Has this deck even placed consistently in anything of note? Like a 'Cruel Control' deck and not some random Grixis / Teachings deck? PTQ top 8? 4-0 a daily now and then?
Not trolling but in two years of playing heaps Modern, grinding out PTQs and playing at a few Modern GPs, I've never seen a Cruel Control deck with any results to let me think: "Hey... This deck is a player."
I know it at least won 3 GPTs belonging to GP Richmond and it does put up enough numbers to keep it in Established.
For now at least. Next set release it could get demoted though.
You have to remember that Ktkenshinx decided that it takes 2 cycles to demote a deck. I am pretty sure that it didn't qualify for this one.
Has this deck even placed consistently in anything of note? Like a 'Cruel Control' deck and not some random Grixis / Teachings deck? PTQ top 8? 4-0 a daily now and then?
Not trolling but in two years of playing heaps Modern, grinding out PTQs and playing at a few Modern GPs, I've never seen a Cruel Control deck with any results to let me think: "Hey... This deck is a player."
I know it at least won 3 GPTs belonging to GP Richmond and it does put up enough numbers to keep it in Established.
For now at least. Next set release it could get demoted though.
You have to remember that Ktkenshinx decided that it takes 2 cycles to demote a deck. I am pretty sure that it didn't qualify for this one.
I know. I said that in my post after that.
Next ban cylce its gone if it continues at the level where it is now.
So, all in all,
Have you guys considered quicken for this list?
I've been testing it with anger of the gods and damnation recently; it's interestingly efficient, because you can sweep in the middle of an attack, or respond to pod comboing.
The other i'm interested running is Jace AoT. He does what you want: buys you tons of time.
At 4 mana, you're either getting card draw, use it as a meat shield, or if they let it there, you ultimate that timatum for free and get a bonus from opponent's deck. I mean, he even oozes deceiver/twin//lingering souls at him alone. I'm wondering why he doesn't even sees play as a 1-2.
Com'on, lets stop complaining about the deck not winning and lets update the build so it does win!
I dunno, after trying telling time and magmajet I just wasn't impressed by them, they don't really generate any card advantage. Im just gonna back think twice
When shadow of doubt is good it's good, otherwise it can just be a bust. Gotta draw it early on and it has to be against a deck that wants to fetch. Always hated seeing them when there's an opposing liliana, or if im up against a deck like Merrill where it doesn't do much
I saw this list place 6th on a MTGO Premier (credit to Kagooick), looks more like Esper Teachings (sorry if I should move it over there), but it does have Cruel Ultimatium as a win condition and looks more like Grixis colors anyways, it just happens to be running the Esper Charms and Paths.
Magma Jet does not equal Electrolyze. You should not be playing fewer Electrolyzes so you can play more Magma Jets.
Electrolyze is a blind draw. Yeah, its +1 card in your hand, but if you need a land and you draw something else, what did you really gain? You might get a land the next draw, but you still don't know. Magma Jet gives you more options. If I need a land next turn I can be more confident in getting said land because I can dig further and set my next draw.
Regardless, I've found the answer to making this deck better, and its called Splinter Twin. I'm temporarily shelving this deck and switching it to a Grixis Twin deck :/ The deck needs something else, but I don't know what it is, to push it over the top. Right now its falling short. Yeah, it might finish 3-1 or 4-0 in a daily every once in awhile, but we have no idea what decks it went up against, so it really doesn't say much.
I tried something similar to that 5c list after seeing it, but I don't think it's worth it. The only read advantage would be a better sideboard (especially stony silence, that he doesn't play) but the grixis one already give you enough options. The loss of tempo is too high.
I tried again a bit Grixis control (I'm at work so I don't have access to my current list, it's quite close to my latest published one which you can see herehttp://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1201731 ), but replacing one cruel by a keranos main deck, and I was pretty happy of that change. Don't remmeber what else I changed, maybe put the Olivia back in SB, but it was quite minor. I moved away from the archetype, because despite trying all kind of decks, I still don't think control is well positionned in that meta. I prefered that to UWR however.
Edit: I now remember that I added someting that I really liked: 2 UB storage lands. They were really, really good vs control, despite tec edge (and often people don't want to destroy it when you've creeping tar pit on the board... even if they should )
electrolyze is just better than magma jet in modern for a lot of different reasons, first off it has a realistic chance of becoming a 3 for 1 if your opponent has 2 creatures in play with 1 toughness each, like what you'd face against early pod or affinity.
scry 2 is great and i won't say it isn't attractive but when you can 3 for 1 for 3 mana at instant speed, I think the upside just outweighs scry 2 by too large an amount. Also if your deck is filled with a lot of magma jets and your opponent is playing lingering souls or coming at you fast by dumping their hand with affinity on the first couple turns you really can't afford to just 1 for 1 them even if it means scrying 2 each time you do so.
lingering souls is a nightmare if you're just playing magma jets, whereas at least electrolyze trades fairly even with lingering souls.
an interesting question is how good is remand vs think twice. I do love think twice but remand has a high ceiling in terms of the potential blowouts it can perform. I think remand might be better in a majority of the matchups, although it might still be worth it to have 1 think twice in the deck so that you can get that really long grindy matchup advantage especially if you want to side out some number of remands when your facing an opponent who plays a lot of low mana costing spells.
Although now that i think about it, doesnt remanding a flashbacked think twice actually just negate a think twice CA? hm, the only benefit i can think of now for an instance where remand is worse than think twice is when you're getting thoughtseized, but they never really take ur think twice with a thoughtseize anyway.
I think the fact that remand cycles (possibly into a mana leak) and early on often timewalks your opponent is just too good of an upside. not to mention later on in a counterfight its very far from dead if used correctly. in addition its a hard counter to flashbacked spells and has potential to be a cryptic command counter draw for 2 mana (that value has me drooling) in a lot of different scenarios and the fact that it cycles has me wanting to play more of them, probably around 2.
I think 4 leak is still probably correct, also remand might let you keep more opening hands that you would feel less comfortable keeping (because you dont have a mana leak in your opening draw), so that you have more chances of cycling into it.
overall remand just reminds me of shadow of doubt in so far as how free and good it is since it cycles.
Another question is since most cruel control decks run rakdos charm in the sideboard, graveyard hate is covered fairly well, however i think a split of 1 charm 1 relic of progenitus is a good idea since rakdos charm does cost you a card, and if they dont go for any graveyard shenanigans its dead, whereas relic just cycles if that happens, Also the fact that relic is colorless actually does come up a lot vs the living end matchup, since living end plays SO many land destruction cards like beast within ( my god is that a nasty card.. ) and fulminator mages. Keeping us off of 1 black 1 red is not that hard.
Remand
Shadow of Doubt
Condescend
Magmajet
Telling time
Augur of Bolas
Peer through depths
but I always come crawling back to it, mostly because it's a way of pulling ahead on card advantage and playing too much counters/disruption makes for some awkward decision trees. I don't like scrying 2 to find out that I actually want the next card or two, then just have to wait for the next two turns to draw into them. I'd rather speed up the process of pulling ahead in terms of turns with think twice
I really hated magmajet, just scrying two without really doing anything to the board isn't where I want to be. There's only a couple times I would prefer the jet (like if I get stuck on two lands against merfolk), but electrolyze is always a stronger card. Just think about how much more impactful omenspeaker would be in the standard format (and possibly modern) if it read draw a card instead of scry 2. I'm sure if magmajet were really that good, then all of the uwr players would have caught on by now, especially wafo-tapa.
Relic is also good vs goyf.... but you're a snap caster deck, so it hurts you a lot too. From your options I like shadow of doubt the most, but maybe not more than 1.
And you guys will probably see tomorrow again a deck with vivid lands published (didn't see cruel, and he played wurmcoil), a guy 3-1'd a daily.... because I made a bad choice against him. Won game 1 with blood moon (which was a bit funny because one of the reason I discarded that list was because of a too big weakness to moon), was winning with it on the board game 2 but probably got a bit greedy when I needed some pressure, tapped out with a spell snare in hand... he drew his only plains to remove my blood moon with purge. Not sure it was really a mistake, but it did cost me the round
I hear what you're saying on think twice, I think maybe running 2 remand 1 think twice could be a happy medium though. Also I feel like between the Cryptics, Electrolyzes, and Snapcasters you're often 2 for 1'ing the opponent enough to where you don't need all that much Card advantage from think twice.
Also remand can realistically do a cryptic impersonation if they counter your counter with something like a cryptic (counter draw) and u remand ur first counter, suddenly you're way ahead.
and lets not forget to factor in the cruel ultimatum card advantage :).
Also i'm a big fan of the miser shadow of doubt, its very good against certain decks.
Relic is also good vs goyf.... but you're a snap caster deck, so it hurts you a lot too.
it sort of does yeah but to be honest if you're siding relic in it also does a Lot of damage to your opponent as well. I think even against pod its fine to side into, since it disrupts their combos and their Reveillark, and neuters ooze as well. Also you dont HAVE to pop it Even can get persist critters with the persist trigger on the stack. If you REALLY concerned about it hurting ur snappys then you could Consider Scrabbling Claws but be warned against plenty of matchups that utilize the GY they will fill their graveyard up much faster than you can really control with just the 1 targeted card. i'd say storm is a good example, although i guess not many people play that deck anymore.
Also i should point out UWR control does play 4 snaps and 2 relics in sb, so i suppose they think its worth it even with that downside, i think i agree as well since it doesn't take long for you to still get value off snappys by filling in gy with a few more cards, (like the one u just drew).
Thats seems like quite the arbitrary bit of speculation... what is that based on?
Because normally it would already be demoted since it hasn't fulfilled the criteria for being in Established. But ktkenshinx introduced the new ruling that decks that failed to put up the results get a second chance before being removed.
8Rack, Nykthos Green, Griselbrand, Cruel Control, Assault Loam and UW Midrange are right now on that second chance.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/established-modern/490981-established-tier-2-decks-criteria-and-selection
You have to remember that Ktkenshinx decided that it takes 2 cycles to demote a deck. I am pretty sure that it didn't qualify for this one.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
I know. I said that in my post after that.
Next ban cylce its gone if it continues at the level where it is now.
Have you guys considered quicken for this list?
I've been testing it with anger of the gods and damnation recently; it's interestingly efficient, because you can sweep in the middle of an attack, or respond to pod comboing.
The other i'm interested running is Jace AoT. He does what you want: buys you tons of time.
At 4 mana, you're either getting card draw, use it as a meat shield, or if they let it there, you ultimate that timatum for free and get a bonus from opponent's deck. I mean, he even oozes deceiver/twin//lingering souls at him alone. I'm wondering why he doesn't even sees play as a 1-2.
Com'on, lets stop complaining about the deck not winning and lets update the build so it does win!
2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 River of Tears
1 Dreadship Reef
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Sunken Ruins
2 Sulfur Falls
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
2 Watery Grave
2 Steam Vents
2 Reflecting Pool
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
Spells
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Spell Snare
2 Magma Jet
2 Telling Time
2 Electrolyze
2 Cruel Ultimatum
3 Mana Leak
3 Terminate
2 Damnation
3 Cryptic Command
2 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Thoughtseize
2 Rakdos Charm
2 Counterflux
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Chromatic Lantern
2 Extirpate
2 Batterskull
I would rather play more Geth's Verdict, Terminate etc. than Magma Jet.
Still vastly confused by the indifference to not playing Shadow of Doubt as the 2 mana cycler.
Finishing up my list for the next few months. Will be playing some number of Shadow of Doubt.
1 Dreadship Reef
1 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Celestial Colonnade
2 Mystic Gate
2 Sunken Ruins
3 Island
3 Vivid Marsh
3 Vivid Meadow
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Vivid Creek
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Batterskull
1 Electrolyze
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Lightning Helix
1 Putrefy
1 Sudden Death
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Think Twice
3 Esper Charm
3 Mana Leak
3 Mystical Teachings
3 Path to Exile
4 Cryptic Command
2 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Voidmage Husher
2 Timely Reinforcements
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Slaughter Games
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Gideon Jura
1 Fracturing Gust
1 Disenchant
1 Counterflux
1 Celestial Purge
1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
1 Electrolyze
Thoughts? I think it looks really slow, kind of surprised it even placed 6th, but Cruel Ultimatum is one hell of a drug...
Heroes of the Plane
The Price of Legacy
The Price of Legacy 2.0!
Decks:
EDH
Malestrom Wanderer Group Chaotic Hugs
Tasigur, The Golden Fang Valu-Town
Modern
Too many to List...
Legacy
GWBNic-Fit PodGWB
G12-Post (Building)G
Electrolyze is a blind draw. Yeah, its +1 card in your hand, but if you need a land and you draw something else, what did you really gain? You might get a land the next draw, but you still don't know. Magma Jet gives you more options. If I need a land next turn I can be more confident in getting said land because I can dig further and set my next draw.
Regardless, I've found the answer to making this deck better, and its called Splinter Twin. I'm temporarily shelving this deck and switching it to a Grixis Twin deck :/ The deck needs something else, but I don't know what it is, to push it over the top. Right now its falling short. Yeah, it might finish 3-1 or 4-0 in a daily every once in awhile, but we have no idea what decks it went up against, so it really doesn't say much.
I tried again a bit Grixis control (I'm at work so I don't have access to my current list, it's quite close to my latest published one which you can see herehttp://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1201731 ), but replacing one cruel by a keranos main deck, and I was pretty happy of that change. Don't remmeber what else I changed, maybe put the Olivia back in SB, but it was quite minor. I moved away from the archetype, because despite trying all kind of decks, I still don't think control is well positionned in that meta. I prefered that to UWR however.
Edit: I now remember that I added someting that I really liked: 2 UB storage lands. They were really, really good vs control, despite tec edge (and often people don't want to destroy it when you've creeping tar pit on the board... even if they should )
scry 2 is great and i won't say it isn't attractive but when you can 3 for 1 for 3 mana at instant speed, I think the upside just outweighs scry 2 by too large an amount. Also if your deck is filled with a lot of magma jets and your opponent is playing lingering souls or coming at you fast by dumping their hand with affinity on the first couple turns you really can't afford to just 1 for 1 them even if it means scrying 2 each time you do so.
lingering souls is a nightmare if you're just playing magma jets, whereas at least electrolyze trades fairly even with lingering souls.
Although now that i think about it, doesnt remanding a flashbacked think twice actually just negate a think twice CA? hm, the only benefit i can think of now for an instance where remand is worse than think twice is when you're getting thoughtseized, but they never really take ur think twice with a thoughtseize anyway.
I think the fact that remand cycles (possibly into a mana leak) and early on often timewalks your opponent is just too good of an upside. not to mention later on in a counterfight its very far from dead if used correctly. in addition its a hard counter to flashbacked spells and has potential to be a cryptic command counter draw for 2 mana (that value has me drooling) in a lot of different scenarios and the fact that it cycles has me wanting to play more of them, probably around 2.
I think 4 leak is still probably correct, also remand might let you keep more opening hands that you would feel less comfortable keeping (because you dont have a mana leak in your opening draw), so that you have more chances of cycling into it.
overall remand just reminds me of shadow of doubt in so far as how free and good it is since it cycles.
Another question is since most cruel control decks run rakdos charm in the sideboard, graveyard hate is covered fairly well, however i think a split of 1 charm 1 relic of progenitus is a good idea since rakdos charm does cost you a card, and if they dont go for any graveyard shenanigans its dead, whereas relic just cycles if that happens, Also the fact that relic is colorless actually does come up a lot vs the living end matchup, since living end plays SO many land destruction cards like beast within ( my god is that a nasty card.. ) and fulminator mages. Keeping us off of 1 black 1 red is not that hard.
Remand
Shadow of Doubt
Condescend
Magmajet
Telling time
Augur of Bolas
Peer through depths
but I always come crawling back to it, mostly because it's a way of pulling ahead on card advantage and playing too much counters/disruption makes for some awkward decision trees. I don't like scrying 2 to find out that I actually want the next card or two, then just have to wait for the next two turns to draw into them. I'd rather speed up the process of pulling ahead in terms of turns with think twice
I really hated magmajet, just scrying two without really doing anything to the board isn't where I want to be. There's only a couple times I would prefer the jet (like if I get stuck on two lands against merfolk), but electrolyze is always a stronger card. Just think about how much more impactful omenspeaker would be in the standard format (and possibly modern) if it read draw a card instead of scry 2. I'm sure if magmajet were really that good, then all of the uwr players would have caught on by now, especially wafo-tapa.
Updated
3 Snapcaster Mage
Instants (19)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Think Twice
3 Mana Leak
3 Terminate
4 Electrolyze
4 Cryptic Command
Sorcery (9)
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Damnation
3 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Marsh Flats
4 Steam Vents
1 Blood Crypt
1 Watery Grave
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Swamp
2 Island
1 Mountain
4 Thoughtseize
3 Countersquall
3 Ratchet Bomb
4 Dissolve
1 Damnation
And you guys will probably see tomorrow again a deck with vivid lands published (didn't see cruel, and he played wurmcoil), a guy 3-1'd a daily.... because I made a bad choice against him. Won game 1 with blood moon (which was a bit funny because one of the reason I discarded that list was because of a too big weakness to moon), was winning with it on the board game 2 but probably got a bit greedy when I needed some pressure, tapped out with a spell snare in hand... he drew his only plains to remove my blood moon with purge. Not sure it was really a mistake, but it did cost me the round
Also remand can realistically do a cryptic impersonation if they counter your counter with something like a cryptic (counter draw) and u remand ur first counter, suddenly you're way ahead.
and lets not forget to factor in the cruel ultimatum card advantage :).
Also i'm a big fan of the miser shadow of doubt, its very good against certain decks.
it sort of does yeah but to be honest if you're siding relic in it also does a Lot of damage to your opponent as well. I think even against pod its fine to side into, since it disrupts their combos and their Reveillark, and neuters ooze as well. Also you dont HAVE to pop it Even can get persist critters with the persist trigger on the stack. If you REALLY concerned about it hurting ur snappys then you could Consider Scrabbling Claws but be warned against plenty of matchups that utilize the GY they will fill their graveyard up much faster than you can really control with just the 1 targeted card. i'd say storm is a good example, although i guess not many people play that deck anymore.
Also i should point out UWR control does play 4 snaps and 2 relics in sb, so i suppose they think its worth it even with that downside, i think i agree as well since it doesn't take long for you to still get value off snappys by filling in gy with a few more cards, (like the one u just drew).