2/27/14 - PRIMER IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION! Updated primer will include:
Splash options (red for Blood Moon is a big one, discussion for red splash starts at page 2)
More card options
Matchups
Iterations
Spoiler tags (lord knows we need them)
Thank You's
Let's face it: Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is a sweet, sweet card; a true blessing from the new block. And of course, some people have noticed the potential of this awesome, awesome card. A truely powerful land.
But while everyone pretending that Nykthos is Gaea's Cradle or Cabal Coffers, I have a very different viewpoint of how Nykthos impacts Modern.
Turns out that there's a lot of sweet white enchantments that shut-down many of combo decks that define the format, as well as stop the classic turn-dudes-sideways gameplan.
So the first card we have to play is an enchantress.
Say hello to Planar Chaos' gift, my dear friend Mesa Enchantress. Ton's of drawing potential makes this card out engine, worthy of the deck's namesake. Not as powerful as out Legacy counterparts, but it will do just fine.
If we are worried about our opponents attacking us, let's just deny them. Ghostly Prison forces out opponents to pay mana for each attacking creature, not to mention that it blanks Splinter Twin from completely wrecking us.
How about people firing hand-attack spells at us? We don't want out opponents to strip us of our freshly drawn cards. Neither do we want multiple Murderous Redcap triggers or Lightning Bolts teetering us closer to death. So let's play Leyline of Sanctity. Not only does it prevent all of the above, but it can come down for FREE if it's in our opening hand, making a bare Nykthos in the first few turns really rewarding. No thank you sir, I'd rather you not target me with those things.
If we are playing around Nykthos, we need efficient enchantments that hinder our opponent's game plan and have a double-white casting cost.
Runed Halo acts as our Leylines 5-8. We can name that nasty Tarmogoyf that just came down or Deceiver Exarch and then Pestermite to disrupt our combo math-ups. Wheel of Sun and Moon shuts down graveyard strategies, and yes, Rest is Peace exists, but Wheel just gives us more devotion for a card. Think of it this way, Wheel is like two Rest in Peaces for the price of one!
Let's talk about a card that seems redundant in this deck, but I am a big believer in the card, and that's Favor of the Mighty. Now, in Modern, it is very rare that our opponent will be playing creatures with cmc of 4 or greater, and when they do, it's past the point of our opponent wanting to kill our creatures. Matching Mesa Enchantress in the 3cmc tier are things like Vendilion Clique, Kitchen Finks, Geist of Saint Traft, and Deceiver Exarch, which are big, big names in the Modern metagame, so with Mesa Enchantress being a 3cmc creature, Favor of the Mighty is relatively safe, and it offers us more devotion and a great deal of protection to our beloved Enchantress. A nice curve of T2 Favor into T3 Enchantress is very safe, and when the game goes long enough to where our opponent has big creatures, we will have already [hopefully] gained enough advantage out of Enchantress.
Holy Heliod, this next card is an absolute GODSEND. Let's just make our opponent suffer more with Suppression Field. There are a ton of activated abilities to even begin. Planeswalkers, Deathrite Shaman, Pod, Twin, Tron, Affinity, fetchlands, Æther Vial, even Grim Lavamancer is up hurt by this glorious card. Best part, we aren't running a SINGLE CARD in the mainboard that has an activated ability that Suppression Field walls. Nykthos is a mana-ability, people.
There is one key card that does not offer devotion, and I'd hate to play it, but it is absolutely necessary for the stability of the deck, and that's Howling Mine. With only 4 Mesa Enchantress, we aren't going to be drawing into her a lot. Sure, we can play Verduran Enchantress but that requires green, and green is just something we don't want to play with Nykthos hanging around. It's just not worth it. If there was a second white enchantress, I'd totally play that over Howling Mine, but it's a necessary evil. It comes down of turn two, and hopefully we'll be able to draw into an Enchantress. But trust me, I'd rather play something else.
Let's play Oblivion Ring to catch anything else that would be bothering us that dodges out hate package. Just a great, solid, catch-all card.
Now, let's bring up a card called Privileged Position. YES, not Greater Auramancy, but Privileged Position. We don't play any auras (oh yeah, I forgot to mention that, we don't play Aspect of Mongoose or anything like that), so we can't exactly enchant our Enchantress. With two out, they protect each other and now everything we have has hexproof, including our Nykthos!
Well, let's just play Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. If we have a good enough opening hand, we can hard-cast Emrakul turn 4 or 5, and we aren't even cheating him out! And we can safely play it as a one-of with our many opportunities to draw cards (not to mention that Favor of the Mighty makes this bad-boy nearly unblockable)
"But RogueOS," I can hear you prattling, "what if our opponent plays Fracturing Gust or Paraselene out of the sideboard to r3kt us?" Well, here is where we come to our sideboard plan. We have Open the Vaults to combat that strategy, and yes, we are helping out reanimator decks, but if we have the necessary hate cards tools to hinder then, then it won't be as painful.
Out of the sideboard, we are playing Gelid Shackles for pesky Deathrites and those aggro matchups [we are playing Snow-Covered Plains, do not fear (we also don't get completely blown-out by Blood Moon!!!)], Dawn Charm as a reassurance against Infect, Boggles, Splinter Twin, and a super-fast Affinity start, some more Wheel of Sun and Moon/Rest in Peace, whichever you prefer, and Stony Silence and Aura of Silence to round out our coverage against artifacts and other enchantments.
So at the end of the day, our deck will look like this:
Of course, this deck is still in a pretty raw form, so any other advice and critiques will be helpful in the construction of this deck.
Leyline of Sanctity is the sideboard champion, Suppression Field maims pretty much every tier 1 deck and we mostly don't get affected by it, all kinds of creature protection in the main, and a great package of selective hate pieces. I wish I can stick Torpor Orb somewhere in there but then we won't get the extra turn off of Emrakul D:
Let's bring back Enchantress to Modern!
Credit goes to Joseph Pinkley a.k.a. BrainstormingAZ for this sweet concept.
If you're going to play favor of the mighty and you want an additional card drawing engine, then I highly recommend looking at augury adept over howling mine. It's life gain and card draw, and even more importantly, will get the same protection from your favor that your mesa enchantress gets.
If you're going to play white fogs, then play dawn charm, bar none. It's by far the best of them for this sort of deck.
There aren't a whole lot of creatures I see you needing to remove. It might be worth it to run a couple of sphere of safety as well. One of those drops, and there is no way any deck sans elfs with an active archdruid is going to get through.
Idyllic tutor is really probably worth running as a 3 of. Some of those cards you just don't want to see early at all. The ability to go fetch the one of enchantment you need is probably worth it, such as wheel of sun and moon, oblivion ring, or sigil of the empty throne. If you've got nykthos active, there is no reason you can't go crazy with it easily enough.
If you're going to play favor of the mighty and you want an additional card drawing engine, then I highly recommend looking at augury adept over howling mine. It's life gain and card draw, and even more importantly, will get the same protection from your favor that your mesa enchantress gets.
If you're going to play white fogs, then play dawn charm, bar none. It's by far the best of them for this sort of deck.
There aren't a whole lot of creatures I see you needing to remove. It might be worth it to run a couple of sphere of safety as well. One of those drops, and there is no way any deck sans elfs with an active archdruid is going to get through.
Idyllic tutor is really probably worth running as a 3 of. Some of those cards you just don't want to see early at all. The ability to go fetch the one of enchantment you need is probably worth it, such as wheel of sun and moon, oblivion ring, or sigil of the empty throne. If you've got nykthos active, there is no reason you can't go crazy with it easily enough.
Dawn Charm looks fantastic, will be automatically replacing Holy Day with that.
Sphere of Safety seems like overkill, especially when we run 4 Ghostly Prisons and 4 Runed Halo. I'll have to try it out though, seems hilarious.
And damn, Augury Adept looks fantastic. I think Affinity can block it with artifact creatures, but outside of that, it looks like a great candidate. Will also be testing with it. However, we won't always have a Favor out, so hopefully the Runed Halos will cover for it.
No Heliod? He seems like a better win con vs a single Emmy. He can pump tokens, and will be a creature almost always.
Honestly, Emracucumber just seems cleaner and more efficient. Especially if we can cast him on turn 4. Heliod seems a bit slow, folds to Path of Exile, and tokens are susceptible to board wipes.
I actually prefer sphere of safety to ghostly prison. Yes, it drops a bit later. On the other hand, I play it with planeswalkers so it is a very important point. To be even more importantly noted, it's not overkill when you're facing tron emrakul....If he gets to attack, then you've got problems. they can pretty easily pay 2, 4, even 6 assuming you've got 3 ghostly prisons out, but I'd dearly love to see them pay 10 or more with even one sphere of safety. It's worth noting that even if you do do have runed halo and leyline of sanctity down, the annihilator triggers will resolve before the halo can protect, so if you don't have enough permanents....
Damn, Emrakul is a good point. I'll have to try out Sphere of Safety then.
Porphyry Nodes was a card that I never really wanted in this deck. It kills our Enchantress first and if we don't have Heliod out and desperately need something dead then we risk our Enchantress and the Nodes itself.
Heliod and Nodes is a pretty sweet interaction.
Heliod and Suppression Field, however, is not.
I just don't like the idea. I personally think the fact that this deck can get to Emrakul very consistently is a done deal.
Against Tron strategies and other pesky lands, I might add some Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge in this deck. Maybe a Crucible of Worlds if people decide to blow up our Nykthos.
Adding in land destruction is fine if you feel the need. However, I would caution that A. it won't play nice with suppression field, and B. who cares if nykthos gets blown up? You're drawing enough cards that you should have another soon enough meaning that having a crucible of worlds is rather pointless.
One more point, this time against emrakul. Even drawing 2 or 3 cards per turn, just how long will it take before you actually find him? You need to control the game until then whereas if you just search up your sigil of the empty throne with a tutor, you'll have a win condition much sooner. It might be a good idea to take a cue from legacy enchantress on this one.
Having 1 Emrakul as even a backup plan to win seems very fair to just keep it around, especially since we can easily cast it int he mid game. Maybe 2 Sigil of the Empty Throne? 1 may be good enough if we do add in Idyllic Tutor. What other mono-white win-cons are there available for us?
rule of law is a definite maybe. It has options vs. some decks that try to overwhelm with spells. However, it will screw you over pretty good when you get going with card draw and nytkhos.
blind obedience almost seems a no brainer, now that I think about it. It's one of the best cards to play here. It slows down aggro and completely hoses twin.
I've already made my case for sphere of safety.
Worship really wants hexproof creatures, which you aren't running. Not worth it, in my opinion.
Nevermore on what? What would you call with it? most decks aren't shut down by such a card.
Karma, cowed by wisdom, and sanctimony are pretty useless. You get better effects out of something like story circle.
Blind Obedience can be a supporting player that does the things that Ghostly Prison and Suppression Field cannot cover. Also, we can win the game through absolutely HUGE Extort triggers with the mana we get out of Nykthos, not to mention that even if we aren't extorting for the win, extorting for small amounts will help out our survivability greatly.
Nevermore can name things we don't want to see, like Paraselene or Fracturing Gust or annoying cards like Cryptic Command, their win condition like Liliana, Emrakul (we don't exactly need Emrakul to win).
I thought that Cowed by Wisdom would be an interesting card to play as we play draw engines and we can often get to 7 cards in our hand, but Cowed by Wisdom can't shut off things like DRS.
Story Circle doesn't play nice with Suppression Field.
yes, but cards like oblivion ring already answer emrakul, etc. I don't know who would actually play parasalene or fracturing gust. yes, these cards hose you, but who sees enchantress? it's a very rogue choice! Now, if you have bogles in your area, then you might need to worry some, but I don't see it otherwise.
nevermore doesn't stop melira pod, really, any better than suppression field already does. In fact, suppression field hoses that deck much better because it hoses both pod and whatever their sac outlet is, as well as any fetches they have. Oblivion ring does answer emrakul, or at least removes it. I concede that nevermore stops it from being played, but then again, karn hits either one and karn is by far usually the bigger threat.
Stony silence would be a better answer to most of the things that aura of silence would hit, i think, namely affinity and tron artifact cantrips.
I feel like Luminarch Ascension is a good card, but we play Suppression Field and it doesn't prevent our opponent from doing anything the turn it comes down. We do need the extra win-con though, and it being an enchantment at 2 mana does help out Nykthos and triggers Enchantress with little investment.
Also, I could just be delusional about worrying about our own Suppression Field, we generate a crap ton of mana anyway.
Heliod, though, is a different story. 4 mana for a 2/1 token with vigilance, 6 mana if we count Suppression Field, is pretty steep, and there are a couple of maindeck ways to kill an indestructible 5/6, much less block it successfully for a few turns. At 4 mana offering only 1 devotion and taking the Favor of the Mighty protection off of Enchantress just seems a bit under-par. I mean, Heliod is a great creature, can be searched by Idyllic Tutor, is an enchantment, and it's indestructible letting us play Pophyry Nodes, but I just don't like it as much as a surprise Emrakul.
DISREGARD, I AM STUPID AND BLIND OBEDIENCE IS JUST OKAY. Back to testing this correctly. (hopefully correctly)
Nevermore is pretty good when we need it, and pretty trash when we don't. I like to name things I don't like to see, we can always neuter Karn and just Nevermore Emrakul; we have other ways of winning. Pretty much the only things I've named were Sundering Titan, Emrakul, Cryptic Command, and Snapcaster Mage.
Speaking of Emrakul, Sphere of Safety is nuts when we can get it out fast enough. Ghostly Prison at 3cmc isn't too far from Sphere of Safety at 5 cmc, and Sphere does a hell of a lot better of a job at deterring singular attackers.
I have yet to test Augury Adept, I'm thinking of ways to protect it outside of Favor of the Mighty. But it does seems like the card we are looking for.
I really do hate countermagic with a passion. UWR and UR Delver Tempo are tough, grindy matchups.
You know you can only ever spent 1 mana on Extortion triggers right?
Also, what about Elspeth, Knight Errant. Suppression Field is a pain but sometimes it's worth paying extra for the effect you have on the opponent. Other win conditions could be big X spells like
Devil's Play
Banefire
Aurelia's Fury
etc.
Or...what about something like Wurmcoil Engine + Academy Ruins.
I blame the two months I spent away from this game
I don't really like playing planeswalkers, because as you said, Suppression Field is maindecked for us and it's just a great card against a huge portion of cards. Elspeth's ult is a saving grace though, but at 5 turns after casting her and spending what may be quite a bit of mana for that seems a little slow. I'm not exactly sure though, I'll need to try her out. It could just be that getting to her ult is just win-more.
I'm actually more interested in Ajani Vengeant. Permanent manipulation, Lightning Helix, and one-sided Armageddon is quite a suite of abilities that I'm interested in paying mana for.
Counterspells will always be a problem for this type of deck. Defense Grid from the board is an ok answer. Splashing blue for something like Spell Pierce or Swan Song is a possibility. But you probably only get one splash in this deck and it's light. If you do choose red you get Guttural Response.
It's a bit odd but I've been having reasonable success with Faithless Looting. There's lots of times with a deck like this that you need specific cards or some card are just dead. Looting is a very efficient way to filter and it's one of the few spell in non-blue to do that. Skite will save your enchantments too as well as help against Boggles which would be a tough matchup.
I've been brewing with Luminarch Ascension a fair bit recently and I think Spellskite is a good pairing with it. He's a super good blocker to get counters on it and it can kill itself to save an Ascension at or near 4 counters. Basically if you get Ascension to 4 counters you've almost won the game so it's worth protecting.
Ascension also plays right into the Ajani/Prison/Sphere of Safety Plan.
EDIT: Forgot! I wanted to mention Chained to the Rocks for the red splash. That's a powerful removal card that supports a devotion plan.
I'll post a list when I get a chance to fiddle with one. Fun idea!
Splash options (red for Blood Moon is a big one, discussion for red splash starts at page 2)
More card options
Matchups
Iterations
Spoiler tags (lord knows we need them)
Thank You's
Let's face it: Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is a sweet, sweet card; a true blessing from the new block. And of course, some people have noticed the potential of this awesome, awesome card. A truely powerful land.
But while everyone pretending that Nykthos is Gaea's Cradle or Cabal Coffers, I have a very different viewpoint of how Nykthos impacts Modern.
What if we treat Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx like Serra's Sanctum?
Everybody loves Enchantress, right?
...
Right?
Let's Nykthos for white.
Turns out that there's a lot of sweet white enchantments that shut-down many of combo decks that define the format, as well as stop the classic turn-dudes-sideways gameplan.
So the first card we have to play is an enchantress.
Say hello to Planar Chaos' gift, my dear friend Mesa Enchantress. Ton's of drawing potential makes this card out engine, worthy of the deck's namesake. Not as powerful as out Legacy counterparts, but it will do just fine.
If we are worried about our opponents attacking us, let's just deny them. Ghostly Prison forces out opponents to pay mana for each attacking creature, not to mention that it blanks Splinter Twin from completely wrecking us.
How about people firing hand-attack spells at us? We don't want out opponents to strip us of our freshly drawn cards. Neither do we want multiple Murderous Redcap triggers or Lightning Bolts teetering us closer to death. So let's play Leyline of Sanctity. Not only does it prevent all of the above, but it can come down for FREE if it's in our opening hand, making a bare Nykthos in the first few turns really rewarding. No thank you sir, I'd rather you not target me with those things.
If we are playing around Nykthos, we need efficient enchantments that hinder our opponent's game plan and have a double-white casting cost.
Runed Halo acts as our Leylines 5-8. We can name that nasty Tarmogoyf that just came down or Deceiver Exarch and then Pestermite to disrupt our combo math-ups. Wheel of Sun and Moon shuts down graveyard strategies, and yes, Rest is Peace exists, but Wheel just gives us more devotion for a card. Think of it this way, Wheel is like two Rest in Peaces for the price of one!
Let's talk about a card that seems redundant in this deck, but I am a big believer in the card, and that's Favor of the Mighty. Now, in Modern, it is very rare that our opponent will be playing creatures with cmc of 4 or greater, and when they do, it's past the point of our opponent wanting to kill our creatures. Matching Mesa Enchantress in the 3cmc tier are things like Vendilion Clique, Kitchen Finks, Geist of Saint Traft, and Deceiver Exarch, which are big, big names in the Modern metagame, so with Mesa Enchantress being a 3cmc creature, Favor of the Mighty is relatively safe, and it offers us more devotion and a great deal of protection to our beloved Enchantress. A nice curve of T2 Favor into T3 Enchantress is very safe, and when the game goes long enough to where our opponent has big creatures, we will have already [hopefully] gained enough advantage out of Enchantress.
Holy Heliod, this next card is an absolute GODSEND. Let's just make our opponent suffer more with Suppression Field. There are a ton of activated abilities to even begin. Planeswalkers, Deathrite Shaman, Pod, Twin, Tron, Affinity, fetchlands, Æther Vial, even Grim Lavamancer is up hurt by this glorious card. Best part, we aren't running a SINGLE CARD in the mainboard that has an activated ability that Suppression Field walls. Nykthos is a mana-ability, people.
There is one key card that does not offer devotion, and I'd hate to play it, but it is absolutely necessary for the stability of the deck, and that's Howling Mine. With only 4 Mesa Enchantress, we aren't going to be drawing into her a lot. Sure, we can play Verduran Enchantress but that requires green, and green is just something we don't want to play with Nykthos hanging around. It's just not worth it. If there was a second white enchantress, I'd totally play that over Howling Mine, but it's a necessary evil. It comes down of turn two, and hopefully we'll be able to draw into an Enchantress. But trust me, I'd rather play something else.
Let's play Oblivion Ring to catch anything else that would be bothering us that dodges out hate package. Just a great, solid, catch-all card.
Now, let's bring up a card called Privileged Position. YES, not Greater Auramancy, but Privileged Position. We don't play any auras (oh yeah, I forgot to mention that, we don't play Aspect of Mongoose or anything like that), so we can't exactly enchant our Enchantress. With two out, they protect each other and now everything we have has hexproof, including our Nykthos!
So how the hell do we end up with a win? Well, Sigil of the Empty Throne is always a fan-favorite.
But wait, what's the point of Nykthos, you say?
Well, let's just play Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. If we have a good enough opening hand, we can hard-cast Emrakul turn 4 or 5, and we aren't even cheating him out! And we can safely play it as a one-of with our many opportunities to draw cards (not to mention that Favor of the Mighty makes this bad-boy nearly unblockable)
"But RogueOS," I can hear you prattling, "what if our opponent plays Fracturing Gust or Paraselene out of the sideboard to r3kt us?" Well, here is where we come to our sideboard plan. We have Open the Vaults to combat that strategy, and yes, we are helping out reanimator decks, but if we have the necessary
hate cardstools to hinder then, then it won't be as painful.Out of the sideboard, we are playing Gelid Shackles for pesky Deathrites and those aggro matchups [we are playing Snow-Covered Plains, do not fear (we also don't get completely blown-out by Blood Moon!!!)], Dawn Charm as a reassurance against Infect, Boggles, Splinter Twin, and a super-fast Affinity start, some more Wheel of Sun and Moon/Rest in Peace, whichever you prefer, and Stony Silence and Aura of Silence to round out our coverage against artifacts and other enchantments.
So at the end of the day, our deck will look like this:
4 Mesa Enchantress
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
19 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Favor of the Mighty
4 Suppression Field
4 Runed Halo
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
4 Ghostly Prison
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
2 Privileged Position
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Howling Mine
4 Open the Vaults
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
2 Stony Silence
4 Dawn Charm
1 Aura of Silence
1 Rest in Peace
2 Gelid Shackles
Testing out some numbers with Idyllic Tutor.
Of course, this deck is still in a pretty raw form, so any other advice and critiques will be helpful in the construction of this deck.
Leyline of Sanctity is the sideboard champion, Suppression Field maims pretty much every tier 1 deck and we mostly don't get affected by it, all kinds of creature protection in the main, and a great package of selective hate pieces. I wish I can stick Torpor Orb somewhere in there but then we won't get the extra turn off of Emrakul D:
Let's bring back Enchantress to Modern!
Credit goes to Joseph Pinkley a.k.a. BrainstormingAZ for this sweet concept.
Have a great day, folks~
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
If you're going to play white fogs, then play dawn charm, bar none. It's by far the best of them for this sort of deck.
There aren't a whole lot of creatures I see you needing to remove. It might be worth it to run a couple of sphere of safety as well. One of those drops, and there is no way any deck sans elfs with an active archdruid is going to get through.
Idyllic tutor is really probably worth running as a 3 of. Some of those cards you just don't want to see early at all. The ability to go fetch the one of enchantment you need is probably worth it, such as wheel of sun and moon, oblivion ring, or sigil of the empty throne. If you've got nykthos active, there is no reason you can't go crazy with it easily enough.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
Dawn Charm looks fantastic, will be automatically replacing Holy Day with that.
Sphere of Safety seems like overkill, especially when we run 4 Ghostly Prisons and 4 Runed Halo. I'll have to try it out though, seems hilarious.
And damn, Augury Adept looks fantastic. I think Affinity can block it with artifact creatures, but outside of that, it looks like a great candidate. Will also be testing with it. However, we won't always have a Favor out, so hopefully the Runed Halos will cover for it.
Honestly, Emracucumber just seems cleaner and more efficient. Especially if we can cast him on turn 4. Heliod seems a bit slow, folds to Path of Exile, and tokens are susceptible to board wipes.
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
The token making is a bit at odds with suppression field though.
Porphyry Nodes was a card that I never really wanted in this deck. It kills our Enchantress first and if we don't have Heliod out and desperately need something dead then we risk our Enchantress and the Nodes itself.
Heliod and Nodes is a pretty sweet interaction.
Heliod and Suppression Field, however, is not.
I just don't like the idea. I personally think the fact that this deck can get to Emrakul very consistently is a done deal.
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
Cards for sale: Check them out!
One more point, this time against emrakul. Even drawing 2 or 3 cards per turn, just how long will it take before you actually find him? You need to control the game until then whereas if you just search up your sigil of the empty throne with a tutor, you'll have a win condition much sooner. It might be a good idea to take a cue from legacy enchantress on this one.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
blind obedience almost seems a no brainer, now that I think about it. It's one of the best cards to play here. It slows down aggro and completely hoses twin.
I've already made my case for sphere of safety.
Worship really wants hexproof creatures, which you aren't running. Not worth it, in my opinion.
Nevermore on what? What would you call with it? most decks aren't shut down by such a card.
Karma, cowed by wisdom, and sanctimony are pretty useless. You get better effects out of something like story circle.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
Nevermore can name things we don't want to see, like Paraselene or Fracturing Gust or annoying cards like Cryptic Command, their win condition like Liliana, Emrakul (we don't exactly need Emrakul to win).
I thought that Cowed by Wisdom would be an interesting card to play as we play draw engines and we can often get to 7 cards in our hand, but Cowed by Wisdom can't shut off things like DRS.
Story Circle doesn't play nice with Suppression Field.
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
Nevermore can stop win conditions that we cant' specifically answer, like Melira Pod gaining infinite life, or...
...
uh
I can't think of anything else.
There might not be anything else.
In general, there will be spells that we don't want casted, like Cryptic Command (damn I just hate that card).
Then again, it's generally a meta call.
How do we feel about Aura of Silence?
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
Stony silence would be a better answer to most of the things that aura of silence would hit, i think, namely affinity and tron artifact cantrips.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
And moreover he triggers the enchantress. (!)
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
Also, I could just be delusional about worrying about our own Suppression Field, we generate a crap ton of mana anyway.
Heliod, though, is a different story. 4 mana for a 2/1 token with vigilance, 6 mana if we count Suppression Field, is pretty steep, and there are a couple of maindeck ways to kill an indestructible 5/6, much less block it successfully for a few turns. At 4 mana offering only 1 devotion and taking the Favor of the Mighty protection off of Enchantress just seems a bit under-par. I mean, Heliod is a great creature, can be searched by Idyllic Tutor, is an enchantment, and it's indestructible letting us play Pophyry Nodes, but I just don't like it as much as a surprise Emrakul.
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
DISREGARD, I AM STUPID AND BLIND OBEDIENCE IS JUST OKAY. Back to testing this correctly. (hopefully correctly)
Nevermore is pretty good when we need it, and pretty trash when we don't. I like to name things I don't like to see, we can always neuter Karn and just Nevermore Emrakul; we have other ways of winning. Pretty much the only things I've named were Sundering Titan, Emrakul, Cryptic Command, and Snapcaster Mage.
Speaking of Emrakul, Sphere of Safety is nuts when we can get it out fast enough. Ghostly Prison at 3cmc isn't too far from Sphere of Safety at 5 cmc, and Sphere does a hell of a lot better of a job at deterring singular attackers.
I have yet to test Augury Adept, I'm thinking of ways to protect it outside of Favor of the Mighty. But it does seems like the card we are looking for.
I really do hate countermagic with a passion. UWR and UR Delver Tempo are tough, grindy matchups.
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
Or get out Engineered Explosives, which I am seriously considering adding to the deck.
I thought Chalice of the Void would be the better artifact, but I'm not so sure.
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
Also, what about Elspeth, Knight Errant. Suppression Field is a pain but sometimes it's worth paying extra for the effect you have on the opponent. Other win conditions could be big X spells like
Devil's Play
Banefire
Aurelia's Fury
etc.
Or...what about something like Wurmcoil Engine + Academy Ruins.
I blame the two months I spent away from this game
I don't really like playing planeswalkers, because as you said, Suppression Field is maindecked for us and it's just a great card against a huge portion of cards. Elspeth's ult is a saving grace though, but at 5 turns after casting her and spending what may be quite a bit of mana for that seems a little slow. I'm not exactly sure though, I'll need to try her out. It could just be that getting to her ult is just win-more.
I'm actually more interested in Ajani Vengeant. Permanent manipulation, Lightning Helix, and one-sided Armageddon is quite a suite of abilities that I'm interested in paying mana for.
Maybe Gideon 2.0?
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
Counterspells will always be a problem for this type of deck. Defense Grid from the board is an ok answer. Splashing blue for something like Spell Pierce or Swan Song is a possibility. But you probably only get one splash in this deck and it's light. If you do choose red you get Guttural Response.
It's a bit odd but I've been having reasonable success with Faithless Looting. There's lots of times with a deck like this that you need specific cards or some card are just dead. Looting is a very efficient way to filter and it's one of the few spell in non-blue to do that. Skite will save your enchantments too as well as help against Boggles which would be a tough matchup.
I've been brewing with Luminarch Ascension a fair bit recently and I think Spellskite is a good pairing with it. He's a super good blocker to get counters on it and it can kill itself to save an Ascension at or near 4 counters. Basically if you get Ascension to 4 counters you've almost won the game so it's worth protecting.
Ascension also plays right into the Ajani/Prison/Sphere of Safety Plan.
EDIT: Forgot! I wanted to mention Chained to the Rocks for the red splash. That's a powerful removal card that supports a devotion plan.
I'll post a list when I get a chance to fiddle with one. Fun idea!