I switched from Think twice to Remands and they've proven to be really awesome. I'd recommend others at least try it out as well. I could list the reasons but if you just play with them a bit i think you can decide for yourselves, I think however its just better atm to play remands. there is a lot of misconceptions about remand that i think can be dispelled if theyre given a shot.
Also i've been meaning to ask if people like playing the discard spells in the sideboard or mainboard. I've been keeping 2 thoughtseize and an inquisition in the sideboard and that seems to work out pretty well for me(so few because we have snapcaster to get more than 1 use out of them unlike jund) . I just figured that since they seem to be at their best against combo decks and control decks. Against creature decks you kind of lose tempo if your dealing with their hand ( with a lot of discard spells ) while theyre playing out their creatures dont you? I just always thought jund played so many mainboard because they dont have so many mana leaks cryptics etc like we do to deal with the combo/control decks.
Not to mention playing a lot like that mainboard does tax ur manabase which if we can avoid im sure we'd want to to have the smoothest manabase possible within reason of course. ( I say this because vs. control decks you can afford to play it later in the game whereas vs. creature decks i'd assume u cant really afford to wait that long to fire them off).
I've played Remands in the deck. I tried replacing all my leaks with Remands for awhile and it didn't feel right. It isn't a tempo deck that likes to drop threats... we're always on our heels, so putting the spell back into the hand means you just have to deal with it again and hope you have another card in hand to do so. 2 Remands and 2-3 Leaks are a good mix I think.
Also i've been meaning to ask if people like playing the discard spells in the sideboard or mainboard.
To me this is the #1 reason to play Grixis over UWR. My deck list earlier had 2 Thoughsieze and 4 IoK. I want to hit 2 or 3 of those a game, and I think the biggest benefit of the new fetch lands is we have better odds of a turn 1 IoK for only 1 life, or Thoughtsieze for 3 life instead of 5 (Tarn to fetch Watery Grave). In the past I didn't have much trouble casting CU on turn 7 if I hit land drops. The mana base usually let me get the correct 7 lands by that time that I needed. The only time I had mana issues is when I flat out didn't draw it.
Still not sure why everyone is fixated on Think Twice. Why not play something more proactive mainboard like Shadow of Doubt? You don't get the flashback (unless you use a Snappy) but it is never a completely dead card. If you are desperate for a draw, just cast it. Otherwise you have better mainboard tech against Pod, Scapeshift, and fetch lands. Considering people are probably going to be running more fetch lands soon Shadow of Doubt may have even more uses.
I would never say to play remands Over leaks, i think they're role is to replace think twice since it cycles and stalls potentially an entire turn. This is important because aggro and midrange decks spike in power (in the first couple turns) before us, so if we can stall(for free since it cycles) an entire turn, then we can reach our spike in power more reliably and then dominate the game from there.
As for the thoughtseizes, I agree the discard spells are one of the main reasons to play the deck over UWR. I just think vs non control and non combo decks they get a lot worse. in matchups where its about top decking thoughtseize does nothing in the later game where as mana leak can potentially stop a top deck, so i think in those matchups you would really not want discard spells. So for that reason I thought it might be better to just leave them in the sideboard to bring in vs combo/control. If Jund played vs combo/control with no thoughtseizes main they would be fighting an uphill battle as they would probably lose Game 1. But since we have a bunch of cryptics mana leaks and remands we have a lot of game vs those decks G1, and G2+3 boarding into thoughtseize its not too hard to win. I think that might be the main difference between us and jund in terms of mainboarding so many discard.
nice that he has some faith in the archetype, not sure how much thought he put into the list though, some of the things seem a bit suboptimal but then again lsv does like getting a lot of value lol.
Well, his list is nothing special. On the contrary I can see some flows. As always with decks like these, people in this forum have them figured out way before the pros do just because they don't decide to pick it up and see the potential. Hopefully now some people will do.
What is the general consensus on playing Cruel Ultimatum? I have heard differing opinions on it. Right now I am trying the deck without it, using Keranos, God of Storms and Batterskull as win conditions. The biggest thing I have noticed so far is that the mana base is way easier and we can now run Tectonic Edges. What do you guys think of this build?
I think remand doesn't make alot of sense in Cruel control. I think leak or counterflux or something is just better. Ultimatum is good now that our fixing is better. I haven't lost a game i cast ultmatum in that resolved yet since next turn theres a good chance you can snapcaster it or something else insane and have full control. I think its good as a 2 of
@darkbrew, I have to say im definitely Not comparing leak to remand, im comparing it to think twice. Leak is better for us than remand, but u dont have to choose between them lol.
@darkbrew, I have to say im definitely Not comparing leak to remand, im comparing it to think twice. Leak is better for us than remand, but u dont have to choose between them lol.
I agree, Remand should be used in addition to Mana Leak. I have found Remand to be very valuable in this deck, as it can buy us a whole turn and replace itself, getting us one step closer to resolving a Cruel Ultimatum. This format is so fast that it's pretty essential you have something to play on the first few turns, and turn two is usually very crucial.
The Think Twice/Remand/Shadow of Doubt debate is pretty open to your meta. They're all great cards, it's just each one has an edge in certain matchups compared to the other spells.
Think Twice -- against Liliana decks.
Remand -- against tempo and aggro.
Shadow of Doubt -- against combo.
Remand, I think, is the most flexible of the three -- and thus would make sense for it to be the go to for a lot of players.
Ultimatumly, (har har) no one can really fault you for playing any of these cards over the other as they all do similar jobs (hit land drops/have some function outside of "draw card"). However, you should play some number of one of these cards, since 2 mana "draw a card" is irreplacable.
If you are so desperate to dig for ultimatum wouldn't diabolic tutor be better?
Then again, you can win even without resolving ultimatum
I think this is a wrong perception. You are not desperate to find cruel ultimatum, CU is the decks main win condition. Of course you could possibly win w/o resolving a cruel ultimatum, just the way you can win any match given the right conditions. More often than not however you will be winning games with Cruel Ultimatum, and being able to dig for CU+protection is crucial for this decks legitimacy.
And no, diabolic tutor is not better. It is sorcery speed, fixed mana cost and only bring 1 card.
I don't know why Cruel Ultimatum is still underquestion here. Our man-lands are not as powerful as Celestial Colonnade and Cruel Ultimatum is way better than sphinx's revelation which is a standard in UWR control decks (as one or two of).
On the remand/think twice discussion, I think that Shadow of Doubt fills a different spot than the other two cards. Between remand and think twice, depending on the style you want to play you should choose. If you want to tempo/discard then go with remand. If you want to play hard control, imho think twice is better.
Maybe Cruel Ultimatum is under scrutiny because: a) it costs a billion mana and b) it was only ever successful in a slow Standard format filled with decks playing Vivid taplands...
On the remand/think twice discussion, I think that Shadow of Doubt fills a different spot than the other two cards. Between remand and think twice, depending on the style you want to play you should choose. If you want to tempo/discard then go with remand. If you want to play hard control, imho think twice is better.
I'm not sure that saying Shadow of Doubt fills an different role is entirely correct. If you look at some old daily lists, there are modern lists that forgo Remand and Think Twice in favor of 2-4 Shadow of Doubt. At two mana, they all cycle -- with the main goal of hitting land drops 3-7 -- with a little bonus tacked on.
In Grixis lists,Shadow of Doubt largely functions as mana denial and Scapeshift counterspell. Compare this with Esper and Jeskai and you don't get the benefit of Path to Exile/Shadow of Doubt blowouts. So Shadow of Doubt isn't an incredible option for Cruel Control but in the right meta it could absolutely take the 2 mana cycler role.
After having failed to meet the Established criteria for two consecutive update cycles, Cruel Control has been moved back to Deck Creation.
"failed to meet criteria" is one more reason we need to look at a new approach at this deck. clearly the Cruel ultimatum approach hasn't been working. Is it possible our curve is too high? especially with a teachings package mixed in? we need to alter about 8-10 cards in this deck to make this archetype work, I just don't know which cards though. On paper this should be one of the strongest archetypes but hasn't lived up to it. blue for counters, black for discard and kill spells, red for Bolt and anger of the gods as well as a few others. Back to the drawing board with this archetype
the main reason decks dont hit the criteria is nobody is playing them. I think fetches will have people on esper and grixis again. plus dig should make all three
could we take a moment to talk about treasure cruise and how it could be awesome in a control deck?
I think the answer to that is "not very." Most of the time it's just gonna be a divination, and even when it's not, I'd usually rather have Dig Through Time because towards the end of the game, when it's as cheap as it can be, you would rather scry 7 and pick out the best two than just draw the top 3. I'm no expert with control decks, but that's what it seems like to me.
Also i've been meaning to ask if people like playing the discard spells in the sideboard or mainboard. I've been keeping 2 thoughtseize and an inquisition in the sideboard and that seems to work out pretty well for me(so few because we have snapcaster to get more than 1 use out of them unlike jund) . I just figured that since they seem to be at their best against combo decks and control decks. Against creature decks you kind of lose tempo if your dealing with their hand ( with a lot of discard spells ) while theyre playing out their creatures dont you? I just always thought jund played so many mainboard because they dont have so many mana leaks cryptics etc like we do to deal with the combo/control decks.
Not to mention playing a lot like that mainboard does tax ur manabase which if we can avoid im sure we'd want to to have the smoothest manabase possible within reason of course. ( I say this because vs. control decks you can afford to play it later in the game whereas vs. creature decks i'd assume u cant really afford to wait that long to fire them off).
To me this is the #1 reason to play Grixis over UWR. My deck list earlier had 2 Thoughsieze and 4 IoK. I want to hit 2 or 3 of those a game, and I think the biggest benefit of the new fetch lands is we have better odds of a turn 1 IoK for only 1 life, or Thoughtsieze for 3 life instead of 5 (Tarn to fetch Watery Grave). In the past I didn't have much trouble casting CU on turn 7 if I hit land drops. The mana base usually let me get the correct 7 lands by that time that I needed. The only time I had mana issues is when I flat out didn't draw it.
Still not sure why everyone is fixated on Think Twice. Why not play something more proactive mainboard like Shadow of Doubt? You don't get the flashback (unless you use a Snappy) but it is never a completely dead card. If you are desperate for a draw, just cast it. Otherwise you have better mainboard tech against Pod, Scapeshift, and fetch lands. Considering people are probably going to be running more fetch lands soon Shadow of Doubt may have even more uses.
As for the thoughtseizes, I agree the discard spells are one of the main reasons to play the deck over UWR. I just think vs non control and non combo decks they get a lot worse. in matchups where its about top decking thoughtseize does nothing in the later game where as mana leak can potentially stop a top deck, so i think in those matchups you would really not want discard spells. So for that reason I thought it might be better to just leave them in the sideboard to bring in vs combo/control. If Jund played vs combo/control with no thoughtseizes main they would be fighting an uphill battle as they would probably lose Game 1. But since we have a bunch of cryptics mana leaks and remands we have a lot of game vs those decks G1, and G2+3 boarding into thoughtseize its not too hard to win. I think that might be the main difference between us and jund in terms of mainboarding so many discard.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/td/shards-tarkir-2014-09-19
WURUWr Stoneblade
Modern
WRGNaya Zoo Company
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
1x Blood Crypt
3x Creeping Tar Pit
3x Island
1x Lavaclaw Reaches
1x Mountain
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Steam Vents
1x Sunken Ruins
1x Swamp
2x Tectonic Edge
2x Watery Grave
Instant (22)
4x Cryptic Command
3x Electrolyze
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Mana Leak
3x Remand
1x Shadow of Doubt
2x Spell Snare
2x Terminate
2x Damnation
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Thoughtseize
Creature (4)
1x Keranos, God of Storms
3x Snapcaster Mage
Artifact (1)
1x Batterskull
2x Anger of the Gods
1x Countersquall
1x Hero's Downfall
2x Rakdos Charm
1x Shatterstorm
1x Slaughter Games
2x Sowing Salt
1x Spell Pierce
1x Spreading Seas
1x Suffer the Past
1x Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1x Thoughtseize
I agree, Remand should be used in addition to Mana Leak. I have found Remand to be very valuable in this deck, as it can buy us a whole turn and replace itself, getting us one step closer to resolving a Cruel Ultimatum. This format is so fast that it's pretty essential you have something to play on the first few turns, and turn two is usually very crucial.
Think Twice -- against Liliana decks.
Remand -- against tempo and aggro.
Shadow of Doubt -- against combo.
Remand, I think, is the most flexible of the three -- and thus would make sense for it to be the go to for a lot of players.
Ultimatumly, (har har) no one can really fault you for playing any of these cards over the other as they all do similar jobs (hit land drops/have some function outside of "draw card"). However, you should play some number of one of these cards, since 2 mana "draw a card" is irreplacable.
And no, diabolic tutor is not better. It is sorcery speed, fixed mana cost and only bring 1 card.
I don't know why Cruel Ultimatum is still underquestion here. Our man-lands are not as powerful as Celestial Colonnade and Cruel Ultimatum is way better than sphinx's revelation which is a standard in UWR control decks (as one or two of).
On the remand/think twice discussion, I think that Shadow of Doubt fills a different spot than the other two cards. Between remand and think twice, depending on the style you want to play you should choose. If you want to tempo/discard then go with remand. If you want to play hard control, imho think twice is better.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
I'm not sure that saying Shadow of Doubt fills an different role is entirely correct. If you look at some old daily lists, there are modern lists that forgo Remand and Think Twice in favor of 2-4 Shadow of Doubt. At two mana, they all cycle -- with the main goal of hitting land drops 3-7 -- with a little bonus tacked on.
In Grixis lists,Shadow of Doubt largely functions as mana denial and Scapeshift counterspell. Compare this with Esper and Jeskai and you don't get the benefit of Path to Exile/Shadow of Doubt blowouts. So Shadow of Doubt isn't an incredible option for Cruel Control but in the right meta it could absolutely take the 2 mana cycler role.
After having failed to meet the Established criteria for two consecutive update cycles, Cruel Control has been moved back to Deck Creation.
"failed to meet criteria" is one more reason we need to look at a new approach at this deck. clearly the Cruel ultimatum approach hasn't been working. Is it possible our curve is too high? especially with a teachings package mixed in? we need to alter about 8-10 cards in this deck to make this archetype work, I just don't know which cards though. On paper this should be one of the strongest archetypes but hasn't lived up to it. blue for counters, black for discard and kill spells, red for Bolt and anger of the gods as well as a few others. Back to the drawing board with this archetype
UWRUWR MidrangeUWR
BUGSultai MidrangeBUG
BUGRTraverse MidrangeBUGR (currently brewing)
I think the answer to that is "not very." Most of the time it's just gonna be a divination, and even when it's not, I'd usually rather have Dig Through Time because towards the end of the game, when it's as cheap as it can be, you would rather scry 7 and pick out the best two than just draw the top 3. I'm no expert with control decks, but that's what it seems like to me.