I agree that this replaces Lone Missionary (except for the 1-of Martyr of Sands which I'll still keep).
I think Giant Killer is just too expensive, although it is certainly an interesting option
Edit: Thinking about it a little longer, this is a slightly different Flickerwisp. The flexibility of the flicker isn't quite there, but being one mana cheaper, and not taking up a crowded 3-drop slot is very good. Maybe 4x this and 2x Flickerwisp?
Omagosh, I can't believe I missed this, it doesn't even die to W&6! I remeber thinking earlier this year how a UW costed 2/2 with modal scy 2 gain 3 would be awesome. This is so much better, It's so beautiful
It is a great card indeed, I did not expect something like this to get printed but with Knight of Autumn starting this new modal-card trend I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Omagosh, I can't believe I missed this, it doesn't even die to W&6! I remeber thinking earlier this year how a UW costed 2/2 with modal scy 2 gain 3 would be awesome. This is so much better, It's so beautiful
The prince is an amazing card. Our lone missionary has been upgraded.
Here's a question for you guys, what do you think of Mistveil Plains position in our deck with the release of Charming Prince? I've personally played the card in the past and found it clunky and awkward. However, it does have synergies with Ranger-Captain of Eos when you need to tutor a creature.
Basically, the feel bad moments of having only a Ranger-Captain of Eos on board and Flickerwisp in hand with no cmc 1 to tutor for will increase with Charming Prince. I've been of the mindset that if you have had access to all of your one drops, the game has probably gone on long enough for you to accumulate enough advantage to win regardless.
That's not always the case against control archetypes. Plus Mistveil Plains can allow us to tuck a Kami of False Hope for when we reanimate Ranger-Captain of Eos. This is so we can play around instant speed interaction by sacrificing the ranger before we play Kami of False Hope ensuring that we can then sacrifice kami on our opponents turn without it being removed at eot.
Both scenario's are kinda fringe, and like I said I'm mostly opposed to the idea but open to feedback. If I had to make room I'd probably want to remove another utility land or go up to 25 lands total and I'm not sure it's worth it.
I agree that if you've already exhausted of 1 drops, you're probably at the point where you can recur them with Sun Titan / Emeria. In my local meta I've been doing quite well against the UWx matchup - and we have a lot of players that are on it so I'm quite familiar with it. I don't think Mistveil is necessary - I've been comfortable with 3 Ranger Cap + 5/6 1-drops (4 Thraben, 1 Kami, 1 Hex Parasite). I'm looking to test Giant Killer in the Hex Parasite slot which was there to answer the early Planeswalkers.
I personally find that I have a positive matchup against it with the UW variant - Dsphere to answer the walkers...JTMS + counterspell back up I believe should be their main strategy to win. Narset is annoying, but you can pop clues on their turn to get around it. I cut the 2 Teferi's and went back to 2 Court Hussar and find that I just churn through my deck way faster. I really don't care too much if they counter my stuff cause I'll end up getting it back anyway. Their Path's actually help ramp me faster to Emeria. The other sub game we need to be aware of is the Field of Ruin / Emeria to make sure we don't get hit. We have 4 Field of Ruins ourselves so try to hit their Field of ruin if the opportunity presents itself. If my Sun Titan resolves usually the first thing I look to get back is Emeria. We most definitely out grind them late game with a variety of ways to win
I'm going to be dropping my 3 Lone Missionary + 1 Phantasmal Image and bringing in the full 4 Charming Prince once ELD is out
The other thing I've been doing is dropping the number of Wraths I play - I don't think theres many matchups in the meta right now that warrant 3.5 Wraths (2 Verdict, 1 ***, 0.5 from Winds of Abandon). Humans/Eldrazi Tron are the matchups I most want it in; I did like it vs. Jund before but now that they've moved to more W6s and cutting Dark Confidant, I've been boarding them out. Other decks that are t1 now include Burn, Whirza, Scapeshift, Death Shadow variants, UWx control, so wrath's aren't where I want to be right now.
My hypothesis is that the meta could now be slow enough that Spreading Seas is back to being effective...will be testing it out this week.
Unless I'm mistaken hex parasite and giant killer do different things right?
I agree with your assesment of the control matchup. Though it is harder with the mono white archetype. You're still playing towards emeria but you want to keep up BB for when they destroy with FoR.
What do you think about potentially shaving 1 - 2 Flickerwisp for Vesperlark once ELD hits?
@fruitloops75
To break down what coffeeortea suggested
- interaction for the walkers in d-sphere and veto
- additional card advantage in hussar
- less creature removal
If I could offer my own advice too, If I was metagaming for control strategies then I would also want Champion of Wits and Teferi, Time Raveler. CW is a nice recursive threat that allows you to discard dead removal and get around opposing counter-magic with its Eternalize ability. Tefferi is low cost and therefore potentially recursive planeswalker that can generate card advantage and shut off opposing counter-magic.
Its possible that you want GQ side and BZ main, or an additional fetch / utility land over the third Hallowed Fountain. Honestly this build looks pretty decent, but I'd like to find a way to add Kami of False Hope to the main if I was to play it. No Brought Back is sad, but getting access to 4 x Dovin's Veto and 4 x Ranger-Captain of Eos probably improves the tron matchup.
When boarding you would probably want
Side in
0 - 1 Burrenton-Forge Tender
1 Blast Zone
2 - 3 Remorseful Cleric
1 Dovins Veto
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Ranger-Captain of Eos
0 - 1 Detention Sphere
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
Side out
0 - 1 Ghost Quarter
4 Path to Exile
0 - 1 Charming Prince
1 Winds of Abandon
2 Flickerwisp
2 Supreme Verdict
You normally want some removal to hedge against their creature angel package but usually not much, d-sphere should be enough. If its UWR control you probably want BFT, personally I would probably play 25 land and 3rd Remorseful Cleric before the 4th Charming Prince but I'm not sure if that's actually correct.
Deck I'm going to run tomorrow in our weekly modern tournament - keep in mind my SB is tuned against my meta which has a lot of GDS, Burn, Scapeshift, and a Whirza, hence going all the way up to 3 Aven Mindcensor & 3 Leylines - ridiculous I know lol. Normally I'd pack an extra wrath, a flexible catch-all card/secondary finisher (Cavalier, Gideon, Dragonlord Ojutai), and adjust graveyard/artifact/pithing needle/counterspell effects based on the meta.
I absolutely cannot wait to replace the Missionaries with Charming Prince!
I've tried 1 of big Teferi and for the most part I wasn't all that excited as he's neither recurrable by Emeria nor Sun Titan. The +1 draws a card every turn with the untap 2 only marginally relevant for Path/Field of ruin mana - we play at Sorcery speed most of the time anyway. I think I prefer Cavalier of Dawn more in that utility slot.
Super stoked about charming prince now I won’t want to scoop to jund turn 2 when they wrenn minus my lone missionary
Some things I wanted to point out/ask:
I’ve been playing with a 1 of giver in the side, but I’m indifferent about it. It’s been super good in some matchups, but a lot of those matchups I also just want a kami, so I’m not sure what I think about it. Prob just gonna take it out all together since idk what I’d cut to where I could have both in my main.
Also I agree with the wrath trimmings I could see like 2 wrath(or 1 wrath/verdict) with 2 winds of abandon, cause that card has been super good for me.
Also I know marinjuk has a lot of success with brought back but has anyone else tested with it? From his experiences it seems really strong but I just want more of a sample size before I’m convinced and start investing in fetches for the package.
For those of you that have tested with the card, does it have a place in uw? I get the cuts are probably harder in this deck but it seems like it would be even better in a deck like this given ur non creature permanents
Finally, (and sorry I know lot of questions) can someone explain the justification behind champion of wits? Gonna be honest this card just seems like hot garbage. Maybe I’m undervaluing the eternalize effect but it just seems way too low of a power level for modern playability to me
If you do end up investing in the fetches I'd suggest a playset of Flooded Strand first followed by Windswept Heath / Prismatic Vista. FS can be easily be ported to a UW build WH / PV are the cheapest I think.
Before you purchase anything make sure to proxy it and playtest at your LGS or online at cockatrice.
@fruitloops75:
I've tried Brought Back in UW. Imo it is too situational to be good. Either you ramp 2 and it is awesome or it rots for 5 turns in your hand. I used to play it bc I didn't want to play Lone Missionary (I thought a Martyr of Sands with Ranger-Captains should be enough), but with Charming Prince we got the perfect card for the slot.
etb untapped if you control at least 3 other Plains
when ~ etb, if etb untapped, put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control
So, the effect seems pretty weak, however, this is fetchable as a combat trick, counts as Plains for Emeria, and also counts nonbasic Plains for its ability, so it should come into play untapped pretty often. So this might not be as bad as it looks.
What do you think?
Played a 3 rounder last night and ended up 2-1 (split last round but played for the premium promo pack)
Match 1 [W--] vs UW Control w/ Stoneblade
We only ended up finishing one game which seems about right from experience lol - I usually average about 1.5 games with UW so very important to win the first one, or identify when you can't win to scoop for more time to win the second one. He lands an early Jace and there was a crucial turn in which he was tapped out to block all my attackers with Snapcaster at Jace, and played Path on my Ranger Cap. I sac'd Ranger Cap in response and then proceeded to play Detention Sphere in my 2nd main phase, which was met with a Veto. We proceeded to his turn with both of us forgetting that he could not cast non-creature spells which actually made a big difference because he ended up brainstorming with JTMS for another 10+ turns. I'm not sure what the ruling would've been to backtrack, but in any case I let it go since it was regular REL and low stakes. After 15+ turns of grinding I reach a board state of 3 active Emeria but at low health. I proceed to sac Ranger Cap on his upkeep everyturn to lock him out, but ignorant that I needed to sac my second Ranger Cap on my own turn so he can't interact with Kami, cause i would've been dead from a Cryptic tap down and alpha swing. Unfortunately I did not get punished for that and had a path in hand to save my butt. I ended up grinding him out and then time was called while we were sideboarding.
Match 2 [WW] vs 5c Whirza
Largely uneventful as my opponent had less than spectacular draws, I brought in 11 cards to stop him at numerous angles (Stony Silence, Spyglass, Mindcensor, Veto, Cleric). I drew enough of my sideboard cards and established a clock to end the game quickly.
Match 3 [LL] vs Jund
I haven't played against Jund post MoHo so this was a good learning experience to see how the matchup has evolved. I was generally happy to play against Jund before but after playing against W6 I felt a bit helpless. The Spreading Seas were atrocious as I didn't really have much time to go on the land destruction plan, and regardless that would be futile anyway because of W6. Game 1 a resolved Lili + W6 grinded me out of cards and I lost to a Hexdrinker before I could turn the corner.
Game 2 I brought in 3 Leyline, 2 Veto, 2 Spyglass to focus on the walkers. My 7 had double Missionary which I shipped because its so bad against W6. I usually try to keep as many 7s as I can against hand-disruption decks. My 6 was a 1 lander (Field of ruin) with a Leyline. I could'nt go down to 6 so reluctantly kept and played the T0 leyline hoping he has a hand full of Iok/Thoughtseize. He didn't, I missed 1 land drop and lost to an unanswered Tireless tracker which generated too much advantage.
In conclusion, Spreading Seas was worse than I thought it would be, decks play too many basics and ways to get around land d / color denial (Astrolabe, W6) to be effective. I actually decided to pack 0 wraths yesterday and found out later that I did miss having 2 - its actually not so bad against UW now that they upped the creature count, and it can take out Hexdrinker.
Going to give it another run today at FNM, this deck has so many lines I still have so much to learn after picking the deck up 4 years ago. Can't make the MCQ unfortunately on Saturday
3 more weeks until I can shelve Lone Missionaries...
I honestly don't think that we need it, if we needed an non-plains utility land that created a 1/1 in order to help us grind in the late game we already have Westvale Abbey and Legion's Landing. Having utility lands in the deck is great but not being a plains can set you back when trying to assemble Emeria, the Sky Ruin.
Did some brainstorming the other day and my friend suggested to include 1 of Golos, Tireless Pilgrim to fetch up Emeria/blast zone in a pinch. Can also help ramp us to 7 plains faster from Flickering it. Think I will try it for my weekly modern this week to see how it goes.
I think Giant Killer is just too expensive, although it is certainly an interesting option
Edit: Thinking about it a little longer, this is a slightly different Flickerwisp. The flexibility of the flicker isn't quite there, but being one mana cheaper, and not taking up a crowded 3-drop slot is very good. Maybe 4x this and 2x Flickerwisp?
The prince is an amazing card. Our lone missionary has been upgraded.
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Basically, the feel bad moments of having only a Ranger-Captain of Eos on board and Flickerwisp in hand with no cmc 1 to tutor for will increase with Charming Prince. I've been of the mindset that if you have had access to all of your one drops, the game has probably gone on long enough for you to accumulate enough advantage to win regardless.
That's not always the case against control archetypes. Plus Mistveil Plains can allow us to tuck a Kami of False Hope for when we reanimate Ranger-Captain of Eos. This is so we can play around instant speed interaction by sacrificing the ranger before we play Kami of False Hope ensuring that we can then sacrifice kami on our opponents turn without it being removed at eot.
Both scenario's are kinda fringe, and like I said I'm mostly opposed to the idea but open to feedback. If I had to make room I'd probably want to remove another utility land or go up to 25 lands total and I'm not sure it's worth it.
What do you all think?
I personally find that I have a positive matchup against it with the UW variant - Dsphere to answer the walkers...JTMS + counterspell back up I believe should be their main strategy to win. Narset is annoying, but you can pop clues on their turn to get around it. I cut the 2 Teferi's and went back to 2 Court Hussar and find that I just churn through my deck way faster. I really don't care too much if they counter my stuff cause I'll end up getting it back anyway. Their Path's actually help ramp me faster to Emeria. The other sub game we need to be aware of is the Field of Ruin / Emeria to make sure we don't get hit. We have 4 Field of Ruins ourselves so try to hit their Field of ruin if the opportunity presents itself. If my Sun Titan resolves usually the first thing I look to get back is Emeria. We most definitely out grind them late game with a variety of ways to win
I'm going to be dropping my 3 Lone Missionary + 1 Phantasmal Image and bringing in the full 4 Charming Prince once ELD is out
The other thing I've been doing is dropping the number of Wraths I play - I don't think theres many matchups in the meta right now that warrant 3.5 Wraths (2 Verdict, 1 ***, 0.5 from Winds of Abandon). Humans/Eldrazi Tron are the matchups I most want it in; I did like it vs. Jund before but now that they've moved to more W6s and cutting Dark Confidant, I've been boarding them out. Other decks that are t1 now include Burn, Whirza, Scapeshift, Death Shadow variants, UWx control, so wrath's aren't where I want to be right now.
My hypothesis is that the meta could now be slow enough that Spreading Seas is back to being effective...will be testing it out this week.
Unless I'm mistaken hex parasite and giant killer do different things right?
I agree with your assesment of the control matchup. Though it is harder with the mono white archetype. You're still playing towards emeria but you want to keep up BB for when they destroy with FoR.
What do you think about potentially shaving 1 - 2 Flickerwisp for Vesperlark once ELD hits?
@fruitloops75
To break down what coffeeortea suggested
- interaction for the walkers in d-sphere and veto
- additional card advantage in hussar
- less creature removal
If I could offer my own advice too, If I was metagaming for control strategies then I would also want Champion of Wits and Teferi, Time Raveler. CW is a nice recursive threat that allows you to discard dead removal and get around opposing counter-magic with its Eternalize ability. Tefferi is low cost and therefore potentially recursive planeswalker that can generate card advantage and shut off opposing counter-magic.
A lists may look something like this,
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2253060#online
Its possible that you want GQ side and BZ main, or an additional fetch / utility land over the third Hallowed Fountain. Honestly this build looks pretty decent, but I'd like to find a way to add Kami of False Hope to the main if I was to play it. No Brought Back is sad, but getting access to 4 x Dovin's Veto and 4 x Ranger-Captain of Eos probably improves the tron matchup.
When boarding you would probably want
Side in
0 - 1 Burrenton-Forge Tender
1 Blast Zone
2 - 3 Remorseful Cleric
1 Dovins Veto
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Ranger-Captain of Eos
0 - 1 Detention Sphere
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
Side out
0 - 1 Ghost Quarter
4 Path to Exile
0 - 1 Charming Prince
1 Winds of Abandon
2 Flickerwisp
2 Supreme Verdict
You normally want some removal to hedge against their creature angel package but usually not much, d-sphere should be enough. If its UWR control you probably want BFT, personally I would probably play 25 land and 3rd Remorseful Cleric before the 4th Charming Prince but I'm not sure if that's actually correct.
I absolutely cannot wait to replace the Missionaries with Charming Prince!
3 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
3 Hallowed Fountain
4 Flooded Strand
6 Plains
1 Island
1 Prismatic Vista
1 Prairie Stream
1 Blast Zone
4 Field of Ruin
1 Kami of False Hope
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Wall of Omens
3 Lone Missionary
4 Ranger-Captain of Eos
3 Flickerwisp
3 Sun Titan
1 Court Hussar
3 Detention Sphere
4 Path to Exile
1 Winds of Abandon
4 Spreading Seas
1 Supreme Verdict
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Dovin's Veto
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
2 Remorseful Cleric
3 Aven Mindcensor
1 Runed Halo
2 Stony Silence
I've added 2x to my deck 1/1 main/side and quite like it now that the meta has slowed down.
I'v also moved Remorseful Cleric back to the SB since the GY decks have been nerfed.
Here is my current list:
4x Wall of Omens
3x Lone Missionary
1x Phantasmal Image
4x Flickerwisp
3x Court Hussar
3x Sun Titan
Planeswalker (3)
2x Gideon of the Trials
1x Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Artifact (1)
1x Crucible of Worlds
Enchantment (7)
4x Spreading Seas
3x Detention Sphere
4x Path to Exile
Sorcery (3)
3x Supreme Verdict
Land (24)
3x Emeria, the Sky Ruin
3x Field of Ruin
4x Flooded Strand
4x Hallowed Fountain
3x Prairie Stream
6x Plains
1x Island
1x Pithing Needle
2x Damping Sphere
2x Stony Silence
4x Dovin's Veto
1x Detention Sphere
1x Supreme Verdict
3x Remorseful Cleric
1x Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Super stoked about charming prince now I won’t want to scoop to jund turn 2 when they wrenn minus my lone missionary
Some things I wanted to point out/ask:
I’ve been playing with a 1 of giver in the side, but I’m indifferent about it. It’s been super good in some matchups, but a lot of those matchups I also just want a kami, so I’m not sure what I think about it. Prob just gonna take it out all together since idk what I’d cut to where I could have both in my main.
Also I agree with the wrath trimmings I could see like 2 wrath(or 1 wrath/verdict) with 2 winds of abandon, cause that card has been super good for me.
Also I know marinjuk has a lot of success with brought back but has anyone else tested with it? From his experiences it seems really strong but I just want more of a sample size before I’m convinced and start investing in fetches for the package.
For those of you that have tested with the card, does it have a place in uw? I get the cuts are probably harder in this deck but it seems like it would be even better in a deck like this given ur non creature permanents
Finally, (and sorry I know lot of questions) can someone explain the justification behind champion of wits? Gonna be honest this card just seems like hot garbage. Maybe I’m undervaluing the eternalize effect but it just seems way too low of a power level for modern playability to me
Thx for reading
Before you purchase anything make sure to proxy it and playtest at your LGS or online at cockatrice.
I've tried Brought Back in UW. Imo it is too situational to be good. Either you ramp 2 and it is awesome or it rots for 5 turns in your hand. I used to play it bc I didn't want to play Lone Missionary (I thought a Martyr of Sands with Ranger-Captains should be enough), but with Charming Prince we got the perfect card for the slot.
A new card that's (probably not) playable:
Land - Plains
etb untapped if you control at least 3 other Plains
when ~ etb, if etb untapped, put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control
So, the effect seems pretty weak, however, this is fetchable as a combat trick, counts as Plains for Emeria, and also counts nonbasic Plains for its ability, so it should come into play untapped pretty often. So this might not be as bad as it looks.
What do you think?
Match 1 [W--] vs UW Control w/ Stoneblade
We only ended up finishing one game which seems about right from experience lol - I usually average about 1.5 games with UW so very important to win the first one, or identify when you can't win to scoop for more time to win the second one. He lands an early Jace and there was a crucial turn in which he was tapped out to block all my attackers with Snapcaster at Jace, and played Path on my Ranger Cap. I sac'd Ranger Cap in response and then proceeded to play Detention Sphere in my 2nd main phase, which was met with a Veto. We proceeded to his turn with both of us forgetting that he could not cast non-creature spells which actually made a big difference because he ended up brainstorming with JTMS for another 10+ turns. I'm not sure what the ruling would've been to backtrack, but in any case I let it go since it was regular REL and low stakes. After 15+ turns of grinding I reach a board state of 3 active Emeria but at low health. I proceed to sac Ranger Cap on his upkeep everyturn to lock him out, but ignorant that I needed to sac my second Ranger Cap on my own turn so he can't interact with Kami, cause i would've been dead from a Cryptic tap down and alpha swing. Unfortunately I did not get punished for that and had a path in hand to save my butt. I ended up grinding him out and then time was called while we were sideboarding.
Match 2 [WW] vs 5c Whirza
Largely uneventful as my opponent had less than spectacular draws, I brought in 11 cards to stop him at numerous angles (Stony Silence, Spyglass, Mindcensor, Veto, Cleric). I drew enough of my sideboard cards and established a clock to end the game quickly.
Match 3 [LL] vs Jund
I haven't played against Jund post MoHo so this was a good learning experience to see how the matchup has evolved. I was generally happy to play against Jund before but after playing against W6 I felt a bit helpless. The Spreading Seas were atrocious as I didn't really have much time to go on the land destruction plan, and regardless that would be futile anyway because of W6. Game 1 a resolved Lili + W6 grinded me out of cards and I lost to a Hexdrinker before I could turn the corner.
Game 2 I brought in 3 Leyline, 2 Veto, 2 Spyglass to focus on the walkers. My 7 had double Missionary which I shipped because its so bad against W6. I usually try to keep as many 7s as I can against hand-disruption decks. My 6 was a 1 lander (Field of ruin) with a Leyline. I could'nt go down to 6 so reluctantly kept and played the T0 leyline hoping he has a hand full of Iok/Thoughtseize. He didn't, I missed 1 land drop and lost to an unanswered Tireless tracker which generated too much advantage.
In conclusion, Spreading Seas was worse than I thought it would be, decks play too many basics and ways to get around land d / color denial (Astrolabe, W6) to be effective. I actually decided to pack 0 wraths yesterday and found out later that I did miss having 2 - its actually not so bad against UW now that they upped the creature count, and it can take out Hexdrinker.
Going to give it another run today at FNM, this deck has so many lines I still have so much to learn after picking the deck up 4 years ago. Can't make the MCQ unfortunately on Saturday
3 more weeks until I can shelve Lone Missionaries...
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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
anyway, I'm not taking a plains out. My build has two island, so I would just take out an island to put a castle in.
Will just put the island back in if the castle does not work out well.
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