Snapcaster mage isn't really a creature, it's more of a "value card" like esper charm or think twice.
Instead of replacing him with a creature, you would be better off replacing snapcaster with something that
a) does not cost much mana
b) is instant speed (preferably)
c) generates raw card advantage
Jace, architect of thought would be ok to try, as his -2 will generate advantage. You could also try anticipate. or depending on your metagame, you could play 2 extra removal spells condemn / engineered explosives , or if 2 additional counter spells of your choice.
If you ever have the opportunity to trade for 1-2 snapcasters, it would be a good idea though. But you won't be crippled without them. Welcome to the community!
@TribalElfMage I think that list looks spicy. I'm glad you've been having success with it! I like a more proactive approach to the control archetype and I also agree souls are awesome.
Heres a thought I keep on circling back to. If a more proactive control deck wants to occasionally tap low, or even god forbid, tap out, its going to give the opponent a chance to resolve a threat. A deck who's main protection is counterspells isn't going to be in a good spot if too many threats are landed. i think the deck could use some form of catchup other than just path. Then i started to think maybe we can improve another weakness in some lists which is the mana leak/path nonbo. why not try to get some decent small creature removal and counterspell into the deck with silumgars scorn and nameless inversion. with dragons and inversions, maybe even crib swap, it theoretically could keep scorn on as well as adding some decentish removal so supplement path. no idea if its consistant enough but control players have been pleading for counterspell for ever and with the right hoop jumping this is close. just have to see if the hoops are worth it. ( other things if inversion is never completely dead. worst case scenario we can turn a colonnade or ojutai into a 7/1 or 8/1 to speed up the clock by a turn.
so TribalElfMage have you played around with scorn at all? you'd definitely have to adjust a bit to support it, so maybe your current list is still better.
I actually was running Scorns and Inversions a little while ago (I think my list is a few pages back). I came to the conclusion that Scorn requires too many additional pieces to become an actual good card. Inversion is a decent Incinerate, but the fact that you usually needed to have it or Ojutai to turn on Scorn meant that you were a lot weaker to targeted discard. They'd take the dragon and just play around the Scorn, while you just sit with it in hand wishing Counterspell was legal.
There's always going with the Mutavault approach as well, but my thoughts on that are simple: if you have to pay an extra mana to animate the land to make Scorn a hard counter, you're basically just casting Cancel, and that seems bad.
I think I went something like 3-6 in matches with a Scorn list. I think it's possible that, with my current configuration, Scorn could be viable as a 1-of, but I wouldn't go far beyond that.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
EDH GWSelvala and the Return to HumanityGW UWDragonlord Ojutai, Control's Elder DragonUW UBGTasigur, the God-Pharaoh's Gift to EDHUBG UBRNicol Bolas and his SuperfriendsPawnsUBR
Modern UWUW Control/Midrange/Bad JundUW WUBRGHumansWUBRG BGMidrangeBG
hello im currently building esper control because its the type of magic i find fun. now to be competitive it costs money and i don't exactly have a "budget" but i can't buy snapcaster mages and in there place i wanted to run tasiger. as it's a grindy deck and tas might be the best grind creacher worth playing then in lists on mtggoldfish i saw exactly that and i was ecstatic but i want to know some pros and cons of running him
pros (to my knowledge) good body, blocks goyf,wild nacatl,w/g liege, smighter, etc... generates good card advantage, synergizes with logic knot, can win games, can come down early, i would like to know more +(the foil looks great)
cons (to my knowledge) cant protect himself, has no IMMEDIATE impact, opponents can give back less relevant cards (logic knot helps with this), self mill could be relevant maybe?, does not have flash, this is the place i want to hear more from as this is more important then the goods.
any help would be just amazing so thank you and i am looking forward to being a member to this esper community
Tasigur is better in decks that have more targets for your opponents removal. In this deck you are just giving their dead cards value by running him and you eould be better off running somes unless you are playing against a weenie thing more resilient. Snapcaster is more of a consistency tool than anything. The body hardly matters unless you are playing against a deck with small non evasive creatures or one without creatures at all. You can replace snap with another consistency tool for now such s
A
as anticipate.
@TribalElfMage I think that list looks spicy. I'm glad you've been having success with it! I like a more proactive approach to the control archetype and I also agree souls are awesome.
Heres a thought I keep on circling back to. If a more proactive control deck wants to occasionally tap low, or even god forbid, tap out, its going to give the opponent a chance to resolve a threat. A deck who's main protection is counterspells isn't going to be in a good spot if too many threats are landed. i think the deck could use some form of catchup other than just path. Then i started to think maybe we can improve another weakness in some lists which is the mana leak/path nonbo. why not try to get some decent small creature removal and counterspell into the deck with silumgars scorn and nameless inversion. with dragons and inversions, maybe even crib swap, it theoretically could keep scorn on as well as adding some decentish removal so supplement path. no idea if its consistant enough but control players have been pleading for counterspell for ever and with the right hoop jumping this is close. just have to see if the hoops are worth it. ( other things if inversion is never completely dead. worst case scenario we can turn a colonnade or ojutai into a 7/1 or 8/1 to speed up the clock by a turn.
so TribalElfMage have you played around with scorn at all? you'd definitely have to adjust a bit to support it, so maybe your current list is still better.
Nameless Inversion is just too bad of a magic card for modern to even justify it turning another card into counterspell. 2 mana removsl is borderline unplayable unless its abrupt decay. If you want to play more catchup from behind cards you are better off just playing condemn or Oust which allows you to perform more than 1 action much earlier in the game or lets you play a tapped land and still be able to do something. The true weakness of control is mana inefficiency and I doubt even the actual counterspell will push countrol to the top when turn 1 delvers and goblin guides on the play will still go under all your counters. Counterspell still vastly improves the deck in the mid/late game but those are parts of the game we already strive in.i
It is not worth it to jump those hoops and run bad cards just to turn a card into counterspell.
gosh that esper control decktech in scg open stream atm. Gosh thats really not control (and the decklist sounds so bad)
Scg decklists are not too well tuned. I personally would not take a tournament deck tech for control seriously unless its Wafo Tapa himself or maybe Cuneo and in higher caliber tournies such as gps and pts.
On another note that match between 4 color control and CC showcased why draw power and 2 for 1s are important. The 4 color conttol deck was pretty much top decking by turn 5 and drawing nothing but lands. You need draw to take advantage of your high land count snd transform that land advantage into spells. The match also has shown ehy boardwipes are good right now with burns numbers going down and all these midrange/tempo decks you cannot just 1 for 1 forever.
5-0 dudes. The struggle is real.
in addition to infect, affinity, and scapeshift earlier, I went 2-1 versus Grixis Delver and 1-0 Versus Jeskai Control. One more round and we'll do a top 8 cut.
Bitterblossom seemed like a good 2-of to fight random Blue Decks without having to make a huge mana investment. I also use it against Delver or Gb/x post board. It's not too bad, but not essential. I like to have 1-2 spicy unexpected things post board. Before bitterblossom I had success testing with Mastery of the unseen, but I went with blossom due to the non existent mana investment
Well the deck started as good stuff I had around in my box.
I needed draw so I added more "counters" with draw as I don't have stuff ATM.
Tbb I'm justjusttrying to stop a lo of eldrazi tron affinity and life/burn decks.
I like how Trix looks
If you go for a pure control deck then just give up on tron game one and make your life easier. Against burn the first step is stopping the early creatures before they get too much free damage. Path, condemn, and oust do this well. Next is making sure you counter Eidolon and Boros Charm the 4 Spell Snares go a long to help with this. You want instant speed life gain against burn and one shot lifegain is usually not good enough.
To deal with affinity just run board wipes 4 spell snares and instant speed removal.
As for tron the best cards are disruptive creatures such as v. clique, and Aven Mindcensor. Of course you just need a bunch of disruption to back up these creatures. I would highly suggest these creatures and less burn hate in the coming week. It is becoming clear that Amulet combo is the real deal and soon people will jump in on it thus pushing burn down some more.
Round 6 was against 4 Color control and I went 2-0. Bitterblossom was good.
Top 8 was Zoo (2-1) , Scapeshift (2-1), and Finally Affinity (3-0)
Not a lot to say, the deck works just the way you guys think it does.
If Amulet get's big again, I might run shadow of doubts again.
What do people think about cutting 1 snapcaster and adding 1 mystical teachings? They kind of do the same thing if you think about it. Use a card to go get another card. Except teachings is twice the amount of cards, and tutoring for Rev just seems bonkers
Round 6 was against 4 Color control and I went 2-0. Bitterblossom was good.
Top 8 was Zoo (2-1) , Scapeshift (2-1), and Finally Affinity (3-0)
Not a lot to say, the deck works just the way you guys think it does.
If Amulet get's big again, I might run shadow of doubts again.
What do people think about cutting 1 snapcaster and adding 1 mystical teachings? They kind of do the same thing if you think about it. Use a card to go get another card. Except teachings is twice the amount of cards, and tutoring for Rev just seems bonkers
Bitterblossom is excellent against other blue decks for sure. Teachings is beeter against the grindy matchups while snap is better against combo/aggro where it clocks or trade its body for a creature and get a spell back. Snapcaster is at its worse against midrange. If the format goes back to more midrange I say the one teachings is better since searching for rev or wsz just equals win because the matchups are grindy yet they have no way to interact with your draw 5.
With the SCG invitation results being how they are, I'm gonna go back to the wafo list with Shadow of Doubt, and have Lingering Souls in the board for affinity / delver / gbx.
It looks like GR Tron is back on the rise for real this time guys, which mean we may need to develop a real plan or risk becoming tier 3.5 .......
Well I predicted that people will catch on to Amulet combo being the best deck currently. Its resilient and can go under decks like burn unlike like twin which is still slightly unfavorable in that matchup. I think we should wait until next week to see what happens then but if this is the true direction the format will take in competive events Shadow of Doubt just became the best cantrip for the deck. Burn seems to be dead in competitive paper events due to amulet and delver or people just do not want to play it. With this knowledge I think the best way to move forward is a mainboard with shadow and an anti combo sideboard.
Will finish editing, I'm missing two slots mb and 3 sb slots but the deckbox is still in my car. Point is, our matchup against grixis delver is really, really solid, I won four rounds against it 2-1, 2-0, 2-1, 2-0.
Sideboard for each match was + wrath, 2 celestial purge, dispel, Baneslayer, Grave titan, Leyline, Curse, -4 cryptic, 2 logic knot, 2 remand. The idea is that against grixis delver, they're just a slightly faster midrange deck, so we up the speed by cutting cryptic (also playing around blood moon) and we cut the countermagic, turning into removal + CA against their more midrange-oriented gameplan, with just spell snares and dispels for actually fighting over stuff on the stack. Helps to match their efficiency. The games I lost they had turn one delver or turn two gurmag angler.
Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Instead of replacing him with a creature, you would be better off replacing snapcaster with something that
a) does not cost much mana
b) is instant speed (preferably)
c) generates raw card advantage
Jace, architect of thought would be ok to try, as his -2 will generate advantage. You could also try anticipate. or depending on your metagame, you could play 2 extra removal spells condemn / engineered explosives , or if 2 additional counter spells of your choice.
If you ever have the opportunity to trade for 1-2 snapcasters, it would be a good idea though. But you won't be crippled without them. Welcome to the community!
I actually was running Scorns and Inversions a little while ago (I think my list is a few pages back). I came to the conclusion that Scorn requires too many additional pieces to become an actual good card. Inversion is a decent Incinerate, but the fact that you usually needed to have it or Ojutai to turn on Scorn meant that you were a lot weaker to targeted discard. They'd take the dragon and just play around the Scorn, while you just sit with it in hand wishing Counterspell was legal.
There's always going with the Mutavault approach as well, but my thoughts on that are simple: if you have to pay an extra mana to animate the land to make Scorn a hard counter, you're basically just casting Cancel, and that seems bad.
I think I went something like 3-6 in matches with a Scorn list. I think it's possible that, with my current configuration, Scorn could be viable as a 1-of, but I wouldn't go far beyond that.
GWSelvala and the Return to HumanityGW
UWDragonlord Ojutai, Control's Elder DragonUW
UBGTasigur, the God-Pharaoh's Gift to EDHUBG
UBRNicol Bolas and his Super
friendsPawnsUBRModern
UWUW Control/Midrange/Bad JundUW
WUBRGHumansWUBRG
BGMidrangeBG
Tasigur is better in decks that have more targets for your opponents removal. In this deck you are just giving their dead cards value by running him and you eould be better off running somes unless you are playing against a weenie thing more resilient. Snapcaster is more of a consistency tool than anything. The body hardly matters unless you are playing against a deck with small non evasive creatures or one without creatures at all. You can replace snap with another consistency tool for now such s
A
as anticipate.
Nameless Inversion is just too bad of a magic card for modern to even justify it turning another card into counterspell. 2 mana removsl is borderline unplayable unless its abrupt decay. If you want to play more catchup from behind cards you are better off just playing condemn or Oust which allows you to perform more than 1 action much earlier in the game or lets you play a tapped land and still be able to do something. The true weakness of control is mana inefficiency and I doubt even the actual counterspell will push countrol to the top when turn 1 delvers and goblin guides on the play will still go under all your counters. Counterspell still vastly improves the deck in the mid/late game but those are parts of the game we already strive in.i
It is not worth it to jump those hoops and run bad cards just to turn a card into counterspell.
1x Bojuka Bog
3x Celestial Colonnade
1x Creeping Tar Pit
4x Flooded Strand
1x Godless Shrine
2x Hallowed Fountain
2x Island
1x Moorland Haunt
2x Plains
4x Polluted Delta
2x Swamp
2x Watery Grave
Instant
1x Dismember
4x Mana Leak
3x Path to Exile
3x Remand
3x Spell Pierce
1x Day of Judgment
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Lingering Souls
1x Supreme Verdict
Planeswalker
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2x Liliana of the Veil
Creature
1x Restoration Angel
2x Snapcaster Mage
2x Spellskite
Artifact-Equipment
1x Batterskull
1x Sword of War and Peace
3x Blade Splicer
2x Jace Beleren
1x Path to Exile
1x Ratchet Bomb
2x Squelch
wip, do i ask questions here?
Scg decklists are not too well tuned. I personally would not take a tournament deck tech for control seriously unless its Wafo Tapa himself or maybe Cuneo and in higher caliber tournies such as gps and pts.
On another note that match between 4 color control and CC showcased why draw power and 2 for 1s are important. The 4 color conttol deck was pretty much top decking by turn 5 and drawing nothing but lands. You need draw to take advantage of your high land count snd transform that land advantage into spells. The match also has shown ehy boardwipes are good right now with burns numbers going down and all these midrange/tempo decks you cannot just 1 for 1 forever.
Beat Jund, Affinity, Abzan Company, and UW Control, Drew with Twin 1-1-1
3x Polluted Delta
3x Island
2x Plains
3x Hallowed Fountain
2x Watery Grave
4x Celestial Colonnade
4x Drowned Catacomb
1x Vault of the Archangel
3x Supreme Verdict
4x Path to Exile
4x Think Twice
4x Esper Charm
2x Sphinx's Revelation
4x Spell Snare
2x Remand
2x Logic Knot
4x Cryptic Command
1x Snapcaster Mage
2x Bitterblossom
2x Thoughtseize
1x Duress
1x Dispel
1x Supreme Verdict
2x Curse of Death's Hold
2x Story Circle
1x Celestial Purge
1x Disenchant
1x Detention Sphere
1x Batterskull
Currently in round 3 of a 6 round win a box, and I'm 3-0 versus Infect, Affinity, and Scapeshift. Same decklist as last night.
Wish you luck in the rest of the event.
Looking forward to hearing a bit of report from you as well!
so my deck dont belong here then?
in addition to infect, affinity, and scapeshift earlier, I went 2-1 versus Grixis Delver and 1-0 Versus Jeskai Control. One more round and we'll do a top 8 cut.
Bitterblossom seemed like a good 2-of to fight random Blue Decks without having to make a huge mana investment. I also use it against Delver or Gb/x post board. It's not too bad, but not essential. I like to have 1-2 spicy unexpected things post board. Before bitterblossom I had success testing with Mastery of the unseen, but I went with blossom due to the non existent mana investment
I needed draw so I added more "counters" with draw as I don't have stuff ATM.
Tbb I'm justjusttrying to stop a lo of eldrazi tron affinity and life/burn decks.
I like how Trix looks
If you go for a pure control deck then just give up on tron game one and make your life easier. Against burn the first step is stopping the early creatures before they get too much free damage. Path, condemn, and oust do this well. Next is making sure you counter Eidolon and Boros Charm the 4 Spell Snares go a long to help with this. You want instant speed life gain against burn and one shot lifegain is usually not good enough.
To deal with affinity just run board wipes 4 spell snares and instant speed removal.
As for tron the best cards are disruptive creatures such as v. clique, and Aven Mindcensor. Of course you just need a bunch of disruption to back up these creatures. I would highly suggest these creatures and less burn hate in the coming week. It is becoming clear that Amulet combo is the real deal and soon people will jump in on it thus pushing burn down some more.
Anyways.
Round 6 was against 4 Color control and I went 2-0. Bitterblossom was good.
Top 8 was Zoo (2-1) , Scapeshift (2-1), and Finally Affinity (3-0)
Not a lot to say, the deck works just the way you guys think it does.
If Amulet get's big again, I might run shadow of doubts again.
What do people think about cutting 1 snapcaster and adding 1 mystical teachings? They kind of do the same thing if you think about it. Use a card to go get another card. Except teachings is twice the amount of cards, and tutoring for Rev just seems bonkers
Bitterblossom is excellent against other blue decks for sure. Teachings is beeter against the grindy matchups while snap is better against combo/aggro where it clocks or trade its body for a creature and get a spell back. Snapcaster is at its worse against midrange. If the format goes back to more midrange I say the one teachings is better since searching for rev or wsz just equals win because the matchups are grindy yet they have no way to interact with your draw 5.
It looks like GR Tron is back on the rise for real this time guys, which mean we may need to develop a real plan or risk becoming tier 3.5 .......
WUBR [url=http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/06-04-17-ad-nauseam/]Ad Nauseam WUBR
1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Watery Grave
1 Godless Shrine
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Mystic Gate
1 Fetid Heath
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Spell Snare
2 Logic Knot
4 Esper Charm
4 Think Twice
2 Remand
2 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Supreme Verdict
4 Path to Exile
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 White Sun's Zenith
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Grave Titan
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Dispel
2 Celestial Purge
3 Duress
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Wrath of God
1 Annul
1 Vendilion Clique
Will finish editing, I'm missing two slots mb and 3 sb slots but the deckbox is still in my car. Point is, our matchup against grixis delver is really, really solid, I won four rounds against it 2-1, 2-0, 2-1, 2-0.
Sideboard for each match was + wrath, 2 celestial purge, dispel, Baneslayer, Grave titan, Leyline, Curse, -4 cryptic, 2 logic knot, 2 remand. The idea is that against grixis delver, they're just a slightly faster midrange deck, so we up the speed by cutting cryptic (also playing around blood moon) and we cut the countermagic, turning into removal + CA against their more midrange-oriented gameplan, with just spell snares and dispels for actually fighting over stuff on the stack. Helps to match their efficiency. The games I lost they had turn one delver or turn two gurmag angler.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm