Tron was the matchup I least looked forward to but just as spastik said, be aggressive! Before last night I would try to stall until the late game and try to stop them then but it never worked. Last night I played differently than I normally do and it worked well. Countering every instance of map or scrying gives you so much time to get what you need. It came down to a game 3 that as the absolute most grind fest game I played. I finally won by casting my 2nd cruel for lethal after swinging for a few turns with double snaps out and landing 2 countersqualls for some added damage.
Honesty I feel even IOK isn't bad here because being able to pull out map, stirrings and scrying is really a big asset in slowing them down. You're praying that the shuffle favors you on their deck and they don't immediately draw into tron quickly. My opponent got all 4 mine pieces and 2 tower pieces before even seeing a plant the turn before he loses. Denying them search and reshuffle plays to our advantage greatly. Even shadow of doubt may come back into my sb again.
I said no full report but here is a quick FNM update. I ended up 2-2. I was able to win 2-0 against tokens, and 2-1 against burn. My losses were 0-2s against another tokens player and affinity.
It is worth pointing out that I absolutely punted the affinity match, I had lines to win game 2 and didn't see them in time. The tokens match I lost was basically down to Auriok Champion.... and drawing 6 straight lands
I tried out Gearhulk. I only got to cast it once, and that was against tokens, where it really wasn't much use, I'll keep testing it though. All in all I'm still pretty happy with my list, though, having not played paper magic in ages, my play could use some work!
Happy to answer questions if anyone has them, my list is a couple of pages back (I can add it to this at some point when I'm not on my phone)
On Blood moon...why would you run it in a deck that wants to cast a spell for UUBBBRR? You might as well play Blue Moon at that point and drop Cruel in its entirety.
As for me, I'm thinking really hard about playing blood moon but it won't be in a 3 color list, so I'm looking at either BR or UR but that's another discussion entirely.
To do a sideboard Blood Moon "Land Destruction" Strategy: You would have to sideboard out your Cruel Ultimatums and replace them with Blood Moons, take out all or most of your blue/black cards and replace them with probably more than 1 copy each of something like Deus of Calamity, Magus of the Moon,Fulminator Mage, Crumble to Dust (and whatever other decent land destruction card is out there in red like Boom // Bust or even Demolish) add some Chromatic lanterns to make your "mountains" produce any color and therefore offset the fact that everything would become a mountain.
I would do something like 2 Blood Moons and 2 Chromatic Lanterns as the basis for this strategy; that way you either get mana ramped and/or have your "mountains" and other lands produce any color.
After taking everyones suggestions into consideration again and after doing a great deal of playtesting, I have come up with yet another combination for my deck which appears to be performing the best (at least against creature decks).
Some of these cards I am still ordering; however, this is likely the list I may play next time I play paper magic maybe at the end of this next week.
These are only cards I actually own or are being sent to my place. Potential sideboard cards I own (35) are in the "Maybeboard" ... Here is is:
There you have 19 B, 13 U, 13 R sources. For those few blue and red sources, you might have problems to cast Anger of The Gods and Cryptic Command in the early game. At first, I would swap Urborg, Crumbling Necropolis and Mirrodin's Core for 3 Evolving Wilds (budget) or other fetchlands you might have access to. Fetching for basics will help you get your tango lands and check lands entering the battlefield untapped.
I would also use Olivia instead of Sakashima in the main board, Dreadbore as the 3rd terminate instead of Solemn. To the slaughter is an awesome card against Liliana, I would swap the Devour Flesh for them.
There you have 19 B, 13 U, 13 R sources. For those few blue and red sources, you might have problems to cast Anger of The Gods and Cryptic Command in the early game. At first, I would swap Urborg, Crumbling Necropolis and Mirrodin's Core for 3 Evolving Wilds (budget) or other fetchlands you might have access to. Fetching for basics will help you get your tango lands and check lands entering the battlefield untapped.
I would also use Olivia instead of Sakashima in the main board, Dreadbore as the 3rd terminate instead of Solemn. To the slaughter is an awesome card against Liliana, I would swap the Devour Flesh for them.
Actually, since it would be another 2 or 3 weeks before I can get around to ordering other cards, putting in 2 Evolving Wilds in place of the Crumbling Necropolis and the Mirrodin's Core is a solid suggestion. Ideally, I initially wanted 2 Scalding Tarns in that spot and at the very least the Crumbling Necropolis is eventually getting replaced for one and I would eventually get another one, too. Basically, it was either get the Tarns or get everything else, I chose everything else and slightly improvised a little on the mana base with cards I already do have.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth would be my last choice for removing, as it helps with avoiding having to pay 1 life for the fetch lands (unless you absolutely have to fetch), since you can just simply put them on the board and tap for 1 black as they are in that case. The other two (Crumbling Necropolis and the Mirrodin's Core) are most certainly getting replaced. They are technically not suppose to be there.
Also, any of the 2 Chromatic Lanterns in play provides some ramp, tapping lands for any color, can put you a turn ahead of the opponent along with the mana smoothing effect of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.
I was going to order 2 Insidious Wills to side out the Gifts Ungiven against non-creature and anti-combo decks and should have when I ordered the Torrential Gearhulk yesterday, but totally forgot about it. I'll probably order that card when I order Scalding Tarns next in something like 2 or 3 weeks away from now.
I would probably side out Archaeomancer for either Olivia Voldaren (for creature decks with answers) or Mogis, God of Slaughter (for non-creature decks with answers), assuming that I side out Gifts Ungiven for an Insidious Will or something. Neither of those two cards are that good without each other, but play well enough together since the rest of the deck is good anyways. Just have to get past turn 4 with your opponent down to no cards, no creatures, topdecking it and you may start to win the game at the point.
Assuming you were able to get a G and/or W instant into the graveyard somehow (obviously my example is by using Gifts Ungiven, but there could be other ways) which ones would be the best to cheat into play with a Torrential Gearhulk?
From a quick scan of the internet I discovered Dromoka’s Command (Link), for example.
I also just found Glittering Wish (Nevermind, its a sorcery and won't work) you could net a sideboarded Olivia Voldaren or something (heck, even a sideboarded Cruel Ultimatum would work).
In my playtesting mainboarding 2 Research // Developments with 4 sideboarded Cruel Ultimatums casted by Torrential Gearhulk (choosing "4 cards outside of game" side) appears to be speeding up the deck significantly and nearly guarantees that you won't see Cruel Ultimatum until you have the right amount of mana to cast it (and you can have 4 of them!).
Why do you want to jump through so many hoops and use up sideboard slots just to get Cruel Ultimatum shuffled into your deck? This whole thing just takes up slots when now you're trying to get a card that you can't normally cast unless you have the lantern out or unless you somehow discard it. You'd be better off just keeping two Ults mainboard instead of trying to use the gearhulk for another complicated combo.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
-Modern- UUBBBRR Cruel Control BRG BRgBurn BR URStorm
-Commander- B Chainer, Dementia Master - Reanimator U Teferi, Temporal Archmage - Calimari Tribal [Retired] GB Ishkanah, Grafwidow - Delirium/Tokens
Why do you want to jump through so many hoops and use up sideboard slots just to get Cruel Ultimatum shuffled into your deck? This whole thing just takes up slots when now you're trying to get a card that you can't normally cast unless you have the lantern out or unless you somehow discard it. You'd be better off just keeping two Ults mainboard instead of trying to use the gearhulk for another complicated combo.
Its only 3UR to draw up to 3 cards or get up to 3 tokens which is cheaper and faster than waiting 2 more turns to use a Cruel Ultimatum; also, you have the option of recasting any side for free, so the cost does not matter when recasted from the graveyard.
Because the whole point of this deck type is to control the game until you hit 7 mana for Cruel, at which point you drop some other win con after getting the leg up and go from there. Your deck looks absolutely nothing like a control deck at this point and with how much you focus it around Gifts Ungiven you might as well just play 4-color Gifts or something instead.
It's complicated because how in the **** are you going to dump Research into the graveyard? How often are you ever going to draw into it with just one in the entire deck? What happens if it's countered or if the Gearhulk is countered? What happens after the four cruels get shuffled into your library? How are you going to dig for them with zero card draw aside from the one cryptic that is still in your deck after you harped at us for using it? Isn't running Research or any cards in White or Green for that matter going against your handicapping belief system about unethical decks or whatever?
The point I'm making here is that you're living in Magical Christmas Land with what you're trying to do. You're sitting here expecting that literally everything possible will go right for you when there's so many things that can make your plan completely go down the *****ter. Hand disruption, counters, decks that just go so fast that you have zero time to do anything, all of that's going to happen while you're twiddling around doing nothing each turn just waiting until you get the mana for your weirdo combos. Modern players aren't going to adhere to your rules or beliefs about how wizards supposedly wants decks to be built and they certainly aren't going to wait for you to generate the mana necessary for this inane combo, you'll be dead on board before you're half way done with your combo.
Assuming you were able to get a G and/or W instant into the graveyard somehow (obviously my example is by using Gifts Ungiven, but there could be other ways) which ones would be the best to cheat into play with a Torrential Gearhulk?
From a quick scan of the internet I discovered Dromoka’s Command (Link), for example.
I also just found Glittering Wish (Nevermind, its a sorcery and won't work) you could net a sideboarded Olivia Voldaren or something (heck, even a sideboarded Cruel Ultimatum would work).
Esper Charm was played in the older versions of Cruel. If you wanted to go to value town than Torrential Gearhulk into "Draw 2 cards" or "Target player discards 2 cards" is right up your alley. Your Lanterns and Core also provide W if you had to hard cast them. Just food for thought.
Current list I am trying. Looking to see how good a tap-out control deck will work with all of the Chandra, Torch of Defiance. The sideboard also gives me Filigree Familiar, which is like a Kitchen Finks for the aggro and midrange matchups.
I almost considered the full Talisman + Pyromancer's Goggles + Chandra package just to ramp hard into Cruel but it seemed too greedy.
Alright, this may seem a little weird... but let me be clear. If you post lists that are vastly different than the established version of the deck (Which can be found here, you are breaking the rules. This isnt clearly stated in our rules, so I havent infracted, but this is a competitive sub, made for established decks. If you wish to make vastly different than normal decks, especially ones that lack any success in the meta game, then you are spamming the thread.
From here on, lets keep the "cruel Control" lists some where in the 4-7 range, otherwise I will infract
I was wondering how filigree familiar would do in our deck. I was hoping it could be viable. It could go well with thoughtseize and kalitas. Pyromancer's goggles also seems very interesting. Getting double bolts, or electrolyze or our cruel would be insane. I'm very interested in testing it out and hearing feedback on those cards.
Because the whole point of this deck type is to control the game until you hit 7 mana for Cruel, at which point you drop some other win con after getting the leg up and go from there.
Some counter points I am going to make:
You said: "Because the whole point of this deck type is to control the game."
Turns 1-4: The opponent can not play any creatures because of board wipes, discards, sacrifices, etc.
Turns 5-6: Gain card advantage; opponent has no creatures, no cards, topdecking.
Turn 7: Cast Cruel Ultimatum.
Turns 1-7 = The game has been controlled.
Exactly, that is why it makes sense not to introduce more than 1 Cruel Ultimatum until after you can afford it and can play it, meaning having seven mana of the right color combination.
This means that if you can cast the development portion of Research // Development turn 5, you have at least 1 red mana and a blue mana.
This also means that if you can cast Torrential Gearhulk, that you have at least 2 blue mana and can cast one instant from the graveyard for free.
This also implies that if you cast Torrential Gearhulk, you won't need any Green mana to cast the research part of Research // Development.
After you cast Torrential Gearhulk you are one mana away from 7 mana.
you might as well just play 4-color Gifts or something instead.
The only reason the one Green mana even exists is in part of the fact that it is on a double faced card and because of the effect of Torrential Gearhulk you do not even need to have Green mana in your base, you just play him and chose the research portion of Research // Development.
Your deck looks absolutely nothing like a control deck at this point and with how much you focus it around Gifts Ungiven
I think you are assuming that all "Control Decks" are "Counterspell Decks" and must be forgetting that Traditional "Cruel Control" is tempo black based and therefore never originally used counter-spells. Also, Gifts Ungiven is probably the best blue alternative to Diabolic Tutor which has seen more than enough play with "Cruel Control" style decks.
Question and answer on why you think this is complicated ...
Q: How in the **** are you going to dump Research into the graveyard?
A: By either paying its mana cost or putting it in there another way, but mostly by paying its costs.
Q: How often are you ever going to draw into it with just one in the entire deck?
A: You can go looking for it or you can draw it randomly; statistically that is something like 3% of the time counted alone probably, but the percentage goes up when you count it the same as being a Cruel Ultimatum of which one comes 2 turns faster for card draw.
Q: What happens if it's countered or if the Gearhulk is countered?
A: You can possibly use Snapcaster or Archaeomancer to get its effect still or get Torrential Gearhulk out of the graveyard and recast him.
Q: What happens after the four cruels get shuffled into your library?
A: You can go looking for it or you can draw it randomly and statistically speaking your chances of drawing more of them increases.
Q: How are you going to dig for them with zero card draw aside from the one cryptic that is still in your deck after you harped at us for using it?
A: You must have miscounted. There are 4 or more sources of card draw in my deck.
Q: Isn't running Research or any cards in White or Green for that matter going against your handicapping belief system about unethical decks or whatever?
A: Thats a loaded question based on a false premise and doesn't deserve an actual answer.
Then you say some crap like:
The point I'm making here is that you're living in Magical Christmas Land with what you're trying to do.
You're sitting here expecting that literally everything possible will go right for you when there's so many things that can make your plan completely go down the *****ter.
Hand disruption, counters, decks that just go so fast that you have zero time to do anything, all of that's going to happen while you're twiddling around doing nothing each turn just waiting until you get the mana for your weirdo combos.
Modern players aren't going to adhere to your rules or beliefs about how wizards supposedly wants decks to be built and they certainly aren't going to wait for you to generate the mana necessary for this inane combo, you'll be dead on board before you're half way done with your combo.
You are missing the fact that while people do put these things into their decks, not all those decks including the card types you mentioned are going to be prepared to deal with this deck and a fast creature deck like Zoo can indeed lose a whole match to this deck. I'll also win games just simply because people do not understand how to deal with it or can not for whatever reason. Likewise, it is a combo deck and counter-spelling would in fact be a hard fight to win with this deck, since it is built to tempo control creatures on the field and supplements that with random discards and card advantage. That has more to do with the innate rock-paper-scissor aspect of magic and can not be circumvented. I could change the deck and have problems with another part of that trinity.
I have tried to sit back and wade through this in the the hopes that you would come around to reason. I don't want to sound harsh but increasingly as you post it is becoming evident that you either haven't competed [even at FNM] in this meta game specifically, or magic generally in any significant way. Alternatively you have some...unique... FNM store, kitchen table, PPTQ, online metagame where your deck will work, and if you have the results to back it up then you have my sincerest apologies.
But for now you continue to use this thread as a thought exercise in goldfishing/theorycrafting and "on a budget" sounding board, which is not the intent, please make a grixis gifts thread in the deck creation forum. I don't want to discourage you from playing the game as it is a beautiful and fantastic game, and you seem determined to contribute in a positive way, but this thread is quickly derailing and devolving.
To your many and varied deck lists and ideas, it is not unheard of for esper for example to dedicate the entire sideboard for a gifts package, why don't you try to start with the best approximation you can get of cruel control, pilot it with results, even siding in a gifts package then report back?
This way we have some actual advice to give, and you have real world results? you seem to be getting closer at any rate. Can you tell use who/where you are play testing these builds currently?
To other Cruel Control Players:
Is Keranos, God of Storms still a reasonable sideboard card in this meta? If so, where are we bringing it in, grindy matches?
Is Keranos, God of Storms still a reasonable sideboard card in this meta? If so, where are we bringing it in, grindy matches?
The problem with Keranos is that one of the best MUs to use him against, Jeskai Control, now has Nahiri and can just kill him on site So overall I would say, while he is good he is definitely not as good as he used to be.
Keranos is not worth playing, in my opinion.
Considering he 1): gets eaten by nahiri, 2) gets hit by celestial purge/some other nahiri hate, and 3) isn't even an absolute game-ender once he lands, I think there are better things to do.
If you are looking at cards to bring in against jund, nahiri, etc, here are some options:
Ashiok: Not as strong against jeskai, but against eldrazi, jund, or most other semi fair decks, its a good threat for only 3 mana.
Chandra the firebrand: a bit questionable, but being able to ping creatures like spirit tokens, infect/affinity dudes, etc, being able to poke planeswalkers, and letting us double-cast bolts, discard spells, kolaghan's command, cryptic commands, electrolyzes, molten rains, rise/fall, cruel, etc. Its probably not great, but if you want a jund/abzan trump, this might be alright.
Batterskull/wurmcoil/grave titan: depending on your needs. Generally difficult to remove beatsticks. These are a bit broader.
Jace, unraveler of secrets: I like this more in faeries/blue moon with more etb creatures (snap, clique, PnK, mistbind clique, etc) probably not for this deck, but this guy has been completely overlooked in modern.
The new gearhulk: also probably too "build around" but has potential. Mystical teachings perhaps?
I think you might also question if you really want/need a big threat besides cruel.
@dlanze I have tried to sit back and wade through this in the the hopes that you would come around to reason. I don't want to sound harsh but increasingly as you post it is becoming evident that you either haven't competed [even at FNM] in this meta game specifically, or magic generally in any significant way. Alternatively you have some...unique... FNM store, kitchen table, PPTQ, online metagame where your deck will work, and if you have the results to back it up then you have my sincerest apologies. But for now you continue to use this thread as a thought exercise in goldfishing/theorycrafting and "on a budget" sounding board, which is not the intent, please make a grixis gifts thread in the deck creation forum. I don't want to discourage you from playing the game as it is a beautiful and fantastic game, and you seem determined to contribute in a positive way, but this thread is quickly derailing and devolving. To your many and varied deck lists and ideas, it is not unheard of for esper for example to dedicate the entire sideboard for a gifts package, why don't you try to start with the best approximation you can get of cruel control, pilot it with results, even siding in a gifts package then report back? This way we have some actual advice to give, and you have real world results? you seem to be getting closer at any rate. Can you tell use who/where you are play testing these builds currently?
My build is patterned after some relatively recent "Top 8" and "Cruel Control" decks which mainboarded Tamiyo, the Moon Sage which I was running in the original lists I created. I use Gifts Ungiven because that is technically the competitive blue card fetcher version of Diabolic Tutor which is not competitive. Gifts Ungiven compared to that card has seen some competitive play in a thopter style deck which I believe has "Top 8" placements. I don't disagree that combo decks may die to counterspell and discard decks. Also, the deck I am building is not budget itself, but people keep trying to say it is because of cards like the Archaeomancer not even thinking that cards like Rancor(had a rarity bump from common),Duress,Spider Umbra are also technically budget common cards and yet they see tournament play in decks that have "Top 8" standings; obviously those decks with those common/budget looking cards have strong cards to back them up or there is some effect that dodges removal. It is like how Grave Titan is considered more competitive than Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis even though Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis may have a better effect in creature based matchups, because when someone throws removal at either card Grave Titan leaves tokens and Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis leaves nothing.
And also, this ridiculous marking of my posts as spam by moderators now is not taking into account of the fact that my list has increasingly complied with the thread originators determination that a basic and typical "Cruel Control" list has the core cards of Lightning Bolt, Terminate, Cryptic Command and Snapcater Mage which is in my most recent lists. This means that it is a false assumption to assume that my list is not in line with the original creator of this thread. Further, there is now mention of "Jeskai Control" in the this thread which was not stated in the primer that we are to build against. It would probably be more professional for moderators to suggest that it be made clear in the primer that this is for competitive against "Jeskai Control" as opposed to be marking my list as spam, otherwise that it wrong to keep marking my posts as spam. As it stands, I am determining that there is a specific local or regional bias where "Jeskai Control" is present for most of the people here, where it is not so much where I live specifically.
Admittingly, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage based decks for "Cruel Control" would definitely not be competitive against "Jeskai Control" and I doubt a "Top 8 Cruel Control" deck with that card had encountered "Jeskai Control," but was obviously competitive enough with whatever was present when it became "Top 8".
Your suggestion of making my own thread for this combo, deck archetype is a reasonable request.
Honesty I feel even IOK isn't bad here because being able to pull out map, stirrings and scrying is really a big asset in slowing them down. You're praying that the shuffle favors you on their deck and they don't immediately draw into tron quickly. My opponent got all 4 mine pieces and 2 tower pieces before even seeing a plant the turn before he loses. Denying them search and reshuffle plays to our advantage greatly. Even shadow of doubt may come back into my sb again.
UUBBBRR
It is worth pointing out that I absolutely punted the affinity match, I had lines to win game 2 and didn't see them in time. The tokens match I lost was basically down to Auriok Champion.... and drawing 6 straight lands
I tried out Gearhulk. I only got to cast it once, and that was against tokens, where it really wasn't much use, I'll keep testing it though. All in all I'm still pretty happy with my list, though, having not played paper magic in ages, my play could use some work!
Happy to answer questions if anyone has them, my list is a couple of pages back (I can add it to this at some point when I'm not on my phone)
To do a sideboard Blood Moon "Land Destruction" Strategy: You would have to sideboard out your Cruel Ultimatums and replace them with Blood Moons, take out all or most of your blue/black cards and replace them with probably more than 1 copy each of something like Deus of Calamity, Magus of the Moon,Fulminator Mage, Crumble to Dust (and whatever other decent land destruction card is out there in red like Boom // Bust or even Demolish) add some Chromatic lanterns to make your "mountains" produce any color and therefore offset the fact that everything would become a mountain.
I would do something like 2 Blood Moons and 2 Chromatic Lanterns as the basis for this strategy; that way you either get mana ramped and/or have your "mountains" and other lands produce any color.
Some of these cards I am still ordering; however, this is likely the list I may play next time I play paper magic maybe at the end of this next week.
These are only cards I actually own or are being sent to my place. Potential sideboard cards I own (35) are in the "Maybeboard" ... Here is is:
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Creeping Tar Pit
1x Crumbling Necropolis
1x Dragonskull Summit
1x Drowned Catacomb
2x Island
1x Lavaclaw Reaches
1x Mirrodin's Core
2x Mountain
1x Polluted Delta
4x Smoldering Marsh
1x Sulfur Falls
4x Sunken Hollow
2x Swamp
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Sorcery (11)
3x Anger of the Gods
2x Cruel Ultimatum
1x Damnation
1x Dark Salvation
2x Languish
2x Rise // Fall
1x Archaeomancer
1x Grave Titan
1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1x Keranos, God of Storms
1x Sakashima the Impostor
2x Snapcaster Mage
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Torrential Gearhulk
Instant (14)
1x Cryptic Command
3x Devour Flesh
1x Far // Away
2x Gifts Ungiven
1x Kolaghan's Command
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Terminate
Artifact (2)
2x Chromatic Lantern
Maybeboard (35)
1x Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
2x Counterflux
1x Crumble to Dust
2x Demolish
4x Dispel
1x Dreadbore
1x Extirpate
1x Fulminator Mage
1x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Izzet Staticaster
1x Memnarch
4x Mizzium Mortars
1x Mogis, God of Slaughter
1x Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
1x Olivia Voldaren
2x Rakdos Charm
1x Slaughter Games
1x Squee, Goblin Nabob
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Thought Hemorrhage
3x To the Slaughter
2x Vandalblast
I made a quick analysis in your mana base:
4 "any color": 1x Bloodstained Mire, 1x Crumbling Necropolis, 1x Polluted Delta, 1x Mirrodin's Core
6 UB: 1x Creeping Tar Pit, 1x Drowned Catacomb, 4x Sunken Hollow
6 BR: 1x Dragonskull Summit, 1x Lavaclaw Reaches, 4x Smoldering Marsh
1 UR: 1x Sulfur Falls
2 U: 2x Island
2 R: 2x Mountain
3 B: 2x Swamp, 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
There you have 19 B, 13 U, 13 R sources. For those few blue and red sources, you might have problems to cast Anger of The Gods and Cryptic Command in the early game. At first, I would swap Urborg, Crumbling Necropolis and Mirrodin's Core for 3 Evolving Wilds (budget) or other fetchlands you might have access to. Fetching for basics will help you get your tango lands and check lands entering the battlefield untapped.
I would also use Olivia instead of Sakashima in the main board, Dreadbore as the 3rd terminate instead of Solemn. To the slaughter is an awesome card against Liliana, I would swap the Devour Flesh for them.
Actually, since it would be another 2 or 3 weeks before I can get around to ordering other cards, putting in 2 Evolving Wilds in place of the Crumbling Necropolis and the Mirrodin's Core is a solid suggestion. Ideally, I initially wanted 2 Scalding Tarns in that spot and at the very least the Crumbling Necropolis is eventually getting replaced for one and I would eventually get another one, too. Basically, it was either get the Tarns or get everything else, I chose everything else and slightly improvised a little on the mana base with cards I already do have.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth would be my last choice for removing, as it helps with avoiding having to pay 1 life for the fetch lands (unless you absolutely have to fetch), since you can just simply put them on the board and tap for 1 black as they are in that case. The other two (Crumbling Necropolis and the Mirrodin's Core) are most certainly getting replaced. They are technically not suppose to be there.
Also, any of the 2 Chromatic Lanterns in play provides some ramp, tapping lands for any color, can put you a turn ahead of the opponent along with the mana smoothing effect of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.
The only consideration I have for keeping Mirrodin's Core in has to do with the fact that between the (Gifts Ungiven,Archaeomancer) combo and the Torrential Gearhulk, you could technically drop an instant of any color with Gifts Ungiven and Torrential Gearhulk would cast it. This means that any Green and/or White instant spells out there could be cheated into play or played with a Chromatic Lantern on the field. Mirrodin's Core is a relevant choice, then.
I was going to order 2 Insidious Wills to side out the Gifts Ungiven against non-creature and anti-combo decks and should have when I ordered the Torrential Gearhulk yesterday, but totally forgot about it. I'll probably order that card when I order Scalding Tarns next in something like 2 or 3 weeks away from now.
I would probably side out Archaeomancer for either Olivia Voldaren (for creature decks with answers) or Mogis, God of Slaughter (for non-creature decks with answers), assuming that I side out Gifts Ungiven for an Insidious Will or something. Neither of those two cards are that good without each other, but play well enough together since the rest of the deck is good anyways. Just have to get past turn 4 with your opponent down to no cards, no creatures, topdecking it and you may start to win the game at the point.
Assuming you were able to get a G and/or W instant into the graveyard somehow (obviously my example is by using Gifts Ungiven, but there could be other ways) which ones would be the best to cheat into play with a Torrential Gearhulk?
From a quick scan of the internet I discovered Dromoka’s Command (Link), for example.
I know there has to be some good one outs there.
Edit: You could use the izzet RU portion of Research // Development and cast the other part with Torrential Gearhulk which lets you get cards out of your sideboard into your deck. Imagine casting a Torrential Gearhulk and fetching a Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon out of your sideboard with Research // Development.
I also just found Glittering Wish (Nevermind, its a sorcery and won't work) you could net a sideboarded Olivia Voldaren or something (heck, even a sideboarded Cruel Ultimatum would work).
In my playtesting mainboarding 2 Research // Developments with 4 sideboarded Cruel Ultimatums casted by Torrential Gearhulk (choosing "4 cards outside of game" side) appears to be speeding up the deck significantly and nearly guarantees that you won't see Cruel Ultimatum until you have the right amount of mana to cast it (and you can have 4 of them!).
Edit: after some more playtesting in seems at least 1 mainboarded Torrential Gearhulk + 2 mainboarded Chromatic Lantern + 1 mainboarded Research // Development + 1 mainboarded Cruel Ultimatum + 3 sideboarded Cruel Ultimatum + 1 sideboarded Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker appears to work the best.
UUBBBRR Cruel Control
BRG BRgBurn
BR URStorm
-Commander-
B Chainer, Dementia Master - Reanimator
U Teferi, Temporal Archmage - Calimari Tribal [Retired]
GB Ishkanah, Grafwidow - Delirium/Tokens
Its only 3UR to draw up to 3 cards or get up to 3 tokens which is cheaper and faster than waiting 2 more turns to use a Cruel Ultimatum; also, you have the option of recasting any side for free, so the cost does not matter when recasted from the graveyard.
If you do not have Chromatic Lantern out, you are still getting card or board/field advantage turn 5 with the development part of Research // Development instead of turn 7 and it complements Keranos, God of Storms
Why are two Cruel Ultimatum mainboard better than 1 Research // Development and 1 Cruel Ultimatums when you can use it to get more of a card that wins you the game (for no mana cost) for free, from the graveyard and sideboard with Torrential Gearhulk?
What exactly is so complicated about this combo again?
Here is my updated decklist with cards I want and do not have included (remember the "Maybeboard" cards are sideboard cards):
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Creeping Tar Pit
1x Dragonskull Summit
1x Drowned Catacomb
2x Island
1x Lavaclaw Reaches
1x Mirrodin's Core
2x Mountain
1x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
4x Smoldering Marsh
1x Sulfur Falls
4x Sunken Hollow
2x Swamp
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Sorcery (10)
3x Anger of the Gods
1x Cruel Ultimatum
1x Damnation
1x Dark Salvation
2x Languish
2x Rise // Fall
Instant (15)
1x Cryptic Command
3x Devour Flesh
1x Far // Away
2x Gifts Ungiven
1x Kolaghan's Command
4x Lightning Bolt
1x Research // Development
2x Terminate
Creature (9)
1x Archaeomancer
1x Grave Titan
1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1x Keranos, God of Storms
1x Sakashima the Impostor
2x Snapcaster Mage
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Torrential Gearhulk
2x Chromatic Lantern
3x Cruel Ultimatum
1x Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
Maybeboard (36)
1x Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
2x Counterflux
1x Crumble to Dust
2x Demolish
4x Dispel
1x Dreadbore
1x Extirpate
1x Fulminator Mage
1x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Izzet Staticaster
1x Memnarch
4x Mizzium Mortars
1x Mogis, God of Slaughter
1x Olivia Voldaren
2x Rakdos Charm
1x Slaughter Games
1x Squee, Goblin Nabob
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Thought Hemorrhage
3x To the Slaughter
2x Vandalblast
2x Engineered Explosives
It's complicated because how in the **** are you going to dump Research into the graveyard? How often are you ever going to draw into it with just one in the entire deck? What happens if it's countered or if the Gearhulk is countered? What happens after the four cruels get shuffled into your library? How are you going to dig for them with zero card draw aside from the one cryptic that is still in your deck after you harped at us for using it? Isn't running Research or any cards in White or Green for that matter going against your handicapping belief system about unethical decks or whatever?
The point I'm making here is that you're living in Magical Christmas Land with what you're trying to do. You're sitting here expecting that literally everything possible will go right for you when there's so many things that can make your plan completely go down the *****ter. Hand disruption, counters, decks that just go so fast that you have zero time to do anything, all of that's going to happen while you're twiddling around doing nothing each turn just waiting until you get the mana for your weirdo combos. Modern players aren't going to adhere to your rules or beliefs about how wizards supposedly wants decks to be built and they certainly aren't going to wait for you to generate the mana necessary for this inane combo, you'll be dead on board before you're half way done with your combo.
UUBBBRR Cruel Control
BRG BRgBurn
BR URStorm
-Commander-
B Chainer, Dementia Master - Reanimator
U Teferi, Temporal Archmage - Calimari Tribal [Retired]
GB Ishkanah, Grafwidow - Delirium/Tokens
Esper Charm was played in the older versions of Cruel. If you wanted to go to value town than Torrential Gearhulk into "Draw 2 cards" or "Target player discards 2 cards" is right up your alley. Your Lanterns and Core also provide W if you had to hard cast them. Just food for thought.
Also posting my latest version as of Kaladesh.
UBx Tezzeret: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/18-06-17-ub-tezzeret/
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Darkslick Shores
2 Island
1 Mountain
4 Polluted Delta
2 Steam Vents
2 Wandering Fumarole
2 Swamp
1 Watery Grave
Creatures (6)
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Dispel
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
2 Electrolyze
1 Consume the Meek
Sorceries (13)
4 Serum Visions
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
2 Cruel Ultimatum
1 Damnation
Planeswalkers (3)
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
2 Countersquall
1 Dispel
2 Fulminator Mage
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Filigree Familiar
1 Damnation
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
Current list I am trying. Looking to see how good a tap-out control deck will work with all of the Chandra, Torch of Defiance. The sideboard also gives me Filigree Familiar, which is like a Kitchen Finks for the aggro and midrange matchups.
I almost considered the full Talisman + Pyromancer's Goggles + Chandra package just to ramp hard into Cruel but it seemed too greedy.
UBx Tezzeret: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/18-06-17-ub-tezzeret/
From here on, lets keep the "cruel Control" lists some where in the 4-7 range, otherwise I will infract
UUBBBRR
Some counter points I am going to make:
You said: "Because the whole point of this deck type is to control the game."
Turns 1-4: The opponent can not play any creatures because of board wipes, discards, sacrifices, etc.
Turns 5-6: Gain card advantage; opponent has no creatures, no cards, topdecking.
Turn 7: Cast Cruel Ultimatum.
Turns 1-7 = The game has been controlled.
Exactly, that is why it makes sense not to introduce more than 1 Cruel Ultimatum until after you can afford it and can play it, meaning having seven mana of the right color combination.
This means that if you can cast the development portion of Research // Development turn 5, you have at least 1 red mana and a blue mana.
This also means that if you can cast Torrential Gearhulk, that you have at least 2 blue mana and can cast one instant from the graveyard for free.
This also implies that if you cast Torrential Gearhulk, you won't need any Green mana to cast the research part of Research // Development.
After you cast Torrential Gearhulk you are one mana away from 7 mana.
The only reason the one Green mana even exists is in part of the fact that it is on a double faced card and because of the effect of Torrential Gearhulk you do not even need to have Green mana in your base, you just play him and chose the research portion of Research // Development.
I think you are assuming that all "Control Decks" are "Counterspell Decks" and must be forgetting that Traditional "Cruel Control" is tempo black based and therefore never originally used counter-spells. Also, Gifts Ungiven is probably the best blue alternative to Diabolic Tutor which has seen more than enough play with "Cruel Control" style decks.
Question and answer on why you think this is complicated ...
Q: How in the **** are you going to dump Research into the graveyard?
A: By either paying its mana cost or putting it in there another way, but mostly by paying its costs.
Q: How often are you ever going to draw into it with just one in the entire deck?
A: You can go looking for it or you can draw it randomly; statistically that is something like 3% of the time counted alone probably, but the percentage goes up when you count it the same as being a Cruel Ultimatum of which one comes 2 turns faster for card draw.
Q: What happens if it's countered or if the Gearhulk is countered?
A: You can possibly use Snapcaster or Archaeomancer to get its effect still or get Torrential Gearhulk out of the graveyard and recast him.
Q: What happens after the four cruels get shuffled into your library?
A: You can go looking for it or you can draw it randomly and statistically speaking your chances of drawing more of them increases.
Q: How are you going to dig for them with zero card draw aside from the one cryptic that is still in your deck after you harped at us for using it?
A: You must have miscounted. There are 4 or more sources of card draw in my deck.
Q: Isn't running Research or any cards in White or Green for that matter going against your handicapping belief system about unethical decks or whatever?
A: Thats a loaded question based on a false premise and doesn't deserve an actual answer.
Then you say some crap like:
I have tried to sit back and wade through this in the the hopes that you would come around to reason. I don't want to sound harsh but increasingly as you post it is becoming evident that you either haven't competed [even at FNM] in this meta game specifically, or magic generally in any significant way. Alternatively you have some...unique... FNM store, kitchen table, PPTQ, online metagame where your deck will work, and if you have the results to back it up then you have my sincerest apologies.
But for now you continue to use this thread as a thought exercise in goldfishing/theorycrafting and "on a budget" sounding board, which is not the intent, please make a grixis gifts thread in the deck creation forum. I don't want to discourage you from playing the game as it is a beautiful and fantastic game, and you seem determined to contribute in a positive way, but this thread is quickly derailing and devolving.
To your many and varied deck lists and ideas, it is not unheard of for esper for example to dedicate the entire sideboard for a gifts package, why don't you try to start with the best approximation you can get of cruel control, pilot it with results, even siding in a gifts package then report back?
This way we have some actual advice to give, and you have real world results? you seem to be getting closer at any rate. Can you tell use who/where you are play testing these builds currently?
To other Cruel Control Players:
Is Keranos, God of Storms still a reasonable sideboard card in this meta? If so, where are we bringing it in, grindy matches?
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
Considering he 1): gets eaten by nahiri, 2) gets hit by celestial purge/some other nahiri hate, and 3) isn't even an absolute game-ender once he lands, I think there are better things to do.
If you are looking at cards to bring in against jund, nahiri, etc, here are some options:
Ashiok: Not as strong against jeskai, but against eldrazi, jund, or most other semi fair decks, its a good threat for only 3 mana.
Chandra the firebrand: a bit questionable, but being able to ping creatures like spirit tokens, infect/affinity dudes, etc, being able to poke planeswalkers, and letting us double-cast bolts, discard spells, kolaghan's command, cryptic commands, electrolyzes, molten rains, rise/fall, cruel, etc. Its probably not great, but if you want a jund/abzan trump, this might be alright.
Batterskull/wurmcoil/grave titan: depending on your needs. Generally difficult to remove beatsticks. These are a bit broader.
Jace, unraveler of secrets: I like this more in faeries/blue moon with more etb creatures (snap, clique, PnK, mistbind clique, etc) probably not for this deck, but this guy has been completely overlooked in modern.
The new gearhulk: also probably too "build around" but has potential. Mystical teachings perhaps?
I think you might also question if you really want/need a big threat besides cruel.
My build is patterned after some relatively recent "Top 8" and "Cruel Control" decks which mainboarded Tamiyo, the Moon Sage which I was running in the original lists I created. I use Gifts Ungiven because that is technically the competitive blue card fetcher version of Diabolic Tutor which is not competitive. Gifts Ungiven compared to that card has seen some competitive play in a thopter style deck which I believe has "Top 8" placements. I don't disagree that combo decks may die to counterspell and discard decks. Also, the deck I am building is not budget itself, but people keep trying to say it is because of cards like the Archaeomancer not even thinking that cards like Rancor(had a rarity bump from common),Duress,Spider Umbra are also technically budget common cards and yet they see tournament play in decks that have "Top 8" standings; obviously those decks with those common/budget looking cards have strong cards to back them up or there is some effect that dodges removal. It is like how Grave Titan is considered more competitive than Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis even though Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis may have a better effect in creature based matchups, because when someone throws removal at either card Grave Titan leaves tokens and Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis leaves nothing.
And also, this ridiculous marking of my posts as spam by moderators now is not taking into account of the fact that my list has increasingly complied with the thread originators determination that a basic and typical "Cruel Control" list has the core cards of Lightning Bolt, Terminate, Cryptic Command and Snapcater Mage which is in my most recent lists. This means that it is a false assumption to assume that my list is not in line with the original creator of this thread. Further, there is now mention of "Jeskai Control" in the this thread which was not stated in the primer that we are to build against. It would probably be more professional for moderators to suggest that it be made clear in the primer that this is for competitive against "Jeskai Control" as opposed to be marking my list as spam, otherwise that it wrong to keep marking my posts as spam. As it stands, I am determining that there is a specific local or regional bias where "Jeskai Control" is present for most of the people here, where it is not so much where I live specifically.
Admittingly, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage based decks for "Cruel Control" would definitely not be competitive against "Jeskai Control" and I doubt a "Top 8 Cruel Control" deck with that card had encountered "Jeskai Control," but was obviously competitive enough with whatever was present when it became "Top 8".
Your suggestion of making my own thread for this combo, deck archetype is a reasonable request.