Vjeran Horvat, the most renowned ( ) UWR Geist player of recent times (champion GP Prague 2014, 19th place GP Milan 2014), did very well in GP Copenhagen too, proving that the deck is still viable. He ended at 24th place.
His list had cut down to 3 geists, but as the GP Prague winning list, he played 3 Cryptic Commands and 3 Electrolyze, going heavy on the card advantage game. A total of 9 counterspells + 2 Vendilion Clique makes up 11 disruption/permission spells, which is a fair bit more than the popular Team Geist-variant with 4 Remands and no Cryptics.
So I've seen a lot of UWRb being talked about. Is this because of my ideas a few weeks ago about black splash for UWR Geist, or did some UWRb deck win a tourney?
We tried UWRb with Dooms a while back. Doom is great, but I wouldn't go back to 4 colors.
Vjeran Horvat, the most renowned ( ) UWR Geist player of recent times (champion GP Prague 2014, 19th place GP Milan 2014), did very well in GP Copenhagen too, proving that the deck is still viable. He ended at 24th place.
His list had cut down to 3 geists, but as the GP Prague winning list, he played 3 Cryptic Commands and 3 Electrolyze, going heavy on the card advantage game. A total of 9 counterspells + 2 Vendilion Clique makes up 11 disruption/permission spells, which is a fair bit more than the popular Team Geist-variant with 4 Remands and no Cryptics.
I've been leaning to more counters myself. My latest list is 2x Remand, 2x Leak, 1x Cryptic.
We have some interesting things in the brew pot with TeamGeist. Nothing I want to mention yet as I want to test more before making recommendations, but I will be posting here when I have something more concrete.
Has anybody ever tested Jeskai Charm as a 1 of? I definitely want to try it out in my UWRb version, as it suits perfectly the aggressive strategy of the deck and the +1/+1 lifelink ability seems super relevant. I found myself often stuck, afraid of attacking, due to fear of dying the following turn. +1/+1 lifelink would be great in those situations. With Geist alone, it's a potential 16 life points swing (8 damages and 8 life points gained).
Played UWR Geist to a 4-0 finish at FNM. Played against GR Tron, U Tron, Jund, and UR Twin. I won all matches 2-0 except for Jund, which had to go to game 3. We traded resources and then started top decking, where I was top decking Dragons and Sphinx's Revelations and Cryptic Commands, he topped Goyfs Lilis and Inquisitions. Who wins? The hasty dragons and card advantage.
Played UWR Geist to a 4-0 finish at FNM. Played against GR Tron, U Tron, Jund, and UR Twin. I won all matches 2-0 except for Jund, which had to go to game 3. We traded resources and then started top decking, where I was top decking Dragons and Sphinx's Revelations and Cryptic Commands, he topped Goyfs Lilis and Inquisitions. Who wins? The hasty dragons and card advantage.
Not bad with those matchups. Can you post your list?
I just moved into the area hear in northern California and was wondering if anyone knew what the meta was like. I'm playing a couple of pptqs in a couple of weeks and was just wondering what to expect.
Played UWR Geist to a 4-0 finish at FNM. Played against GR Tron, U Tron, Jund, and UR Twin. I won all matches 2-0 except for Jund, which had to go to game 3. We traded resources and then started top decking, where I was top decking Dragons and Sphinx's Revelations and Cryptic Commands, he topped Goyfs Lilis and Inquisitions. Who wins? The hasty dragons and card advantage.
Not bad with those matchups. Can you post your list?
To be fair the Mono U Tron player seemed to be fairly new to modern, but the others were often PTQ goers.
UWR Geist alive in the top 32 of GP Singapore! No cliques MB, Elspeth SC and Walls in the SB.
Seems like a good list. Thoughts?
This is really interesting to me because I have been testing something very similar. I've been testing his 60 with the differences of -1 Serum Visions, +1 Electrolyze, -2 Spell Snare, +2 Vendilion Clique since Wednesday (6/24) of this week. I mention that because I want it to be clear that I've had some time to test before diving into a controversial subject regarding Serum Visions in Jeskai Geist/Midrange. What I've been testing...
I don't know if I have just been wrong for a long time, or if the meta is different from it was the last time we tested, but I have really liked Serum Visions. One thing I've considered is that as my build has gotten more controlling (swapping 2x Remand for 2x Leak, adding 2 Cryptic), Serum Visions stock has risen. The reason is, when your on the all proactive burn em' plan, you're affected less by not having the selection/draw because all you want to do is draw gas, so being as redundant as possible means the selection is less important. However, when you're more of a traditional Aggro/Control deck the selection Serum Visions provides becomes incredibly valuable. If you need to be an Aggro deck, you can scry all of your controlling cards to the bottom, and vice versa. Additionally, Serum Visions allows you to plan ahead if you have a good handle on the game state. "Plan to turn the corner and switch to the aggro deck in two more turns?" Scry that Geist of Saint Traft beneath the top card and get ready to go to town. Serum Visions enables more hands to be keeps, helps you grind back against discard, finds sideboard answers, finds Geist, finds burn etc... In the interest of utilizing data over impressions to make decisions, I should be more patient, but honestly I think I am ready to "slaughter the sacred cow" and recommend that we all be running 3-4 Serum Visions in Jeskai Geist.
Side notes.
Cryptic Command has been very good and I think two is the right number
Elspeth is something I've test before. Very good vs Jund, good vs Junk but just ok vs Lingering Souls.
I do not like his sideboard, I'm much more of a fan with where I've been going.
I like Spell Snare, but not more than I like Vendilion Clique.
Of the 5 Jeskai decks that made day 2 in Singapore, 4 (3,1% meta) of them are midrange and only one control. A lot of people said full scale control was the way to go for jeskai, but it looks like the tides are turning towards geist now
Of the 5 Jeskai decks that made day 2 in Singapore, 4 (3,1% meta) of them are midrange and only one control. A lot of people said full scale control was the way to go for jeskai, but it looks like the tides are turning towards geist now
I am fairly certain that you want a proactive game plan in this modern format. Pure control is subject to losing because they weren't able to apply pressure in certain match ups like Geist can. With the meta moving towards midrange/combo land, it's good to have a card (Geist) that can just win while your opponent is casting Kolaghan's Commands and such because "value".
How would you guys tune the deck for a meta with mainly Anafenza Company and Twin? Both combos rely on creatures entering over and over, so I'm thinking I can overlap some good hate. Here are my sideboard ideas so far:
Ghostly Prison stops Twin combo but does nothing against the alternate beatdown plan. Pretty bad against CoCo because it only slows them down and they have Qas Pridemage + Abrupt Decay.
Suture Priest stops Twin but they can easily kill it. Against CoCo it is decent value but probably not good enough.
Suppression Field stops Twin combo and CoCo combo and also really hurts their fetches. It slows down walkers like LotV and Karn too which is pretty nice. It hurts our fetches a lot too but I think combo is much more heavily impacted. It's also a pretty solid card against Affinity and Tron, so maybe this deserves some SB slots.
Auriok Champion is where I think I've stuck gold. Against Twin, it prevents them from winning off an Exarch and, often enough, they side out the Pestermites against us. They can't bolt it or terminate it and it blocks Tasigur for days. Against CoCo it gains infinite life against their infinite life but they just scry into Redcap and even if you have an answer, it's a draw. If they don't have the combo, it does a great job of gaining value and can't be Abrupt Decayed. Otherwise, Auriok Champ gains lots of life with Geist and Resto and blocks Burn creatures effectively so I'd put it in against burn too.
Rending Volley (already commonly used) is great for both matchups but feels bad against Tasigur and Kitchen Finks.
Damping Matrix stops Twin and CoCo but all it takes is a Cryptic/Kolaghans/Abrupt Decay/Qas Pridemage to ruin your day.
Any other ideas on cards to side against those matchups? How would you tweak the main to perform better game 1 against Twin and CoCo? Thanks guys.
Spell Snare does a damn good job. They usually go off on few lands so Mana Leak and Remand work fine too. Just don't tap out against the reanimator decks when they can Goryo's and go off. Because the deck doesn't apply much pressure, just let them durdle and hold your counters for the business spells. Maybe someone else will have different advice, but I played against it a couple times last night and that mentality got me through the match easily.
So, I top eight'd a local PPTQ today. I'll be honest, I went into this PPTQ blind as to my particular area's meta, looking to just lean on recent results and try to be ready for them. I played the following list:
I really debated bringing in two Leyline of Sanctity, but it was probably for the best that I didn't. And the Rest in Peace are likely a mistake, but I've had some bad games against Living End and Goryo's Vengenace decks. Overall, I think the maindeck is okay, but the sideboard is maybe safer than it has to be. Redirect has been surprisingly relevant in testing, but it didn't come up in any matches today, unfortunately.
Anyway, here were my matchups.
0-2 vs Merfolk: Turn 1 Aether Vial both games was really rough, and there wasn't a lot I could do to keep up with my opponent swarming the board. I didn't see my singleton Engineered Explosives and just got ran over. As Merfolk becomes a more popular deck, I would love some advice for how to fix this matchup.
2-0 vs Junk Midrange: Not a lot to say about this matchup. My opponent's Lingering Souls were pretty irrelevant most times, and both games my opponent didn't rammed Siege Rhino into Mana Leak, which cleared the way for Snapcaster/Celestial Colonnade beats.
2-0 vs UR Twin: Thankfully no Blood Moon in sight, so it was really just a matter of playing around the combo. This version of Twin has a really hard time dealing with Geist of Saint Traft. The highlight of this game was that game 2, my opponent pointed out my Eiganjo Castle, then a few turns later proceeded to play a Snapcaster and block, forgetting that I had white up. Oops. = )
2-0 vs Temur Twin: This deck was interesting because of the maindeck Keranos, God of Storms and Huntmaster of the Fells. Game 1, my opponent couldn't get past three lands and got ran over by Geist. Game two, we both had a resolved Keranos at one point, but I was able to Celestial Purge theirs before they got any value off of it.
1-2 vs Mardu Midrange: I had a hard time strategizing against this deck because at first glance, I thought it was some kind of 8-Rack deck, but then they had maindeck Lingering Souls, Kohlagan's Command, Phyrexian Crusader (!!!) and Inkmoth Nexus. Game one was decided by Lingering Souls beatdown, Game two, Geist backed by two Cryptic Commands got there, and game three I mulled into a one-land hand and never saw a second land.
2-1 vs GU Infect: Mis. Play. City. Game one, I might've been able to stop a lethal Noble Hierarch attack by tapping it down with Cryptic Command, but I tried to go for the value play of Snapcaster => Path to Exile. My opponent was able to counter with a kicked Vines of Vastwood, double Distortion Strike, and a delved Become Immense. Games 2 and 3, I had a stabilizing Spellskite out, but didn't protect them with Mana Leaks, instead opting to send burn at my opponent's face to try and close the game out, leaving the creature vulnerable to Dismember. I was able to win out both games, it was a lot of trial by error in this matchup.
So I made it into 8th place on breakers, played against my round 1 opponent, and got stomped 0-2.
I used some of the store credit I got as a prize to pick up a Supreme Verdict. I think GreatNate is really going in the right direction with a more controlling version of this deck for where the meta is going. It might even be time to just run a stock UWR Control list, trim some cards, and have four Geist of Saint Traft maindeck to ensure that we can pivot into aggressive roles in the matchups where it suits us to close games out quickly. At the very least, I think our past discussions about Cryptic Command, Anticipate, and even Serum Visions are leading us down a more controlling path, and if we're going to do that, I think we should be playing cards like Sphinx's Revelation that reward that kind of deck construction.
As always, I would love to hear what everyone else thinks as well as some suggestions for my deck moving forward.
Your list seems good, Nate! I've been wanting to try serum visions for a long time now, but I can't get them here in my area for a reasonable price due to the spikes a few weeks ago. I agree about the GP SG deck's sideboard being a wee bit too random at some point, but hey he got the job done. Anyway, I really think this deck can see a resurgence in this kind of meta. I hope we can collect and combine all our ideas here in this forums to take this deck to the next level.
In response (heh) to the UWRb post two pages ago, I came up with a hybrid list that utilizes the fourth color efficiently in most matchups.
First, lets talk about Thunderbreak Regent. It replaces the spot of Restoration Angel in this deck, and I know there's a lot of flame coming at me by saying restoration angel hasnt been good enough. (at least here in my local) Most of the time, casting a 3/4 flyer at instant speed is good, but grixis variants make it less appealing to do it. Yes, it recurs a lot of our cards and create synergy, but it usually becomes a 4 to cast beater that gets dealt with immediately with cards like Terminate and they can still hold up countermagic mana for my next spells. I realized i'm overpaying for the threat without gaining any effective upside (I may be wrong) Enter Thunderbreak. Sorcery Speed is meh for this deck I know, but it provides a huge body enough to make the opponent either respond to it or deal with it as soon as possible. If they went to the latter route and i'd be the dragon already did its job: eat a removal + bolting the opponent, something resto cannot do efffectively recently. That made me test the dragon more and more, and with all the jund/grixis decks floating around, I think he merits more spot than the angel. Again, I may be wrong.
Tasigur, the Golden Fang was the most obvious inclusion when we splash black. Casting him late game gives you enormous gas + recursion. I've been happy everytime I cast him mid to late game, leaving behind gas in the GY for his ability, should he be dealt with immediately with removals, I can already gain value out of his ability at least.
Kolaghan's Command + Snapcaster Mage is nuts, the value it gives to the deck is so good. It provides us MB answers to pesky artifacts, getting back creatures like snapcasters to recur a lot of things again, a thunderbreak regent that's ready to eat a removal + acts as a pseudo bolt again, vendilion clique for even more obnoxious chains, etc. This is a better recursion spell for me than the angel, most of the time Kommand is the glue that holds the deck all together + its a good topdeck vs Jund decks, as we can recur threats we discarded via lili + damaging said lili.
out of the board, I've been testing Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver for quite some time now. I bring him/her vs control decks/combo decks, where in usually they have no effective answers for it once it sticks the board. Vs Twin Variants, I love to return a snapcaster mage for my own use, an exiled tarmogoyf or tasigur in the tri colored variants. Vs Amulet, reanimating the titan can help us find our end games via colonnades or Ghost quarter to further incapacitate the opponent. Ashiok showed promise during the weeks I've tested it, and it earned 2 spots in the board for this matter.
This deck did top 8 a recent GPT last week, so I think it has the legs to stand up against powerful decks such as jund, twin and Coco decks.
and yes, I still go to the traditional UWR colors from time to time, but right now the black splash is sweet and decided to tune it more and more.
Any help or comment is much appreciated! Thank you!
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His list had cut down to 3 geists, but as the GP Prague winning list, he played 3 Cryptic Commands and 3 Electrolyze, going heavy on the card advantage game. A total of 9 counterspells + 2 Vendilion Clique makes up 11 disruption/permission spells, which is a fair bit more than the popular Team Geist-variant with 4 Remands and no Cryptics.
3 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Thundermaw Hellkite
2 Restoration Angel
Spells
3 Remand
2 Mana Leak
3 Cryptic Command
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
3 Electrolyze
4 Path to Exile
1 Spell Snare
4 Flooded Strand
2 Arid Mesa
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Celestial Colonnade
2 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Island
1 Snow-Covered Island
2 Dispel
1 Celestial Purge
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Wear // Tear
2 Stony Silence
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Monastery Mentor
2 Spellskite
1 Gideon Jura
1 Batterskull
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
We tried UWRb with Dooms a while back. Doom is great, but I wouldn't go back to 4 colors.
I've been leaning to more counters myself. My latest list is 2x Remand, 2x Leak, 1x Cryptic.
We have some interesting things in the brew pot with TeamGeist. Nothing I want to mention yet as I want to test more before making recommendations, but I will be posting here when I have something more concrete.
I have, and I don't think it's good enough sadly.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Restoration Angel
1 Thundermaw Hellkite
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
2 Lightning Helix
2 Spell Snare
3 Remand
3 Mana Leak
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Plains
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Mountain
4 Island
1 Spellskite
1 Ajani Vengeant
1 Wear
2 Rending Volley
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Dispel
2 Negate
1 Spell Pierce
2 Blood Moon
2 Izzet Staticaster
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Played UWR Geist to a 4-0 finish at FNM. Played against GR Tron, U Tron, Jund, and UR Twin. I won all matches 2-0 except for Jund, which had to go to game 3. We traded resources and then started top decking, where I was top decking Dragons and Sphinx's Revelations and Cryptic Commands, he topped Goyfs Lilis and Inquisitions. Who wins? The hasty dragons and card advantage.
Not bad with those matchups. Can you post your list?
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
RWU giest midrange
RUB grixis delver
WUB esper draw-go
edh:
RUG maelstrom wanderer
B shirei control
None of you seem to understand. I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me!
To be fair the Mono U Tron player seemed to be fairly new to modern, but the others were often PTQ goers.
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Sulfer Falls
3 Hallowed Fountain
3 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Mountain
4 Celestial Colonnade
Creatures
4 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Snapcaster Mage
3 Restoration Angel
1 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Remand
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
3 Lightning helix
1 Roast
1 Redirect
2 Electrolyze
2 Cryptic Command
1 Sphinx's Revelation
Big Daddy
1 Ajani Vengeant
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Counterflux
1 Negate
1 Dispel
1 Kor Firewalker
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Sphinx's Revelation
1 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Spellskite
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
1 Wear/Tear
1 Flashfreeze
1 Rending Volley
1 Relic of Progenitis
Seems like a good list. Thoughts?
This is really interesting to me because I have been testing something very similar. I've been testing his 60 with the differences of -1 Serum Visions, +1 Electrolyze, -2 Spell Snare, +2 Vendilion Clique since Wednesday (6/24) of this week. I mention that because I want it to be clear that I've had some time to test before diving into a controversial subject regarding Serum Visions in Jeskai Geist/Midrange. What I've been testing...
I don't know if I have just been wrong for a long time, or if the meta is different from it was the last time we tested, but I have really liked Serum Visions. One thing I've considered is that as my build has gotten more controlling (swapping 2x Remand for 2x Leak, adding 2 Cryptic), Serum Visions stock has risen. The reason is, when your on the all proactive burn em' plan, you're affected less by not having the selection/draw because all you want to do is draw gas, so being as redundant as possible means the selection is less important. However, when you're more of a traditional Aggro/Control deck the selection Serum Visions provides becomes incredibly valuable. If you need to be an Aggro deck, you can scry all of your controlling cards to the bottom, and vice versa. Additionally, Serum Visions allows you to plan ahead if you have a good handle on the game state. "Plan to turn the corner and switch to the aggro deck in two more turns?" Scry that Geist of Saint Traft beneath the top card and get ready to go to town. Serum Visions enables more hands to be keeps, helps you grind back against discard, finds sideboard answers, finds Geist, finds burn etc... In the interest of utilizing data over impressions to make decisions, I should be more patient, but honestly I think I am ready to "slaughter the sacred cow" and recommend that we all be running 3-4 Serum Visions in Jeskai Geist.
Side notes.
Also posted this as an article on my site.
http://www.greatnate.com/articles/2015/6/28/on-running-serum-visions-in-jeskai-geist
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
I am fairly certain that you want a proactive game plan in this modern format. Pure control is subject to losing because they weren't able to apply pressure in certain match ups like Geist can. With the meta moving towards midrange/combo land, it's good to have a card (Geist) that can just win while your opponent is casting Kolaghan's Commands and such because "value".
in.
How would you guys tune the deck for a meta with mainly Anafenza Company and Twin? Both combos rely on creatures entering over and over, so I'm thinking I can overlap some good hate. Here are my sideboard ideas so far:
Ghostly Prison stops Twin combo but does nothing against the alternate beatdown plan. Pretty bad against CoCo because it only slows them down and they have Qas Pridemage + Abrupt Decay.
Suture Priest stops Twin but they can easily kill it. Against CoCo it is decent value but probably not good enough.
Suppression Field stops Twin combo and CoCo combo and also really hurts their fetches. It slows down walkers like LotV and Karn too which is pretty nice. It hurts our fetches a lot too but I think combo is much more heavily impacted. It's also a pretty solid card against Affinity and Tron, so maybe this deserves some SB slots.
Auriok Champion is where I think I've stuck gold. Against Twin, it prevents them from winning off an Exarch and, often enough, they side out the Pestermites against us. They can't bolt it or terminate it and it blocks Tasigur for days. Against CoCo it gains infinite life against their infinite life but they just scry into Redcap and even if you have an answer, it's a draw. If they don't have the combo, it does a great job of gaining value and can't be Abrupt Decayed. Otherwise, Auriok Champ gains lots of life with Geist and Resto and blocks Burn creatures effectively so I'd put it in against burn too.
Rending Volley (already commonly used) is great for both matchups but feels bad against Tasigur and Kitchen Finks.
Damping Matrix stops Twin and CoCo but all it takes is a Cryptic/Kolaghans/Abrupt Decay/Qas Pridemage to ruin your day.
Any other ideas on cards to side against those matchups? How would you tweak the main to perform better game 1 against Twin and CoCo? Thanks guys.
RWU giest midrange
RUB grixis delver
WUB esper draw-go
edh:
RUG maelstrom wanderer
B shirei control
None of you seem to understand. I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me!
Spell Snare does a damn good job. They usually go off on few lands so Mana Leak and Remand work fine too. Just don't tap out against the reanimator decks when they can Goryo's and go off. Because the deck doesn't apply much pressure, just let them durdle and hold your counters for the business spells. Maybe someone else will have different advice, but I played against it a couple times last night and that mentality got me through the match easily.
So, I top eight'd a local PPTQ today. I'll be honest, I went into this PPTQ blind as to my particular area's meta, looking to just lean on recent results and try to be ready for them. I played the following list:
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Restoration Angel
1 Keranos, God of Storms
Spells
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Mana Leak
2 Anticipate
2 Electrolyze
2 Cryptic Command
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
2 Steam Vents
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Sulfur Falls
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Mountain
4 Celestial Colonnade
1 Eiganjo Castle
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Spellskite
2 Kor Firewalker
1 Baneslayer Angel
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
1 Celestial Purge
1 Wear//Tear
1 Redirect
1 Negate
1 Dispel
1 Engineered Explosives
I really debated bringing in two Leyline of Sanctity, but it was probably for the best that I didn't. And the Rest in Peace are likely a mistake, but I've had some bad games against Living End and Goryo's Vengenace decks. Overall, I think the maindeck is okay, but the sideboard is maybe safer than it has to be. Redirect has been surprisingly relevant in testing, but it didn't come up in any matches today, unfortunately.
Anyway, here were my matchups.
0-2 vs Merfolk: Turn 1 Aether Vial both games was really rough, and there wasn't a lot I could do to keep up with my opponent swarming the board. I didn't see my singleton Engineered Explosives and just got ran over. As Merfolk becomes a more popular deck, I would love some advice for how to fix this matchup.
2-0 vs Junk Midrange: Not a lot to say about this matchup. My opponent's Lingering Souls were pretty irrelevant most times, and both games my opponent didn't rammed Siege Rhino into Mana Leak, which cleared the way for Snapcaster/Celestial Colonnade beats.
2-0 vs UR Twin: Thankfully no Blood Moon in sight, so it was really just a matter of playing around the combo. This version of Twin has a really hard time dealing with Geist of Saint Traft. The highlight of this game was that game 2, my opponent pointed out my Eiganjo Castle, then a few turns later proceeded to play a Snapcaster and block, forgetting that I had white up. Oops. = )
2-0 vs Temur Twin: This deck was interesting because of the maindeck Keranos, God of Storms and Huntmaster of the Fells. Game 1, my opponent couldn't get past three lands and got ran over by Geist. Game two, we both had a resolved Keranos at one point, but I was able to Celestial Purge theirs before they got any value off of it.
1-2 vs Mardu Midrange: I had a hard time strategizing against this deck because at first glance, I thought it was some kind of 8-Rack deck, but then they had maindeck Lingering Souls, Kohlagan's Command, Phyrexian Crusader (!!!) and Inkmoth Nexus. Game one was decided by Lingering Souls beatdown, Game two, Geist backed by two Cryptic Commands got there, and game three I mulled into a one-land hand and never saw a second land.
2-1 vs GU Infect: Mis. Play. City. Game one, I might've been able to stop a lethal Noble Hierarch attack by tapping it down with Cryptic Command, but I tried to go for the value play of Snapcaster => Path to Exile. My opponent was able to counter with a kicked Vines of Vastwood, double Distortion Strike, and a delved Become Immense. Games 2 and 3, I had a stabilizing Spellskite out, but didn't protect them with Mana Leaks, instead opting to send burn at my opponent's face to try and close the game out, leaving the creature vulnerable to Dismember. I was able to win out both games, it was a lot of trial by error in this matchup.
So I made it into 8th place on breakers, played against my round 1 opponent, and got stomped 0-2.
I used some of the store credit I got as a prize to pick up a Supreme Verdict. I think GreatNate is really going in the right direction with a more controlling version of this deck for where the meta is going. It might even be time to just run a stock UWR Control list, trim some cards, and have four Geist of Saint Traft maindeck to ensure that we can pivot into aggressive roles in the matchups where it suits us to close games out quickly. At the very least, I think our past discussions about Cryptic Command, Anticipate, and even Serum Visions are leading us down a more controlling path, and if we're going to do that, I think we should be playing cards like Sphinx's Revelation that reward that kind of deck construction.
As always, I would love to hear what everyone else thinks as well as some suggestions for my deck moving forward.
3x Celestial Colonnade
3x Flooded Strand
2x Arid Mesa
2x Scalding Tarn
1x Polluted Delta
2x Steam Vents
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Watery Grave
1x Blood Crypt
1x Ghost Quarter
2x Sulfur Falls
2x Island
1x Plains
1x Mountain
1x Swamp
4x Geist of Saint Traft
4x Snapcaster Mage
1x Vendilion Clique
2x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2x Thunderbreak Regent
Spells: 22
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Path to Exile
3x Remand
2x Mana Leak
4x Lightning Helix
3x Electrolyze
2x Kolaghan's Command
1x Thundermaw Hellkite
1x Keranos, God of Storms
2x Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
2x Stony Silence
2x Wear/Tear
2x Dispel
1x Negate
2x Kor Firewalker
2x Celestial Purge
In response (heh) to the UWRb post two pages ago, I came up with a hybrid list that utilizes the fourth color efficiently in most matchups.
First, lets talk about Thunderbreak Regent. It replaces the spot of Restoration Angel in this deck, and I know there's a lot of flame coming at me by saying restoration angel hasnt been good enough. (at least here in my local) Most of the time, casting a 3/4 flyer at instant speed is good, but grixis variants make it less appealing to do it. Yes, it recurs a lot of our cards and create synergy, but it usually becomes a 4 to cast beater that gets dealt with immediately with cards like Terminate and they can still hold up countermagic mana for my next spells. I realized i'm overpaying for the threat without gaining any effective upside (I may be wrong) Enter Thunderbreak. Sorcery Speed is meh for this deck I know, but it provides a huge body enough to make the opponent either respond to it or deal with it as soon as possible. If they went to the latter route and i'd be the dragon already did its job: eat a removal + bolting the opponent, something resto cannot do efffectively recently. That made me test the dragon more and more, and with all the jund/grixis decks floating around, I think he merits more spot than the angel. Again, I may be wrong.
Tasigur, the Golden Fang was the most obvious inclusion when we splash black. Casting him late game gives you enormous gas + recursion. I've been happy everytime I cast him mid to late game, leaving behind gas in the GY for his ability, should he be dealt with immediately with removals, I can already gain value out of his ability at least.
Kolaghan's Command + Snapcaster Mage is nuts, the value it gives to the deck is so good. It provides us MB answers to pesky artifacts, getting back creatures like snapcasters to recur a lot of things again, a thunderbreak regent that's ready to eat a removal + acts as a pseudo bolt again, vendilion clique for even more obnoxious chains, etc. This is a better recursion spell for me than the angel, most of the time Kommand is the glue that holds the deck all together + its a good topdeck vs Jund decks, as we can recur threats we discarded via lili + damaging said lili.
out of the board, I've been testing Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver for quite some time now. I bring him/her vs control decks/combo decks, where in usually they have no effective answers for it once it sticks the board. Vs Twin Variants, I love to return a snapcaster mage for my own use, an exiled tarmogoyf or tasigur in the tri colored variants. Vs Amulet, reanimating the titan can help us find our end games via colonnades or Ghost quarter to further incapacitate the opponent. Ashiok showed promise during the weeks I've tested it, and it earned 2 spots in the board for this matter.
This deck did top 8 a recent GPT last week, so I think it has the legs to stand up against powerful decks such as jund, twin and Coco decks.
and yes, I still go to the traditional UWR colors from time to time, but right now the black splash is sweet and decided to tune it more and more.
Any help or comment is much appreciated! Thank you!