Hey dudes, I've been on BUG shadow for a bit, but that forum is pretty dead. People can't seem to pick an archetype for where BUG should be, which is understandable considering all the routes one can take. Here's my list, I figured I'd post it here but if it's off topic, mods can remove it. I just thought it would be good to stir up some discussion considering there's not a lot of people posting.
Hey dudes, I've been on BUG shadow for a bit, but that forum is pretty dead. People can't seem to pick an archetype for where BUG should be, which is understandable considering all the routes one can take. Here's my list, I figured I'd post it here but if it's off topic, mods can remove it. I just thought it would be good to stir up some discussion considering there's not a lot of people posting.
While I like the list, I cant help but think that gurmag and tasigur are just better threats than tarmogoyf. I realize there is no thought scour in your build either.
In sticking with a build like yours, would there be any merit to running some # of grim flayer instead of goyf? He doesnt get nearly as big, but you already have a good amount of support for delirium, as evidenced by playing traverse.
EDIT: I dont know why it is saying that it is my list and not yours. Im sorry about that.
While I like the list, I cant help but think that gurmag and tasigur are just better threats than tarmogoyf. I realize there is no thought scour in your build either.
In sticking with a build like yours, would there be any merit to running some # of grim flayer instead of goyf? He doesnt get nearly as big, but you already have a good amount of support for delirium, as evidenced by playing traverse.
EDIT: I dont know why it is saying that it is my list and not yours. Im sorry about that.
I believe if we aren't playing Goyf, we should just be playing another color combo. The beauty of Tarmogoyf is that you don't need setup cards like thought scour to power it out. It's a flat two mana at any stage of the game, and in this deck, it's usually a 5/6 which blocks almost anything in the format. Sure, it's weak to graveyard hate, but so are the delve threats.
There's definitely merit to running flayer, I think there's probably a couple flex slots where you could jam him in. He fits the game-plan of this deck for sure, but he's definitely not a replacement for Tarmogoyf, he should just supplement. Thanks for the analysis!
Sweet deck man! I love this approach to traditional midrange. I'm not crazy about Nissa, I experimented with that card for a bit but I think it's a bit underwhelming. I'm excited to see what new things Simic gets in the new Ravnica. Did you find the lack of cantrips to be a problem? I find that gives us a real edge in the late game.
To be honest I drew Nissa only once so far, played it for bunch of mana and immediately -6ed Needless to say I won that game, but I'm still not sure if she has spot in the deck. If I were to replace her right now it would be either 4th Tracker or 2nd Traverse or another land.
Right now I don't find lack of cantrips a problem. Grim flayer (when connects) and traverse are ok replacements for cantrips I think. There's also tracker and tasigur. I don't think cantrips are necessary and this also lets me focus on BG side of the deck.
I've omitted JTMS for now so I don't put too much strain on mana, but I might try it one day instead of Nissa maybe. I had been worried about UU cost, but then I realized that I need two blue sources to attack with tar pit anyway, so that might not be as big problem as I thought.
I played another mini tournament last Tuesday and went 3-1. Lost to Gu Tron (won g1, g2 kept greedy onelander with Surgical, Trophy, Unmoored Ego, Goyf and some discard, drew 2nd land on t4, went for trophy + surgical on tron land, he cast Pulse of Murasa in response to surgical then he played 3 Karns one after the other, g3 7 and 6 were crappy one landers, kept 5 with 2 lands, tasigur, unmoored ego and Thoughtseize, went t3 unmoored on tron land, unfortunately tasigur wasn't enough of clock, never saw 4th land while he played land every turn and drew straight gas, in the end I got killed rather quickly by 2 Wurmcoil Engines). Then I got bye and after that played and won against UW control twice (2-1, 2-1). Traverse for Tracker when I had 2 uncracked fetches on the table and one in the hand felt great
Countermagic from side won me at least 3 of those games.
Did he get that much mileage out of Pulse of Murasa that it was worth leaving in after the rest of his changes?
Have not looked at the stream but pulse and lili are grinders in a deck with fields and trophy/snap. It is also very good against aggro.
All in all, I like this take and I believe there is some more research to be done on control with à back up mana denial plan (Uw used to do this with fields and seas- here you have field/pulse, trophy snap and nimble for fetches).
I've been lurking here for a while and working hard on a Sultai list to take to an upcoming GP. For many weeks now I've been testing against a modern gauntlet comprised of most of the decks commonly seen in the top 8. Here's the list I've landed on.
This iteration has exceeded my expectations against a good number of matchups. UW Control, Humans, Bridgevine, and Hollow One haven't been much trouble. So far the biggest problems have been G Tron and KCI, but I think with learning to mulligan better and different lines of play those matchups can be improved. I'd love to hear what you all think.
Wow, cool list! I really like it. The only thing I might change is going up to 24 (or 25) lands to support all the 3 and 4 drops you have. Your curve seems to be pretty high, Snapcaster is really a 3 or 4 drop. How do you like Serum Visions and the discard spells? I actually might sleeve this up :). Personally I would maybe go with Opt instead of SV. To better support Snapcaster Mage.
BTW. I think I've found your youtube channel, great!
Lands have not been an issue at all, so I wouldn't want to up the count. The list is really tight right now and it would be hard pressed to fit more in there. The average curve is only 2 cmc which helps make it work. More personally though, I tend to flood out more when playing a deck with 25 lands, so I built it with 23 and draw from Serum. I encourage you to test it with 25 lands though and please let me know how it goes. As for Serum I really do prefer it over Opt as it digs deeper. Serum being a sorcery is not a problem since it's only 1 cmc. Snap is more for flashing removal or discard, Serum is the last choice.
If you found Spectral Fox Gaming on YouTube that is us. Please ignore the play mistakes though.
I really like having Leyline due to it completely shutting down the quick plays from Bridgevine, dredge, and Hollow One. Plus it works much better against KCI. I'll take a slightly weaker Goyf for a much better chance to win. I do leave in all of my ATrophy in against UW control. They deal with Walkers, Colonnade, Azcanta, and RiP as well as any other big threat they may side in.
@abysmalspecter- Do you record with sultai on YouTube?
We get together every Saturday and do testing against a proxy modern gauntlet consisting of decks commonly showing up in top 8's. We stream this testing on Twitch (https://twitch.tv/spectralfoxgaming) and then post it to YouTube. If you're interested in seeing how the deck has evolved or how this current list performed you can find it all at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT8nX-oVEd4PNI0MSZh7GCQ
In an earlier iteration I was running ScOoze and it was very underwhelming. It is very green hungry causing me to only be able to activate it maybe once per turn which my opponents have easily been able to play around and the life gain was so insignificant.
Serum was only added in this most recent iteration and it felt quite good, but this Saturday we'll be testing some changes without Serum.
@AbysmalSpecter I've seen your videos on youtube but i think you made a lot of mistakes in different matches. Also i dont like serum vision in a deck like this one that is essentially a bg rock with a light splash for blue (i think this is the only optimal configuration for a midrange shell) and i suggest you really hard to include scooze, firs for lifegain, second cause they shine in this meta.
Anyway im with you about the 23 lands count and for other things my list is similar.
This is where i am after months of testing and getting a lot of good results:
You can look also to the revisions to see how i changed the deck over the time.
23 lands and an FOR too I don't think that math works out, you also don't have enough green sources to support Kitchen Finks and you are short on blue to hit 2UU consistently. I think your deck wants 24-25 lands and you can't run FOR.
4 death shadow, 4 New Lasav, 4 Traverse = 12 death shadows.
Discover // Dispersal is 2 card types and great for turning on delerium or grow goyf. Any combination of Street Wraight, Bauble and Fetchland garantees delerium turn 3 and you can play a death shadow.
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I have dyslexia, no I am not going to spell check for you, yes you have to live with the horrors of it.
TBR is secretly the best card in any Death's Shadow list. It's the only reason the deck is as good as it is. The prospect of just randomly suiciding yourself down to 2-3 life and TBRing for the win is what makes the deck. Think of it like the old Splinter Twin decks. It was a powerful mid-range/answer deck that could randomly just win on the spot.
That being said, I hadn't considered the new Lazav as a Shadow Duplicate. The Shadow does have to be in the graveyard already though, which isn't great. I think Mausoleum Secrets is a better at making more Shadows (assuming you're already running Traverse+Shadow).
Regarding Sultai Mid-range - has anyone tested Noble Hierarch lately? It was discussed a couple pages back. I tried it out (in a Sultai+White Shadow shell) and had some mixed results. I would say I liked it about 6o% it the time. It's an awful topdeck though which we can't really afford
Hi TheAller, I've been thinking of a Sultai list and I've heard you have really to decide whether you want to play with discard or counterspells, do you think counterspells are superior in this shell?
Are 4x push necessary when you also have 6x trophy and decays?
I very much like the 4 surgical, i think 4 surgincal + 4 snap can really provide good hate against graveryard and combo decks, so since you have this option and a lot of deck manipulation, don't you feel a couple field of ruins necessary to make the surgical even better.
Two more questions: how do you feel about unmoored ego against combo and tron?
Since you have this insane amount of instant and sorceries, how would you feel about playing thing in the ice in replacement of tarmogoyf? I can see thing having a good synergy with snapcaster too.
Ok, in order:
If youre going to run the big green beaters that have made BGx successful, then you are going to want discard over permission. There are some permission based sultai lists out there, but they usually forgo creatures in lieu of olaneswalkers and manlands as wincons. The issue is sorcery speed yhreats dont play well with holding up mana. That leaves you with either BGu midrange with blue for snap, serum, and sideboard permission, or BUg with green for trophy, decay, and sideboard artifact and enchantment hate. I believe the only possible exception to this is stubborn denial. One could make the case that at 1 cmc and all the creatures you run turning it on, its a fine 2 or 3 of in lists not running LotV. It works for deaths shadow, after all.
The fatal push count is a meta call. If you expect a bunch of aggro or midrange then you cant beat 1 cmc. If its combo, big mana and control, then 3 is fine. Having visions and snap to get the most out of your list goes a long way.
Im with you on the surgical plan. Having a build-your-own slaughter games that also hits land is powerful game. Ego's advantage of hitting thing proactively is largly diminished (in my humble opinion) by the 3 drop cmc. Storm can go off, dredge can flood the board, tron can do tron things, all within that time. Its great for kci, but i like extract snap extract better.
Thing is a great card, but you would need to add a lot more cantrips (read:empty air) to an archetype that wants to function optimally in a topdeck war. Midrange needs to be able to turn the corner from control to beat down on a dime to function well. Flexibility is paramount. I feel that a card like titi needs too much support to be viable in midrange. But feel free to prove me wrong, i would love to be wrong.
Thanks, you've been really clear on the two alternative choices you have to build the deck and on why Thing doesn't fit a midrange plan.
I approached this archetype with an idea in my mid, which is this should have a similar amount of card advantage engines almost as high as jund decks do ( I say jund because it's been so much tested over the years). So they usually have 11 advantage tools, which are confidants, BBe, K command. Is this parameter something that Sultai should take into consideration aswell? Is it something you should start from while building the list, like asking yourself: " what are going to be my card advantage tools and how many of them do I want?".
I have seen a recent vid from reid duke runing ancestral visions ( guess a bit of a nonbo when you open discard spell + vision), I ve been intrigued by that choice. What are the card advantage tools in this deck?
My pleasure, friend.
Im not sure that Sulati needs as much raw card advantage (from here on in refered to as C Adv) as Jund. Midranges flexibility depends on drawing the right half of your deck at any given match, depending on your match up. The best way to maximize the chances of finding that half is to draw as many cards as you can get away with, hence the C Adv engines) The card selection (lets go with C Sel) available to Sultai largly mitigate that need by being able to filter through your deck with serum or recycle useful cards in the yard with snap. If you can manage the double blue of Vendillion Clique, then the reverse card selection is nice too. (Dont underestimate that double blue in BGu lists) That said, i personally like 3 snaps and 3 tireless trackers for raw C Adv, and 4 visions and 2-3 collective brutality for C Sel. Brutality is of particular note, as it lets you convert the wrong half of your deck (removal vs UW, discard vs affinity, etc) into more useful effects.
Regarding ancestral visions, i dont personally run it, but the case could definitely be made for it in a slowish meta. And if shardless agent ever finds its way into modern (not as impossible as i used to think. WotC is toying with the idea of supplemental products introducing cards into modern while bypassing standard) then it will most likely define the deck.
As a simplified answer to your first question, yes, card selection and snap redundancy are my personal draws to sultai over jund or abzan. I actually ran flayer for a while, packing 3x architects of will for delerium support. I can dig the list out if your interested, but the readers digest version of test8ng results was that flayer is ok when not buffed, awesome when he is buffed, and going all in on graveyard based creatures is a huge liability when dredge exists. It sucks to have all your threats basically shut down or turned into bears because all the combo/grave hate incidentally hoses you too.
Confidant vs tracker is a bit of a false choice. Theres no reason you cant run them together, and theres nothing that says if you run one you HAVE to run the other. They occupy different cmc slots and shine in different, though sometimes overlapping, situations. The real choice you have to make is confidant vs delve threats. These are mutually exclusive and have very different pros and cons. I prefer tasigur and/or gurmag over bob due to damage output and incidentally turning on ferocious for stubborn denial, but theres that graveyard problem again. Bob gives zero craps about the yard, and needs no set up to cast efficiently, but he dies to everything, only swings for 2, and loves to punch you in the face. I could definitely see a case where goyf, scooze, bob, tracker and jace are your threats, which would almost completely insulate you from grave hate. It seems like as much a personal preference as a meta call.
As far as other blue cards that would draw you to sultai over the other GBx's, again, please test out stub in a build that can reasonably have it turned on against the field. Black based midrange excels against creature decks naturally, struggles against big mana, and leans heavily on discard and lily vs combo. Having a 1 mana answer to scapeshift, gifts ungiven, krark clan ironworks, ad nauseam, karn, ugin, o stone, collective company, and whatever else degenerate nonsense is out there, is a huge stick to be carrying around. Not to mention randomly being able to say no to a turn one thoughtseize, or aether vial, or looting. You crush dreams by hitting those, and that my friend, is why were here.
Edit: Ashiok in the sideboard is also a pet card. Not saying he/she is good, but fun against creature decks and midrange. Specially coco decks. And blue tron.... yes, i WOULD like to play you platinum angel. Thank you for asking.
Edit II: May i aslo say, this has been the best damn conversation regarding magic, sultai in particular, that ive had in months. Thank you for he intelligent questions and constructive feedback. Maybe we can jumpstart an archetype here.
I think Damnation absolutely should be played. Even though it nukes our creatures too, Goyf and Scooze are usually higher quality than your opponent's attempts to rebuild. Hard resets are especially good in the Midrange mirror.
Last Hope is great at cleaning up lingering souls, elementals, etc (things that you really don't want to use Push on, but can't ignore)
And her Ult is absolutely game winning against anything other than decks that ignore the board (combo, Burn, etc) so even if she does nothing but come down t3 against control and + on an empty board, she still needs to be answered. I've played 1 copy in the main of any BGx deck since she was printed
I agree about Ashiok and Nissa though. Nissa is great in Bant but I don't think she's what we want here.
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4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Polluted Delta
2x Misty Rainforest
2x Watery Grave
2x Overgrown Tomb
1x Breeding Pool
1x Swamp
1x Island
Instant// 15
4x Opt
3x Stubborn Denial
4x Fatal Push
2x Dismember
2x Assassin’s Trophy
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Deaths Shadow
4x Street Wraith
2x Snapcaster Mage
Sorcery// 8
4x Thoughtseize
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Traverse the Ulvenwald
Artifact// 4
4x Mishra’s Bauble
Planeswalker// 2
2x Liliana of the Veil
2x Collective Brutality
2x Liliana, the Last Hope
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Bitterblossom
2x Bontu’s Last Reckoning
1x Ceremonious Rejection
1x Stubborn Denial
1x Assassin’s Trophy
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Kira, Great Glass Spinner
While I like the list, I cant help but think that gurmag and tasigur are just better threats than tarmogoyf. I realize there is no thought scour in your build either.
In sticking with a build like yours, would there be any merit to running some # of grim flayer instead of goyf? He doesnt get nearly as big, but you already have a good amount of support for delirium, as evidenced by playing traverse.
EDIT: I dont know why it is saying that it is my list and not yours. Im sorry about that.
I believe if we aren't playing Goyf, we should just be playing another color combo. The beauty of Tarmogoyf is that you don't need setup cards like thought scour to power it out. It's a flat two mana at any stage of the game, and in this deck, it's usually a 5/6 which blocks almost anything in the format. Sure, it's weak to graveyard hate, but so are the delve threats.
There's definitely merit to running flayer, I think there's probably a couple flex slots where you could jam him in. He fits the game-plan of this deck for sure, but he's definitely not a replacement for Tarmogoyf, he should just supplement. Thanks for the analysis!
To be honest I drew Nissa only once so far, played it for bunch of mana and immediately -6ed
Right now I don't find lack of cantrips a problem. Grim flayer (when connects) and traverse are ok replacements for cantrips I think. There's also tracker and tasigur. I don't think cantrips are necessary and this also lets me focus on BG side of the deck.
I've omitted JTMS for now so I don't put too much strain on mana, but I might try it one day instead of Nissa maybe. I had been worried about UU cost, but then I realized that I need two blue sources to attack with tar pit anyway, so that might not be as big problem as I thought.
I played another mini tournament last Tuesday and went 3-1. Lost to Gu Tron (won g1, g2 kept greedy onelander with Surgical, Trophy, Unmoored Ego, Goyf and some discard, drew 2nd land on t4, went for trophy + surgical on tron land, he cast Pulse of Murasa in response to surgical
Countermagic from side won me at least 3 of those games.
Have not looked at the stream but pulse and lili are grinders in a deck with fields and trophy/snap. It is also very good against aggro.
All in all, I like this take and I believe there is some more research to be done on control with à back up mana denial plan (Uw used to do this with fields and seas- here you have field/pulse, trophy snap and nimble for fetches).
2x Blooming Marsh
1x Breeding Pool
3x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Darkslick Shores
1x Forest
1x Island
1x Misty Rainforest
2x Overgrown Tomb
3x Polluted Delta
2x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Watery Grave
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Serum Visions
3x Thoughtseize
2x Collective Brutality
Creature (13)
3x Snapcaster Mage
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Nimble Obstructionist
3x Tireless Tracker
Instant (8)
4x Fatal Push
4x Assassin's Trophy
Planeswalker (4)
2x Liliana, the Last Hope
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Engineered Explosives
3x Countersquall
2x Disdainful Stroke
2x Unmoored Ego
1x Damnation
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1x Languish
4x Leyline of the Void
This iteration has exceeded my expectations against a good number of matchups. UW Control, Humans, Bridgevine, and Hollow One haven't been much trouble. So far the biggest problems have been G Tron and KCI, but I think with learning to mulligan better and different lines of play those matchups can be improved. I'd love to hear what you all think.
Lands have not been an issue at all, so I wouldn't want to up the count. The list is really tight right now and it would be hard pressed to fit more in there. The average curve is only 2 cmc which helps make it work. More personally though, I tend to flood out more when playing a deck with 25 lands, so I built it with 23 and draw from Serum. I encourage you to test it with 25 lands though and please let me know how it goes. As for Serum I really do prefer it over Opt as it digs deeper. Serum being a sorcery is not a problem since it's only 1 cmc. Snap is more for flashing removal or discard, Serum is the last choice.
If you found Spectral Fox Gaming on YouTube that is us. Please ignore the play mistakes though.
I really like having Leyline due to it completely shutting down the quick plays from Bridgevine, dredge, and Hollow One. Plus it works much better against KCI. I'll take a slightly weaker Goyf for a much better chance to win. I do leave in all of my ATrophy in against UW control. They deal with Walkers, Colonnade, Azcanta, and RiP as well as any other big threat they may side in.
We get together every Saturday and do testing against a proxy modern gauntlet consisting of decks commonly showing up in top 8's. We stream this testing on Twitch (https://twitch.tv/spectralfoxgaming) and then post it to YouTube. If you're interested in seeing how the deck has evolved or how this current list performed you can find it all at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT8nX-oVEd4PNI0MSZh7GCQ
Serum was only added in this most recent iteration and it felt quite good, but this Saturday we'll be testing some changes without Serum.
23 lands and an FOR too I don't think that math works out, you also don't have enough green sources to support Kitchen Finks and you are short on blue to hit 2UU consistently. I think your deck wants 24-25 lands and you can't run FOR.
4 death shadow, 4 New Lasav, 4 Traverse = 12 death shadows.
Discover // Dispersal is 2 card types and great for turning on delerium or grow goyf. Any combination of Street Wraight, Bauble and Fetchland garantees delerium turn 3 and you can play a death shadow.
That being said, I hadn't considered the new Lazav as a Shadow Duplicate. The Shadow does have to be in the graveyard already though, which isn't great. I think Mausoleum Secrets is a better at making more Shadows (assuming you're already running Traverse+Shadow).
Regarding Sultai Mid-range - has anyone tested Noble Hierarch lately? It was discussed a couple pages back. I tried it out (in a Sultai+White Shadow shell) and had some mixed results. I would say I liked it about 6o% it the time. It's an awful topdeck though which we can't really afford
Draft My Cube!
// 10 Creature
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Nimble Obstructionist
1 Walking Ballista
1 Torrential Gearhulk
// 19 Instant
3 Fatal Push
4 Assassin's Trophy
3 Cryptic Command
2 Pulse of Murasa
1 Consume the Meek
1 Suffer the Past
2 Logic Knot
3 Opt
// 24 Land
4 Field of Ruin
4 Polluted Delta
2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Watery Grave
1 Breeding Pool
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Hinterland Harbor
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
// 5 Sorcery
3 Serum Visions
2 Damnation
2 Damping Sphere
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Shriekmaw
1 Dispel
2 Countersquall
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Abrupt Decay
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Damnation
1 Bontu's Last Reckoning
Been working on a viable.midrange build would appreciate any comments or criticism thanks!
UR Drake
Modern:
WBGCompany, UGInfect, RBGDredge
Ok, in order:
If youre going to run the big green beaters that have made BGx successful, then you are going to want discard over permission. There are some permission based sultai lists out there, but they usually forgo creatures in lieu of olaneswalkers and manlands as wincons. The issue is sorcery speed yhreats dont play well with holding up mana. That leaves you with either BGu midrange with blue for snap, serum, and sideboard permission, or BUg with green for trophy, decay, and sideboard artifact and enchantment hate. I believe the only possible exception to this is stubborn denial. One could make the case that at 1 cmc and all the creatures you run turning it on, its a fine 2 or 3 of in lists not running LotV. It works for deaths shadow, after all.
The fatal push count is a meta call. If you expect a bunch of aggro or midrange then you cant beat 1 cmc. If its combo, big mana and control, then 3 is fine. Having visions and snap to get the most out of your list goes a long way.
Im with you on the surgical plan. Having a build-your-own slaughter games that also hits land is powerful game. Ego's advantage of hitting thing proactively is largly diminished (in my humble opinion) by the 3 drop cmc. Storm can go off, dredge can flood the board, tron can do tron things, all within that time. Its great for kci, but i like extract snap extract better.
Thing is a great card, but you would need to add a lot more cantrips (read:empty air) to an archetype that wants to function optimally in a topdeck war. Midrange needs to be able to turn the corner from control to beat down on a dime to function well. Flexibility is paramount. I feel that a card like titi needs too much support to be viable in midrange. But feel free to prove me wrong, i would love to be wrong.
Hope any of this helps.
My pleasure, friend.
Im not sure that Sulati needs as much raw card advantage (from here on in refered to as C Adv) as Jund. Midranges flexibility depends on drawing the right half of your deck at any given match, depending on your match up. The best way to maximize the chances of finding that half is to draw as many cards as you can get away with, hence the C Adv engines) The card selection (lets go with C Sel) available to Sultai largly mitigate that need by being able to filter through your deck with serum or recycle useful cards in the yard with snap. If you can manage the double blue of Vendillion Clique, then the reverse card selection is nice too. (Dont underestimate that double blue in BGu lists) That said, i personally like 3 snaps and 3 tireless trackers for raw C Adv, and 4 visions and 2-3 collective brutality for C Sel. Brutality is of particular note, as it lets you convert the wrong half of your deck (removal vs UW, discard vs affinity, etc) into more useful effects.
Regarding ancestral visions, i dont personally run it, but the case could definitely be made for it in a slowish meta. And if shardless agent ever finds its way into modern (not as impossible as i used to think. WotC is toying with the idea of supplemental products introducing cards into modern while bypassing standard) then it will most likely define the deck.
Confidant vs tracker is a bit of a false choice. Theres no reason you cant run them together, and theres nothing that says if you run one you HAVE to run the other. They occupy different cmc slots and shine in different, though sometimes overlapping, situations. The real choice you have to make is confidant vs delve threats. These are mutually exclusive and have very different pros and cons. I prefer tasigur and/or gurmag over bob due to damage output and incidentally turning on ferocious for stubborn denial, but theres that graveyard problem again. Bob gives zero craps about the yard, and needs no set up to cast efficiently, but he dies to everything, only swings for 2, and loves to punch you in the face. I could definitely see a case where goyf, scooze, bob, tracker and jace are your threats, which would almost completely insulate you from grave hate. It seems like as much a personal preference as a meta call.
As far as other blue cards that would draw you to sultai over the other GBx's, again, please test out stub in a build that can reasonably have it turned on against the field. Black based midrange excels against creature decks naturally, struggles against big mana, and leans heavily on discard and lily vs combo. Having a 1 mana answer to scapeshift, gifts ungiven, krark clan ironworks, ad nauseam, karn, ugin, o stone, collective company, and whatever else degenerate nonsense is out there, is a huge stick to be carrying around. Not to mention randomly being able to say no to a turn one thoughtseize, or aether vial, or looting. You crush dreams by hitting those, and that my friend, is why were here.
Edit: Ashiok in the sideboard is also a pet card. Not saying he/she is good, but fun against creature decks and midrange. Specially coco decks. And blue tron.... yes, i WOULD like to play you platinum angel. Thank you for asking.
Edit II: May i aslo say, this has been the best damn conversation regarding magic, sultai in particular, that ive had in months. Thank you for he intelligent questions and constructive feedback. Maybe we can jumpstart an archetype here.
Last Hope is great at cleaning up lingering souls, elementals, etc (things that you really don't want to use Push on, but can't ignore)
And her Ult is absolutely game winning against anything other than decks that ignore the board (combo, Burn, etc) so even if she does nothing but come down t3 against control and + on an empty board, she still needs to be answered. I've played 1 copy in the main of any BGx deck since she was printed
I agree about Ashiok and Nissa though. Nissa is great in Bant but I don't think she's what we want here.