I think we'll need to give the metagame a chance to adjust to the recent bans / unbans before speculalating on what build of emeria can be most competitive.
If your just looking for past 5 - 0 lists, I'm sure people can link a few.
@The Fluff
I think that I'll wait for hype cost to die down before buying my playset of SFM, let us know the how testing goes. What do you think could be good alternative equipment choices?
I always enjoyed playing Sword of Light and Shadow and Sword of Fire and Ice in the 75 (one in main and one in the sideboard) so I'll have to look at if it's worthwhile to go back and add them with Stoneforge Mystic. Sword of Sinew and Steel also may be promising for dealing with Planeswalkers and Artifacts, but it's entirely dependent on how my local meta shapes up post ban.
- 3 Brought Back
- 4 Remorseful Cleric
- 3 Prismatic Vista
My buddy was also testing and was on Mono White D&T, here are some of the things that I learned.
1. Without some form of evasion you will not get in for a sword trigger
2. Flickerwisp is really good with / against Batterskull
3. Stoneforge Mystic works around graveyard hate nicely
4. I was really envious whenever my opponents flyers got in with Sword of Fire and Ice, it may be a card I want to include over Sword of Steel and Sinew in the mainboard
5. Cruicible of Worlds is decided less powerful in a build with only four fetchlands
6. Brought Back seems like it could be amazing in a format where my opponents attack with a 4/4 lifelink vigilance on turn four.
7. Stoneforge Mystic will choke up a lot of your mana
8. Cleansing Nova and Stony Silence become somewhat awkward in this build.
We played about ten games I think, with me winning seven, I generally lost to being choked on mana and run over by equipped flyers with protection from mom. The games that I won were either on the back of wrath effects and Emeria, the Sky Ruin, or Stoneforge Mystic, Batterskull, and Flickerwisp running them down. Those three were MVP especially when my opponent landed their Rest in Peace.
In conclusion, Stoneforge Mystic was good but not really necessary for the matchup. It choked up a lot of my mana and diluted my primary gameplan, which I could have used to advance my board state. I missed some land drops on occasion because I chose to hold up an activation instead of playing a Wall of Omens or cracking a clue token. If our meta becomes saturated with other Stoneforge Mystic decks then I think I'm going back to my previous build with maybe an extra Eldrazi Displacer or Day of Judgement included somewhere in the 75 because.
This is because as much as I like tutoring for artifacts when playing against graveyard hate, our primary game plan is so much stronger against these janky midrange decks. Emeria Control honestly does not care if we have to chump block eight times in a row and our opponent is at 52 life, if it means we get our as Emeria or Sun Titan online we'll still overtake them.
I'm going to continue testing, I still want to see how the control, combo, and aggro matches have changed.
I'm just not sure how viable artifacts can be if they're expected. What with K-Command, one sided stony silences, and decks that can combo on turn one.
Edit
So I played mtgo with my regular mono white build with a few minor changes, I added three Lone Missionary and a Cavalier of Dawn to the maindeck. I also relegated Remorseful Cleric to the sideboard.
As expected Brought Back was 10/10 in a grindy matchup were you can set up profitable trades in combat. The only card that gave me some amount of pause was their Giver of Runes but having six wrath effects in your deck really helps against that.
To be honest, I'm still on the fence about whether or not we need Stoneforge Mystic, it is a nice sidestep against graveyard hate but it's slow eats up a ton of slots. Plus there is no Umezawa's Jitte in this format, regardless it seems we should be very well positioned against the SFM decks of the future.
Edit 2
So after rereading my post to edit I decided that I'm going to try a different build with Stoneforge Mystic and take my own advice.
1. I'm going to increase my fetchland count
2. Only add three SFM and two equipment so as not dilute the decks primary game plan too much
3. Keep in Brought Back (seriously it's too good, just stole me two games against Tron this morning)
4. Add Sword of Fire and Ice
I may cry if it turns out that Lone Missionary is better than Stoneforge Mystic in our deck. I really don't want to accept that as a possibility.
@The Fluff
I think that I'll wait for hype cost to die down before buying my playset of SFM, let us know the how testing goes. What do you think could be good alternative equipment choices?
Honestly, I have some Stoneforge a few days ago. But now have none, because I sold them all into the hype. Got to make some money while people are buying like crazy. I will just re-buy when prices settle down.
On another talk. Since gy strategies are expected to weaken. I plan to remove the two maindeck remorseful cleric that I used during the Hogaak era. Replace those two clerics with SFM, then stick a batterskull or two somewhere. We are a blink deck, and flickerwisp has some nice synergy with both SFM and batterskull. An SFM package also gives us a win-con that does not rely on the gy. Worth testing I think.
curious what ppls thoughts on sfm in emeria are. If Uve been testing w it lmk plz. I’ll be playing with them tomorrow but I just want other opinions. Personally I don’t really think it will feel that powerful considering while we do durdle a lot, we are generally playing cards that replace themselves via wall of omens, thraben,ranger so we usually have things to do outside of activate stoneforge. You can say it’s a way to win w/o gy but this is why I run Gideon package in 2 GotT and 1 Jura as an alternate wincon. However you could also argue that sfm is unnecessary considering the reduced amount of gy hate that people are going to have.
I don’t think sfm will be necessary as we already have more useful ways to use our mana via our replacement effort cards to fill board (you could argue using sfm ability to put batterskull is better), but this is just theory as i have yet to play with them yet
This is what I ran at my LGS today (we played with post-ban legalities).
If I played the deck again, I'd change these things:
SB: -1 Crucible of Worlds +1 Pithing Needle (Crucible wasnt all that useful vs Control-decks and Pithing Needle would have been nice to shut down Batterskull recursions)
SB: -2 Rest in Peace +2 Remorseful Cleric (If I keep Brought Back in the deck, it was quite the non-bo)
Brought Back is similar to Flickerwisp in the sense that it can be used to recur our etb effects. However being able to target any permanent allows for some interesting interactions with our utility lands. For example if you have two Prismatic Vista and two Brought Back you pretty much guarantee yourself six land drops and an active Emeria, the Sky Ruin by turn four.
Its more than that though, it's basically like a glue that holds the deck together. Need to guarantee you survive another turn against Tron, Dredge, or Aggro sacrifice your Ranger-Captain of Eos, Kami of False Hope, or Remorseful Cleric. Your rock opponent is making you sacrifice half of your best permanents with Liliana of the Veil, surprise I now have six power and two Thraben Inspector in hand.
Basically, Brought Back is 2 for 1 that has good synergies in our deck and the potential to be extremely powerful in the early game but can also scale well into the late game.
So Stoneforge Mystic hype aside, has anyone else actually playtested this card? I bought my copies on mtgo but after testing I'm not sure I'm going to be buying in paper.
The artifacts you can tutor have felt clunky and awkward, and in my experience they don't actually help you win the matches you would have lost otherwise. For example Lone Missionary is better against Green Tron not because it gains four life but because it's a 2/1 for two mana. Tron especially is a match were you really have to play to board quickly, get your threat out, get your disruption and go.
That said If my LGS was extremely hostile towards the graveyard, I would consider playing Stoneforge Mystic as an alternate win condition.
On a seperate note, I'm wondering if I should still have a singleton On Thin Ice to act as a fifth Path to Exile. I really liked it back in the days of Hogaak and UR Pheonix but I think I'd want to trim a Lone Missionary to include it. Blast Zone is a concern and I believe the artifact and enchantment hate in sideboards has increased too, since SFM became legal. I'll have to think on it.
i have concluded that i dont like sfm in this deck. with how many replaceable cards we have in our deck, i usually just want to do more things with our synergies rather than put batterskull into play. i also think lone missionary is great right now. burn was THE most popular deck in dallas this weekend (might just be bc its dallas where burn is everywhere there)so more reliable ways to gain life in that card is way better than crossing ur fingers hoping ur sfm doesnt get killed so u can put in a batterskull thats likely too late.
ranger captain is a card that has felt really good whenever i play it. the value it gives is immense with getting a thraben inspector, and it can tutor all of ur cute 1 ofs that we put in our decks (martyr of sands maybe lol). it has HUGE play vs tron, one of our hardest mu's imo, and if you somehow get a sun titan + ranger into play vs them you will likely just lock them out of the game as long you as have other things to stop their wurmcoils via flickerwisp/path/WoA(winds of abandon).
i've only been playing with one WoAm but its been really good for me pretty much every time i've cast it. the flexibility on this card is great, and the one sided EXILING sweeper on it is great, but i unfortunately can't find room for more of them (i'm an idiot and i play 2 runed halos bc i enjoy hosing stupid combo decks game 1) but if you can i highly recommend playing more copies, bc this card is good.
lastly ur blast zone comment is interesting, as idk how brought back plays still (have yet to get some copies but i dont have fetches so i dont think its worth playing w/o those). ive been playing with 2 blast zones in the main and i am NEVER going back. this card is fantastic every time i see it. killing planeswalkers against more control based decks like LotV/baby tef against jund/uw control respectively is great, as we dont really have much ways to get rid of planeswalkers game 1. it's also a fantastic way to get rid of annoying artifacts against some of the bigger decks like whirza in ensnaring bridge (dont have a really way to get rid of this card G1 either lol) or just other pesky ***** like blood moons or something. blast zone has been an all star for me and i HIGHLY suggest putting in 2 of these in your main deck as its one of the only ways we can remove pretty much anything other than lands or creatures game 1.
While BB probably isn't worth playing without the fetchands you may be able get away with Flagstones of Trokair and Ghost Quarter as a budget option.
I could see going to two Blast Zone in the main, as it's incredibly flexible but I'd want to go up to 25 lands in the main and side the Ghost Quarter. I like Blast Zone but it really hurts our primary Emeria, the Sky Ruin game-plan. It's hard to explain, but the reasoning behind the Blast Zone in the side and Ghost Quarter main is that I wanted to add to our pre-existing land destruction game-plan to hedge percentage points. Basically I don't think the odds of me drawing into a one of Blast Zone, in game one, in the exactly right matchup are good. As opposed to drawing into a five of, in game one, in exactly the right matchup.
That said, Blast Zone is a really good card and has saved my bacon multiple times. Also, it doesn't interact with Blood Moon the way you'd want it too.
The interaction between GQ and Brought Back is that you can essentially go up a land drop, but it can also help turn your extra Field of Ruin or Emeria, the Sky Ruin into Plains if you have too many. Also just being able to Ghost Quarter your opponent multiple times is good too.
Anyway, just finished a league, went 4 - 1 against Boggles, Thopter Sword, Scapeshift, GDS, and Jund. Lost to Scapeshift, not much can help that matchup especially when they have Teferi, Time Raveler to get around your Ranger-Captain of Eos.
I wouldn't mind playing the Thopter Sword matchup more, as it was extremely close and they can combo out of nowhere but my opponent scooped to me chaining Kami of False Hope. I'm not sure if that means they don't have an out to the lock in game one.
Yeah I get the preference, and I could honestly see bumping the deck to 25 lands as blast zone usually acts as a spell.
Don’t know why I said blood moon though mind just blanked lol.
Also depending on how bad the whirza matchup really easy and/or how popular it ends up being, I think it could really be worth putting a cleansing nova in the main. Might be over doing it but the one extra mana it has over wrath usually won’t come into play since we already have plenty of ways to slow our opponent’s creatures down via walls/gideons/spot removal. It also can’t get spell queller’d which is kinda relevant given wat ppl are trying to do with quelled+sfm rn
I've gone up to 25 lands in the main in the past and liked it. I'm not sure what I would want to cut though, as my usual flex slots aren't in the deck i.e. Gideon Jura. I also don't think I'd want to cut the Crucible of Worlds for it, as crucible has almost always overperformed.
I think I'm going to test out the Flagstones of Trokair route, the only issue I've had with it in the past is that if you can't go above 6 - 7 colorless lands and still expect to cast you W on turn one or WW on turn three. That said, a painless manabase would be nice and I haven't revisted that manabase since Brought Back was legal. It could work out well.
recently ive invested into mono white emeria on mtgo, and so far after a couple of leagues ive played against uw stoneblade A LOT and the matchup honestly feels miserable pre board and post board.. we both just durdle for a while then their stronger things deal with our things pretty well. idk maybe the uw emeria version matches up better vs this deck but with mono white the matchup just feels super exhausting just to get out grinded. want to know what yalls thoughts are on this mu or if we are just supposed to concede to the fact that its a tough one.
Sorry, my laptop is on the fritz so I'm typing from mobile. Anyway, were you playing against tempo or control? Tempo is bad for us but I feel like the control matchup has gotten worse over time. It used to be that if you stuck a crucible of worlds you won the match. Now though between their powerfull planeswalkers, countermagic and FoR they don't give us enough time to assemble our gameplan. I'd say were a dog at 40 - 60. Your best bet is to lock them out with RCoE on crucial turns, i.e. to slam Sun Titan or stop Teferi. Ìd also recommend saving your Brought Back for when they tap out other to activate FoR on our Emeria. Lastly, you can still run them over with Thraben Inspectors, control players never respect the 1/2 and it'll chip away in the background until they're low enough for you to steal a win.
I will say that the mono white build can generally draw more cards then a GW splash. In our games I had 15 cards left in library while my opponent had 30. That said, my opponents toolbox package was really awesome allowed them to find bombs like Sun Titan and Remorseful Cleric.
Brought Back was mvp on my side of our matches, it allowed me to bounce back from all of the wrath effects, tailor creature combat, generate card advantage, and match them on lands. I probably wouldn't have won without it.
If your just looking for past 5 - 0 lists, I'm sure people can link a few.
@The Fluff
I think that I'll wait for hype cost to die down before buying my playset of SFM, let us know the how testing goes. What do you think could be good alternative equipment choices?
not sure how great sfm is really gonna be but i think it will be better than lone missionary/other 2 drops
4x Flickerwisp
1x Kami of False Hope
3x Ranger-Captain of Eos
2x Stoneforge Mystic
3x Sun Titan
4x Thraben Inspector
4x Wall of Omens
Artifact (2)
1x Batterskull
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
Enchantment (2)
2x Runed Halo
2x Blast Zone
3x Emeria, The Sky Ruin
4x Field of Ruin
1x Mistveil Plains
14x Plains
Sorcery (4)
1x Day of Judgment
1x Winds of Abandon
2x Wrath of God
Planeswalker (3)
1x Gideon Jura
2x Gideon of the Trials
4x Path to Exile
1x Cleansing Nova
2x Damping Sphere
2x Generous Gift
2x Lone Missionary
1x Lyra Dawnbringer
4x Remorseful Cleric
2x Sorcerous Spyglass
1x Stony Silence
I always enjoyed playing Sword of Light and Shadow and Sword of Fire and Ice in the 75 (one in main and one in the sideboard) so I'll have to look at if it's worthwhile to go back and add them with Stoneforge Mystic. Sword of Sinew and Steel also may be promising for dealing with Planeswalkers and Artifacts, but it's entirely dependent on how my local meta shapes up post ban.
+ 4 Stoneforge Mystic
+ 1 Mortarpod
+ 1 Sword of Sinew and Steel
+ 1 Batterskull
+ 1 Mistveil Plains
+ 2 Snow-Covered Plains
- 3 Brought Back
- 4 Remorseful Cleric
- 3 Prismatic Vista
My buddy was also testing and was on Mono White D&T, here are some of the things that I learned.
1. Without some form of evasion you will not get in for a sword trigger
2. Flickerwisp is really good with / against Batterskull
3. Stoneforge Mystic works around graveyard hate nicely
4. I was really envious whenever my opponents flyers got in with Sword of Fire and Ice, it may be a card I want to include over Sword of Steel and Sinew in the mainboard
5. Cruicible of Worlds is decided less powerful in a build with only four fetchlands
6. Brought Back seems like it could be amazing in a format where my opponents attack with a 4/4 lifelink vigilance on turn four.
7. Stoneforge Mystic will choke up a lot of your mana
8. Cleansing Nova and Stony Silence become somewhat awkward in this build.
We played about ten games I think, with me winning seven, I generally lost to being choked on mana and run over by equipped flyers with protection from mom. The games that I won were either on the back of wrath effects and Emeria, the Sky Ruin, or Stoneforge Mystic, Batterskull, and Flickerwisp running them down. Those three were MVP especially when my opponent landed their Rest in Peace.
In conclusion, Stoneforge Mystic was good but not really necessary for the matchup. It choked up a lot of my mana and diluted my primary gameplan, which I could have used to advance my board state. I missed some land drops on occasion because I chose to hold up an activation instead of playing a Wall of Omens or cracking a clue token. If our meta becomes saturated with other Stoneforge Mystic decks then I think I'm going back to my previous build with maybe an extra Eldrazi Displacer or Day of Judgement included somewhere in the 75 because.
This is because as much as I like tutoring for artifacts when playing against graveyard hate, our primary game plan is so much stronger against these janky midrange decks. Emeria Control honestly does not care if we have to chump block eight times in a row and our opponent is at 52 life, if it means we get our as Emeria or Sun Titan online we'll still overtake them.
I'm going to continue testing, I still want to see how the control, combo, and aggro matches have changed.
I'm just not sure how viable artifacts can be if they're expected. What with K-Command, one sided stony silences, and decks that can combo on turn one.
Edit
So I played mtgo with my regular mono white build with a few minor changes, I added three Lone Missionary and a Cavalier of Dawn to the maindeck. I also relegated Remorseful Cleric to the sideboard.
Anyway, I played against an equipment matters deck with Puresteel Paladin, Stoneforge Mystic, and Kazuul's Toll Collector. They were playing a Sigrada's Aid deck with Colossus Hammer and a SFM package. To be honest I misplayed heavily against them and it didn't matter. Just keep the creatures off the board and then blow up the odd relevant permanent with Cleansing Nova, Cavalier of Dawn, Generous Gift, or Blast Zone.
As expected Brought Back was 10/10 in a grindy matchup were you can set up profitable trades in combat. The only card that gave me some amount of pause was their Giver of Runes but having six wrath effects in your deck really helps against that.
To be honest, I'm still on the fence about whether or not we need Stoneforge Mystic, it is a nice sidestep against graveyard hate but it's slow eats up a ton of slots. Plus there is no Umezawa's Jitte in this format, regardless it seems we should be very well positioned against the SFM decks of the future.
Edit 2
So after rereading my post to edit I decided that I'm going to try a different build with Stoneforge Mystic and take my own advice.
1. I'm going to increase my fetchland count
2. Only add three SFM and two equipment so as not dilute the decks primary game plan too much
3. Keep in Brought Back (seriously it's too good, just stole me two games against Tron this morning)
4. Add Sword of Fire and Ice
I may cry if it turns out that Lone Missionary is better than Stoneforge Mystic in our deck. I really don't want to accept that as a possibility.
Decklist
Mainboard: 60
Creature: 22
1 Kami of False Hope
4 Thraben Inspector
3 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Wall of Omens
4 Flickerwisp
3 Ranger-Captain of Eos
3 Sun Titan
Instant // Sorcery: 11
4 Path to Exile
2 Winds of Abandon
3 Brought Back
2 Wrath of God
Artifact: 3
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
Manabase: 24
3 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
1 Mistveil Plains
4 Field of Ruin
3 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
1 Arid Mesa
1 Marsh Flats
9 Plains
Sideboard: 15
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
3 Remorseful Cleric
2 Stony Silence
2 Damping Sphere
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
2 Generous Gift
1 Ranger-Captain of Eos
2 Cleansing Nova
Okay so things I still want to test include Giver of Runes and Sword of the Animist. I'm also questioning whether a Sword of Sinew and Steel is possibly better than Sorcerous Spyglass. Maybe, I think they do different things but I'm not sure what else I'd want to cut to make room for it.
Honestly, I have some Stoneforge a few days ago. But now have none, because I sold them all into the hype. Got to make some money while people are buying like crazy. I will just re-buy when prices settle down.
On another talk. Since gy strategies are expected to weaken. I plan to remove the two maindeck remorseful cleric that I used during the Hogaak era. Replace those two clerics with SFM, then stick a batterskull or two somewhere. We are a blink deck, and flickerwisp has some nice synergy with both SFM and batterskull. An SFM package also gives us a win-con that does not rely on the gy. Worth testing I think.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
I don’t think sfm will be necessary as we already have more useful ways to use our mana via our replacement effort cards to fill board (you could argue using sfm ability to put batterskull is better), but this is just theory as i have yet to play with them yet
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2219774
This is what I ran at my LGS today (we played with post-ban legalities).
If I played the deck again, I'd change these things:
SB: -1 Crucible of Worlds +1 Pithing Needle (Crucible wasnt all that useful vs Control-decks and Pithing Needle would have been nice to shut down Batterskull recursions)
SB: -2 Rest in Peace +2 Remorseful Cleric (If I keep Brought Back in the deck, it was quite the non-bo)
Its more than that though, it's basically like a glue that holds the deck together. Need to guarantee you survive another turn against Tron, Dredge, or Aggro sacrifice your Ranger-Captain of Eos, Kami of False Hope, or Remorseful Cleric. Your rock opponent is making you sacrifice half of your best permanents with Liliana of the Veil, surprise I now have six power and two Thraben Inspector in hand.
Basically, Brought Back is 2 for 1 that has good synergies in our deck and the potential to be extremely powerful in the early game but can also scale well into the late game.
The artifacts you can tutor have felt clunky and awkward, and in my experience they don't actually help you win the matches you would have lost otherwise. For example Lone Missionary is better against Green Tron not because it gains four life but because it's a 2/1 for two mana. Tron especially is a match were you really have to play to board quickly, get your threat out, get your disruption and go.
That said If my LGS was extremely hostile towards the graveyard, I would consider playing Stoneforge Mystic as an alternate win condition.
Maindeck
- 1 Mistveil Plains
- 3 Stoneforge Mystic
- 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
- 1 Batterskull
+ 1 Ghost Quarter
+ 4 Lone Missionary
+ 1 Ranger-Captain of Eos
Sideboard
+ 1 Blast Zone
+ 1 Remorseful Cleric
Moving the Ghost Quarter and fourth Ranger-Captain of Eos from my sideboard to the main opened up two slots. I added one Remorseful Cleric and one Blast Zone. Blast Zone should possibly be in the main over Ghost Quarter but GQ has better synergies with Brought Back and improves our game one Tron and Amulet Titan matchup.
On a seperate note, I'm wondering if I should still have a singleton On Thin Ice to act as a fifth Path to Exile. I really liked it back in the days of Hogaak and UR Pheonix but I think I'd want to trim a Lone Missionary to include it. Blast Zone is a concern and I believe the artifact and enchantment hate in sideboards has increased too, since SFM became legal. I'll have to think on it.
i have concluded that i dont like sfm in this deck. with how many replaceable cards we have in our deck, i usually just want to do more things with our synergies rather than put batterskull into play. i also think lone missionary is great right now. burn was THE most popular deck in dallas this weekend (might just be bc its dallas where burn is everywhere there)so more reliable ways to gain life in that card is way better than crossing ur fingers hoping ur sfm doesnt get killed so u can put in a batterskull thats likely too late.
ranger captain is a card that has felt really good whenever i play it. the value it gives is immense with getting a thraben inspector, and it can tutor all of ur cute 1 ofs that we put in our decks (martyr of sands maybe lol). it has HUGE play vs tron, one of our hardest mu's imo, and if you somehow get a sun titan + ranger into play vs them you will likely just lock them out of the game as long you as have other things to stop their wurmcoils via flickerwisp/path/WoA(winds of abandon).
i've only been playing with one WoAm but its been really good for me pretty much every time i've cast it. the flexibility on this card is great, and the one sided EXILING sweeper on it is great, but i unfortunately can't find room for more of them (i'm an idiot and i play 2 runed halos bc i enjoy hosing stupid combo decks game 1) but if you can i highly recommend playing more copies, bc this card is good.
lastly ur blast zone comment is interesting, as idk how brought back plays still (have yet to get some copies but i dont have fetches so i dont think its worth playing w/o those). ive been playing with 2 blast zones in the main and i am NEVER going back. this card is fantastic every time i see it. killing planeswalkers against more control based decks like LotV/baby tef against jund/uw control respectively is great, as we dont really have much ways to get rid of planeswalkers game 1. it's also a fantastic way to get rid of annoying artifacts against some of the bigger decks like whirza in ensnaring bridge (dont have a really way to get rid of this card G1 either lol) or just other pesky ***** like blood moons or something. blast zone has been an all star for me and i HIGHLY suggest putting in 2 of these in your main deck as its one of the only ways we can remove pretty much anything other than lands or creatures game 1.
I could see going to two Blast Zone in the main, as it's incredibly flexible but I'd want to go up to 25 lands in the main and side the Ghost Quarter. I like Blast Zone but it really hurts our primary Emeria, the Sky Ruin game-plan. It's hard to explain, but the reasoning behind the Blast Zone in the side and Ghost Quarter main is that I wanted to add to our pre-existing land destruction game-plan to hedge percentage points. Basically I don't think the odds of me drawing into a one of Blast Zone, in game one, in the exactly right matchup are good. As opposed to drawing into a five of, in game one, in exactly the right matchup.
That said, Blast Zone is a really good card and has saved my bacon multiple times. Also, it doesn't interact with Blood Moon the way you'd want it too.
The interaction between GQ and Brought Back is that you can essentially go up a land drop, but it can also help turn your extra Field of Ruin or Emeria, the Sky Ruin into Plains if you have too many. Also just being able to Ghost Quarter your opponent multiple times is good too.
I like being able to run my opponent out of their basics with Winds of Abandon, Path to Exile, and Field of Ruin, then just start taking them off the colors I don't like with Ghost Quarter. A particularly fond memory for me was when I had a Ghost Quarter, Field of Ruin, Sun Titan, and Crucible of Worlds in play with a Flickerwisp and Brought Back in hand. My opponent lost all of their lands that turn cycle.
Anyway, just finished a league, went 4 - 1 against Boggles, Thopter Sword, Scapeshift, GDS, and Jund. Lost to Scapeshift, not much can help that matchup especially when they have Teferi, Time Raveler to get around your Ranger-Captain of Eos.
I wouldn't mind playing the Thopter Sword matchup more, as it was extremely close and they can combo out of nowhere but my opponent scooped to me chaining Kami of False Hope. I'm not sure if that means they don't have an out to the lock in game one.
Don’t know why I said blood moon though mind just blanked lol.
Also depending on how bad the whirza matchup really easy and/or how popular it ends up being, I think it could really be worth putting a cleansing nova in the main. Might be over doing it but the one extra mana it has over wrath usually won’t come into play since we already have plenty of ways to slow our opponent’s creatures down via walls/gideons/spot removal. It also can’t get spell queller’d which is kinda relevant given wat ppl are trying to do with quelled+sfm rn
I think I'm going to test out the Flagstones of Trokair route, the only issue I've had with it in the past is that if you can't go above 6 - 7 colorless lands and still expect to cast you W on turn one or WW on turn three. That said, a painless manabase would be nice and I haven't revisted that manabase since Brought Back was legal. It could work out well.
Edit
So I just played an awesome match against an emeria variant splashing green. They had the typical ramp package in Sakura Tribe-Elder and Renegade Rallier but were also utilizing a toolbox package with Eladamri's Call. Cool silver bullets like Knight of the Reliquary, Ramunap Excavator, Knight of Autumn, Shalai, Voice of Plenty and Remorseful Cleric. I ended up 2 - 0 but it was a grind fest and practically went to time.
I will say that the mono white build can generally draw more cards then a GW splash. In our games I had 15 cards left in library while my opponent had 30. That said, my opponents toolbox package was really awesome allowed them to find bombs like Sun Titan and Remorseful Cleric.
Brought Back was mvp on my side of our matches, it allowed me to bounce back from all of the wrath effects, tailor creature combat, generate card advantage, and match them on lands. I probably wouldn't have won without it.
It's all I ever wanted :]
I'm also looking at Giant Killer being a 1 of as it is tutorable from Ranger Cap. Very excited at these new cards!