If you bring in finishers, white suns can come out.
Cards like shadow of doubt and remand can also come out, as slowing them down slightly isn't something that matters as much as other matchups.
If you play vendilion main, I might consider cutting it.
You could consider cutting a wrath if you absolutely need the space, especially if you play 4 mainboard.
Siding out Path against Jund is terrible, cause you will fold to turn2 Dark Confidant. I can see it against Junk versions, although.
My point, anyway, isn't "what to bring in" but the opposite, what to cut. Aside from Paths, what else could you shave against them?
II cut some number of cryptics and wraths. They almost always have discard protection for their spells so cryptic loses a lot of value and wrath is going to be a 1 for 1 in basically every game since they can play around it easily with man lands and discard. Against jund I cut 2 cryptic and 3 wraths, against junk I do the opposite and cut 2 wrath and 3 cryptic to help with souls. I keep in my 2 mana counters because they're still live late game and can tag a liliana or slip under their discard early on. My whole plan essentially revolves around stopping liliana because that's the only way we can lose to them.
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And on that day, Garfield said unto the world "Go ye forth and durdle!"
Siding out Path against Jund is terrible, cause you will fold to turn2 Dark Confidant. I can see it against Junk versions, although.
My point, anyway, isn't "what to bring in" but the opposite, what to cut. Aside from Paths, what else could you shave against them?
Against Jund, I board out 2 Verdict, 2 Remand for 2 Elspeth, and 2 Go for the Throat. Remand gets pretty bad when the rest of your hand is being mugged.
Against Junk, I board out 2 Snare for 2 Elspeth. I don't mind Remand when they try to cast a lot of 4 drops, and Lingering Souls flashback gives it a nice upside that it lacks against Jund. Sweepers are better than random spot removal for similar reasons. Less Bob, more Rhinos and Spirits.
I no longer run any Purges, otherwise those would come in.
Basically the only thing one needs to bring in is something big and dumb to swing the game from hellbent (i.e. 3 lands, no spells). If you don't have that, well I suppose the default X-spells suffice.
Do you guys think that the original wafo tapa list is still the best list of all?
Nah, there are a number of things that I don't really agree with (excluding the mana base, ofc). Here are my main criticisms:
- I don't like Shadow of Doubt, never really have despite trying it a few times
- The sideboard is a little outdated imo. I especially don't like the Ousts and Baby Elspeth.
- I've never supported all 4 Spell Snare, the most I'll play is 3. Though amelek0 has convinced me that the 4th in the board is fine.
- The 2:1 split between Verdict and Wrath in the main seems wrong, especially with a Wrath already in the board. Maybe if Troll-Worship becomes a thing?
All of this said, it's still a great list. It doesn't surprise me that people still play the same exact 75 and do well with it. I just believe it can be further optimized.
Siding out Path against Jund is terrible, cause you will fold to turn2 Dark Confidant. I can see it against Junk versions, although.
My point, anyway, isn't "what to bring in" but the opposite, what to cut. Aside from Paths, what else could you shave against them?
Against Jund, I board out 2 Verdict, 2 Remand for 2 Elspeth, and 2 Go for the Throat. Remand gets pretty bad when the rest of your hand is being mugged.
Against Junk, I board out 2 Snare for 2 Elspeth. I don't mind Remand when they try to cast a lot of 4 drops, and Lingering Souls flashback gives it a nice upside that it lacks against Jund. Sweepers are better than random spot removal for similar reasons. Less Bob, more Rhinos and Spirits.
I no longer run any Purges, otherwise those would come in.
Basically the only thing one needs to bring in is something big and dumb to swing the game from hellbent (i.e. 3 lands, no spells). If you don't have that, well I suppose the default X-spells suffice.
How do you handle Fulminator Mage? Is it a card we need to worry about?
Disclaimer: I don't play this deck, although I have played a lot of control decks and some very similar lists.
Considering this deck. My first thought is that Think Twice is a terrible magic card. I know you use it for curve reasons and to have something to durdle with when you would be leaving mana unused. But how can you honestly afford to run a card with such low impact. 5 mana for +1 card isn't worth it.
From the main post:
"Simultaneously the worst and most necessary card in the deck. This is your go to early game cantrip to help hit land drops while providing positive card advantage later in the game. It is also one of the best cards against the BGx decks as pitching it to liliana is nearly free and sometimes they have no choice but to take it with a discard spell."
If you want an instant speed way to hit land drops, have you tried Anticipate? Also, I don't think this card can be considered good just because you don't mind discarding it. That's a pretty poor reason to run a card.
Generally speaking card advantage is better than card selection.
But that isn't always true when you need a particular answer.
But going +1 card isn't worth 5 mana.
I feel like the format is too fast for that.
Has anyone tried dropping the Think Twice for a diff card selection or draw spell? If so, what was your experience with that?
Before you get all hypercritical of the card choices in the deck, try it first. Think Twice is a necessary evil, nothing does its job better in modern, unfortunately.
Mostly looking for thoughts on card choices and sideboard. A note on the sideboard - Leyline of Sanctity is a carry-over from my local meta where, for a while, there was nothing but burn and 8-rack.
The two cards I am trying out mainboard are Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Smother.
Jace is replacing Think Twice because think twice just feels bad almost every time I was casting it. I either always wanted to use a removal and it rotted in hand or it was just so low impact it didnt feel worth it to cast.
Jace does some interesting things for us. For example, a game I had against burn yesterday went T1 Fetch, T2 Land and Jace, T3 Fetch and Timely with Jace draw, T4 Jace draw, flashback timely, land and dispel. I understand thats kind of the nuts but also just plussing on a creature in the aggro matchups can be enough time to get you there. He also provides additional board wipes against discard and if you -3 on a discarded/countered white suns, the zenith shuffles back in instead of exiling.
Smother... not sure if this is the correct spell. I wanted another removal spell to use early and this was the first that popped into mind. Might be better as doomblade or similar but im not entirely sure. Would particularly like your thoughts on alternatives. Local meta is affinity, goblins, burn, infect, tron, eldrazi, one other UB control, kiki chord and miscellaneous.
How do you handle Fulminator Mage? Is it a card we need to worry about?
Besides B & Moan about how lucky they got to always have it on 3? I just lose a land and keep it moving. You draw so many lands with this deck it's probably a card they shouldn't even sideboard. I once got Stone Rained by a Living End deck four times, and killed them with the Beast Within token with Cryptic mana up.
At least being down mana is scary against Living End; GBx doesn't do much with it's windows. Biggest issue is if you were relying on Verdict, but I board almost all those out, anyway. It's just bad against Thoughtseize (take the Path, play Goyf on 2, and play a second creature on 5 after they finally Verdict), and land destruction makes it even more volatile against a deck with only 15 creatures.
Generally speaking card advantage is better than card selection.
But that isn't always true when you need a particular answer.
But going +1 card isn't worth 5 mana.
I feel like the format is too fast for that.
Has anyone tried dropping the Think Twice for a diff card selection or draw spell? If so, what was your experience with that?
If you cut Think Twice for Anticipate, drop the Revelations on your way out, as well. When you draw random cards off the top of your deck, you get a better rate (and no, Think Twice isn't actually "5 mana" since you get to use fallow mana to cast it half the time). The drawback is that half those cards are lands, and you normally have no use for all those lands. This deck uses that drawback to feed lands to Celestial Colonnade and Sphinx's Revelation, which will use lands well into the double-digits, and only get more broken as they pile up. When you actually try this deck and see it firing on full cylinders, you'll have games where your opponent is hellbent and you're effectively trolling him each endstep by deciding whether or not to Revelation for 5 more cards, with 7 already in hand.
Think of Think Twice as a cross between Cultivate and Divination.
Or does the buyin of 4 mana make it totally unplayable? It seems okay against other blue decks and decks that want to go long. It's castable on turn 3 with a path/condemn or snare.
Hey everyone. I've got another Modern event coming up this weekend, and I've got a question about a deck I've been having trouble with. Emeria Control. There are now three of them at my LGS, alongside a UWR Mentor control deck. The Mentor deck I have no trouble with, but the Emeria decks always give me a HUGE headache. Every single game I've played against all three of them has started with me being in a very dominant position for much of the game, getting some swings in with Colonnades, etc. Eventually they manage to Path and/or Ghost Quarter all of my Colonnades, leaving me with just WSZ in the main. Not a big deal, except by this point my deck is usually getting VERY thin, and most of my countermagic/removal is in the grave. Taking care of the first two Emerias is fine. Then come the second two. I haven't won a game against the deck yet, and nearly every time it has been because my deck has been so thin that I was literally just drawing and casting WSZ every turn while he just dealt with the tokens using a combination of Wraths, Detention Sphere, Cryptics in tap-down mode, and recurring a bunch of Sun Titans to recur even more stuff to draw more cards.
I'll be able to post my list a little later on in the day, but I figured I'd post now while this was on my mind.
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Starchild- are you playing surgical extraction in the side? If you take emeria, they really can't grind you out. (Other than if you somehow can't remove a suntitan and they attack a couple times)
I had a long game vs. Emeria a few weeks ago, and Vendilion Clique did some serious work by forcing D-Spheres. Then you can Cryptic-bounce or Esper Charm (disenchant) to clique them again. But yeah, Surges to deal w/ the Emerias and/or Sun Titans is very solid. Batterskull and Baneslayer are both pretty nice to race if you can't deal with Emeria.
About Colonnades, they aren't great when they play four GQ's anyways. My plan is to resolve an X-spell to win.
Edit: If you're seeing a lot of slower decks, play Tec Edge over GQ. You can kill off an Emeria without putting them closer to using other ones.
Speaking of everyone having piles of GQ's, pehaps it's time to add 1-2x Creeping Tar Pit as a flex slot in lands -- that way we're ahead of the game against UW Control and Eldrazi decks before the game even starts, and can safely try to win via manland beats again.
Hey everyone. I've got another Modern event coming up this weekend, and I've got a question about a deck I've been having trouble with. Emeria Control. There are now three of them at my LGS, alongside a UWR Mentor control deck. The Mentor deck I have no trouble with, but the Emeria decks always give me a HUGE headache. Every single game I've played against all three of them has started with me being in a very dominant position for much of the game, getting some swings in with Colonnades, etc. Eventually they manage to Path and/or Ghost Quarter all of my Colonnades, leaving me with just WSZ in the main. Not a big deal, except by this point my deck is usually getting VERY thin, and most of my countermagic/removal is in the grave. Taking care of the first two Emerias is fine. Then come the second two. I haven't won a game against the deck yet, and nearly every time it has been because my deck has been so thin that I was literally just drawing and casting WSZ every turn while he just dealt with the tokens using a combination of Wraths, Detention Sphere, Cryptics in tap-down mode, and recurring a bunch of Sun Titans to recur even more stuff to draw more cards.
I'll be able to post my list a little later on in the day, but I figured I'd post now while this was on my mind.
UW decks in general present the same problem. They all run 4 Ghost Quarter and as much removal as you do. You basically only have WSZ, since they can block Snapcasters with walls. I played a match not too long ago where WSZ was the third card from the bottom. I chained it a few turns before the guy managed to kill me with his final Restoration Angel.
I'd be tempted with Emeria to just move to game 2, as soon as possible. Of course, if you don't have Cliques perhaps things don't get that much better.
UW decks in general present the same problem. They all run 4 Ghost Quarter and as much removal as you do. You basically only have WSZ, since they can block Snapcasters with walls. I played a match not too long ago where WSZ was the third card from the bottom. I chained it a few turns before the guy managed to kill me with his final Restoration Angel.
I'd be tempted with Emeria to just move to game 2, as soon as possible. Of course, if you don't have Cliques perhaps things don't get that much better.
Yeah, that's what I've been thinking about doing. My sideboard doesn't do me much good against those decks but I do get to bring in Baneslayer Angel, I guess. I've also considered making a meta call and including a singleton Elixir of Immortality in the mainboard to hedge my bets against these decks. I'm almost guaranteed to run into one every Saturday by now, and if I'm unlucky I'll run into it twice. At least then I get to recycle my removal and countermagic, as well as my Ghost Quarters.
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UW decks in general present the same problem. They all run 4 Ghost Quarter and as much removal as you do. You basically only have WSZ, since they can block Snapcasters with walls. I played a match not too long ago where WSZ was the third card from the bottom. I chained it a few turns before the guy managed to kill me with his final Restoration Angel.
I'd be tempted with Emeria to just move to game 2, as soon as possible. Of course, if you don't have Cliques perhaps things don't get that much better.
Yeah, that's what I've been thinking about doing. My sideboard doesn't do me much good against those decks but I do get to bring in Baneslayer Angel, I guess. I've also considered making a meta call and including a singleton Elixir of Immortality in the mainboard to hedge my bets against these decks. I'm almost guaranteed to run into one every Saturday by now, and if I'm unlucky I'll run into it twice. At least then I get to recycle my removal and countermagic, as well as my Ghost Quarters.
If you want to run an Elixir, I say go for it. I was already just entertaining the idea (since who doesn't love chaining Revs for 10+? xD), but since you actually have a meta reason to do so, I would 100% support it -- if you do it, I actually suggest playing 2 Elixirs (as I learned in RTR Control era, since you don't want your one-of to get milled somehow or countered). Just be careful, since Snap and Logic Knot's exile clauses become quite relevant on the Elixir plan.
Cards like shadow of doubt and remand can also come out, as slowing them down slightly isn't something that matters as much as other matchups.
If you play vendilion main, I might consider cutting it.
You could consider cutting a wrath if you absolutely need the space, especially if you play 4 mainboard.
II cut some number of cryptics and wraths. They almost always have discard protection for their spells so cryptic loses a lot of value and wrath is going to be a 1 for 1 in basically every game since they can play around it easily with man lands and discard. Against jund I cut 2 cryptic and 3 wraths, against junk I do the opposite and cut 2 wrath and 3 cryptic to help with souls. I keep in my 2 mana counters because they're still live late game and can tag a liliana or slip under their discard early on. My whole plan essentially revolves around stopping liliana because that's the only way we can lose to them.
Twitch Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/qtwelve
Against Jund, I board out 2 Verdict, 2 Remand for 2 Elspeth, and 2 Go for the Throat. Remand gets pretty bad when the rest of your hand is being mugged.
Against Junk, I board out 2 Snare for 2 Elspeth. I don't mind Remand when they try to cast a lot of 4 drops, and Lingering Souls flashback gives it a nice upside that it lacks against Jund. Sweepers are better than random spot removal for similar reasons. Less Bob, more Rhinos and Spirits.
I no longer run any Purges, otherwise those would come in.
Basically the only thing one needs to bring in is something big and dumb to swing the game from hellbent (i.e. 3 lands, no spells). If you don't have that, well I suppose the default X-spells suffice.
Nah, there are a number of things that I don't really agree with (excluding the mana base, ofc). Here are my main criticisms:
- I don't like Shadow of Doubt, never really have despite trying it a few times
- The sideboard is a little outdated imo. I especially don't like the Ousts and Baby Elspeth.
- I've never supported all 4 Spell Snare, the most I'll play is 3. Though amelek0 has convinced me that the 4th in the board is fine.
- The 2:1 split between Verdict and Wrath in the main seems wrong, especially with a Wrath already in the board. Maybe if Troll-Worship becomes a thing?
All of this said, it's still a great list. It doesn't surprise me that people still play the same exact 75 and do well with it. I just believe it can be further optimized.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
How do you handle Fulminator Mage? Is it a card we need to worry about?
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
Considering this deck. My first thought is that Think Twice is a terrible magic card. I know you use it for curve reasons and to have something to durdle with when you would be leaving mana unused. But how can you honestly afford to run a card with such low impact. 5 mana for +1 card isn't worth it.
From the main post:
"Simultaneously the worst and most necessary card in the deck. This is your go to early game cantrip to help hit land drops while providing positive card advantage later in the game. It is also one of the best cards against the BGx decks as pitching it to liliana is nearly free and sometimes they have no choice but to take it with a discard spell."
If you want an instant speed way to hit land drops, have you tried Anticipate? Also, I don't think this card can be considered good just because you don't mind discarding it. That's a pretty poor reason to run a card.
You also want to be doing something with your mana every turn.
But that isn't always true when you need a particular answer.
But going +1 card isn't worth 5 mana.
I feel like the format is too fast for that.
Has anyone tried dropping the Think Twice for a diff card selection or draw spell? If so, what was your experience with that?
I've been playing a version of esper draw-go for a while and with the Eldrazi deck showing up I have moved to a more traditional list as below.
Unfortunately the only results I have had with the deck have been on cockatrice as there arent many modern events at my LGS.
The list is as follows
2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4 Snapcaster Mage
//Card Draw/Utility
4 Esper Charm
1 Sphinx's Revelation
//Counterspells
2 Spell Snare
3 Logic Knot
4 Cryptic Command
//Wincons
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 White Sun's Zenith
//Removal
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
3 Smother
2 Condemn
4 Path to Exile
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Watery Grave
2 Hallowed Fountain
3 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Swamp
2 Plains
4 Celestial Colonnade
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Nimbus Maze
2 Stony Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Shadow of Doubt
3 Timely Reinforcements
3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Dispel
1 Grave Titan
1 Wrath of God
Mostly looking for thoughts on card choices and sideboard. A note on the sideboard - Leyline of Sanctity is a carry-over from my local meta where, for a while, there was nothing but burn and 8-rack.
The two cards I am trying out mainboard are Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Smother.
Jace is replacing Think Twice because think twice just feels bad almost every time I was casting it. I either always wanted to use a removal and it rotted in hand or it was just so low impact it didnt feel worth it to cast.
Jace does some interesting things for us. For example, a game I had against burn yesterday went T1 Fetch, T2 Land and Jace, T3 Fetch and Timely with Jace draw, T4 Jace draw, flashback timely, land and dispel. I understand thats kind of the nuts but also just plussing on a creature in the aggro matchups can be enough time to get you there. He also provides additional board wipes against discard and if you -3 on a discarded/countered white suns, the zenith shuffles back in instead of exiling.
Smother... not sure if this is the correct spell. I wanted another removal spell to use early and this was the first that popped into mind. Might be better as doomblade or similar but im not entirely sure. Would particularly like your thoughts on alternatives. Local meta is affinity, goblins, burn, infect, tron, eldrazi, one other UB control, kiki chord and miscellaneous.
Besides B & Moan about how lucky they got to always have it on 3? I just lose a land and keep it moving. You draw so many lands with this deck it's probably a card they shouldn't even sideboard. I once got Stone Rained by a Living End deck four times, and killed them with the Beast Within token with Cryptic mana up.
At least being down mana is scary against Living End; GBx doesn't do much with it's windows. Biggest issue is if you were relying on Verdict, but I board almost all those out, anyway. It's just bad against Thoughtseize (take the Path, play Goyf on 2, and play a second creature on 5 after they finally Verdict), and land destruction makes it even more volatile against a deck with only 15 creatures.
If you cut Think Twice for Anticipate, drop the Revelations on your way out, as well. When you draw random cards off the top of your deck, you get a better rate (and no, Think Twice isn't actually "5 mana" since you get to use fallow mana to cast it half the time). The drawback is that half those cards are lands, and you normally have no use for all those lands. This deck uses that drawback to feed lands to Celestial Colonnade and Sphinx's Revelation, which will use lands well into the double-digits, and only get more broken as they pile up. When you actually try this deck and see it firing on full cylinders, you'll have games where your opponent is hellbent and you're effectively trolling him each endstep by deciding whether or not to Revelation for 5 more cards, with 7 already in hand.
Think of Think Twice as a cross between Cultivate and Divination.
Or does the buyin of 4 mana make it totally unplayable? It seems okay against other blue decks and decks that want to go long. It's castable on turn 3 with a path/condemn or snare.
I'll be able to post my list a little later on in the day, but I figured I'd post now while this was on my mind.
WUBEsper ControlBUW
URStormRU
RGForest BelcherGR
To-Do List
WModern Death and TaxesW
WLegacy Death and TaxesW
About Colonnades, they aren't great when they play four GQ's anyways. My plan is to resolve an X-spell to win.
Edit: If you're seeing a lot of slower decks, play Tec Edge over GQ. You can kill off an Emeria without putting them closer to using other ones.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
UW decks in general present the same problem. They all run 4 Ghost Quarter and as much removal as you do. You basically only have WSZ, since they can block Snapcasters with walls. I played a match not too long ago where WSZ was the third card from the bottom. I chained it a few turns before the guy managed to kill me with his final Restoration Angel.
I'd be tempted with Emeria to just move to game 2, as soon as possible. Of course, if you don't have Cliques perhaps things don't get that much better.
Yeah, that's what I've been thinking about doing. My sideboard doesn't do me much good against those decks but I do get to bring in Baneslayer Angel, I guess. I've also considered making a meta call and including a singleton Elixir of Immortality in the mainboard to hedge my bets against these decks. I'm almost guaranteed to run into one every Saturday by now, and if I'm unlucky I'll run into it twice. At least then I get to recycle my removal and countermagic, as well as my Ghost Quarters.
WUBEsper ControlBUW
URStormRU
RGForest BelcherGR
To-Do List
WModern Death and TaxesW
WLegacy Death and TaxesW
If you want to run an Elixir, I say go for it. I was already just entertaining the idea (since who doesn't love chaining Revs for 10+? xD), but since you actually have a meta reason to do so, I would 100% support it -- if you do it, I actually suggest playing 2 Elixirs (as I learned in RTR Control era, since you don't want your one-of to get milled somehow or countered). Just be careful, since Snap and Logic Knot's exile clauses become quite relevant on the Elixir plan.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.