cantrips slow you down and you don't have to proper answers anyways).

For leyline, amalek has played it in the past, I've played it, other people have played it.
its a bit clunky with jace now, but if you're trying to metagame vs burn/storm/ad naus, its really strong.
I may change my opinion post-dom (as I alluded to in a previous comment).

being jace-less is a bit unfortunate. I would just play a classic draw-go list with leylines (like one of amaleks old lists) then.

Amalek lists seem strong, it's what got me into reading about esper control. Your lists are solid too from what I've read in last pages. I'm thinking about having spreading seas maybe in the mainboard to hose down burn, cut Strom from their steam vents and dual color lands and even ad naus when there's no mana rock on the field. Thoughts about it?

My lists are more quantity over quality, but thanks.

I personally don't like spreading seas vs burn. If sinkhole were legal, you'd never board it in vs them.
I get that it cantrips, but 90% of the time, you don't want to be spending 2 mana that way vs burn.
It only punishes their really borderline hands, but since we have no pressure they'll be able to draw out of it. Even if you play jace, you don't want to be putting burn spells on top and lands on bottom.
With storm, if they have a single red source, they'll be able to cast rituals off of it, and they may be able to sandbag one until they go off.
Simply put, spreading seas is a lot better when you have pressure. It hits tron lands and valakuts with or without pressure, but color screw is temporary.

Quote from Cody_X »

My lists are more quantity over quality, but thanks.

I personally don't like spreading seas vs burn. If sinkhole were legal, you'd never board it in vs them.
I get that it cantrips, but 90% of the time, you don't want to be spending 2 mana that way vs burn.
It only punishes their really borderline hands, but since we have no pressure they'll be able to draw out of it. Even if you play jace, you don't want to be putting burn spells on top and lands on bottom.
With storm, if they have a single red source, they'll be able to cast rituals off of it, and they may be able to sandbag one until they go off.
Simply put, spreading seas is a lot better when you have pressure. It hits tron lands and valakuts with or without pressure, but color screw is temporary.

I understand what you mean, it seems very valid. I was thinking that it might be more effective than that, but it might be a cards that feels ''win more'' when you're a head. I'm really willing to metagame the deck because Affinity, Storm, U-Tron, Burn and Ad Nauseam will be what I'll face the most. That leaves me wondering if I should add more threats to the deck because it feels light on win condition. I'll be running 4 manlands (probably 2 Colonnade and 2 Tar Pit) and 2-3 Snapcaster Mage with 2 Secure the Wastes. I was thinking about some other threats mainboard maybe to apply pressure : 2 Vendilion Clique or Baneslayer Angel maybe. Even Fatcaster mage could work out. I'm just not sure how to balance the list between threats and answers (I might have too many answers right now, if that's possible in esper )

I think BSA and clique in the board are good.
The thing with wincons (especially ones like gideons, fatcaster, clique, BSA, etc, that die to single target removal) is that you either want just enough to actually win with (which is not very many when you're playing discard), or kind of a lot.
If you have just enough, you can devote a lot of deck space to interaction (which is where we want to be).
If you have a bunch, then you can just eat a decent amount of removal and still be pressuring. You're much more in on pressuring the opponents this way, which is fine, but it takes the place of interaction, so you need enough wincons to actually get there. Dealing 15 points of damage and losing is equivalent to dealing 1 point and losing.
In modern, you generally have to expect the first wincon you play to die. I nearly never win with a single colonnade, unless I burn counterspells keeping it alive.
For this reason, I think the jeskai quellers with mainboard cliques were best. Clique could come down, disrupt, and get murdered just fine. Then your second creature (a queller) comes down, and they have much less removal. You may have to defend it a bit, but you've got some counterspells, and now you've got pressure so its ok. Coupled with the fact that you have a ton of burn, you don't need to spend too many turns poking them down.

The problem comes when you try to play a middle ground. You have a decent amount of interaction, but not a ton. You have a decent amount of threats, but not a lot. Thus your first creature either dies a horrible death, or you spend limited resources defending it. if it still dies, its not easily replaceable because you don't have all that many creatures.
Decks like mardu pyromancer, faeries, or a lot of the esper midrange decks, have this problem.
The reason these decks are ok is because of cards like lingering souls or bitterblossom, which are absolute hell vs single target removal.
However, they do move much further down the midrange scale than control, for this reason.

Out of the sideboard is different though, because people will generally play much less removal.

Quote from deltaaccel »

I really like no Serum Visions or Think Twice in amaleks list, the way the format is right now you need to have the right answers in the right turns (which is why I also love the 2 copies of thoughtseize), and drawing cantrips instead costs you a lot of games.

Nah, man don't say that. He might be back on 4 cantrips in the next iteration. Experimentation is "good for the soul" but it would take a lot of evidence to maintain a deckbuilding choice that extreme.

Remember that the limiter to Control isn't the ability to not die by turn 4, it's balancing not dying by turn 4 while burying your opponent in card draw or lock pieces long-term. 39 doom Blades, 1 Batterskull, 20 Lands would lose to 40 Grizzly Bears, 20 Lands more often than not. Trading 1-for-1 with creatures isn't what wins games.

You definitely can agree that you like it. He's playing it partly because he likes it too.
That being said, it is certainly true that its not popular.
Of course, this thread was pretty much built on the "you don't have to play 1 mana cantrips to be successful" and with search and jace being new card advantage engines, and think twice always being the weak link, playing neither is appealing.

I'm on no cantrips and have been on no cantrips for a long time (jamming a midrange deck for a few weeks doesn't count--I was on zero counterspells in the 75).

Prior to the unbanning, I was on 2 search for azcanta 25 land 3 think twice.

At this point, I've cut the think twice entirely alongside most of the colonnades and one of the sphinx's revs.

Most of the reason we played all the raw card draw was to fuel land drops so we could get into the colonnade + interaction level of land drops.

With search for azcanta providing early filtering, late game card advantage, and a land based way to "apply pressure" that doesn't require us to also hold up interaction, we don't need to hit 12 land drops every game anymore. Consequently, I don't want to see my x-spells as frequently. The biggest change I want to make at the moment is to squeeze the fourth cryptic in, followed by testing a copy of supreme will. I think 25 lands is here to stay and I think search for azcanta has for the most part rendered TT obsolete.