So I bought the deck 4 months ago and I ran a spreading seas version. Now I shifted to miracles. The problem is I don't have a 3rd Jace or a second Teferi and I can't afford them right now. This is what I'm running
I wouldn't worry about the third Jace, it's not really mandatory. You will definitely want to pick up a second Teferi whenever you can afford it, though, he's just so important to the deck.
Your land base looks mostly stock, you're running an extra basic Plains over most of the GP Prague lists, but that seems fine to me.
Definitely play 4 Terminus, I would cut a Verdict for it. The card is the reason to be playing UW right now. It's amazing in every situation where Verdict would be good (except against GDS), but most importantly it's really good against all these graveyard recursion decks being played.
I don't think I would run the Entreat with only 2 Jace. It's a questionable card even with 3 of him to help set it up, and I think with 2 you're just gonna get it stuck in hand with no Jace on board and be sad.
The last two things I'm trying to wrap my head around are the main deck Blessed Alliance and the Amulet of Safekeeping. Do you have a lot of Bogles or Burn in your meta or something? If it's Bogles, I would just run the Settle in the main instead of the Verdict. If Burn, I would just run more Timely Reinforcements, or maybe Leyline of Sanctity. Alliance is fine, but it's really a sideboard card, I think there's too many matchups where it's a dead card to run main. You'll have to explain the Amulet to me, I'm not seeing it, lol.
Otherwise, it's looking pretty good! I've been thinking of trying a Remand and an AV as well, so I might do that too.
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You have to resolve it first. A five mana spell through a wall of counterspells. Vendilion is good also because it’s cheap. It’s basically the same difference in cc between Thoughtseize and Esper Charm. They do different things, but if you want disruption specifically, play Thoughtseize.
You don't necessarily have to resolve it, though. That's the point I'm trying to make. You can Clique your opponent on their end step, and they can just let it resolve and Path it, and you get to see their hand and maybe take a counterspell. It's not a "must fight over this" card all the time. Teferi is. Your opponent absolutely cannot allow it to resolve. You can force them to tap low to fight over it on their end step, and then untap and resolve a Jace or a Teferi planeswalker. Clique is obviously more versatile, which is why I run 2 main deck, but if I really wanted a mirror breaker I would want something more impactful. It's very possible that we just don't want a mirror breaker if you're not expecting a ton of other UW control players, though.
One other thought on mirror tech: if anyone plans on testing Pearl Lake Ancient (which I might, but I don't have super high hopes), he also makes it good to have some lands with ETBs, like Temples, or maybe cycling lands. It's probably bad, but it's a thought.
Lastly, Riley Knight has been advocating playing the full 4 Snaps. His reasoning is that since the Miracles builds aren't running Spreading Seas or Wall of Omens, there's no reason why you wouldn't want 4 anymore. I kinda feel like he's right, but Snapcaster is my favorite card, so I don't need a lot of convincing, lol. I'd be interested in hearing everyone else's take on that.
Huh, that's interesting about Amulet, it's broader than I thought at first glance. The problem with Sphinx is that he's Sorcery speed and dies to sweepers, and people often leave in Verdict or a couple Terminus in the mirror to hedge against something like Geist. And I don't think RiP is a reason to play fewer Snaps, we can just board some out if we're boarding in RiP.
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@Secure the Wastes,
I think the card used to shine a lot more in Jeskai/UW when Gideon planeswalkers were a thing.. it's kind of a mana sink if your opponent can wrath the board with a Terminus for (W). I honestly think playing around mirror breakers and whatnot like everyone has been is a waste of time until we start seeing over half the top 16 of tournaments being UW or Jeskai.. for the meantime, the format is too diverse
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UU"Brute force can sometimes kick down a locked door, but knowledge is a skeleton key"UU
Re: Snapcaster count - Snapcaster is probably the 2nd most overrated card in UW, right behind Opt and I think the two cards have a symbiotic relationship. Snapcasters get better the more Opt you run; if you run 4x Opt you can probably get away with 3x Snap, but not more. However I think that any Opt before the 4th Serum visions is incorrect, even in Terminus lists. Serum doesn't force you to play in a way where you have to hope to get lucky, let's you see more cards to try to set up miracles and is way better at helping you find lands in the early game, which is especially important now that UW decks have drastically reduced the number of cantrips. I've actually moved back to 26 land for most builds, even with Serum over Opt. The math that I had worked out for 25 lands and 4-5 colorless sources was always including at least 10 cantrips(4 seas, 4 Serum + 2 other like Omens, Azcanta, think twice etc).
Re: Search for Azcanta - The first one is obviously insane, but like Snapcaster it gets massive diminishing returns after the first 1. 1 vs 2 depends heavily on the specifics of your list and your suspected metagame. In the aggressive matches you just can't afford to have 2 dead cards in your hand so depending on how many turn 4+ cards you have, you may not be able to afford space for a 2nd copy.
Re: Amulet of Safekeeping - interesting card. I think if it hit 1 more tiered deck it would certainly be worth a slot. As it stands, it's close. I'm going to test it out since it seems like it hits some of our tough matchups. I also like that in those matches it's a redudant effect of a similar card with a different name so that something like echoing truth can't hit it and more importantly, that it works well with my pet card Gifts Ungiven
I have been playing with the minor black splash idea (souls flashback, 3rd color for EE and reduced pain on dismember sometimes) and it's been fun and pretty good so far, though I haven't played anything competitive with it yet. Here's what it looks like:
Gifts has been great but we probably want the 2nd Azcanta in this list due to the extra fetches and to facilitate finding all of the one ofs, including black sources if we need to flashback souls or cast EE with 3 colours.
Hey! So we had a small monday night modern tonight at my LGS and it was my first time playing the deck in a while..
Was wondering if you guys could offer some advice on the Mardu Pyromancer matchup?
Seems miserable with them filtering and hitting our hand with discard effects
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Following the discussion in the last few pages, I can strongly advocate for a 2/2 split between Snapcaster Mage and Vendilion Clique. The later is essential to apply pressure while disrupting combo and also can provide a body or a clock. To me, it's a no-brainer there. And by the way, I'm running the Spreading Seas version.
On the Jace vs. Teferi debate, I'm a big fan of Jace. When the board is empty or under control, and the opponent has no cards or relevant cards in hands, you can ride him to victory. The upside to Teferi is really tucking away a permanent (like a planeswalker or anything relevant). No need to bounce it with Cryptic or something like that. For the moment, I've settled on 2 Jace the Mind Sculptor and 1 Gideon Jura. The later is to shore up aggro matchups that I encounter often : namely Burn, Affinity, etc.
Aside that, 1 Ancestral Vision has worked wonders for me with 2 Search for Azcanta. 4 Serum is really good at fixing draw steps while the other cards named before provide card advantage. On the counterspell suite, 9 seems fine right now : 4 Cryptic Command, 2 Spell Snare, 1 Negate and 2 Mana Leak. Out of the sideboard, more is available if needed.
Mana base wise, I'm running 5 land destruction lands : 4 Field of Ruin and 1 Ghost Quarter. Having also 4 Spreading Seas is really powerful to attack any opponent's manabase is often crucial to me for buying time and / or winning that way sometimes.
With your input guys, I've tweaked my sideboard and it works well. Damping Sphere is still not my favorite card, I'm thinking about 2 Rule of Law, but that's pretty much all I have to complain. Geist is a good combo clock and that's really what's missing in the UW version of control decks : a way to reliably beat combo deck I feel.
I love the Snapcaster Mage + Opt synergy, so I feel I have to defend it. Granted, if it weren't for Snapcaster Mage, Opt would be 100% worse than Serum Visions, but we're only talking about a 1-card filter depth difference between Opt and Serum Visions, that's noticeable, but not overly significant (the difference between Peek or Hieroglyphic Illumination and Serum Visions is much more noticeable). On the other hand, by giving up Opt (+ SCM) you're giving up on what is probably the single most powerful EOT interaction the deck has access to. In some (or most) matchups EOT interaction may not matter that much, but it if matters, it's invaluable. Also, the value of Snapcaster Mage goes up if there is less Jeskai, more UW control, hence less Bolts to remove a 2/1. In fact, in U/W control mirrors PtE always has to immediately path Snapcaster Mages away, because this is the only effective and mana efficient way to get rid of creatures aside from a few less played cards like Spell Snare, or Wall of Omens.
In my experience Snapcaster in the mirror is fine, but the 2/1 never seems to matter the way you mention; a huge chunk of the time I end up pathing my own snap, so I'm pretty sure pathing opponents snap is incorrect. Trade it off for a snap of your own or sweep it, it just doesn't matter if a snap deals you a ton of damage in the mirror. Save your paths for the threats that matter and it doesn't even make a difference if you get 5-7 times by snap.
You are correct that one of the strongest EOT lines we have access to is Opt into Terminus, but the chances of setting it up are much slimmer than with Serum, especially if you don't run the full 4 terminus. I just can't agree that seeing an extra card isn't 'overly significant'. It matters a lot when you're trying to smooth out the Mana in a hand. On turns 1 and 2 each scry feels almost like a full draw when looking for Mana. Karsten works it out that you can count a scry as worth .2 of card, that's kind of like playing an additional land in your deck just by choosing serum over opt. And in post board games where you want to find haymakers, that extra scry pays dividends, giving what amounts to almost a virtual extra copy of your knock out cards simply by choosing serum over opt.
I think one of the biggest mistakes people make in magic is cutting lands and cutting can trips and I see that happening with UW a lot right now. I think the deck is doing well despite cutting lands and switching to opt, not because of it. Ive been playing UW a long time, and the deck used to run 10+ can trips and 26 land, now people expect to get away with 4 worse can trips and only 25 lands. It just seems super greedy.
the opt versus serum visions debate will continue on until the sun burns out. just comparing effects visions wins without a doubt, but instant speed adds contextual power that is more difficult to quantify.
at the end of the day i think its a preference call. though i do believe having some form of instant speed draw in the deck is too juicy to pass up if you are playing terminus. McWinSauce in his 3rd place ptq finish report said that Hieroglyphic Illumination had some merit (originally Ben Start's tech); and he plays serum visions as his cantrip of choice.
24 lands is the cutoff to hit your 4th land drop reliably. going up to 25 lands with 4 1-cmc cantrips, 1-2 search, 1-2 AV, or other draw effects like think twice is more than enough to hit your land drops into the lategame. i wouldnt call it greedy at all. the additional scry on serum visions may add up to some portion of a land, but it also assumes you already have a land drop in hand. if you dont, then the immediate selection of opt may make a difference.
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You are correct that one of the strongest EOT lines we have access to is Opt into Terminus, but the chances of setting it up are much slimmer than with Serum, especially if you don't run the full 4 terminus. I just can't agree that seeing an extra card isn't 'overly significant'.
The problem is that one of the extra cards you see is drawn at sorcery speed, after you've already drawn for your turn. So if you have a Terminus on top of your deck, you draw it and don't get the Miracle trigger with SV, while with Opt you can pass the turn and hit it on your opponent's turn.
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I have on the side 3 leyline of sanctity, runed halo, timely reinforcements, Lyra, etc.
but I can not win a game. Is it bad luck or is the pairing really so bad?
I prefere opt over serum, the instant speed for me its better.
I actually meant the EOT Snapcaster Mage flashbacking Opt line (not the EOT Opt into Terminus play). In the mirror the Opt player (+ 4 Snapcaster Mage) essentially always wins against the Serum Visions player (with fewer Snapcaster Mages) except a control breaker like Crucible of Worlds or an uncontested Search for Azcanta can bail him out.
I actually agree that Serum Visions is better than Opt against a huge chunk of the metagame including Humans and Vengevine, but the advantage of having Opt in the mirror is enormous.
Well Serum also means the player is likely to be on some number of verdict, and lists with verdict just don't care about opposing snaps in the mirror in the slightest.
I thought you meant EOT opt into Terminus, I didn't consider the other line being relevant because I actually think it's a bad play. There are only so many cards that matter in the mirror and using your most flexible card as a can trip plus irrelevant body is a massive waste of resources. Perhaps if you knew the exact 60 of your opponent, they had no wall of Omens, verdicts, Gideon's and half the number of clique and snapcaster combined then it would be nice to have 4x snap 4x opt. But since it would still be far worse against the field and only contextually better against this one specific known version of the deck, it doesn't make much sense to me.
snapping an opt is a fine play in the mirror. it doesnt come up all the time, but if the context of the game is right; sometimes converting cards into any sort of value is the right play. similar to an eot cryptic bouncing an opponents land + draw.
the conventional wisdom in control mirrors is to never be the first to act, but the corollary to that is positioning yourself somehow to get them to act first. sometimes a 2/1 beater is enough to do that. tapping out to verdict a snap is far more horrible than a snap + opt.
to be frank, id only be putting UW players on one version of the deck with a small subset of variations because its better than the spreading seas tapout variant; which has all but died out.
i dont think UW has quite enough to warrant a full set of snaps, but 2 or 3 is reasonable and depends on some other card choices.
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I have on the side 3 leyline of sanctity, runed halo, timely reinforcements, Lyra, etc.
but I can not win a game. Is it bad luck or is the pairing really so bad?
Sounds like bad luck. Do you have Dispels and Negates in your sideboard as well?
I thought you meant EOT opt into Terminus, I didn't consider the other line being relevant because I actually think it's a bad play. There are only so many cards that matter in the mirror and using your most flexible card as a can trip plus irrelevant body is a massive waste of resources.
Yeah, I disagree as well. Snapcaster is pressure, and going Snap + Opt on their end step lets you put pressure into play without having to tap out on your turn. If they Path it, then you get a free land. If they leave it alone, it can pressure their life total and force them to act, or pressure whatever planeswalkers they have on board.
Perhaps if you knew the exact 60 of your opponent, they had no wall of Omens, verdicts, Gideon's and half the number of clique and snapcaster combined then it would be nice to have 4x snap 4x opt. But since it would still be far worse against the field and only contextually better against this one specific known version of the deck, it doesn't make much sense to me.
Can you explain why more Snapcaster Mages is "far worse against the field?" As you said, it's the most flexible card in the deck, and if you're playing the Miracles version of the deck with no Spreading Seas or Wall of Omens, your deck is almost entirely spells that he can flashback.
Can you explain why more Snapcaster Mages is "far worse against the field?" As you said, it's the most flexible card in the deck, and if you're playing the Miracles version of the deck with no Spreading Seas or Wall of Omens, your deck is almost entirely spells that he can flashback.
I said it was the most flexible card in the mirror, not in the deck. It's not a very flexible card at all in most matches, which is why it is far worse to play 4x vs the field. It's not flexible in most matches because a opening hand with 2 or more snaps is a horrible feeling, you're often forced to cast it simply to cantrip or worse, naked. It seems you think a 3cmc 2/1 flash that cantrips is a good card, and you would be right if we were playing an aggressive deck. But we aren't, we want our snaps to play reactively against the majority of the field.
i'd go ghost quarter over tectonic edge. sometimes you're gonna want to hit those basics, like against ponza or the like. they also might only have like one swamp or plains or wahtever and GQ'ing it is a good move
Last minute changes before my PPTQ. Matchups I want to focus on: Humans, UW Control, other creature decks like Hollow one, GW Value Company.
Any opinions?
Also, what do you think is the right 3 off split between Search for azcanta and Detention Sphere?
i think the question is whether you want the 2nd azcanta before the first AV and or if you want the 2nd AV, or some other CA spell, before the 2nd azcanta.
id consider the first d-sphere as a stock inclusion at this point, and the second more of a flex consideration that can be replaced with any number of effects.
edit: i also endorse ghost quarter over tec edge. GQ is just more flexible/powerful for that type of effect. though i do wonder if something else can be played in that colorless land slot
Your land base looks mostly stock, you're running an extra basic Plains over most of the GP Prague lists, but that seems fine to me.
Definitely play 4 Terminus, I would cut a Verdict for it. The card is the reason to be playing UW right now. It's amazing in every situation where Verdict would be good (except against GDS), but most importantly it's really good against all these graveyard recursion decks being played.
I don't think I would run the Entreat with only 2 Jace. It's a questionable card even with 3 of him to help set it up, and I think with 2 you're just gonna get it stuck in hand with no Jace on board and be sad.
The last two things I'm trying to wrap my head around are the main deck Blessed Alliance and the Amulet of Safekeeping. Do you have a lot of Bogles or Burn in your meta or something? If it's Bogles, I would just run the Settle in the main instead of the Verdict. If Burn, I would just run more Timely Reinforcements, or maybe Leyline of Sanctity. Alliance is fine, but it's really a sideboard card, I think there's too many matchups where it's a dead card to run main. You'll have to explain the Amulet to me, I'm not seeing it, lol.
Otherwise, it's looking pretty good! I've been thinking of trying a Remand and an AV as well, so I might do that too.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
One other thought on mirror tech: if anyone plans on testing Pearl Lake Ancient (which I might, but I don't have super high hopes), he also makes it good to have some lands with ETBs, like Temples, or maybe cycling lands. It's probably bad, but it's a thought.
Lastly, Riley Knight has been advocating playing the full 4 Snaps. His reasoning is that since the Miracles builds aren't running Spreading Seas or Wall of Omens, there's no reason why you wouldn't want 4 anymore. I kinda feel like he's right, but Snapcaster is my favorite card, so I don't need a lot of convincing, lol. I'd be interested in hearing everyone else's take on that.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I think the card used to shine a lot more in Jeskai/UW when Gideon planeswalkers were a thing.. it's kind of a mana sink if your opponent can wrath the board with a Terminus for (W). I honestly think playing around mirror breakers and whatnot like everyone has been is a waste of time until we start seeing over half the top 16 of tournaments being UW or Jeskai.. for the meantime, the format is too diverse
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iDO0h2_xsvRCRtV9INbzYP85MNn4p8n-_o7n_DhPbWo/edit
Re: Search for Azcanta - The first one is obviously insane, but like Snapcaster it gets massive diminishing returns after the first 1. 1 vs 2 depends heavily on the specifics of your list and your suspected metagame. In the aggressive matches you just can't afford to have 2 dead cards in your hand so depending on how many turn 4+ cards you have, you may not be able to afford space for a 2nd copy.
Re: Amulet of Safekeeping - interesting card. I think if it hit 1 more tiered deck it would certainly be worth a slot. As it stands, it's close. I'm going to test it out since it seems like it hits some of our tough matchups. I also like that in those matches it's a redudant effect of a similar card with a different name so that something like echoing truth can't hit it and more importantly, that it works well with my pet card Gifts Ungiven
I have been playing with the minor black splash idea (souls flashback, 3rd color for EE and reduced pain on dismember sometimes) and it's been fun and pretty good so far, though I haven't played anything competitive with it yet. Here's what it looks like:
2 Teferi, hero of Dominaria
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 lingering souls
4 Path to Exile
1 Oust
1 Dismember
2 Detention Sphere
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
1 Hallowed Burial
1 Terminus
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Mana Leak
1 Negate
1 Logic Knot
2 Cryptic Command
1 Search for Azcanta
1 Gifts Ungiven
26 land
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Godless Shrine
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Mystic Gate
4 field of ruin
5 Island
2 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 geist of saint traft
1 Lingering Souls
2 negate
1 timely
1 dispel
1 Damping Sphere
1 ceremonious rejection
1 surgical extraction
1 baneslayer
Gifts has been great but we probably want the 2nd Azcanta in this list due to the extra fetches and to facilitate finding all of the one ofs, including black sources if we need to flashback souls or cast EE with 3 colours.
Was wondering if you guys could offer some advice on the Mardu Pyromancer matchup?
Seems miserable with them filtering and hitting our hand with discard effects
On the Jace vs. Teferi debate, I'm a big fan of Jace. When the board is empty or under control, and the opponent has no cards or relevant cards in hands, you can ride him to victory. The upside to Teferi is really tucking away a permanent (like a planeswalker or anything relevant). No need to bounce it with Cryptic or something like that. For the moment, I've settled on 2 Jace the Mind Sculptor and 1 Gideon Jura. The later is to shore up aggro matchups that I encounter often : namely Burn, Affinity, etc.
Aside that, 1 Ancestral Vision has worked wonders for me with 2 Search for Azcanta. 4 Serum is really good at fixing draw steps while the other cards named before provide card advantage. On the counterspell suite, 9 seems fine right now : 4 Cryptic Command, 2 Spell Snare, 1 Negate and 2 Mana Leak. Out of the sideboard, more is available if needed.
Mana base wise, I'm running 5 land destruction lands : 4 Field of Ruin and 1 Ghost Quarter. Having also 4 Spreading Seas is really powerful to attack any opponent's manabase is often crucial to me for buying time and / or winning that way sometimes.
With your input guys, I've tweaked my sideboard and it works well. Damping Sphere is still not my favorite card, I'm thinking about 2 Rule of Law, but that's pretty much all I have to complain. Geist is a good combo clock and that's really what's missing in the UW version of control decks : a way to reliably beat combo deck I feel.
Anyhow, thanks for reading and continue sharing !
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
In my experience Snapcaster in the mirror is fine, but the 2/1 never seems to matter the way you mention; a huge chunk of the time I end up pathing my own snap, so I'm pretty sure pathing opponents snap is incorrect. Trade it off for a snap of your own or sweep it, it just doesn't matter if a snap deals you a ton of damage in the mirror. Save your paths for the threats that matter and it doesn't even make a difference if you get 5-7 times by snap.
You are correct that one of the strongest EOT lines we have access to is Opt into Terminus, but the chances of setting it up are much slimmer than with Serum, especially if you don't run the full 4 terminus. I just can't agree that seeing an extra card isn't 'overly significant'. It matters a lot when you're trying to smooth out the Mana in a hand. On turns 1 and 2 each scry feels almost like a full draw when looking for Mana. Karsten works it out that you can count a scry as worth .2 of card, that's kind of like playing an additional land in your deck just by choosing serum over opt. And in post board games where you want to find haymakers, that extra scry pays dividends, giving what amounts to almost a virtual extra copy of your knock out cards simply by choosing serum over opt.
I think one of the biggest mistakes people make in magic is cutting lands and cutting can trips and I see that happening with UW a lot right now. I think the deck is doing well despite cutting lands and switching to opt, not because of it. Ive been playing UW a long time, and the deck used to run 10+ can trips and 26 land, now people expect to get away with 4 worse can trips and only 25 lands. It just seems super greedy.
at the end of the day i think its a preference call. though i do believe having some form of instant speed draw in the deck is too juicy to pass up if you are playing terminus. McWinSauce in his 3rd place ptq finish report said that Hieroglyphic Illumination had some merit (originally Ben Start's tech); and he plays serum visions as his cantrip of choice.
24 lands is the cutoff to hit your 4th land drop reliably. going up to 25 lands with 4 1-cmc cantrips, 1-2 search, 1-2 AV, or other draw effects like think twice is more than enough to hit your land drops into the lategame. i wouldnt call it greedy at all. the additional scry on serum visions may add up to some portion of a land, but it also assumes you already have a land drop in hand. if you dont, then the immediate selection of opt may make a difference.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
how do you face the pairing against burn?
I have on the side 3 leyline of sanctity, runed halo, timely reinforcements, Lyra, etc.
but I can not win a game. Is it bad luck or is the pairing really so bad?
I prefere opt over serum, the instant speed for me its better.
Well Serum also means the player is likely to be on some number of verdict, and lists with verdict just don't care about opposing snaps in the mirror in the slightest.
I thought you meant EOT opt into Terminus, I didn't consider the other line being relevant because I actually think it's a bad play. There are only so many cards that matter in the mirror and using your most flexible card as a can trip plus irrelevant body is a massive waste of resources. Perhaps if you knew the exact 60 of your opponent, they had no wall of Omens, verdicts, Gideon's and half the number of clique and snapcaster combined then it would be nice to have 4x snap 4x opt. But since it would still be far worse against the field and only contextually better against this one specific known version of the deck, it doesn't make much sense to me.
the conventional wisdom in control mirrors is to never be the first to act, but the corollary to that is positioning yourself somehow to get them to act first. sometimes a 2/1 beater is enough to do that. tapping out to verdict a snap is far more horrible than a snap + opt.
to be frank, id only be putting UW players on one version of the deck with a small subset of variations because its better than the spreading seas tapout variant; which has all but died out.
i dont think UW has quite enough to warrant a full set of snaps, but 2 or 3 is reasonable and depends on some other card choices.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Yeah, I disagree as well. Snapcaster is pressure, and going Snap + Opt on their end step lets you put pressure into play without having to tap out on your turn. If they Path it, then you get a free land. If they leave it alone, it can pressure their life total and force them to act, or pressure whatever planeswalkers they have on board.
Can you explain why more Snapcaster Mages is "far worse against the field?" As you said, it's the most flexible card in the deck, and if you're playing the Miracles version of the deck with no Spreading Seas or Wall of Omens, your deck is almost entirely spells that he can flashback.
I've been playing 3, but I'm trying out 4 in a league right now.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I said it was the most flexible card in the mirror, not in the deck. It's not a very flexible card at all in most matches, which is why it is far worse to play 4x vs the field. It's not flexible in most matches because a opening hand with 2 or more snaps is a horrible feeling, you're often forced to cast it simply to cantrip or worse, naked. It seems you think a 3cmc 2/1 flash that cantrips is a good card, and you would be right if we were playing an aggressive deck. But we aren't, we want our snaps to play reactively against the majority of the field.
I agree with 2 SfA and 1 D-Sphere. That seems the best split at the moment.
Also against go-wide creatures strategy, you have all the needed tool with 5 board wipes and 5 spot removal. You should be fine!
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
id consider the first d-sphere as a stock inclusion at this point, and the second more of a flex consideration that can be replaced with any number of effects.
edit: i also endorse ghost quarter over tec edge. GQ is just more flexible/powerful for that type of effect. though i do wonder if something else can be played in that colorless land slot
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)