@Cody_X: I actually use Jace, Unraveler of Secrets and he's been great to me so far. The scry draw is great for my draw go play style and the bounce he offers buys us an extra turn of damage or so and the ultimate just saves us resources for the late game. I agree he has been completely over looked in modern. I wouldn't say he's the one to end our troubles but he is definitely worth testing because he is fun and very viable.
I don't think anyone here begrudges a unique decklist or a unique take that has results to back it up (even FNM), after all it's why we have Jeskai Harbinger and many other decks in the format.
In this instance though, people have tested iterations on semi-competitive online sites and the deck suggested to be almost non-functional in the current meta, further I don't see where you have mentioned where you are testing this to positive results? If I've overlooked, I apologize. Please link your Top 8 model.
When I say budget I don't mean because you are using archeomancer or commons/uncommons, but your various manabases have been far suboptimal, many gifts manabases are smooth even allowing for "one of's"
I also don't mean budget in a derogatory way, i.e. you can't afford it, simply there is a much better manabase you can have. That this is a thought exercise (which again is fine, but probably not here) is evidenced by your 36 card maybe board.
Respectfully, I would just say that streamlined and "optimized" gifts decks such as 4C and Esper are barely viable right now.
I don't think anyone here begrudges a unique decklist or a unique take that has results to back it up (even FNM), after all it's why we have Jeskai Harbinger and many other decks in the format.
In this instance though, people have tested iterations on semi-competitive online sites and the deck suggested to be almost non-functional in the current meta, further I don't see where you have mentioned where you are testing this to positive results? If I've overlooked, I apologize. Please link your Top 8 model.
When I say budget I don't mean because you are using archeomancer or commons/uncommons, but your various manabases have been far suboptimal, many gifts manabases are smooth even allowing for "one of's"
I also don't mean budget in a derogatory way, i.e. you can't afford it, simply there is a much better manabase you can have. That this is a thought exercise (which again is fine, but probably not here) is evidenced by your 36 card maybe board.
Respectfully, I would just say that streamlined and "optimized" gifts decks such as 4C and Esper are barely viable right now.
The better "mana base" for the version of "Cruel Control" promoted in this thread is streamlined blue to be able to cast Cryptic Command 4th turn. That is technically what I was doing with my current build and would have got there in my own eventually, but now moderators have gotten involved saying I am spamming or something and have now attempted to tell me what I should put in my decklist to be competitive; basically inferring that they want me to make it some "counterspell","discard" based deck based on a very stereotypical pool of cards (that have been statistically deduced to be in the meta and also of which I was aware of before ever posting here), as opposed to developing my Gifts Ungiven combo in this thread.
I know why they think I should do that, but that is also why there is a "sideboard" ... you don't have to main those cards.
@Dlanze, You honestly are living in magical christmas land where you're expecting that everything that your deck is meant to do will happen flawlessly when you shouldn't ever expect that. I tested your new list again over Cockatrice against Junk and Bant Eldrazi last night, it had the same exact issues of being dead on board by the time it ever managed to get to the Gifts combo or ended up having the combo pieces ripped from my hand by Thoughtseizes or Thoughtknot Seers. I managed to get lucky and snag one win off of Eldrazi by somehow surviving to cast Cruel and laying down the beats with Creeping Tarpit, but that's only after a really lucky topdecked Damnation and after doing absolutely nothing but playing tapped lands every turn until like turn 6. Every other game was the same miserable thing over and over again, just crawling along playing tapped lands and hoping that the removal would be enough. Again, you're sitting there assuming that every deck you play against will let you live to see the combo go off when they won't and you'll be dead as hell. Anyone that's ever played Modern for more than a year could figure out how to beat your deck if it ever manages to go off.
You also know absolutely nothing about where Cruel Control originated from since you think it's inspired by the DOTP Bolas deck with Power 9 cards. It wasn't. Gabriel Nassif built the deck during LOR-ALA standard as a 5 color control deck and it ran playsets of Cryptic Command and Broken Ambitions and used Negates in the sideboard and then it was piloted again in Extended in 2010 by Wafo-Tapa and Michael Jacob, both of whom used Countermagic to stall the board and more recently, we had Jarret Kong take 1st at an SCG and his list was full of counter magic. Even if all of that somehow wasn't the case, we're all here reporting positive win rates through the use of counterspells along with the usual grixis removal suite and yet you're plugging your ears and pretending like we're morons, Mr. High-and-Mighty.
And lastly, this thread is for a decklist that almost all of our decks are built to emulate in some way. Like all of our decks are pretty similar across the board. That means that since they're so similar, we can trade advice and learn from each others' builds. Your deck is nothing like ours and while that wasn't exactly a bad thing, you've spammed entire pages with posts about how to further your build alone and have done almost nothing aside from saying that cards we use are overrated and require zero brainwork and that we should all just drop what we're doing and what's getting us positive results and start emulating your build. You've provided little to nothing in terms of how to advance the archetype and have only written comments about how we're not playing the way Wizards intended and causing flame wars and devolving the entire thread. The deck isn't Tier 1 right now, no *****, but god damnit that doesn't mean we can't try to keep making it a competitive force. Like I said early on, if you wanted to have a different build, that was fine, but yet you kept trying to force your build down our throats and you kept harping at us for not following your moronic deck philosophy that completely kneecaps a deck for no reason other than to be some sort of Magic hipster that doesn't want to use cards that are proven to be good just because "oh well every filthy netdecker uses them, they're overrated." We gave you suggestions based on how our builds worked because that's the entire point of the ******* thread and because we're used to giving suggestions for decks that work like ours do and you kept getting *****ty with us because we assumed you didn't want to listen either because you were on a budget or because you were new, which neither are true, surprisingly. You also got mod checked because, again, all you do is make a ton of posts back to back about your deck list and provide nothing for the overall conversation. You never post any results from actual FNMs aside from one really short report that had no details on anything, you never bother listening to any of the advice we try to give and you completely write us all off as not understanding your build. Yeah, maybe your deck is running some staple grixis cards, but that doesn't make it a Cruel Control deck if you're sitting there focusing on your expensive combo.
Now please, for the sake of everyone else in this thread trying to discuss the actual decklist, either start posting detailed reports from FNMS and giving detailed arguments about why your mana intensive build works besides just talking about your inane deckbuilding philosophy or go make a 4C Cruel Gifts thread and stop posting here. Or keep posting here and derailing the thread and get banned or something, either works.
@Cody Yeah, Keranos gets destroyed by Nahiri decks, but I think aside from that one outlier he's pretty strong even in the MB just because he's a threat no other deck can really answer once he resolves. I usually board him out against UW control decks anyways just because of Leyline of Sanctity and lay down the beats from Batterskull and manlands.
@On Filigree Familiar, I didn't realize it before, but I really, really like this card. It's no Kitchen Finks, but it does a pretty nice impression of one and it does card draw which is pretty nice. I'm almost tempted to try shifting my SB around a little to try it out, it might be kind of nice.
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-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
@Spastik - More specifically Control-Tempo-Combo is traditional "Cruel Control" ... it has to be traditional by just reading what Cruel Ultimatum itself actually says.
This means that by the card itself, the following abilities:
Black is sacrifice, discard, bringing creatures back from the graveyard.
Red is lifeloss, gaining life, sweepers, random things.
Blue is card advantage, bringing instants and sorceries back from the graveyard, out of the deck or elsewhere.
indicate according to a 40%,30%,30% analysis from the mana that:
40% means that "Cruel Control" is mostly intended to be played with black using things like sacrifices, bringing cards back from the graveyard
30% answers to fast decks by using red and black sweepers, life/gain loss.
30% control through card advantage versus opponents card disadvantage.
Tempo control based on killing your opponents creatures to make way to play your own
Is not intended to be played in a counter-spell deck
Is not not intended to be played with a mainlined blue mana base, but a black one
However, in competitive play:
People play Cryptic Command, because even though it is 1UUU 4 mana it is still cheaper than 7 mana.
People mainline their mana base to play Cryptic Command turn 4
People play counter-spells to create synastry with Cryptic Command
This means that competitive players are not really playing "Cruel Control" they are playing "Cryptic Command Control" and simply cap it off with Cruel.
I don't think anyone here begrudges a unique decklist or a unique take that has results to back it up (even FNM), after all it's why we have Jeskai Harbinger and many other decks in the format.
In this instance though, people have tested iterations on semi-competitive online sites and the deck suggested to be almost non-functional in the current meta, further I don't see where you have mentioned where you are testing this to positive results? If I've overlooked, I apologize. Please link your Top 8 model.
When I say budget I don't mean because you are using archeomancer or commons/uncommons, but your various manabases have been far suboptimal, many gifts manabases are smooth even allowing for "one of's"
I also don't mean budget in a derogatory way, i.e. you can't afford it, simply there is a much better manabase you can have. That this is a thought exercise (which again is fine, but probably not here) is evidenced by your 36 card maybe board.
Respectfully, I would just say that streamlined and "optimized" gifts decks such as 4C and Esper are barely viable right now.
The better "mana base" for the version of "Cruel Control" promoted in this thread is streamlined blue to be able to cast Cryptic Command 4th turn. That is technically what I was doing with my current build and would have got there in my own eventually, but now moderators have gotten involved saying I am spamming or something and have now attempted to tell me what I should put in my decklist to be competitive; basically inferring that they want me to make it some "counterspell","discard" based deck based on a very stereotypical pool of cards (that have been statistically deduced to be in the meta and also of which I was aware of before ever posting here), as opposed to developing my Gifts Ungiven combo in this thread.
I know why they think I should do that, but that is also why there is a "sideboard" ... you don't have to main those cards.
I think this is the crux of the issue, perhaps the Gifts players could offer better advice and be more receptive to your deck building goals and ideals? I would assume they have much more experience running singletons and theorizing about optimal combos with gifts than most posters here.
@Dlanze, You honestly are living in magical christmas land where you're expecting that everything that your deck is meant to do will happen flawlessly when you shouldn't ever expect that. I tested your new list again over Cockatrice against Junk and Bant Eldrazi last night, it had the same exact issues of being dead on board by the time it ever managed to get to the Gifts combo or ended up having the combo pieces ripped from my hand by Thoughtseizes or Thoughtknot Seers. I managed to get lucky and snag one win off of Eldrazi by somehow surviving to cast Cruel and laying down the beats with Creeping Tarpit, but that's only after a really lucky topdecked Damnation and after doing absolutely nothing but playing tapped lands every turn until like turn 6. Every other game was the same miserable thing over and over again, just crawling along playing tapped lands and hoping that the removal would be enough. Again, you're sitting there assuming that every deck you play against will let you live to see the combo go off when they won't and you'll be dead as hell. Anyone that's ever played Modern for more than a year could figure out how to beat your deck if it ever manages to go off.
You also know absolutely nothing about where Cruel Control originated from since you think it's inspired by the DOTP Bolas deck with Power 9 cards. It wasn't. Gabriel Nassif built the deck during LOR-ALA standard as a 5 color control deck and it ran playsets of Cryptic Command and Broken Ambitions and used Negates in the sideboard and then it was piloted again in Extended in 2010 by Wafo-Tapa and Michael Jacob, both of whom used Countermagic to stall the board and more recently, we had Jarret Kong take 1st at an SCG and his list was full of counter magic. Even if all of that somehow wasn't the case, we're all here reporting positive win rates through the use of counterspells along with the usual grixis removal suite and yet you're plugging your ears and pretending like we're morons, Mr. High-and-Mighty.
And lastly, this thread is for a decklist that almost all of our decks are built to emulate in some way. Like all of our decks are pretty similar across the board. That means that since they're so similar, we can trade advice and learn from each others' builds. Your deck is nothing like ours and while that wasn't exactly a bad thing, you've spammed entire pages with posts about how to further your build alone and have done almost nothing aside from saying that cards we use are overrated and require zero brainwork and that we should all just drop what we're doing and what's getting us positive results and start emulating your build. You've provided little to nothing in terms of how to advance the archetype and have only written comments about how we're not playing the way Wizards intended and causing flame wars and devolving the entire thread. The deck isn't Tier 1 right now, no *****, but god damnit that doesn't mean we can't try to keep making it a competitive force. Like I said early on, if you wanted to have a different build, that was fine, but yet you kept trying to force your build down our throats and you kept harping at us for not following your moronic deck philosophy that completely kneecaps a deck for no reason other than to be some sort of Magic hipster that doesn't want to use cards that are proven to be good just because "oh well every filthy netdecker uses them, they're overrated." We gave you suggestions based on how our builds worked because that's the entire point of the ******* thread and because we're used to giving suggestions for decks that work like ours do and you kept getting *****ty with us because we assumed you didn't want to listen either because you were on a budget or because you were new, which neither are true, surprisingly. You also got mod checked because, again, all you do is make a ton of posts back to back about your deck list and provide nothing for the overall conversation. You never post any results from actual FNMs aside from one really short report that had no details on anything, you never bother listening to any of the advice we try to give and you completely write us all off as not understanding your build. Yeah, maybe your deck is running some staple grixis cards, but that doesn't make it a Cruel Control deck if you're sitting there focusing on your expensive combo.
Now please, for the sake of everyone else in this thread trying to discuss the actual decklist, either start posting detailed reports from FNMS and giving detailed arguments about why your mana intensive build works besides just talking about your inane deckbuilding philosophy or go make a 4C Cruel Gifts thread and stop posting here. Or keep posting here and derailing the thread and get banned or something, either works.
@Cody Yeah, Keranos gets destroyed by Nahiri decks, but I think aside from that one outlier he's pretty strong even in the MB just because he's a threat no other deck can really answer once he resolves. I usually board him out against UW control decks anyways just because of Leyline of Sanctity and lay down the beats from Batterskull and manlands.
@On Filigree Familiar, I didn't realize it before, but I really, really like this card. It's no Kitchen Finks, but it does a pretty nice impression of one and it does card draw which is pretty nice. I'm almost tempted to try shifting my SB around a little to try it out, it might be kind of nice.
Obviously, Gearhulk cannot flashback Ancestral Vision, which is a bit of an issue. Thinking of trying to squeeze in a single Goblin Dark-Dwellers solely for that purpose.
Open to critique.
On Keranos, God of Storms: I have main deck Keranos, it probably isn't correct but I really like him. That said, it does help that my meta contains almost no Nahiris.
On Filigree Familiar: I have really mixed feelings on Familiar. On the one hand, I do think that the card is playable, and might even be good, but I'm not convinced it is the best lifegain effect we can play. I think that on balance I probably prefer Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, though I'd love to hear peoples' experience with Familiar (once they've had time to get some!)
Obviously, Gearhulk cannot flashback Ancestral Vision, which is a bit of an issue. Thinking of trying to squeeze in a single Goblin Dark-Dwellers solely for that purpose.
Open to critique.
I wouldn't know how competitive doing this would be. Most people here would tell you that being competitive with "Cruel Control" means jamming Snapcaster Mage,Cryptic Command and other counterspelling into the deck along with using discards. I am not really convinced that this is legitimate "Cruel Control," but that is what they try to say at least.
@Dlanze We're not adopting your build or your stupid deck philosophy, stop shoving it down our throats and go make a 4c Gifts thread already or something. You're always right and we're a bunch of dumbasses, we get it, please go away.
@Prodigy If you're gonna run a beater like that sphinx, you might as well go all the way and use Sphinx of the Final Word. It can't be countered or targeted and makes your Cruels and instants uncounterable. I'd also say at LEAST run two Snaps or a second Cruel, he's too good not to take advantage of and having a second Cruel is almost necessary with what the deck is trying to do.
You guys are right about the Snapcaster. I should put at least one in to reclaim the Cruel Ultimatum.
I like the idea of Sphinx of the Final Word, but hard to say...I'll test some.
Did you read the decklist, @Dlanze? There's a bomb tonne of removal and counter magic...I'd rather save those slots in my sideboard for actual sideboard cards. I think I'll pass on the Research // Development.
Looks like this thread is undergoing a hostile takeover...
I will be updating the front page this weekend. Please let me know if you guys have any reasonable input. I'll review some new cards we could use and add some more match ups (hopefully)
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Level 1 Judge
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
You guys are right about the Snapcaster. I should put at least one in to reclaim the Cruel Ultimatum.
I like the idea of Sphinx of the Final Word, but hard to say...I'll test some.
Did you read the decklist, @Dlanze? There's a bomb tonne of removal and counter magic...I'd rather save those slots in my sideboard for actual sideboard cards. I think I'll pass on the Research // Development.
Not hostility on my part so much as me pointing out that a basic read of the card Cruel Ultimatum shows that a "Cruel Ultimatum deck" based solely on the card Cruel Ultimatum calls for black mana mechanics and a mostly black mana producing, mana base; also, the card itself has/gives no implication that it was intended for any counter-spelling mechanic. Therefore, it is logical that basing a "Cruel Control" deck around the mana needed to play Cryptic Command on the 4th turn is not actually "Cruel Control" in its native state. I would say that "Cruel Control" in its native state is some mixture of playing around the mechanics of cards like Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis or even what appears on a basic reading of the texts of Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker.
I think people here may have had some issues with not knowing how to make a "Cruel Control" style deck work without basing it around the "combo of" Snapcaster Mage and Cryptic Command together and have flamed me for my usage of the "combo of" Archaeomancer and Gifts Ungiven together when the reality is that putting all 4 of the cards Snapcaster Mage,Cryptic Command,Archaeomancer,Gifts Ungiven actually makes a rather good deck in synastry with adding Cruel Ultimatum; but, instead these same people just want to exclude the combo and cram as many Snapcaster Mage and Cryptic Command in without thinking that overall those two cards themselves don't really smooth out a "Cruel Control" deck or justify having it in there at all. They may not consider that something like putting Gifts Ungiven, Archaeomancer, Rise // Fall, Kolaghan's Command completes the deck somewhat and actually makes it look like the cards Snapcaster Mage and Cryptic Command belong in a "Cruel Control' deck.
You also have the people whose meta is infected by "Jeskai Control" and they seem the most vocal against putting my Archaeomancer and Gifts Ungiven combo in a "Cruel Control" deck, because they would rather play discard and counter-spells. I don't personally have a problem with this and it may be right for them to not play this combo in their meta. However, a few of them have flamed me for it inappropriately.
Nobody flamed you until you ended up acting like a huge ******* smartass. Not once until you started forcefully imposing bull***** on us and refused to explain your reasoning at all. Every single one of us tried to be understanding, we WANTED to try and understand your reasoning and give you advice based on what we know works, but no, you threw it all back in our faces like an ********. I'm pretty sure you'll go through this whole thing and still somehow find a way to come out of it thinking you're right and we're wrong. Not the case, but you've got your head shoved so far up your ass, you're not willing to listen to people that know what they're doing. I'm very much under the impression you're not telling us about your games because you get ******* annihilated every time or that everyone at your game store is as bad as you save for like one or two people that pub stomp the ***** out of you and even then, you've got more experience playing with plebs on Xmage playing rogue decks and with the lobotomized A.I. on Forge than you do playing with actual people at sanctioned events. That's why your deck's possibly doing good for you, you're probably playing against people that are as bad as you are and have no idea how to just curb stomp a slow deck that relies on a billion wonky combos and 400 turns to win. For any other store anywhere else, your deck would get ripped apart five hundred different ways. The fact that you assume that you'll win automatically because people don't know your deck is goes to show you know nothing about modern at all and proves how much of a narcissist you are with how you assume everyone else is some sort of retard. Anyone more than two brain cells to rub together could be able to figure out what you're trying to do if the game somehow went past six turns and be able to sideboard accordingly. And you know what? On top of all of that, even when we got frustrated with you it wasn't even full on flaming.
You want to see flaming? Here's flaming.
Your deck ******* sucks and you're an awful magic player and a ******* narcissist on top of it all for thinking we're just supposed to bend to your will and adopt your build because you said so. Do you understand that? It's an awful deck and you're awful at just about anything regarding magic. I've played with the deck in multiple iterations because you change it every time the wind changes direction and it's awful and every single turn of every game that I was testing it, I wanted to just concede and kill myself or let my opponent kill me except I always had one way of staying alive for a little longer because of pure luck. Your deck literally sits there and does nothing in the first few turns aside from maybe casting a bolt or a kill spell here or there since your land base is godawful and everything enters tapped because of your stupid no-fetch/shock policy. I have no idea how you assume it's capable of "hurr durr mak da oponint go to topdex!". Oh wait, that's right, you're the MAYOR of magical christmas land, it works in your head and that's all that matters. Your combo does nothing, it's ******* awful and I wouldn't ever jam that stupid four mana common in my deck even if someone held a gun to my head and threatened to shoot me. And you have no idea how modern works. You're such a pompous ***** of a person that you're completely ignoring 7 years of proven results from an established deck because you think you're smarter than other people that have actually used the deck more than you have and because you have a hipster complex about using cards that are played for a reason. You literally want us to handicap ourselves and make our decks worse in a format that won't forgive overcomplicated combos that barely do anything and are easily disrupted. Until you walk into a ******* PPTQ or a GP with your build and get in the top 8, you have ZERO authority to dictate that we alter an established build for yours. Stop playing on ******* Xmage and pretending like you're tough ***** because you beat rogue decks or other garbage players, bring that garbage list of yours to a sanctioned event, and bring back positive results if you want us to start using your combo, don't just walk in and expect us to listen and then get *****ty when we tell you how ******* bad your build is. Your card evaluation is also pure *****. You think that ******* Path to Exile is bad because you get a basic out of it. Yeah, that's totally true, they just take one of the few one-of creatures like your Grave Titan that you have jammed into your deck in exchange, that's actually a fair deal since it corrects your deck's *****ty land drops. Meanwhile you hail Archaeomancer as like the next ******* Messiah and have a raging hard-on for it because it doesn't exile cards even though it's a four mana 1/2 that plays slower than the rest of your deck combined. "Boo hoo, my spells are gone!" As if it matters, you don't need to cast Cruel four times to win when you're supposed to be running other wincons in your deck. I bet if a card came out that was three mana and said "You win the game" as an instant, you'd say it's bad and choose to run Divine Intervention in some stupid enchantment tutor combo instead because it has "synastry", whatever the **** that is. You thought Keranos was bad compared to Tamiyo because you thought Tamiyo could have three copies out on the field. That's great, it's not like there's a legend rule for planeswalkers or anything like that. You thought you could just jam a fraction of 8rack into the deck and have it do well when we told you it'd do bad and then came back and posted about how it didn't do well, once again demonstrating how you think we're all retards. Do you like that people try to make you play snapcaster? Of course not, you ***** and moan about it every other post. What makes you think we like being told that we're wrong for not running your stupid combo? And even if we weren't talking about your Cruel list, I've seen and tested all of your other lists on tapped out and they're about as garbage as your Cruel list is. You built a ******* legacy deck for Cruel Ult. Have you played in a Legacy event? Do you understand how fast that format is? Have you seen what the meta for Legacy is? No, you haven't, you'd probably ***** and moan about Force of Will if this was a legacy deck. You'll ***** and moan about anything that's a power card because you're living in a ******* fantasy land where you think can just use any obscure card if it means avoiding "auto win cards" and do well and that your decks can net wins against any established Modern deck ever. I think if there's any real life Jund or Abzan or Burn players you've gone against that have lost to you, they should quit playing because you're easily the worst magic player to have ever played the game, and you've been going for 6 years somehow. I'll gladly load up Xmage and play you if you want me to prove how much better an established Cruel build is compared to your trash list, but god knows you'd STILL find some way to say your build is better.
Thankfully you've gotten four infractions and a warning already and hopefully after this you finally get a ban if that's how the site works, I'm sick to death of coming here to see what's new with the build only to see your inane posts. We're ALL sick of your posts. Your deck has absolutely NOTHING IN COMMON WITH MODERN CRUEL CONTROL and you have zero clue or experience with what you're talking about.
To avoid you just picking one part of this entire wall, let me reiterate everything that we've been trying to tell you since you got all *****ty about this and started acting like a dumbass:
We're not changing our ******* decks for you.
We're not changing the way we build decks for you.
We're not listening to your *****ty philosophy.
We're not playing the way you want us to play.
We hate you and want you to leave so we can actually discuss our ******* decks and not have to respond to you every 20 seconds because all you do is make 900 posts a page preaching some garbage philosophy and pretending like we're morons for not doing your build.
Please, for the love of all that is holy on this plane of existence, **** off already and go bother someone else or start your own thread if you think we're all just a bunch of retards, because that's obviously the case here if you've been ignoring our suggestions and advice for almost a month now. "Put" that in your "quotation""marks" and "shove it" up your ass, maybe you can use it to crowbar your head out while you're at it.
You brought this on yourself.
There, I'm done. If I get a ban for this, I deserve it, but this needed to be said.
@Lil Bolas Is it cool if I PM you with some suggestions for the front regarding matchups and sideboarding for Tron or some other card suggestions (if I haven't made myself look like a savage for chewing out Dlanze)? I'm willing to help you add on to the OP if you'll allow it.
@Prodigy Ignore Dlanze, he has no idea what he's talking about and is living in his own little fantasy land. I'd say Final Word's worth it over Sphinx of Jwar Isle, that one extra mana in the cost is definitely worth it for something that needs a Damnation or graveyarded Kozilek's Return or an edict effect to get rid of that also hoses counter suites pretty well.
I like the blue Gearhulk over any Sphinx. The meta has very little counter magic.
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Level 1 Judge
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
I'm the the primer author, please PM me and I will give you some advice without any distractions.
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Level 1 Judge
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
If your opponent still has path to exile against after sideboard I think they lost
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Level 1 Judge
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
I mean in our builds, we'd definitely run the gearhulk, but for Prodigy I figured that Final Word was a step up from what he already had and that he might like it just because against any blue deck or removal heavy deck that doesn't use Lili, it's alright.
Grimble's got a nice point too, post board against control and midrange in my usual situation is when a lot of the removal comes out and the hand disruption comes in, that's about when I bust out Mr. Batterskull and go for the beats knowing that there's not as much removal.
Also I'll PM you later today maybe, Bolas, gotta check out the OP again. Might be worth adding Bant Eldrazi to the matchup list if it's not there now that it's a prevalent force, I can also supply some insight about matchups against Living End and 8Rack.
I would love to try out the new Chandra too.
UUBBBRR
In this instance though, people have tested iterations on semi-competitive online sites and the deck suggested to be almost non-functional in the current meta, further I don't see where you have mentioned where you are testing this to positive results? If I've overlooked, I apologize. Please link your Top 8 model.
When I say budget I don't mean because you are using archeomancer or commons/uncommons, but your various manabases have been far suboptimal, many gifts manabases are smooth even allowing for "one of's"
I also don't mean budget in a derogatory way, i.e. you can't afford it, simply there is a much better manabase you can have. That this is a thought exercise (which again is fine, but probably not here) is evidenced by your 36 card maybe board.
Respectfully, I would just say that streamlined and "optimized" gifts decks such as 4C and Esper are barely viable right now.
The better "mana base" for the version of "Cruel Control" promoted in this thread is streamlined blue to be able to cast Cryptic Command 4th turn. That is technically what I was doing with my current build and would have got there in my own eventually, but now moderators have gotten involved saying I am spamming or something and have now attempted to tell me what I should put in my decklist to be competitive; basically inferring that they want me to make it some "counterspell","discard" based deck based on a very stereotypical pool of cards (that have been statistically deduced to be in the meta and also of which I was aware of before ever posting here), as opposed to developing my Gifts Ungiven combo in this thread.
I know why they think I should do that, but that is also why there is a "sideboard" ... you don't have to main those cards.
You also know absolutely nothing about where Cruel Control originated from since you think it's inspired by the DOTP Bolas deck with Power 9 cards. It wasn't. Gabriel Nassif built the deck during LOR-ALA standard as a 5 color control deck and it ran playsets of Cryptic Command and Broken Ambitions and used Negates in the sideboard and then it was piloted again in Extended in 2010 by Wafo-Tapa and Michael Jacob, both of whom used Countermagic to stall the board and more recently, we had Jarret Kong take 1st at an SCG and his list was full of counter magic. Even if all of that somehow wasn't the case, we're all here reporting positive win rates through the use of counterspells along with the usual grixis removal suite and yet you're plugging your ears and pretending like we're morons, Mr. High-and-Mighty.
And lastly, this thread is for a decklist that almost all of our decks are built to emulate in some way. Like all of our decks are pretty similar across the board. That means that since they're so similar, we can trade advice and learn from each others' builds. Your deck is nothing like ours and while that wasn't exactly a bad thing, you've spammed entire pages with posts about how to further your build alone and have done almost nothing aside from saying that cards we use are overrated and require zero brainwork and that we should all just drop what we're doing and what's getting us positive results and start emulating your build. You've provided little to nothing in terms of how to advance the archetype and have only written comments about how we're not playing the way Wizards intended and causing flame wars and devolving the entire thread. The deck isn't Tier 1 right now, no *****, but god damnit that doesn't mean we can't try to keep making it a competitive force. Like I said early on, if you wanted to have a different build, that was fine, but yet you kept trying to force your build down our throats and you kept harping at us for not following your moronic deck philosophy that completely kneecaps a deck for no reason other than to be some sort of Magic hipster that doesn't want to use cards that are proven to be good just because "oh well every filthy netdecker uses them, they're overrated." We gave you suggestions based on how our builds worked because that's the entire point of the ******* thread and because we're used to giving suggestions for decks that work like ours do and you kept getting *****ty with us because we assumed you didn't want to listen either because you were on a budget or because you were new, which neither are true, surprisingly. You also got mod checked because, again, all you do is make a ton of posts back to back about your deck list and provide nothing for the overall conversation. You never post any results from actual FNMs aside from one really short report that had no details on anything, you never bother listening to any of the advice we try to give and you completely write us all off as not understanding your build. Yeah, maybe your deck is running some staple grixis cards, but that doesn't make it a Cruel Control deck if you're sitting there focusing on your expensive combo.
Now please, for the sake of everyone else in this thread trying to discuss the actual decklist, either start posting detailed reports from FNMS and giving detailed arguments about why your mana intensive build works besides just talking about your inane deckbuilding philosophy or go make a 4C Cruel Gifts thread and stop posting here. Or keep posting here and derailing the thread and get banned or something, either works.
@On Filigree Familiar, I didn't realize it before, but I really, really like this card. It's no Kitchen Finks, but it does a pretty nice impression of one and it does card draw which is pretty nice. I'm almost tempted to try shifting my SB around a little to try it out, it might be kind of nice.
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
This means that by the card itself, the following abilities:
indicate according to a 40%,30%,30% analysis from the mana that:
Therefore, this concludes that Cruel Ultimatum itself:
However, in competitive play:
This means that competitive players are not really playing "Cruel Control" they are playing "Cryptic Command Control" and simply cap it off with Cruel.
I think this is the crux of the issue, perhaps the Gifts players could offer better advice and be more receptive to your deck building goals and ideals? I would assume they have much more experience running singletons and theorizing about optimal combos with gifts than most posters here.
Filigree Familiar also has corner case blocking advantages too
2 Torrential Gearhulk
//Creature (4)
3 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
//Instant (18)
1 Consume the Meek
3 Cryptic Command
1 Dismember
2 Far // Away
1 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mana Leak
2 Spell Snare
1 Terminate
//Enchantment Creature (1)
1 Keranos, God of Storms
//Planeswalker (1)
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
//Sorcery (9)
4 Ancestral Vision
1 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Serum Visions
2 Blood Crypt
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Drowned Catacomb
1 Island
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Mountain
3 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
1 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
1 Consume the Meek
3 Countersquall
2 Crumble to Dust
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Shadow of Doubt
1 Slaughter Games
1 Spell Snare
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Tribute to Hunger
Obviously, Gearhulk cannot flashback Ancestral Vision, which is a bit of an issue. Thinking of trying to squeeze in a single Goblin Dark-Dwellers solely for that purpose.
Open to critique.
Sphinx of Jwar Isle and Keranos, God of Storms, because nothing says "I'll win, it might just take some time" than these guys.
Trying to basically replace Snapcaster Mage entirely. We're a late game deck, let's use cards that are good for that, like 5/6's with Flash!
On Filigree Familiar: I have really mixed feelings on Familiar. On the one hand, I do think that the card is playable, and might even be good, but I'm not convinced it is the best lifegain effect we can play. I think that on balance I probably prefer Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, though I'd love to hear peoples' experience with Familiar (once they've had time to get some!)
You won't have any way to reclaim or recast Cruel Ultimatum. Snapcaster Mage, Archaeomancer, Charmbreaker Devils are the only ones that do that.
Someone could mainboard in a "Grixis deck" 1 Cruel Ultimatum with at least 1 mainboarded Research // Development to pull 3 Cruel Ultimatum and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker out of the sideboard. You won't have to even produce G mana since cards like Goblin Dark-Dwellers and Torrential Gearhulk cast the cards without paying the cost of the G U "Research" side and the UR mana cost from the "Development" side can be casted for its cost.
I wouldn't know how competitive doing this would be. Most people here would tell you that being competitive with "Cruel Control" means jamming Snapcaster Mage,Cryptic Command and other counterspelling into the deck along with using discards. I am not really convinced that this is legitimate "Cruel Control," but that is what they try to say at least.
And BTW against creature decks in a control deck with heavy finishers and no (or few) low cost creature of you own, you'll have to run heavy counter-spelling or sweepers Mizzium Mortars,Pyroclasm,Anger of the Gods,Languish,Damnation,Consume the Meek with some sort of token generation (examples could be Dark Salvation,Research // Development,Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet,Grave Titan), discard such as Inquisition of Kozilek,Rise // Fall, Kolaghan's Command etc to get past 4th turn or you'll probably lose the game. You would have to run counterspelling instead such as Dispel,Mana Leak,Counterflux or even adding more Cryptic Commands against non-creature decks which you can mainboard or sideboard (depending upon your meta).
Again, people here tend to think that counterspelling and discard themselves are the most effective in the competitive realm.
@Prodigy If you're gonna run a beater like that sphinx, you might as well go all the way and use Sphinx of the Final Word. It can't be countered or targeted and makes your Cruels and instants uncounterable. I'd also say at LEAST run two Snaps or a second Cruel, he's too good not to take advantage of and having a second Cruel is almost necessary with what the deck is trying to do.
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
You guys are right about the Snapcaster. I should put at least one in to reclaim the Cruel Ultimatum.
I like the idea of Sphinx of the Final Word, but hard to say...I'll test some.
Did you read the decklist, @Dlanze? There's a bomb tonne of removal and counter magic...I'd rather save those slots in my sideboard for actual sideboard cards. I think I'll pass on the Research // Development.
I will be updating the front page this weekend. Please let me know if you guys have any reasonable input. I'll review some new cards we could use and add some more match ups (hopefully)
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
Not hostility on my part so much as me pointing out that a basic read of the card Cruel Ultimatum shows that a "Cruel Ultimatum deck" based solely on the card Cruel Ultimatum calls for black mana mechanics and a mostly black mana producing, mana base; also, the card itself has/gives no implication that it was intended for any counter-spelling mechanic. Therefore, it is logical that basing a "Cruel Control" deck around the mana needed to play Cryptic Command on the 4th turn is not actually "Cruel Control" in its native state. I would say that "Cruel Control" in its native state is some mixture of playing around the mechanics of cards like Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis or even what appears on a basic reading of the texts of Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker.
I think people here may have had some issues with not knowing how to make a "Cruel Control" style deck work without basing it around the "combo of" Snapcaster Mage and Cryptic Command together and have flamed me for my usage of the "combo of" Archaeomancer and Gifts Ungiven together when the reality is that putting all 4 of the cards Snapcaster Mage,Cryptic Command,Archaeomancer,Gifts Ungiven actually makes a rather good deck in synastry with adding Cruel Ultimatum; but, instead these same people just want to exclude the combo and cram as many Snapcaster Mage and Cryptic Command in without thinking that overall those two cards themselves don't really smooth out a "Cruel Control" deck or justify having it in there at all. They may not consider that something like putting Gifts Ungiven, Archaeomancer, Rise // Fall, Kolaghan's Command completes the deck somewhat and actually makes it look like the cards Snapcaster Mage and Cryptic Command belong in a "Cruel Control' deck.
You also have the people whose meta is infected by "Jeskai Control" and they seem the most vocal against putting my Archaeomancer and Gifts Ungiven combo in a "Cruel Control" deck, because they would rather play discard and counter-spells. I don't personally have a problem with this and it may be right for them to not play this combo in their meta. However, a few of them have flamed me for it inappropriately.
You came in here with your build and it was okay at first. We tried to get some insight from you about why it may have worked for you and why you lacked some cards or chose some cards over others, there was ZERO flaming at all, we were trying to be as nice and open as possible to your build and why you may have chosen the cards you did. You proceeded to subtly ***** on all of us for using power cards by basically saying we're morons for using cards that "require no brain work", completely talk out of your ass about a deck you have zero experience playing since your second post made it clear you designed your build around the ******* DOTP deck, live in magical christmas land in a thread for a competitive control deck, gave us a cringe-worthy 20 point list about why we should just suddenly change an established build with absolute bull***** reasoning, ignored proven data that completely disproves your line of thought because it went against your line of thought, whine about people suggesting Snapcaster Mage when that's pretty much what anyone that knows Modern well enough would tell you to do for any blue deck, make more not-so-subtle jabs at us for the cards we use and suggest that your build, which has had one or two 2-2 reports over the time you've been here, is somehow automatically better than ours because "SYNASTRY11!!!", presented the most convoluted and moronic design philosophy in history that has absolutely nothing to do with the ******* thread at all and is backed up by nothing but complete bull*****, jam that entire bull***** philosophy down our throats even though none of us besides you really gave two *****s over and over, got whiny when we all started getting frustrated with trying to keep this thread going with you *****ting all over it, suggest that we're somehow playing your absolute trash deck the wrong way when there's no way to make it play well at all, continued to suggest that Cryptic doesn't work in a control strategy 5 million times (not quoting this more than once because you say this almost every other time), came up with another moronic combo that takes up more turns and mana than just casting spells reactively and does absolutely ******* nothing but risk getting you killed around the fifth turn mark, once again talked out your ass with more magical christmas land logic assuming that you know what "real" Cruel Control is supposed to be when it's not at all a ******* black tempo deck, started *****ing when the mods (rightfully) marked your posts as spam because you make 5 million of them in a row and have no clue how to shut the **** up and then for some reason started insinuating that the mods are trying to force a build on you, made another stupid inference about Cruel Ult. instead of just playing the ******* card like a normal person, and now you've gone and slapped us all in the face by basically saying that we don't know what we're doing and that your build is now somehow better than all of ours and fed bull***** information to a newcomer to the thread to make us look like we're hostile to people that build differently when we're only hostile to one single know-it-all moron.
Nobody flamed you until you ended up acting like a huge ******* smartass. Not once until you started forcefully imposing bull***** on us and refused to explain your reasoning at all. Every single one of us tried to be understanding, we WANTED to try and understand your reasoning and give you advice based on what we know works, but no, you threw it all back in our faces like an ********. I'm pretty sure you'll go through this whole thing and still somehow find a way to come out of it thinking you're right and we're wrong. Not the case, but you've got your head shoved so far up your ass, you're not willing to listen to people that know what they're doing. I'm very much under the impression you're not telling us about your games because you get ******* annihilated every time or that everyone at your game store is as bad as you save for like one or two people that pub stomp the ***** out of you and even then, you've got more experience playing with plebs on Xmage playing rogue decks and with the lobotomized A.I. on Forge than you do playing with actual people at sanctioned events. That's why your deck's possibly doing good for you, you're probably playing against people that are as bad as you are and have no idea how to just curb stomp a slow deck that relies on a billion wonky combos and 400 turns to win. For any other store anywhere else, your deck would get ripped apart five hundred different ways. The fact that you assume that you'll win automatically because people don't know your deck is goes to show you know nothing about modern at all and proves how much of a narcissist you are with how you assume everyone else is some sort of retard. Anyone more than two brain cells to rub together could be able to figure out what you're trying to do if the game somehow went past six turns and be able to sideboard accordingly. And you know what? On top of all of that, even when we got frustrated with you it wasn't even full on flaming.
You want to see flaming? Here's flaming.
Your deck ******* sucks and you're an awful magic player and a ******* narcissist on top of it all for thinking we're just supposed to bend to your will and adopt your build because you said so. Do you understand that? It's an awful deck and you're awful at just about anything regarding magic. I've played with the deck in multiple iterations because you change it every time the wind changes direction and it's awful and every single turn of every game that I was testing it, I wanted to just concede and kill myself or let my opponent kill me except I always had one way of staying alive for a little longer because of pure luck. Your deck literally sits there and does nothing in the first few turns aside from maybe casting a bolt or a kill spell here or there since your land base is godawful and everything enters tapped because of your stupid no-fetch/shock policy. I have no idea how you assume it's capable of "hurr durr mak da oponint go to topdex!". Oh wait, that's right, you're the MAYOR of magical christmas land, it works in your head and that's all that matters. Your combo does nothing, it's ******* awful and I wouldn't ever jam that stupid four mana common in my deck even if someone held a gun to my head and threatened to shoot me. And you have no idea how modern works. You're such a pompous ***** of a person that you're completely ignoring 7 years of proven results from an established deck because you think you're smarter than other people that have actually used the deck more than you have and because you have a hipster complex about using cards that are played for a reason. You literally want us to handicap ourselves and make our decks worse in a format that won't forgive overcomplicated combos that barely do anything and are easily disrupted. Until you walk into a ******* PPTQ or a GP with your build and get in the top 8, you have ZERO authority to dictate that we alter an established build for yours. Stop playing on ******* Xmage and pretending like you're tough ***** because you beat rogue decks or other garbage players, bring that garbage list of yours to a sanctioned event, and bring back positive results if you want us to start using your combo, don't just walk in and expect us to listen and then get *****ty when we tell you how ******* bad your build is. Your card evaluation is also pure *****. You think that ******* Path to Exile is bad because you get a basic out of it. Yeah, that's totally true, they just take one of the few one-of creatures like your Grave Titan that you have jammed into your deck in exchange, that's actually a fair deal since it corrects your deck's *****ty land drops. Meanwhile you hail Archaeomancer as like the next ******* Messiah and have a raging hard-on for it because it doesn't exile cards even though it's a four mana 1/2 that plays slower than the rest of your deck combined. "Boo hoo, my spells are gone!" As if it matters, you don't need to cast Cruel four times to win when you're supposed to be running other wincons in your deck. I bet if a card came out that was three mana and said "You win the game" as an instant, you'd say it's bad and choose to run Divine Intervention in some stupid enchantment tutor combo instead because it has "synastry", whatever the **** that is. You thought Keranos was bad compared to Tamiyo because you thought Tamiyo could have three copies out on the field. That's great, it's not like there's a legend rule for planeswalkers or anything like that. You thought you could just jam a fraction of 8rack into the deck and have it do well when we told you it'd do bad and then came back and posted about how it didn't do well, once again demonstrating how you think we're all retards. Do you like that people try to make you play snapcaster? Of course not, you ***** and moan about it every other post. What makes you think we like being told that we're wrong for not running your stupid combo? And even if we weren't talking about your Cruel list, I've seen and tested all of your other lists on tapped out and they're about as garbage as your Cruel list is. You built a ******* legacy deck for Cruel Ult. Have you played in a Legacy event? Do you understand how fast that format is? Have you seen what the meta for Legacy is? No, you haven't, you'd probably ***** and moan about Force of Will if this was a legacy deck. You'll ***** and moan about anything that's a power card because you're living in a ******* fantasy land where you think can just use any obscure card if it means avoiding "auto win cards" and do well and that your decks can net wins against any established Modern deck ever. I think if there's any real life Jund or Abzan or Burn players you've gone against that have lost to you, they should quit playing because you're easily the worst magic player to have ever played the game, and you've been going for 6 years somehow. I'll gladly load up Xmage and play you if you want me to prove how much better an established Cruel build is compared to your trash list, but god knows you'd STILL find some way to say your build is better.
Thankfully you've gotten four infractions and a warning already and hopefully after this you finally get a ban if that's how the site works, I'm sick to death of coming here to see what's new with the build only to see your inane posts. We're ALL sick of your posts. Your deck has absolutely NOTHING IN COMMON WITH MODERN CRUEL CONTROL and you have zero clue or experience with what you're talking about.
To avoid you just picking one part of this entire wall, let me reiterate everything that we've been trying to tell you since you got all *****ty about this and started acting like a dumbass:
We're not changing our ******* decks for you.
We're not changing the way we build decks for you.
We're not listening to your *****ty philosophy.
We're not playing the way you want us to play.
We hate you and want you to leave so we can actually discuss our ******* decks and not have to respond to you every 20 seconds because all you do is make 900 posts a page preaching some garbage philosophy and pretending like we're morons for not doing your build.
Please, for the love of all that is holy on this plane of existence, **** off already and go bother someone else or start your own thread if you think we're all just a bunch of retards, because that's obviously the case here if you've been ignoring our suggestions and advice for almost a month now. "Put" that in your "quotation""marks" and "shove it" up your ass, maybe you can use it to crowbar your head out while you're at it.
You brought this on yourself.
@Lil Bolas Is it cool if I PM you with some suggestions for the front regarding matchups and sideboarding for Tron or some other card suggestions (if I haven't made myself look like a savage for chewing out Dlanze)? I'm willing to help you add on to the OP if you'll allow it.
@Prodigy Ignore Dlanze, he has no idea what he's talking about and is living in his own little fantasy land. I'd say Final Word's worth it over Sphinx of Jwar Isle, that one extra mana in the cost is definitely worth it for something that needs a Damnation or graveyarded Kozilek's Return or an edict effect to get rid of that also hoses counter suites pretty well.
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
Thanks for the Snapcaster and Sphinx suggestions.........
I like the blue Gearhulk over any Sphinx. The meta has very little counter magic.
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
Grimble's got a nice point too, post board against control and midrange in my usual situation is when a lot of the removal comes out and the hand disruption comes in, that's about when I bust out Mr. Batterskull and go for the beats knowing that there's not as much removal.
Also I'll PM you later today maybe, Bolas, gotta check out the OP again. Might be worth adding Bant Eldrazi to the matchup list if it's not there now that it's a prevalent force, I can also supply some insight about matchups against Living End and 8Rack.
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