30/4/2014 - Version 1.0 posted.
9/7/2014 - Added information on Spell Burst and Batterskull
9/7/2014 - Add primer version with Mindslaver
11/11/2014 - Added some more card analysis for Mana Leak, Flooded Strand, River of Tears, Dig Through Time, and Treasure Cruise
2/11/2015 - Remove analysis for Dig and TC after they got banned. Update analysis for Amulet Combo
2/26/2015 - Change the primer list to run a Flooded Strand
5/1/2015 - Cleanup some of the main post and add more discussion
6/10/2015 - Added an FAQ section at the end.
8/10/2015 - Changed some matchups info a bit. I'm working on rewriting them with a new list.
Copyright Info
This guide is copyright darksteel88. This guide may not be re-posted anywhere without express written consent from its author. Any re-post must be "as-is", including but not limited to posting the full guide with no alterations, in the original language posted. This guide is posted "as-is", and its owner is not liable for anything that happens as a result. All Magic the Gathering trademarks are copyright Wizards of the Coast.
1. About the Deck
UW Tron is a combo-control deck. At heart, it’s really a control deck: we play counters, spot removal, card draw, and MB Wrath effects. On the other hand, we’re playing Tron, which in itself is considered a combo, and our win conditions are combo oriented as well. We’re basically a control deck that stalls until a combo finisher.
Tron is a combo consisting of three cards: Urza’s Mine, Urza’s Power Plant, and Urza’s Tower. Each land, individually, produces one colourless mana. However, all three lands combined produce 7. Mine and Power Plant both produce 2 instead of 1 if all three are in play, and Tower produces 3 instead of 1 if all three are in play. So we’re capable of ramping our mana from 2 to 7 for free.
So what do we do with all this mana? We play some win condition that requires an insane amount of mana that’s nearly impossible to interact with. There are two main win conditions via Tron mana, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, and Mindslaver Lock. Emrakul is a 15 mana creature that can’t be countered and Time Walks, meaning we get an extra turn. Mindslaver Lock (more can be seen below) involves us repeatedly controlling our opponent on their turn, and eventually milling them.
Unlike traditional Tron decks, we have a much stricter colour requirement. Tron decks are traditionally ramp decks, where you play ways to get to Tron as fast as you can, and then drop a huge threat like Wurmcoil Engine or Karn Liberated. For us, however, we’re not in ramp colours. We’d rather stall out a game while trying to assemble Tron because we know when we get to mana for a win condition, it’s hard to beat us.
Unlike traditional control decks, we put a clock on our opponent. We have a win condition we can facilitate as early as turn 3, Gifts Combo (more can be seen below), which involves us reanimating a huge creature that we fetch out of our deck. Outside of this win condition, we put a hard clock on our opponent via the other win conditions, Emrakul, and Mindslaver Lock. So for us, the plan is to try and not die before we can win. We also play Celestial Colonnades as an alternative win condition, though you more often win via the other win conditions.
This deck, at heart, is a control deck that happens to play Tron for a good late game. A lot of the time, forcing early Tron when you can serves no purpose. We have limited ways in the early game to make use of Tron mana. We don’t play a lot of cards that strictly only cost colourless mana around the 7 mark, and most expensive cards we’d consider or play have coloured requirements as well. You generally don’t go for turn 3 Tron, instead opting to get to it on turn 4-6 when you have coloured mana as well to use.
I would recommend this deck to anyone that likes doing unfair things. Gifts Combo is absolutely not fair, and instantly wins against certain decks. A 15/15 creature that can’t be countered doesn’t seem particularly fair either. And I know taking all my opponent’s turns and watching them slowly lose the game is excruciatingly painful for them. This deck is also known for having very good average matchups and good chances in bad matchups due to Gifts combo and its flexibility. You’ll also notice that several of the bad matchups are not the most popular decks, meaning sometimes the deck is really good in a given meta.
I would recommend this deck for anyone that wants to play control but doesn’t have the patience for it. Since most control decks stall out the game very long and win relatively late into the game, having the option to win quickly and having a clock makes it easier to decide when the game ends. I would also recommend this deck for anyone that wants to play combo, but dislikes how easy it is to interrupt, or who likes combo but doesn’t want to go infinite with it.
If this sounds like the deck for you, then you’ve come to the right place.
This deck, at heart, is a UW control deck. Your goals are to kill creatures, counter spells, and get to the late game. Unlike many control decks, this one presents a hard clock. The win conditions are generally really strong and instantly win you a game. You’re not concerned about grinding points of damage, and you aren’t concerned about gaining incremental advantage. You want to just not die before X happens. In that sense, the deck plays to stall the game out a lot.
I like to view this deck as a combo-control deck because of how we win. Control decks generally grind you out, but we’re playing more of a combo win, where we just do something insane and hope they lose to it. Gifts combo, Emrakul, Mindslaver lock, they all should just come down and win the game (barring a few exceptions). You can win other ways, like Colonnade, though I find it’s not as common to win that way, or even via Ghost Quarter + Crucible if you play the pair, which is also not as common.
Our game plan is a mix of trying to stave off whatever the enemy does while trying to ramp our lands and find more answers. It’s composed of a mix of cards like Path and Remand that interact well with the opponent, while playing Map and Signet to advance your own game. You also have the opportunity to combo with Gifts. You just stall out the game trying to stop whatever your opponent’s plan is with cards like Wrath, and eventually get to one of your end game win conditions.
*Note that a large portion of this section assumes you already understand the basics of the deck. If you are new to the deck, I recommend playing it a few times first and also reading the sections on Gifts first.
3.1 Opening Hands
You generally want to keep something with a reasonable amount of things to do early. You’re looking for 2-4 lands, Path/Remand, Signet/Map, and Thirst/Gifts. That would be a good opening hand. The idea is to actually be able to interact with an opponent while also progressing your own game.
In game ones you tend to be a lot more flexible in what you keep. You don’t really have much inclination about what they’re playing, so you can’t afford to aggressively mulligan into something. As long as the hand has something reasonable to do early and not too many dead cards, you’re okay. You’re willing to keep hands that seem like they don’t do much because you’re really not sure what your opponent is doing, and you’re fine trying to do your own thing. Especially if you have a Gifts in the hand, it can win enough matchups on its own, and with little hate, you’re actually fine trying to bank on it.
Dead cards include: Emrakul, Eye of Ugin, Iona, Elesh Norn, Unburial Rites, Sphinx’s Revelation - basically anything that costs more than 4 mana or doesn’t do anything early. You can normally get away with a single dead card but you can’t afford to have more than one. If you have two dead cards, that’s basically a 5 card hand. Especially if the dead card is part of Gifts Combo since you’re losing out on that ability. Do note that if your dead card is from that combo, Thirst negates some of it. I could still see keeping something like 3 lands, Remand, Gifts, Emrakul, Sphinx’s, but that’s still not even necessarily that great.
In sideboarded games, don’t assume a hand you are fine keeping in game one is okay. You know what you’re up against and you can tell what cards are going to be good or not. Sometimes you’re in a matchup where your cards aren’t going to cut it. Depending on the matchup, you need to aggressively mulligan into certain cards to stand a chance. An example would be Loam vs us with Leylines. If you didn’t draw a Leyline/Purge/Oblivion Ring, you’d probably lose the game. It’s a matchup where you have to be aggressive into finding solutions. Knowing your matchups and knowing which ones require you to find specific answers is going to be a big asset for you.
3.2 Land Sequencing
Your opening land decision actually makes a significant impact on the game. A lot of the time you’re presented with the option to play Colonnade or play untapped land + Map. In such a case, it depends entirely on the rest of your hand.
If you have two lands, you snap play Colonnade. You want to leave up mana on turn 2, and would rather play the tapped land early while it’s rather insignificant that you’re falling behind. If you play turn 2 Map, you have 1 mana tapped and 1 mana up. If you play turn 1 Map, you have 1 colourless up instead of non-colourless. Additionally, you often have better turn 2 plays, like leaving up Remand or casting Signet. You basically just get more options this way. Even so, getting the Map into play early doesn’t really do us much. If we’re not absolutely short on mana and not near Tron, then the Map sort of loses value. Yes, we’ve got only two lands, but hopefully you can get one in two turns. Even if you don’t you’ve still got the option for turn 2 Map.
If my hand contains 2 Tron lands and a Seachrome, I will play Tron land on turn 1, but Seachrome on turn 2. I don’t often cast anything with just 1 coloured mana, but I have Remand as a turn 2 play that I would love to cast or even just bluff. If I have a Signet in hand that I plan on casting turn 2 though, I will play the Tron land; the coloured source won’t matter until turn 3 when I can still play the Seachrome, but this option gives me the chance to turn 3 main phase Gifts Combo if I get lucky and have natural Tron with Gifts. If instead I have a Hallowed Fountain or Colonnade, I would rather play that turn 1 and slow down Tron a turn because I don’t want the tapped land to hinder me later and I don’t want to shock myself, plus I have coloured mana to do things.
If you get a chance for turn 3 Tron with no coloured sources or to play a coloured source, always go for the coloured source. The deck doesn’t do a lot with just Tron, it requires colours. I would much rather delay it a turn and have potential plays. Remember that Signet counts as a coloured source. 2 colourless + 1 u/w source is much better than 7 colourless for us.
It's perfectly fine to play Hallowed Fountain untapped into Map if you so desire, it's also fine not to. Sometimes people play Thoughtseize/Inquisition and take Map, so in the dark you can do it either way. If you're playing against Burn, you might dig yourself a bit of a grave, but against a lot of decks it could also be good that you have more options.
When I have a situation of Map and two Tron lands, I will always Map for Seachrome Coast unless I can guarantee a Signet will resolve. I need access to colours way too badly. This reason alone is why I like playing at least one Seachrome, because it's way too important for this situation. Some will debate the number to play, but at least one is the correct way to go.
3.3 Using Map
Activating Map as soon as it’s available isn't always the best idea. This comes largely in part due to us needing specific cards from it. Knowing what to take and when to take it is key.
When you have only one Tron land in play, you want to try and hold off. You have 8 live draws that result in Map getting you to Tron, but if you find one with Map, then you only have 4 live draws. So holding off greatly increases your odds of getting to Tron.
That’s the ideal case though, and sometimes you need to crack early. If you need to hit a land drop (say you kept 2 lands), then cracking early is advisable. You want to have 4 mana on turn 4 if you can manage, so keeping up Map for the potential extra value isn’t there anymore.
If you’re cracking it early to find Tron lands, try not to take Tower. If an opponent blows up a land, it’s always Tower. If we don’t present a Tower, that’s better. If you fetch with two Maps for Tron lands, taking the Tower from the first Map means you likely use Tower to get the third Tron piece, and now have only 2 mana from your untapped Tron land while Tower provides 3.
Map finds all your utility lands, including Ghost Quarter, Boseiju, Eye, and Academy Ruins. If one of these lands seems important for the game, don’t hesitate to take it over a Tron land. Remember, we’re a control deck. Tron is nice, but controlling the game is better. Especially late game with Eye available, Eye produces two mana in terms of Emrakul, so being able to fetch it early is great.
3.4 Colonnade
Don’t be afraid to attack with Colonnade. Winning via Colonnade is a legitimate plan. In the mid game when you have 8-10 mana, you can lay down some nice beats. Especially when your hand does'’t present a lot of options, it’s a great way to progress the game. It’s also nice that Colonnade leaves up Path mana. Attacking a couple of times with one, then finding a second, you can really clock opponents. Especially those that have greedy mana bases and go fetch, take 2, or decks playing Gitaxian Probe.
That said, sometimes you have to let it do nothing. What I mean is, just because you have an opportunity to get in some damage, doesn't mean it is a good idea. Often times advancing the cards in your hand is better. If I have 6 mana available with Gifts in hand that I can be reasonably sure will resolve, I would generally rather play the Gifts, as I like having more options. If your hand already presents a bunch of options, say a couple Paths or Path + Remand, then getting in with Colonnade is quite reasonable. It’s mostly that you should not force it in situations when you don’t have the resources to support it.
Don’t try to race with Colonnade if you can avoid it. Colonnade is mana intensive and can still die from several things like Path, Ghost Quarter, Tectonic Edge, double Bolt, etc. It’s hard to bank on it in tight situations. If you go all-in with the Colonnade plan and it dies, you’re back to square one.
Be weary of blocking with Colonnade. It represents a great blocker, but then immediately dies to Bolt. If the mana it presents is too important for you to lose, it’s generally not worth it.
4. All about Gifts Combo
The main reason we play Gifts is to give us a strong early play. Gifts, according to the Oracle text (which was updated with the Modern Masters printing), lets you search for up to 4 cards with different names, and you get two, and two go to the grave (the opponent chooses). In particular though, the opponent picks two, and those go to the grave, and the remaining cards go to our hand. What makes it special is that we can instantly fetch a creature and Unburial Rites and put them into our graveyard, without our opponent being able to choose. Effectively, Gifts becomes 4 mana, find my reanimator combo.
The most popular reanimation choices remain Iona, Shield of Emeria, and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Other popular choices include Terastodon, Sundering Titan, and Wurmcoil (though it’s not so much of a reanimation choice, but it can be relevant). Lists always play the first two, and waver on whether they play the other three.
Off the nut hand, we can facilitate this combo on our turn 3 main phase. That would involve a turn 3 natural Tron as well as a turn 2 Signet. Tron + Signet produces you 6 colourless, 1 white, and 1 blue, conveniently enough for Gifts and Unburial Rites. This rarely happens though, maybe 1/100 games, if even that. You’re more likely to cast Gifts on the end step of their turn 3 and cast Unburial Rites on your turn 4, which happens via any 3 lands and a Signet.
4.1 The Ruling on Gifts
For anyone that still has the original Gifts from Kamigawa, the card text does not indicate up to 4, and says to search for 4 cards. This can confuse players and cause them to doubt your ability to force two cards to the grave. Before the MM printing, when I played on Cockatrice, it happened a lot. The official Gatherer page has a ruling stating that a player may fail to find any number of cards, indicating you can find less than 4 if you’d like. I actually had to bookmark it. You can find the ruling here.
To understand why the ruling exists, and why the card text was updated, we examine how the card works. Gifts makes you search your library for 4 cards with different names. In more detail, that’s search a hidden zone for 4 cards with a specific restriction on the cards. A hidden zone is a zone in which one or more players has no knowledge of the cards in the zone, regardless of whatever inference they may be able to generate. As an example, a deck is a hidden zone, and your opponent has no knowledge about the cards there. They cannot make any claim about what is in your library, even if they can guarantee what’s in the deck (say they had a deck list). So when you fail to find in your deck, your opponent cannot say that you’re lying. If you search for Unburial Rites and Iona, you mathematically must have a third card with a different name if there are at least 7 other cards remaining. Yet as far as this rule goes, your opponent cannot make such an inference, as it’s a hidden zone. This ruling stems from the fact that, if you searched your library and found only Island, it could possibly be the only card remaining. The card itself being 4 mana, put two cards to the grave, isn’t broken enough to force you to have 4 different cards. It’s a ruling where someone did this, they recognized the rules would support it, and allowed it on the basis that the interaction wasn’t strong enough. It’s certainly powerful but doesn’t break the format, meaning it’s at a nice power level.
In an official tournament, a judge should be able to rule in your favour and explain it to an opponent. You are able to request the official Oracle text if you need to, which should easily clear any misconception.
4.2 Reanimation Choices
Below are the top reanimation choices for the decks where matchup analysis is done. Most matchups indicate either Iona or Elesh Norn since that’s what everyone always plays. In matchups where neither of those are specified, they’re usually downright awful to reanimate.
In many matchups, multiple cards will be listed. The first card is the better choice, but the second choice is also acceptable under certain circumstances, or sometimes is just as good. If you want to know more about the decision process, you can find it in the matchup’s analysis further down.
Iona colour choices are listed below for several decks. If a deck is not listed, it is because reanimating Iona against that deck is not worth it (to a point where I will not pick her). More information on the colour choices can be found in the specific matchup analysis.
Amulet Combo - Green
Assault Loam - Black
Blue Moon - Blue
Boggles - White
Boros - White
Burn - Red
BW Tokens - White
UR Delver - Blue
USA Delver - Blue/White
RUG Delver - Blue
Domain Zoo - White
Griselbrand Reanimator - Black
Hatebears - White
Jund - Black
Living End - Green/Black
Merfolk - Blue
Nivmagus Combo - Black
BGx Rock - Black
Scapeshift - Green/Blue
Soul Sisters - White
Storm - Blue/Red
Mono U Tron - Blue
UR Twin - Blue/Red
RUG Twin - Blue
UWR Twin - Blue/White
UWR Control - Blue/White
UWR Midrange - Blue/White
Small Zoo - White
8-Rack - Black
4-C Gifts - White/Black
4.4 Iona and Naming a Colour
When naming a colour with Iona, there are two main concerns: which colour(s) kills her and which colour(s) allow my opponents to still win. You have to always be conscious of both in order to determine what colour choice you make, along with whether you actually want to reanimate her.
The first concern is their removal colours. Many decks play only one colour of removal, so naming that colour is generally best. For example, Jund can only kill her with black spells, so naming black keeps her safe. Yes, they could still cast Bolt or Goyf, but it’s usually enough to win the matchup, because many of their cards are now dead, and you’ve got a 7/7 staring them down.
On the other hand, some decks play multiple colours of removal. For example, UWR Control plays Path and Cryptic, which both adequately deal with her. In those matchups, it’s often best not to reanimate her MB if you’re going all-in on her. Naming either colour works, though neither is particularly good. I generally think it’s better to name blue against UWx decks since they play more blue cards than white, but that you should name white if you could answer Cryptic. Post-board, you should always name blue against UWx decks. They should board out some number of Paths (because Path doesn’t really do much against us), while leaving in all their Cryptics. Even if they leave in a 1-of miser Path, the odds are stacked against them when naming blue as opposed to white.
The second concern is their combo colours. Sometimes this conflicts with the first issue as well. You generally want to name the combo colour to prevent them from winning, but sometimes that means Iona can reasonably die. For example, against Scapeshift, green is the combo colour but blue is the removal colour. In Scapeshift particularly though, naming blue means all they can do is kill you or durdle, so you’re actually well off just naming blue and trying to counter them. I don’t particularly think either colour is any better to name, and if I had to pick, it would most likely still be the removal colour. Naming the removal colour leaves Iona putting pressure on the opponent, and you can potentially answer the combo, especially when they can’t cast some spells. Other matchups are not as forgiving. For example, UWR Twin can win with blue + red or white + red. Naming red would stop the combo, but that means all the removal spells are still live. Naming a removal colour is still probably best, but their deck can still do quite a bit if you do that.
You do also get free wins from time to time when playing against mono-coloured decks. Just beware that the cards in play still do things, and that Aether Vial and Birthing Pod are cards. Decks like Soul Sisters or Mono Red end up being free wins for the most part because of it. This is what makes this deck have such high potential, because you occasionally just get free wins and get to have lunch while people are still playing.
Again, another thing to remember is sideboarding for Iona. A lot of decks will have to board out some number of removal spells because we provide few targets. A deck like USA Delver or UWR Midrange wants to board out Paths and be much more aggressive, since they’re often dead cards. On the other hand, a deck like Melira Pod would board into the Paths (if they have them) because they simply can’t beat Elesh Norn and won’t put enough pressure fast enough. Knowing what options a deck has to sideboard and what their likely plan is will be key to your success.
4.5 Iona and how naming works
When you put Iona into play and name a colour, remember that this is not a trigger. Iona says “as it enters the battlefield” and not “when”. This means that your opponent cannot respond to it.
The only time to respond to Iona naming a colour is before she is in play, and once she’s in play, it’s too late. An opponent who tries to respond to it as though it were a trigger should not be allowed to take back or rewind the game state. It is not of our concern that the opponent doesn’t understand the rules of the game or how this card works (when they are able to read it). If a player tries to do something, call the judge. In small tournaments a player may be allowed to rewind, though it’s somewhat unfair because they are privy to some information because of this resolving. You should make every attempt to dissuade a judge, though remember they always have final say. I don’t see the game rewinding though since it’s not a failed game state, and at competitive REL this should never rewind.
One cool thing about it not being a trigger is that we can still play Torpor Orb without us ruining Iona. I think Torpor Orb is a fantastic card, so this is a huge plus for us.
Additionally, against Twin, they need to respond with their Pestermite/Exarch before you name the colour. So if they cast it, you can change your mind about what colour to pick (which should generally now be red to prevent the combo), as opposed to just naming blue because it’s better.
4.6 Sometimes Elesh Norn is good too
Even though there are matchups where it’s evident Iona is a better choice, sometimes you have to go for Elesh Norn. These are primarily decks that play a lot of small creatures as win conditions, like Delver. While playing Iona would stop most or all of the removal, sometimes killing all their creatures is just as good, if not better. You can often get into situations where you’d otherwise be dead on board, so just Wrathing them with Elesh Norn buys you a lot of time. And even if you’re likely not going to reanimate Elesh Norn, in the mid-late game, having a 4th copy of Wrath essentially is quite nice. Even against decks where Iona is exclusively better (like Soul Sisters), you can get into situations where you’re dead on board and have to go for Elesh Norn. So be weary when boarding out Elesh Norn, because sometimes Elesh Norn is good too.
She’s generally worth boarding out in mono coloured matchups, but in matchups like Delver, she’s typically fine. I like leaving her in against Geist because it’s another option to stop Geist. I dislike leaving her in for matchups where I should win from Iona. So a matchup like Jund, where I will kill a good amount of their creatures with Elesh Norn, is a matchup I board her out in; I would always rather go for Iona and should win off that more often than Elesh Norn does anything.
5. All About Gifts
Aside from using Gifts to fetch the combo, we can use Gifts as a value card. At worst, it’s 4 mana get two cards. It’s really not that bad of a card in general, and with all our extra mana from Tron, we don’t care it costs 4. The real caveat to this card is that when we fetch 4 cards, our opponent gets to choose which two go to the grave and which two go to our hand. It’s not ideal, but we can use this to try and get what we want.
Every time you fetch for >2 cards, you need to consider what your opponent would do. We want to think like them, decide what seems best for us, and then consider what happens when we get the other two. For example, if we need Tron, we can fetch Map + Tron land. However, we won’t get it, so we’ll have to consider what the other two cards do for us. The goal is always to make the decision as difficult as possible for our opponent. This often involves us finding a mix of cards that progress our plan and stop our opponent’s plan.
5.1 Standard Packages
There are some generic packages we fetch to facilitate stuff. Better to be aware of them.
5.1.1 Wrath Package
Any three Wrath effects and/or Timely Reinforcements / Path / Oblivion Ring
This lets us play guarantee our Wrath effects. Timely often acts as well as a Wrath. In a lot of situations, Wrath and Day get binned, but we can guarantee the other two. You need to be aware of how much mana the third Wrath costs, because if you’re playing something like Hallowed Burial, costing 1 extra mana can be extremely relevant.
Sometimes Path works well enough when you really want a Wrath that you can grab it as a card in the package. If your opponent is playing Affinity and has a Plating in play, a Path is essentially a free turn, assuming they don’t have double black.
Whenever you’re forcing an extra card, I tend to like Gifts. When you’ve successfully Wrathed, you’re buying enough time to just cast another Gifts for value. Unless there’s another card you specifically need for something, just fetching the Gifts does quite a bit.
5.1.2 Lands Package
Urza’s Mine, Urza’s Power Plant, Urza’s Tower, Expedition Map
Gives you good stuff for getting Tron. You’ll rarely get Map when you need one land, nor the land you need. I tend to frown upon this package simply because you’re not getting what you actually need. There’s no way in hell they give you the two you want, and you made Tron that much harder. That package is particularly only good when you’ve already got Tron. In reality, those packages look something like:
Tron land, Map, Gifts, Thirst / value card
You’re giving them a much harder to make decision because now the other two cards they give you do real things. Do I give you access to Tron, or do I let you just have another Gifts. Maybe they’ve got a Goyf in play, so the value card is Path. Do I want my Goyf to live at the expense of you getting Tron? If you get Tron, how much harder is it for me to win this game?
Tron land, Map, Crucible, anything
If you have Crucible, this forces the Tron land. It’s neat if you’ve been hated out a bit and just need to complete Tron. You likely won’t need to force this all that often, but it’s relevant if you have it. You mostly get the Map because it’s the slowest and doesn’t provide the resiliency the Crucible provides. Depending on the last card and the board state though, you may find yourself getting two of the three Tron focused cards.
5.1.3 Unburial Rites Package
Unburial Rites, any creature that doesn’t shuffle the grave
I’ve already explained it above, but just to reiterate, you grab Unburial Rites and a creature and force them into the graveyard. This gives you access to reanimate your creature and proceed to wreak havoc.
Unburial Rites, Creature, Thirst, any card
If you’re playing a black source, sometimes you can get away with doing this. I, however, strongly advise against it. If your opponent is smart, they let you keep the Creature + X. The creature does little to nothing while in your hand, and you should have no way to pitch it. I’ve done it before, and it’s a cool little trick, but it’s more so a gimmick than anything. Good opponents should see what’s potentially coming and recognize how to play around it. You mostly fool opponents who suspect you have incompetence with the deck and don’t recognize how to play Gifts properly. It’s also significantly more difficult since the rewording of the card on the Modern Masters version.
5.1.4 Counters Package
Remand, Condescend, Negate, Dispel
Basically you’re playing against combo and don’t want to die, something like Scapeshift. This is only available post-sideboard when we board into the Negates and the one-of Dispel. You’re now guaranteed to get two counters to interact with them, which is great.
5.2 Fetching the wrong cards
As tempting as it can be to just fetch Remand and Path because of how good they are, sometimes they can be the wrong cards. Specifically, if you’re trying to get one of the two and fetch them, then your opponent bins them, you’re decreasing those odds. So actually fetching those cards can be the wrong choice. It’s not strictly wrong, because knowing they won’t give them to you means you can select another two cards.
This isn’t the only scenario where you may fetch the wrong cards. For example, fetching Emrakul when you have mana is almost always wrong - you’re never going to get it and shuffling your grave back means you have less of a chance to naturally draw it.
At first, it will be difficult to fetch the correct cards from Gifts. It’s not an easy card to use, you have so many lines of play similar to Birthing Pod, and have to consider what your opponent is thinking as opposed to understanding your own deck. As long as you remember to think about what your opponent would do, you should eventually get the hang of it.
5.3 Fetching Emrakul
Fetching Emrakul is a weird situation. You almost never want to find it early, and you almost never get it mid-late game. That said, Emrakul has the neat function of shuffling your grave back in. You can use it to reset the count of cards in your deck. Especially if you’ve used Wraths and such, you can gain access to them again. When this happens it’s quite often a game you’re not likely to lose.
You can also use it to reset the graveyard if your opponent is using it. Against Goyf decks, it’s not irrelevant to shuffle, especially since we provide artifacts which many decks don’t. Saving a potential couple of points of damage can sometimes be relevant, and many Goyf matchups become attrition based to where you get to play Emrakul, so letting you get it early isn’t all that bad.
Another cool feature of this is to have an out against soft infinite combos, like Melira Pod gaining infinite life. Since we have a way to reset our graveyard, we can just mill them out by having Emrakul reset our deck count. I know Reid Duke was successful in doing this at GP Richmond 2014. How this would work is that you play Emrakul and attack until they have no permanents in play. You would, at some point, Wrath your Emrakul away, have the graveyard shuffle back in, and then find Emrakul again (with Eye of Ugin this is easy). You cast again and keep attacking, knowing that your deck should be big enough. Rinse and repeat as necessary until they run out of cards.
5.4 Fetching Gifts
Fetching Gifts itself is actually really good most of the time. It seems strange, but you can get so much value from a second Gifts. When they give you Gifts again, you’re basically netting one card from the first one. You also get extra information to reassess the situation and decide again. Honestly, a lot of the time, you won’t get Gifts. It’s too much value to let us have. You can use it to your advantage to try and force certain cards. Say I need just one Tron land. I can fetch Gifts, Tron land, Map, Remand. Now my opponent has to let me get Tron, or give me something just as good, like another Gifts and Remand. Particularly in the mid-late game, you can often chain multiples together. If you have 8 mana up, Gifts into Gifts is perfectly reasonable and nets you three cards, plus thins out your deck considerably.
It may seem counter intuitive at first - why do I want to get Gifts when I could get another card? The whole point is that we’re gaining incremental advantage and winning the attrition battle. More cards is exactly what we want to do.
5.5 Leyline of Sanctity
Read Gifts again. You’ll notice that it says “target opponent”. That’s right. If an opponent has a Leyline in play, you actually can’t cast Gifts. It doesn’t happen often, and is unlikely to happen, but still relevant to know. If they know you’re playing Mindslaver, they might board them in. Depending on how they want to handle our deck and whether Gifts combo kills them, they will board in Leyline. At a small tournament though, people may overlook this detail.
5.6 Fetching when you need only one card
Whenever you’ve got part of the combo in the grave already, you only need to fetch for one card. However, you can fetch for two cards and still put the second combo piece in the graveyard. I like to fetch for dead cards in that situation. Typically that would be a Seachrome Coast, as I’m past the point I want to draw it and like thinning out my deck.
5.7 Playing 3-of effects
Playing 3 copies of any effect is particularly powerful with this card because it allows us to guarantee a card with the desired effect ends up in our hand. The most common would be a triple Wrath package, which allows you to guarantee a Wrath. 3-of counters are also nice since you force find one. Even playing 4-ofs are nice because you can force two of the same effect. While a lot of the time you only need one card, sometimes each card is good enough so that getting two is good for you. This also makes cards like Snapcaster and Noxious Revival better than normal since we can use it to proxy as a third copy of anything.
6. Mindslaver Lock
Mindslaver is a card which allows us to take control of a player during their turn. We can use this as a combo to take over all their turns. We use Academy Ruins to to place Mindslaver back on top of our Library, and do this every turn. With enough mana, we can draw it every turn, replay it, and put it back on top for next turn. We eventually mill their entire deck, as they’re forced to draw a new card each turn while we always draw Mindslaver.
6.1 How the combo works
The combo is predicated on Mindslaver and Academy Ruins. Academy Ruins lets you place an artifact in your graveyard on top of your library. This lets you cast Mindslaver, activate, and then place it on top. In total, it costs 12 mana + Academy Ruins (essentially 13 including Ruins), and requires one blue source.
On your turn, you cast and activate Mindslaver, taking your opponent’s turn. Before your next turn, you place it back on top of your deck via Academy Ruins. You will proceed to draw the Mindslaver next turn, in which you can do this again.
Each time you take your opponent’s turn, you just draw a card, tap their resources, and pass the turn, discarding where applicable. On your turn, they have no mana to do anything, so you just combo again. Despite it being a soft lock (they can theoretically do things), you have perfect information and deny them of any resources. Additionally, despite they could cast cards that have no mana cost (like Surgical Extraction, which could potentially counter us), it’s difficult to do so when I get the first choice for casting it (since I control them the turn they draw it). It’s a pretty safe combo in that regard.
Each time, they are drawing a new card, and you’re drawing Mindslaver, so eventually they mill their entire deck. It takes a while, but it’s a solid combo. On MTGO it can take a long time, but in real life, it doesn’t take that long due to shortcuts. On top of that, a lot of people just scoop because they know you’ve got it.
6.2 Forcing the combo with Gifts
A neat trick for this deck is to use Gifts to force the combo. What that means is, given a single Gifts, you can fetch the combo pieces, and guarantee you get them. You search for the package:
Mindslaver
Academy Ruins
Expedition Map
Crucible of Worlds
You also MUST have a second copy of Academy Ruins in the deck.
Every iteration of the pair you get allows you to force the combo.
1. Mindslaver + Academy Ruins is the combo.
2. Mindslaver + Expedition Map lets you Map for the second Academy Ruins.
3. Mindslaver + Crucible lets you play Crucible to play the binned Academy Ruins.
4. Academy Ruins + Expedition Map/Crucible lets you play Academy Ruins to put Mindslaver back on top.
5. Map + Crucible lets you play Map and find the second Ruins or Crucible to get the binned Academy Ruins, and then place Mindslaver back on top.
Option 5 is the best for our opponent. It’s going to cost us 3 mana plus a land drop plus a Ruins activation and a draw to get our Mindslaver. It’s not the best, but it enables us to use just a single Gifts to guarantee the combo. Since we’re a deck that tries to present a hard clock and decide what turn the game ends, this is extremely helpful. We know exactly when the game ends, and we still have tons of mana up until when we combo. Casting Crucible or activating Map / Ruins are cheap enough that we can leave up answers like Path and Remand while going for our combo.
6.3 Stopping our combo
Mindslaver is not a hard lock, but is pretty close. The combo is disruptable after we go off, but difficult to stop.
Pact of Negation is one of the only cards I know of that interacts with this combo after we have started. However, they still have to pay 5 next turn and only get one turn, so it’s difficult for them to interact after it in any meaningful way.
Once their hand has 8 cards in it, you get to discard a card each time you pass their turn. So in doing so, after 8 cards they can’t stop it. Even if they drew a Pact of Negation, you’d be able to discard it. At this point, there’s no card that stops it.
Grave hate is good at stopping it before we go off, however, Relic of Progenitus is not. When we put Mindslaver to our grave, the Relic player has two choices: crack now, or crack later. If they crack now, we can put Mindslaver back on top with Academy Ruins. Crack later is actually not an option since we’re planning to take their next turn. If they wait until their turn and don’t use it, then they’ll never have a chance. We can just use it on their turn while Mindslaver is on top, or since we always just keep them tapped, they won’t ever have mana to activate, and we can always tap it on their turn targeting them. Mindslaver and Relic forces Relic to be cracked on my turn and that just doesn’t cut it.
6.4 Tricks and tips for the combo
1. Don’t limit yourself only to using Mindslaver in the combo. Mindslaver is a powerful card on its own. If you use it earlier, you can often get a huge swing from it. Especially while the format has a lot of combo decks, you can often punish them really hard.
2. Always use a card to search their deck and fail to find if you can. Knowledge is power. You get full information about their deck when you do this.
3. Consider trying to kill them. Decks like mono red have enough burn for them to finish themselves. So if you get a chance, it’s faster like that.
4. Look at their sideboard. The rules state that a player may look at their sideboard at any time. Since you control that player during their turn, you can make any decisions for them, except concede. So it’s perfectly legal to look at their sideboard. Make sure you write it down as well and be prepared.
5. Make sure they do not unnecessarily retain priority. When you have Mindslaver lock going, you have full knowledge about what they can do. If you know they cannot do anything, they may not retain priority. This is considered stalling the game. If they do try and retain priority, call a judge immediately.
6. Shortcuts are your friend. In real life, you can keep their lands tapped and keep their hand face up while performing your combo. This is just to keep things going smoothly and quickly. It’s possible to do this in a matter of a few minutes if you use the shortcuts. Again, it is perfectly legal to do this, so please call a judge if an opponent is not happy about it.
7. A player is allowed to concede at any time. If you attempt to look at your opponent’s sideboard and they elect to concede in response, you don’t get to look. It’s perfectly acceptable for them to do so (and actually the correct play in this scenario). Be happy you don’t need to perform the entire combo.
8. Despite the combo costs a full 13 (12 + Academy Ruins), you don’t need 13 mana in play when you do it. If you have mana in your hand, you can do it earlier than you would before. The main portion only costs 10, with 3 to place it back on top. You can still place it back on top during your upkeep provided you can make 10 mana on your turn. So if you’ve got a land in your hand that can provide the extra mana to get to 10, you can do it a lot earlier. A Tower would let you do it while you only have 10 mana in play, getting to 13 the following turn.
9. For reference, Mindslaver is not an infinite combo. This means you cannot propose a shortcut to end the game in a win for you. The reason is that an infinite combo needs to not be conditioned on anything. In the case of Mindslaver lock, the combo is completely conditioned on what your opponent draws. Even though there are limited ways to possibly interact with it, the fact that it relies on some hidden information is what makes it work this way. The same way that Gifts allows you to find two cards despite there needing to be other options, you can't assume your opponent doesn't have anything. Yes, even though you get to see every card, and once they have 8 cards you can discard the card they draw each turn, but you can't assume there's no way to interact. Theoretically, 8 Eldrazi breaks the lock, so you can't assume
7. Card Analysis
While the matchup analysis and sideboarding plans I have done are based on a sample sideboard, there are tons of cards that are useful for this deck we haven’t covered. This section provides more details about those cards. Remember, sideboards are tuned for events/metas. While the one above is broad-spectrum, you may find your meta is different, doesn’t have certain decks, and thus your board would benefit more from some changes. There are also several cards that would be played in the MB that we haven’t really gone over because they’re not in the list, so those are discussed here as well.
Crucible of Worlds - This card is great for forcing the Gifts package to get Mindslaver lock. When you fetch up the Map, Academy Ruins, Crucible, and Mindslaver, your opponent has to give it to you. The fact that the card does other things that are generally good for our deck (stopping LD) is what makes the card nice. I don’t really believe in playing the card when we’re not playing Mindslaver though. I don’t think you see enough LD to support it, and we’re not as reliant on Tron as Tron decks traditionally are. I would not really want to sideboard this card, it would have to be MB for the combo and then potentially boarded out (though if you’re playing Mindslaver it should stay basically every time).
Cyclonic Rift - An all-purpose bounce spell. It’s 2 to bounce anything, not exactly thrilling, but not horrible either. The Overload is what makes it really appealing. At 6U to overload, it’s very reasonably cast in our deck. Tron plus a blue source is all you need. I gets to act as a pseudo-Wrath effect, which can buy you multiple turns. It’s generally worse than Repeal early game, but better than any bounce spell late game. I've had some great success with this card.
Detention Sphere - A second Oblivion Ring basically. Due to Gifts this is better than the second Oblivion Ring, but due to the colour constraints of our deck, worse than the first Oblivion Ring. The value you get exiling multiple permanents from Sphere is minimal and doesn't offset the Oblivion Ring being that much more playable.
Hallowed Burial - Another cool 3rd Wrath card since it doesn’t kill creatures but puts them on the bottom. It does cost more than other Wraths, but putting creatures on the bottom is often more advantageous. Against Zoo or Pod, it’s really relevant they went to the bottom. No Voice trigger, no Boros Charm, no Persist, no Eternal Witness - there’s a lot of reasons why putting them other than the graveyard is better.
Karn Liberated - Karn is certainly a very powerful card, but the real power comes from casting it early. Most decks playing Karn, primarily RG Tron, are going to power it out on turn 3 or 4. It’s faster than the combo deck can go off and since it exiles something, it gets around losing the next turn most of the time. For us, the card is typically a lot slower, so it loses a lot of value. I think it’s best played as a 1-of as a sort of mid range card to put some pressure. It’s really not a win condition for us, but we really don’t need it to be. It has to contend with other cards like Sphinx’s Revelation and Mindslaver for a spot though. I don’t think it’s a replacement for Oblivion Ring, the card is more difficult to cast and unreliable. It is nice to present a Gifts pile of all threats and have them figure out which is the lesser of the evils.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon - Ugin has been a nice addition to my deck. I play it as a 1-of and typically in the sideboard. I think he's better as a sideboard card because he's really awful in some matchups like Affinity, Twin, or Burn. Ugin's -X ability is pretty much a win on a stick against some decks. Against decks like BGx and BW Tokens, they simply can't beat that mode. The first ability is also nice since it makes Ugin never a dead card, although often that ability simply doesn't cut it. I think it's significantly better than Oblivion Stone for us because it doesn't kill our Signets, which was always a problem with Oblivion Stone. It also costs the same amount if you're doing it in the same turn.
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth - I think he’s pretty much worse than Ulamog and downright unplayable. Drawing 4 cards is cool, but you can’t tap out for him as you risk losing. And when you do have mana to leave up after casting him, well, Emrakul would just be better. The fact that all he does is put a huge body on the board means you really need backup when playing him. Putting pressure on an opponent who’s playing a combo deck doesn’t really do much and he’s too slow for the aggro matchup. He may be playable in other lists with Through the Breach simply because Gifts would then guarantee an Eldrazi, but short of that, it’s bad. I think 3 Eldrazi is bad in this deck, and I’m never playing Kozilek over Ulamog.
Martial Coup - A cool 3rd Wrath card since it can also be used offensively. Essentially it’s a 7 mana Wrath that actually puts pressure on the opponent. It tends to be slow against aggro decks but solid against midrange decks. It’s more so meta dependant. What’s nice about it is that even if it doesn’t Wrath, it still gives you some value, and more importantly, that value synergizes well with Elesh Norn. 1/1 tokens turn into 3/3s and bam, now they’re scared. It essentially Wraths and provides pressure, and after Tron it’s really easy to get x=5+. That said, this isn’t the value the deck particularly needs.
Noxious Revival - Similar to Snapcaster, this card provides us with a free copy of any card. Unlike Snapcaster though, we’re forced to actually pay 2 life and skip a draw step. On the other hand, the cost to get the card is 0 mana. So in the situation where you fetch double Wrath + Revival, vs double Wrath + Snapcaster, you’re more likely to cast the Wrath the next turn off Revival because it ends up costing you 4 instead of 6 (3 of which is coloured). And of course, unlike Snapcaster it can get back permanents like Map, which is really huge. It can actually function as a budget replacement for Crucible if you need one because if you fetch Mindslaver, Academy Ruins, Noxious Revival, Map (with second Academy Ruins in the deck), you’re also guaranteed the combo.
Oblivion Stone - Another option for a Wrath. It tends to be a little slow for our deck so I’d rather not play this one. I can cast it at 4, but not activate until I get another mana, and then I’m wasting two turns to do it. I really don’t want to be doing that. Yeah, Academy Ruins and all that, but the decks I want to Wrath are often faster than Oblivion Stone is. Sure, I can hit non-creatures as well, which is cool, but it hits my Signets as well in the process. Sure, I can play it pro-actively and leave it in play until it’s relevant. Still, the extra mana required by it is a lot, since I have to do it over two turns or waste an entire turn late game.
Repeal - A nice early-game bounce spell to handle a lot of pesky permanents. Drawing a card is also really nice, which is why most lists prefer this card. Another really cool thing is that it dodges a lot of potential answers. As long as x isn’t 1, you dodge both Spellskite and Spell Snare (since x+1 has to equal 2 for this to work). And in some situations, you get to bounce things like flipped Delver or Voice’s Elemental token for U.
Snapcaster Mage - As a 1-of it’s not that bad of a card. It gets to act as a free copy of any spell. Particularly for Gifts, being able to find a bunch of cards and a Snapcaster means you get to essentially have a second copy of each spell there when they decide what you’re getting. If you find double Wrath, it’s now triple Wrath (provided you can pay the mana). The one downside is that it’s mana intensive a lot of the time, and our deck is already tailored to not need a second copy of a spell most of the time. This deck is primarily concerned with the early game, so trying to do something like second Wrath off of him is sometimes challenging. Still, he offers a lot of utility for a deck that’s filled with utility. Especially since between Gifts and Thirst you discard a lot of cards, he sees many options when you play him. Decks also bring in Relic/Cage against us, so his value diminishes greatly post-board.
Sphinx’s Revelation - Similar to Supreme Verdict, the mana cost is quite prohibitive. Costing triple colour is a real concern. On the other hand, when are we looking to cast this card? If your answer was turn 3 Tron into turn 4 Revelation, that might be unreasonable. If your answer was turn 7, it’s actually not that bad. A single Signet can make this much more reasonable to cast. I tend to feel like this card doesn’t do a lot, because we already have 12 cards that draw. On the other hand, when you’re trying to cast Gifts to get cards for value, presenting this is pretty cool, because they really can’t let you gain 7 and draw 7, they’ll lose. If you’re playing it you have to support the mana base properly. It means limiting your colourless lands. Instead of playing upwards of 16 colourless sources, you should try to play around 13, and possibly the Talisman as well. It’s just a good mid-game threat because it really does act like a threat. In the heavy-combo meta, it’s especially nice because you leave up all your mana and do it at the end of turn, as opposed to slamming a Karn that gets countered or having them win around it because you had little to no mana up.
Sundering Titan - Another neat reanimator target that can shore up some problem areas. One of the biggest problems for reanimating are double removal colour decks. So any deck that plays black and white, as they’ll have something like Liliana and Path, or blue and white, as they’ll have Cryptic and Path. Elesh Norn is never safe if they have removal for her, but Iona is safe if they only have one colour for removal. These decks that have two create a huge concern for us. There’s not a lot of black and white decks running Lili and Path, but there are quite a few blue and white decks running Cryptic and Path. Particularly for the blue and white decks, they’re normally blue/white/red, so we can get a lot of value from hitting 3 lands, especially when we don’t need to target one of our own. This also applies to combo decks like Scapeshift, who run the combo and removal in different colours (meaning you have to choose between letting them win or letting them remove your reanimated creature). It’s particularly good against Scapeshift when they run Prismatic Omen since you can hit 5 lands. In general, it’s great against 3+ colour decks simply because the tempo swing is too much. Even against decks like Zoo, despite them being fast, you can starve their lands really hard (and they generally don’t play that many), and when it also makes Nacatl a 1/1, you’re perfectly fine with their retaliation.
Supreme Verdict - This card can be either really good or really bad. The issue is that it costs WWU and wants to be cast on turn 3 or 4 in a deck with half non-coloured sources. That makes doing this reliably difficult. It’s nice sometimes though because if you cast Gifts to fetch triple Wrath, it costs only 4 mana. Still, we’re not ever going to play the correct number of sources to support 3 colours on turn 4. It’s also good against Geist, which is a plus if that’s a problem for you. You need to tool your deck around supporting it, which means limiting the number of utility lands. You no longer get to play Emrakul and Mindslaver lock together, nor can you play all these crazy cards like Ghost Quarter or Boseiju, you need to just play coloured sources.
Talisman of Progress - Basically it’s a 5th Signet. It’s nice to have if you want to guarantee enough coloured sources. When Reid Duke played Sphinx’s Revelation and Supreme Verdict MB, as well as a Detention Sphere, having the extra source is good. You’re playing it on top of a spell and not a land, so it does decrease the spell count. The nice thing about Talisman is that it can tap right away, so you can do turn 2 Talisman into Path or Map. I think it’s worse than the 4th Signet, so it should always be a 5th one. The reasoning there is that this gives you only one colour, and at a life cost, whereas the Signet ramps and filters into both colours.
Terastodon - This card is a very good reanimation target. It blows up any three non-creature permanents. Between it and Elesh Norn, it will cover a lot of matchups. The reason we play Iona over it is because Iona is better than Terastodon in most of the matchups where Elesh Norn is bad. For instance, against Storm, blowing up 3 lands or 2 lands + Ascension is really good. On the other hand, Iona is just as good and more or less guarantees a win if you name blue. Against a deck like UWR Control though, they should board out most Paths and race us. If we give them 3 creatures, maybe they Cryptic bounce our Terastodon and we just lose on the spot. Terastodon is the only reasonable answer against RG Tron though, so take that into mind. If you play against it a lot, you definitely want to put it in. RG Tron, as of writing this, is at an all-time low in the format. Additionally, Terastodon doesn’t mean you beat RG Tron, it’s just an out. You can lose with it in the deck, but on the other hand, you will lose with it not in the deck.
Tolaria West - This card is sometimes very sweet. It allows you to fetch for x=0 artifacts, which if you’re playing Explosives, can be very nice. It essentially allows you to turn a Map into an Explosives. It tends to be on the slow side and coming into play tapped isn’t exactly good for us. The Transmute costing UU is also not great, since you can’t Transmute from a single Signet or blue source. If you’re playing a matchup where Explosives is really important, then it becomes very good, but otherwise it’s lacking and slow. With already 7-10 lands that sometimes come into play tapped, you really don’t want any more.
Snow-Covered Island - This and the Plains are interesting options. They allow you to have Gifts packages where you can fetch up three basics. It's certainly been relevant before for me. The more I play with Seachrome Coast, the more I dislike it as a card. However, the more that I play with more basics, the more I miss that Seachrome does tap for both colours (which is primarily relevant on the early turns). I tend to like the Island more than the Plains, because despite that we run no double blue but several double white cards, blue mana is typically more important than white mana for us since our deck has significantly more blue cards (typically around double). I have not liked the idea of playing both because I think we run too few duals at this point.
Seachrome Coast - I really like this card, but not in the higher numbers. The card is primarily good because it's an unconditional dual at the beginning of the game, which is the most important part for us. Having coloured mana early that doesn't come in tapped or ping us is great. Often times you'll go Tron land, Map, go, then Tron land, crack Map for Seachrome. I think it's wrong to play no Seachromes, but I'm also now thinking more and more that playing 3 is wrong as well. I'd swap with Snow-Covered basics or Flooded Strands most likely. It's still just a good card to play.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre - This card is good for tying together the mid and late game. At a cost of 11, he’s perfect in that situation. Since he also has a Vindicate ability, it’s not unreasonable to tap out for him in some matchups. That said, many matchups are combo-oriented where he’s just awful. Killing one creature for 11 and putting pressure on a combo deck isn’t exactly the best idea. He’s solid in the Jund matchup, that’s for sure, but lackluster in basically every combo matchup and most aggro matchups. When you play a card that costs 11 and don’t want to tap out for it, you might as well wait for Emrakul. If you wait for 13 for Ulamog, you can stall until 15 most likely. You absolutely tap out for Emrakul every time, but almost never for Ulamog. He provides a lot of pressure on the board, but combo decks will play around him and aggro decks will win faster than he can come out.
Spell Burst - This card gets tossed around a lot so I figured I should add it. The premise of this card is that it works exactly like Condescend, minus the Scry and plus Buyback. The real difference is that this card is good late game or against decks that play only expensive spells. In the early turns, you don't have mana to Buyback, so you're losing out on the Scry value. Late game it's significantly better, but our deck is typically not bad in the late game, since we have lots of mana and cards like Gifts and Thirst to use our mana efficiently. I'm not convinced it's strictly worse, it's better against some slow decks, but I think in general it's worse than Condescend.
Batterskull - Basically does the same thing Wurmcoil does, but with minute differences. Wurmcoil has Deathtouch, so in attrition based matchups like Jund, Wurmcoil tends to be slightly better, since it kills Goyfs more efficiently. Wurmcoil can be fetched from Eye of Ugin and reanimated via Unburial Rites, meaning you have better access to it. Batterskull costs 1 less, but that is negligible for us. Batterskull also can be bounced, meaning it offers more protection for itself. Batterskull tends to be better against decks with Path because it doesn't die to it, but worse against decks with Abrupt Decay only (like Jund) because they can kill the token.
Mana Leak - It comes up a lot why we're a control deck not playing one of the better control counters. The problem with this card is that it is a pseudo-answer as opposed to buying more time. Mana Leak is a card that hard answers a card, but only situationally (when they can't pay). When they can't pay is generally the early turns, where we'd rather be playing cards like Map or Signet. So ultimately we end up in a situation where we don't want to play this card. In fact, the deck doesn't particularly need to hard answer cards, but rather buy time. If I can survive a turn, that's great. Remand is much better because it buys me a turn while also drawing a card. Seeing more cards is particularly good because we're a combo deck (we want to find Gifts or Tron lands, for example). If you want a hard answer, Condescend ends up better because it scales much better.
River of Tears - River sees some play every now and then when someone tries to splash the black source. Personally, I don't think River is any better than a dual land. Think about when you want the black source: I have Unburial Rites in hand or I have something like Explosives. What this means is that in order for River to produce black, you need to have a land in hand. Sometimes that becomes awkward. The real question is whether the two life vs having a mana now is going to be a problem. You could directly substitute it for Watery Grave, Darkslick Shores, or Underground River to see what the effects were. With Watery Grave, you sometimes get no downside for it, but sometimes pay two life. If I'm playing it the same turn that I'm using the black source, then I generally don't mind, because the effect is way better than the cost. If I'm playing it early, then I'm potentially having a problem because I may need to pay two. However, if the card you substituted was a Hallowed Fountain, this cost should be negligible because you had the same problem before. The same sort of argument applies for the other two cards. IF I was going to play a black source, I'd use a shock land (and I generally advocate for Godless Shrine instead because we have more double white).
Flooded Strand - Finally we have the fetch we've wanted. I think a 1-of is probably good, especially if you're on a list that has two or three shocks. I don't particularly like playing more than one because we don't have many targets. Most will have around 4 targets possible and if you play two and draw a shock first, a second Strand would be forced to find a basic (which is not necessarily bad but not ideal). What this really does allow you to do is play around Blood Moon slightly better, since this card proxies as either the dual or basic, at the cost of one life. Sometimes you have this problem that you'd rather not pay two for the shock but you want the mana now, and this offers up a one life option. It's mostly relevant in the Scapeshift matchup because the difference between 19 and 18 is huge.
Wurmcoil Engine - Just a solid creature that’s a huge road block. Short of Path there’s not a good answer for it. Traditionally a huge hoser against Jund since they play no good removal for it, and deathtouch hurts their creatures. It’s another aggro hate card but it’s a bit of a threat as well as opposed to something like Timely which just slows them down. Wurmcoil Engine is much less impressive against Burn now that they play 6-8 Skullcracks, but it's good against BGx, probably enough so to still justify a slot. It's fairly close though, and maybe a Karn instead might be good enough depending on the meta you predict.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - Generally the win condition if the game goes late. In fast matchups like Zoo, Affinity, or Storm, boarding it out is your best bet. You really can’t rely on him if they’re going to win before you can play him, or get drained of resources. He’s really good against fair decks and blue decks though, so a lot of matchups still want him in.
Eye of Ugin - Generally speaking it’s a pair with Emrakul. If Emrakul goes, so does Eye, and if Emrakul stays, so too should Eye. It’s basically just used to tutor it. Sure, you can find Wurmcoil or Sundering Titan but the value just isn’t there for them. Emrakul or bust, basically.
Iona, Shield of Emeria - Is really good in matchups where naming a single colour will win you the game. While most of those end up being mono coloured decks, even two colour decks like UR Storm or UR Twin, or even three colour decks like RUG Twin or Jund still get destroyed by her. Boarding her out really just depends on whether you want her or not. Against Affinity or RG Tron, probably not, they’re not really playing coloured spells. Against Soul Sisters? They’ll probably concede on the spot.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - Good for creature based matchups where she can Wrath the board. Decks like Merfolk, Pod, even Twin has applications, or Storm if they side into Empty the Warrens. She’s even still fine against Geist decks just on the basis that she’s an answer to Geist. In non-creature matchups like RG Tron, Scapeshift, and basically any control deck, she comes out instantly.
Remand - Remand is boarded out against Affinity, Tron mirrors, and any really grindy match. Against a deck like Jund where they grind you out, you really don’t want to draw a mid-late game Remand and get nothing. I’ll counter your Goyf, draw a card, and you can replay him? You’ll cast no spells and I’ll have it stick around? I’d rather draw into actual spells. Affinity really just plays too cheap of cards to want to counter them, and Tron just doesn’t care, they’ll cast it again.
Path to Exile - Comes out against all non-creature decks the same way Elesh Norn does. Sometimes you leave it in against certain lists, like I’ll leave a copy in against RG Tron, I’ll leave some in against Scapeshift (for Primeval Titan/Obstinate Baloth), but as you would suspect, I’ll board them all out against UWR Control.
Oblivion Ring - It’s really slow for removal. You trade off it’s expensive and slow for the benefit that it answers a wide variety of cards. Depending on your needs you decide what to do. Twin is the deck you don’t want it, they’re doing it all where we need instant speed interactions.
Expedition Map - It’s a card that only benefits our ramp strategy, so in some matchups we’d rather not do that too much. Since it only slows us down a bit, some matchups don’t really care that we’re slightly slower. It’s a great card to board out in a pinch since you don’t accidentally have no Wraths against Zoo or no Paths against Twin.
Thirst for Knowledge - A great card but a tad expensive. Sometimes in the fast matches you don’t have time to slowly gain card advantage. If I’m in a fast matchup or need a bit more room, this card can definitely come out. Even though it’s advantage, it’s expensive. 3 mana can be a lot to actually pay when you’re trying to interact with your opponent.
Repeal - A nice silver bullet answer: it’s instant speed and draws a card. It also does get around some answers to it, potentially. That said, it’s not the best card in several matchups. If they’re not particularly playing any single card we care about, they’re not really playing permanents, or playing hexproof, we really don’t want it. It’s not going to answer Bogle or Geist so why keep it in?
Wrath of God - Bad against non-creature decks. Basically the fewer creatures you see, the less you want to see this. It’s a necessary evil against Geist just because it’s one of the few answers. It’s also really bad against Twin since it’s really bad at interacting with them - they go quickly and instant speed. This applies for all Wraths.
8. Sideboarding
Knowing how to sideboard is important. You can over-board and bring in too many cards, and not get your deck rolling, or bring in too little and find yourself with no answers. It’s really important when you board in or out win conditions because you may be making a terrible mistake. In fact, I lost a match in a tournament way back when because of it.
There’s a section below on matchup analysis that gives in-depth information on several of the top decks, however, there’s no guarantee your opponent is playing something popular. In lieu of that, this section will provide more general analysis on what the cards are for and what you should be looking to board in our out.
Spellskite - This card is really good in the format as it hates on a lot. It’s also an artifact to use with Thirst for Knowledge should the option present itself. Against decks like Twin or Boggles, it’s the absolute nuts. It can also protect your other artifacts by redirecting stuff. Even against other decks like Scapeshift or Burn, paying 2 to redirect 3 damage is relevant. A lot of Scapeshift math is ruined by it doing 1 less each time. In a Twin-heavy meta, it’s definitely a solid card.
Timely Reinforcements - This is here to shore up aggro matchups, particularly creature-based ones. Getting blockers is huge, and in matchups where you reanimate Elesh Norn, they can do some work. Gaining life is really huge against burn decks, and mono red isn’t the only deck playing Bolts; several UWR decks will turn into hyper-aggressors post-board. The card is also fairly good at blocking Geist.
Relic of Progenitus - Generally a really powerful graveyard answer. It doesn’t hinder ours in any way, which is something to be concerned of when playing Gifts combo and Mindslaver. You’re more excited to play this than, say Tormod’s Crypt, on the basis that drawing a card is better than being cheaper. Affinity might play Crypt on the basis that it’s a 0 mana artifact for them, but I think we’d rather draw a card. Especially in some matchups, the removing a single card can be much better (like against Goyf/Ooze, Snapcaster, Storm, etc.) so I’d prefer to have that ability. It does require me to leave up a mana each time but I mean, if that card will win me the game just sitting there then it’s a small price to pay. It's a good card to try to beat a wide range of decks because it's okay against a lot of decks.
Celestial Purge - Just a sweet card in general. Exiling permanents with no downside is great. Well, the downside is the restriction, but it’s vague enough that you can find enough matchups to use it in. General cards that answer a lot but are more widespread are really nice sideboard options, especially if you face an unknown deck and randomly show up with a good answer.
Disenchant - Basically, Affinity is a deck. We don’t want something that only applies to Affinity though, so we end up here. Disenchant can hit a number of cards like Birthing Pod or Splinter Twin.
Ghostly Prison - A really flexible card since it has applications in both aggro and combo matchups. Most combo matchups are creature based, like Twin and Kiki-Pod. Getting the jump on everything at the same time is really big game. It’s particularly good against a deck like Merfolk where the Timely isn’t that good. It’s obviously better in multiples but I prefer running a split of Kiki hate to be able to fetch it, and we already have other aggro-hate cards.
Suppression Field - Fills a nice niche since it classifies as Pod/Twin hate, but hates on other decks. In particular, it’s good against Affinity and Living End. For Affinity, it’s great because their manlands, Ravager, Cranial Plating, and any other activated abilities now cost more. For a deck that plays few lands and wants to attack with lands, it’s going to slow them down a lot. For Living End, it’s great because cycle now costs 2 more. It’s even good at slowing down Planeswalkers or the likes, and it’s just a nice flex card.
Torpor Orb - Specifically this is the best Twin answer. It shuts down all parts of the combo plus all the creatures they normally play individually (Pestermite, Exarch, Snapcaster, Clique, Wall of Omens) for every version of the deck. It’s also still good against Pod because you stop all their creatures as well. Generally just a really good card for us. It’s a bit of a nombo with some of our stuff but that’s fine, I’m okay losing out on my Snapcaster if their whole deck doesn’t function.
Rule of Law - A very specific card for Storm. It’s basically bad everywhere else but we can afford one spot for them.
Negate - A great counter when you need to answer specific stuff. A lot of the time we’re concerned with answering spells and not creatures. I’m more concerned about Twin than Pestermite, about Past in Flames than Wild Nacatl, about Scapeshift than Sakura Tribe-Elder. It’s not as cheap as alternatives like Dispel but the fact it answers a lot more cards makes it valuable.
Dispel - With Gifts I like playing a split of counters. Flexibility is good for us, and going up to 4 different counters means we can Gifts for an all counters package. There are a lot of options here but in a pinch, Dispel is great. Particularly it’s good when they counter our counter; the cheaper the better.
Spellskite - Really good against Twin, which always manages to be pretty popular. It’s also a nice fringe answer card, it’s great against Boggles. I also really like it against Scapeshift since it can really ruin their math. 3 damage now becomes 2 and everything goes wrong for them.
Pithing Needle - Pithing Needle is a great card to answer pesky activated abilities. Some key ones include: Karn, Liliana, Aether Vial, Birthing Pod, most of Affinity, and any man land. Pithing Needle mostly depends on whether you’re expecting the first four permanents in large volumes or not. When Jund was far and away the best deck, we saw a ton of Lili and Karn as a response, so basically the Pithing Needle was great. However, when the meta shifts away to decks not using them as much, it’s just a lot worse. While Pithing Needle still does things against Twin, it’s difficult to use it correctly. Twin gives the permanent an extra ability, so the Exarch or Pestermite is what you would need to name, and you can’t really proactively name either card nor can you name in response. Remember that Pithing Needle isn’t a trigger, it’s “as it comes into play”. They cannot react to you naming, they must react before it resolves. Sometimes you can name things like Map or a fetch and prevent them from activating.
Leyline of Sanctity - This card is very good against decks frequently targeting you. Decks like Jund, Burn, and Loam are the primary targets here. While it has implications against Storm, it’s usually going to just get bounced and not do much for us. If Storm is going off, they should bounce it no problem. For a deck like Scapeshift, they have tons of outs to bounce it with Cryptic as well. Suffice to say, it’s generally bad against combo decks targeting us and good against fair decks targeting us. If you have a high Jund or Burn turnout, it’s definitely a good card to consider. You should also play as a 4-of to increase the odds of drawing it. Against Loam, this card is absolutely insane and wins game. It’s worth aggressively mulling into if your hand is mediocre. If you play against a lot of Loam, I urge you to board it, the matchup is otherwise horrendous.
Mindbreak Trap - A great anti-storm card as you cast it for free. When they go off, usually it’s key to stop like their one Past in Flames that really needs to resolve. They won’t care so much if you Negate it, but exiling it does a lot. And again, it’s free so you can be pro-active and tap out while not losing the game. This card is also good against opposing Tron decks because it’s one of the few pro-active answers to Emrakul. Yes, you can Mindbreak Trap Emrakul, it doesn’t actually counter, it exiles while on the stack.
Boseiju, Who Shelters All - Boseiju is an interesting card. It’s a land, but it provides a very cool spell-based ability. For a deck that wants to guarantee a couple of key spells resolving, it’s actually pretty solid. You drop it early, then use it to resolve Gifts and Unburial Rites, paying only 4 life. Sure, it puts you a bit behind, but the value you can get from it is nice. In matchups like UWR Midrange or Delver, force resolving is pretty neat. If you’re playing Timely, it synergizes nicely; pay 2, I now have less life, cast Timely. Especially with map, you get to force it out early.
Bribery - An interesting card to use against Tron mirrors. Being able to hit Emrakul gives this card a big punch. Against Mono U Tron, which typically doesn’t play Emrakul, it’s a bit lacking. Needing to hit 5 mana, it’s somewhat troubling against a deck like RG Tron. You’ll often lose before 5 mana and if they have a Karn, they can easily just exile their Emrakul after it. It gets a lot of talk but because it’s slow it’s ultimately not the nuts.
Sigarda, Host of Herons - A really nice Gifts combo option. Sigarda has Hexproof so she keeps herself alive against the face of removal like Dismember or Path. What's extra nice is that she's really good at staying alive against Junk because they cannot make you sacrifice her to Liliana. Typically their only out to her would be a 5/6 Goyf, because she can block every other creature (Tasigur, Ooze, manlands, Rhino). In the Wilted-Abzan, she's a little less impressive because of Noble Heirarch, but that's not enough to dissuade me from playing her there either, because they still have two colours of removal. Even if they're a little more light on black removal (typically only Slaughter Pact), you probably don't want to risk it.
Engineered Explosives - This card is very good in the format. It’s a 2-mana Wrath, or close to it. Our deck is typically not capable of paying 3. You can play a single black source to support it (typically a Godless Shrine), but it does hurt the mana a little bit. Between being able to fetch it though, you can force it if you try. It’s not exactly a Wrath, it doesn’t kill everything. But it has the benefit of killing non-creature permanents as well. For example, against Storm, you can kill Electromancer and Pyromancer's Ascension at the same time, and it’s so much better than a Wrath; even if they board into Empty the Warrens, you kill all tokens at x=0 for 2 mana only. The one downside is that our deck plays Signets, and you occasionally need to blow them up. It sucks, but the upside that it does things against several decks where Wrath doesn't is nice. You can also recur it easily with Academy Ruins for value, or even fetch for it with Trinket Mage or Tolaria West.
Grafdigger's Cage - Another graveyard answer, but generally not that good for us. Cage is excellent against a deck like Pod, but at the same time, we've already got a good matchup against Pod. Cage also doesn't deal with decks like Living End. You take a trade off to play this card because you can’t reanimate with Gifts through it. It boils down to how good Cage is in the matchups you board it in: if Cage can win you the game on its own, then it’s fine, and if it can’t, then something else is probably better. Even for a deck like Storm, they don’t absolutely need the graveyard. It’s possible to go off with just Pyromancer's Ascension being active, so Pithing Needle is generally better.
Hurkyl’s Recall - A great card against Affinity if you’re having trouble. It buys you a lot of time and can help you get to your Elesh Norn with enough life to spare. It’s also really good if they sac everything with Ravager to nullify that plan. You even get to bounce their animated lands and Darksteel Citadels as well, so you can get a huge swing from this.
Kataki, War’s Wage - A nice answer to Affinity if that’s what you’re looking for. What’s nice is that it attacks and blocks as necessary, not that you’re like to. Making them pay all their mana to keep stuff in play is really big against them. Especially when you’re seeing something like a bunch if Citadels, making them pay is a huge game. Obviously Ravager still does its thing but it’s not a huge concern. We can also fetch it from Gifts in a pinch. The best part about this card probably has to be that you’re going to get around all the removal since they board it out. It’s really not reasonable for them to keep in the removal for you, and so this card just skirts around unchecked.
Affinity
Amulet Combo
Assault Loam
Blue Moon
Boggles
Boros
Burn
BW Tokens
UR Delver
USA Delver
RUG Delver
Domain Zoo
Griselbrand Reanimator
Hatebears
Infect
Jund
Kiki Pod
Living End
Melira Pod
Merfolk
Nivmagus Combo
BGx Rock
Scapeshift
Soul Sisters
Storm
Mono U Tron
RG Tron
UR Twin
RUG Twin
UWR Twin
UWR Control
UWR Midrange
Small Zoo
4C Gifts
8-Rack
Affinity is actually a decent matchup for us because they bank on a large number of small creatures, or sometimes one big one. Their resilience is usually stemmed by Ravager or a manland, which we hopefully deal with.
Elesh Norn is always the reanimation target, they generally can’t beat her if it’s well timed. This matchup often ends up hedging on whether you can get to Elesh Norn fast enough. On their good starts, you can be in some trouble, but on our good starts they’re also in trouble.
There’s a lot of cards to watch out for in this matchup. The way they’re going to win is by getting some creatures to a decent toughness before Elesh Norn comes down. Arcbound Ravager, Master of Etherium, and Steel Overseer all help accomplish this goal. Landing one of those early can be troublesome. That said, a single Path is often enough to handle any of these if you’ve got the early Elesh Norn.
You’ll also see some plays for Ravager sac all the counters onto Inkmoth Nexus to dodge your Wrath or Elesh Norn. This puts them pretty all-in on the one Nexus, meaning your Path is really good here. Map into Ghost Quarter for anyone that plays it is also very good here.
Timely, Disenchant, and Ghostly Prison are all straightforward. Suppression Field is really good, they rely on a lot of activated abilities: Cranial Plating, Inkmoth Nexus, Blinkmoth Nexus, Steel Overseer, and Arcbound Ravager.
I basically cut the Remands, they’re almost useless when cards are really cheap to cast. Iona is pretty obvious to cut.
They board in Blood Moon on occasion, but it hurts them more than us in this matchup. It takes away their ability to win with the manlands so I really don’t care about it. Since we’re also not on a Tron plan anyways, I’m just not going to care.
Amulet Combo
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Terastodon
Key cards: Amulet, Hive Mind
This matchup is not nearly as bad as I initially thought. They have the ability to get to a turn 2 Titan or Hive Mind, the latter of which would kill us. Remands are very good here because the turn 2 Hive Mind comes at the expense of Summer Bloom. They use Summer Bloom to play 3 additional lands, which end up being 3 bounce lands, well, actually the same bounce land 3 times. They just play the land, produce two mana, and bounce it, getting 6 mana only for that turn. Remand on the 6-drop is great here because it slows them down a lot. The reason this matchup isn't so bad is because they're all-in on a combo which doesn't necessarily win and isn't consistent. The deck can sometimes lose to itself, as it needs to hit specific cards to do anything. They need Amulet and Summer Bloom to generate the 6 mana to play Hive Mind or Titan, and they don't protect it outside of a Pact of Negation.
Outside of countering their 6-drop, we’re just not well equipped to stop a Hive Mind should it resolve. If it resolves I'd mostly assume I'm dead. However, given we play few creatures, Slaughter Pact ends up not working out that well, so it's mostly the Summoner's Pact we should be concerned with.
Iona naming green would be my choice here. If you get to name green, they can’t cast their Azusa or Primeval Titan anymore. Even if they get off a Hive Mind, there’s only about 3 more Pacts left, two of which we could pay for. You’d literally be trying to dodge Slaughter Pact, which is fine. When you name blue, you sometimes lose to Summoner's Pact or Primeval Titan finding Slaughter Pact. The line of play would be to fetch for a bounce land and Tolaria West, bounce Tolaria West, and transmute it for Slaughter Pact.
This is one matchup where having Terastodon would be great. Blowing up some of their lands would be fantastic for us. Alas, I’m not playing the Terastodon, so we’ll have to accept the crappy options we have. Mindslaver would also be better than Emrakul since it’s quite possible to have this deck kill itself with Pacts in some situation. Just imagine they Pact something, you take their turn, and “oops, did I forget to pay for Pact?”.
Negates are great because they let us stop their combo. We really just want to answer the combo. Dispel comes in because I want to keep my Iona alive at all costs, and I can counter Pacts that are on the stack. When Hive Mind does its thing, I can just Dispel the copy that I'm casting, so then I don't have to pay on my upkeep. Disenchant also comes in because it can kill Amulet, which shuts down their deck decently.
I take out Elesh Norn, it doesn’t do much. They play Titan and Azusa, but I don’t primarily care about killing the Azusa as fast as possible, they get value before I can stop it. And even supposing I do kill it, Titan can still attack and fetch lands for value. Eye and Emrakul come out as well simply because the matchup is too fast for us to get there. I don’t think there’s any chance of it happening, and supposing we did get that far into the game we could go through Colonnade beats, since they typically don’t play much creature removal. I would rather leave in the Wrath effects to answer these creatures since Wrath kills both but Elesh Norn doesn’t. I do however cut the Verdict as Wraths are not really that great here, and Verdict is simply the worst.
Assault Loam
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona
Key cards: Raven’s Crime, Liliana
Loam is a deck I loath because it’s basically just a different version of Jund that happens to be worse in general, and better against us.
The deck is good against us because of Raven’s Crime. In fact, this deck, and this deck alone, is the reason I started playing Leylines in the board. I couldn’t beat them, simple as that. Turn 1 Raven’s Crime turned into turn 3 my hand is gone. That really sucked for me. I actually had to concede that Leyline was the only reasonable way to win.
The deck is perfectly fine just grinding us out until they can use Seismic Assault and Loam to kill us. And since our hand is depleted, that’s not ideal for us, we can’t beat them in top-deck mode the entire game.
Iona naming black is what you want here. The deck is similar to Jund when you get down to things. Your Iona will still die to Seismic Assault but you’re forced to do it to dodge Liliana. You don’t really care about most other spells at that point and just hope to win faster than they can muster or find an answer.
As an aside, I have a story about Leyline and this deck. I was 1-1 against them in my first actual tournament and went to game 3. My opening hand was very reasonable, and included a Celestial Purge. I took a mulligan knowing that I really need to force the Leyline, it’s that important of a card. Low and behold, I drew into it on 6 and snap kept, slamming the Leyline. It allowed me to eventually get there with Iona. It’s definitely worth it to aggressively mulligan in this matchup.
Leyline is insane against them. Probably the second best deck for out (after burn). You get to fog all the spot discard, Liliana, and even Seismic Assault. They’re forced to grind with Goyfs and Bobs to kill you, which really isn’t too bad. Basically, it turns the matchup into Jund, a deck I can reasonably beat, from a deck I might as well take the time to eat.
In comes Relic, it’s good against Loam and Raven’s Crime. Purge hits everything not named Goyf, and Suppression Field stops Liliana and Seismic Assault. Negate is generally good against their deck, hitting mostly the same stuff Suppression Field does. Wurmcoil is always good against Jund coloured decks simply because they can’t easily deal with it, and Disenchant stops Seismic Assault.
Despite the deck may play Goyf and Ooze, as well as Bob, I’m not too frightened by them enough to keep in Wraths. The Paths are hopefully enough to get there. Remand is awful here, they play a ton of lands and can just wait until next turn, since Loam makes Seismic Assault deadly and the Assault itself costs nothing to use other than lands. They can deal enough damage quickly that we don’t want to tempo, they will beat us the next turn. Elesh Norn is also just bad because there’s not a lot it kills and it’s vulnerable to Lili, while not putting enough pressure on them. Assault to 3 lands also kills her, just to put it in perspective how many things are good against her.
Blue Moon
Favours: You
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona
Key cards: Blood Moon
This deck is an evolution of tempo decks in the format. Between decks like UWR Midrange, Twin, and UR Delver, the thought was to provide a general control shell that was good in the format. More specifically, Blood Moon was considered good in the format, so they wanted to maximize on it. Basically the best control deck to run that card, two colours only, with a blue primary. Red is basically only for Bolt and Blood Moon.
Iona naming blue is basically a win here, they don’t have red outs to her. They have more than enough ways to try to stop her with counters though.
This matchup should be good, they’re trying to slow grind us and that’s generally not very good against us. However, Blood Moon being decent against us means we’ve got a legitimate problem. I think with 4 Signets and 2 basics, you probably can get around Blood Moon. You really only need to get off your combo, and Blood Moon doesn’t hurt us enough if we have a Signet in play. People always assume it instantly kills us, but with a Signet you’re actually in okay shape. Still, the fact they can get it down early and play counters is an issue. Unlike most Blood Moon decks, they can answer our spells. Even if I have 1 Signet in play, Remanding any of my spells makes me unable to play it again, since I will lack the coloured mana.
Counters are good, especially the Dispel for resolving Unburial Rites. Wurmcoil is fine, they play only bounce removal for it and if they try to grind me out it’s a huge pain. Since a common win condition is Batterskull from them, it works out well there. Speaking of which, since Batterskull is also in the deck the Disenchant is quite nice to double up with Blood Moon. And since we have a decent amount of stuff to come out, I’m willing to bring in Purge explicitly for Blood Moon. As a side note, they play a full 4 copies which many decks boarding in Blood Moons don’t.
We take out all the creature-based stuff since there’s really nothing on their side. I’d rather leave in Elesh Norn than a Path here because the top end is usually Stormbreath Dragon that I can’t kill, and Elesh Norn interacts more favourably. I don’t need the early-game answer either since it’s late game cards and Snapcasters, and I don’t envision Snapcaster beats winning this matchup.
This matchup can be really good or really bad depending on whether you see good board options. This is most notably true after what happened in the 2013 Player’s Championships. Reid Duke was on Boggles while Shahar Shenhar was on UWR Control. In an interview, he was joking about how he thought the matchup was 95-5 in Reid’s favour, and another teammate of his told him it was worse. But decks with answers can provide miracles.
Our deck is typically weak to hexproof, there’s not really any good answers for hexproof and because of Totem Armor it makes Wrath not that great as well. If they get going before you, there’s a good chance that you’re too far behind to actually interact, and they typically do a good job going Voltron style.
Our job is just to try to hold the fort. Path is pretty bad most of the time, but cards like Wrath, Timely, and Gifts combo are really good here. Especially if you subscribe to the MB Explosives or Cyclonic Rift, they do some work.
Iona and Elesh Norn both work depending on the situation. I would prefer to go for Iona naming white for the most part since they have Paths. Depending on the situation though, you may end up getting far too much value from Elesh Norn. The fact that all their creatures die to her is what makes her powerful here. They actually don’t play too many creatures on the premise that they are hard to remove, so sweepers tend to be great.
Typical boarding here, bring in anything that interacts with the their enchantment voltron strategy. Disenchant blows things up, Ghostly Prison slows them down, and Spellskite is the best card in the deck now; once you resolve it they can’t put any more enchantments on their guys, and on top of that they’re basically going to be forced to Path it when they have a chance. Timely is good to stall and Wurmcoil can at least block fairly well, or at least stall the game out if they have a Spirit Mantle. Negates are great to stop some key enchantments.
I board out all the Paths because they’re a hexproof deck. While there are potentially cards like Kor Spiritdancer that can be Path’d, I really don’t want to play the odds. I’m essentially gambling that I’m going to see the right cards on their side, and if I don’t I’ll have this dead card. I could accept an argument to leave them in on the premise that it’s really good when it’s good, but I like playing the odds. I also board out a pair of Maps, they’re a bit clunky since I’m looking more so to find the combo than get my own thing.
I pull out Emrakul, there’s really no way I get there and I will grind out with Colonnades if I do. It’s slow and clunky and I’d rather reanimate something that does well instead.
Boros
Favours: Even
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona
Key cards: Boros Charm
Essentially just a two-colour aggro deck. It is going to play out quite a lot like Small Zoo. They’re going to have access to Path, Helix, and Bolt, of which we only care about Path. They often play the Landfall package, so they can win pretty fast.
Iona is generally good against decks with only one colour of removal, and this deck is no exception. If you name white, you blank most of the deck. While there’s still some stuff they can do, I’m not exactly afraid. At least, not enough to force me to do something differently. They’ll have like Bolt + Goblin Guide + Kird Ape, none of which are powerful enough on their own.
You absolutely need to remember Boros Charm is a card so you don’t Wrath and let them completely blow you out. Outside of that, you should be okay.
All the aggro hate in as we’re playing against an aggro deck that’s red.
Emrakul and Eye come out because they’re just too slow and we probably won’t grind. Elesh Norn comes out because she really can’t kill anything, what with them playing stuff like Loam Lion, Kird Ape, and Vexing Devil. Sure, she could hit like a Steppe Lynx or Goblin Guide but I think the value just isn’t there. Remember, they have access to Path. Map and Thirst come out, one each, since they’re somewhat slow. I could take out Remands instead, but trying to interact early seems like a much better idea than trying to cast early Thirst and actually not die at the same time.
Be prepared for potential Blood Moon. I think it’s typically unlikely with the fact that they need to use their fetches to guarantee and that Kird Ape and Loam lion get worse, as does Steppe Lynx. Still, people think the card is insane so it really wouldn’t surprise me.
The matchup is pretty good for us. Between Path and Remand, plus Timely, we can usually stave off the early game. Gifts is insane here because we can essentially just win the game on the spot.
You basically always reanimate Iona and name red and enjoy your free win. Remember that they do play Bump in the Night but it’s doubtful they race you from that 3 damage. It’s important to note that in some of the creature-heavy variants (the ones that run Keldon Marauders), they can have you dead on board to creatures in which Elesh Norn or Wurmcoil make more sense.
Wurmcoil is just a huge beater as well. It’s a lot worse than Iona but still does solid work. They don’t play good answers to it, and artifact removal doesn’t particularly cut it. Gaining 6 life is quite often too hard to come back from.
Watch out for Skullcrack. Regardless of whether Wurmcoil/Sphinx’s/Timely are in your MB, the card can really do a number if you absolutely need the life gain. If you can avoid playing into it, it will help you a lot.
Timely, Wurmcoil, and Purge are all very straightforward to bring in. Negate is great because they’re playing so few creatures, usually only around 12, and we often just take the 4 from Vexing Devil anyways. Hitting a Bolt can even be fine in this matchup. Spellskite is also good, redirecting burn damage is always good.
Eye and Emrakul both come out for obvious reasons. Elesh Norn also comes straight out, she doesn’t really do anything. In the odd scenarios where you need her, Wurmcoil often does the job too, and better. Oblivion Ring tends to be slow and doesn’t provide enough, since you’re getting rid of like a Goblin Guide or something. Wraths come out as well since there’s so few creatures, the card just doesn’t do enough.
Blood Moon comes in for them, they almost always play it. It hurts us but usually isn’t too bad in this matchup. Since it’s mostly a race to Gifts combo, if you’ve got a single Signet you’re in the clear. If you find it enough of an issue, you can keep in Oblivion Ring or board into Disenchant. I’m not a fan since those cards are slow or dead in some situations, but if you have to then whatever. You can board out some number of Maps/Thirsts at this point, since again those are slow cards against this fast deck.
If you’re boarding Leyline, this is the deck to bring it in against. It’s also basically a free win, it blanks more than half their deck. Some lists run white to bring in Wear//Tear but hopefully you don’t see it and even still, a couple of turns of Leyline is hopefully really good for you.
This matchup is okay but you really do need to draw some Wraths. They swarm the board really easily and can go pretty fast. The thing that makes it somewhat difficult is that just one Path doesn’t solve the problem because every creature can turn into a threat when they have anthem effects pumping all their creatures. You have to hope for a slow start.
Tidehollow Sculler is a real problem, it eats a card, which is often either Wrath or Gifts. You’re forced to spend a Path on him because you need that card back. You would love to be able to bank on a key card getting there but because of him you shouldn’t really try to, if you can avoid it. Considering that they play Thoughtseize/Inquisition as well you’re going to get a fair chunk of your hand eaten up. So playing as if that Wrath is staying in your hand is wrong.
In a similar vein, you can’t always bank on a Wrath because Lingering Souls is 4 damage back in play. The deck can make a lot of creatures pretty fast.
Reanimating Iona is best, naming white. Most cards in the deck are white, and you blank the Path. I still like the Elesh Norn just because it provides so much value as a card, since a lot of the time it does Wrath them, and they’re probably the deck that Wrath is the best against.
I want the aggro hate, but there’s not enough black permanents for Celestial Purge.
I take out a bunch of 1-ofs because I really don’t want them. Oblivion Ring is a slow catch-all against a deck primarily composed of tokens; I don’t think it gives me much value to pay 3 to kill a token they paid 1 for. I also take out Norn, while she’s good I’m almost never going to force her. I pull out a single Condescend because it’s a bit clunky, and a Sphinx’s Revelation because it’s slow. While the life gain would be nice, you’ll often face lethal much earlier and need more early game cards like Timely or Remand.
UR Delver
Favours: Even
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Elesh Norn
Key cards: None
This matchup is even, mostly because our reanimation targets are live the entire game. However, the deck presents a very good early game with the ability to out-tempo and race us. They can be either the tempo deck or the aggro deck, and they definitely want to be the aggro deck. As long as they keep up a counter for Gifts Combo, we’re actually going to probably be in serious trouble.
Our Wraths and Timely are really good here, as they play a bunch of smallish creatures (Pyromancer, Delver, Snapcaster). Getting a good jump on them is going to go a long way for you. Since they play a lot of cheap spells like Serum Visions and Gitaxian Probe, it’s easy for them to just tempo us out of the game with Pyromancer.
They typically play 6-9 counters MB, usually a split of Remand, Mana Leak, and Spell Snare. They don’t always play Cryptic, it’s a personal preference decision. It is definitely something to keep in mind though because you don’t want to play into it and get blown out.
Iona is the best option here, naming blue. They can’t cast most cards in their deck and can’t remove her anymore. They still have a few things they can do, but hopefully it’s not that hard for us to work around. Bolt might actually be the only red card MB, which I don’t care about if I resolve Iona.
Elesh Norn is also quite good. You get to kill every creature in their deck, which is always nice to have. It’s not my first choice, but sometimes they will present board states where it’s definitely a better go-to answer. Especially with Young Pyromancer, they can actually put a lot of pressure on you from creatures. Watch out for Vapor Snag/Cryptic if you do go for Elesh Norn, as it could ruin your day. I think most of the time when you do go that route, they should be depleted of resources such that it buys you enough time to hard cast it. The deck typically relies on putting pressure off the cheap creatures and getting a good jump. They have difficulty playing from behind so you’re pretty safe with Elesh Norn getting bounced after killing a few dudes.
In comes Timely as it’s very good against their creatures. I can actually trade many of them 1-for-1. The Ghostly Prison is insane in this matchup since they play Pyromancer. It will completely stop that plan, which is huge for me. I also like boarding in the Dispel only. I find most of their spells aren’t worth countering, but I would rather have a nice cheap option in counter wars, and this brings me up to 3-of counters for Gifts. They typically don’t play anything Dispel can’t hit that I’m scared of. Maybe Blood Moon on their end, but I’m not exactly expecting it. Most of their spells are rather lackluster, so I’d rather be on my own game than try to react to theirs. Even if they board out all the Vapor Snags and have no Cryptics, I think Wurmcoil is a bit lacking here. I would basically always prefer Elesh Norn to it, and I’d rather keep my curve lower to interact earlier.
I board out Emrakul and Eye. The cards are clunky in a rather fast matchup. Despite them being a blue deck where I like the fact it resolves, the game is decided much too quickly. Similarly, I think Oblivion Ring is clunky against their small creatures, and Thirst is slow. I would rather board out Thirst than Map because I’d rather play my game and advance my plan.
See UWR Midrange for more information, as the matchups are similar. They differ mostly on the decision to play Delver, and this matchup is slightly faster. This deck sometimes goes really heavy into Steppe Lynx, but either way, a large core is the same and the strategy vs us is the same for them.
This deck is a traditional Delver deck; 4 Delver, 4 Snapcaster, 4 Geist. It’s very similar to the UWR Midrange list actually, at least from our perspective. Geist is still just a beater that we can’t answer.
The deck often plays cards like Steppe Lynx to be really aggressive. Additionally they usually play more creatures than UWR Midrange so that means less counters, especially Cryptics. So they trade a bit on protecting Geist to slam turn 1 Delver. This deck tends to win a bit faster, and is also able to win without the ‘protect the Geist’ plan.
Let me tell you, turn 1 Delver into turn 2 Delver into turn 3 flip is near unbeatable. If we can’t answer them, eventually they’ll get to a golden spot with answers that we just take too much damage too fast. And even if we Path one Delver, the tempo their deck gets from an extra land is a lot more than you’d expect, especially with Steppe Lynx since they get extra landfall from it, or we have to give them the mana a turn early (aka they have access to it on their turn). Delver can be protected easily enough. Sure, Remand is bad against Path, but we potentially can’t recast. If you get a Wrath Remanded, you’re potentially taking 6 or something on the next turn, and they’ll race you.
You can reanimate literally anything against them, though none are particularly good. Iona can name either blue or white to stop removal and go to town. Elesh Norn is also good because she can wipe the board. On those boards with turn 1 Delver into turn 2 Delver, sometimes you’d rather just Wrath early and set them behind. Setting a tempo deck behind is actually really strong, as they’ll have a difficult time catching back up. And even when you do this with Elesh Norn, they need to Path or Cryptic her because the rest of their deck (except maybe some Angels) should die to her, and I’m not scared of ½ Angels that they might not even play. Especially with a Delver start, they’ll go way too fast for me.
I board out Repeal or an extra Map based on the version of their deck. If it’s Delver, Snapcaster, Geist, Repeal only hits 4 cards and it’s bad (I would never want to bounce Snapcaster). If it has Steppe Lynx, I definitely want to keep Repeal in. Repeal bounces Delver for U, and Steppe Lynx for 1U. Additionally, the Steppe Lynx really only does anything with fetches, so if you do it after they play a fetch and crack, you can get a nice tempo boost. They’ll also be down a mana when you cast it in response to fetching.
I want to board in all the aggro hate. Wurmcoil/Timely is better in this Delver matchup because they have a lot of burn. The life from a single Timely or Wurmcoil attack/block is going to put you far ahead. The deck also likely boards out most Paths, meaning your Wurmcoil gets a lot better post-board. Ghostly Prison is also nice against a blue deck because they have to tap out to win, meaning part of their deck is rendered useless.
I like boarding out Oblivion Ring, it’s slow against all their aggressive stuff and bad against Geist. I board out two Maps and a Thirst because I want to be quick and I want more actual cards. It’s also difficult to decide what to board out since their deck has numerous angles. I want to keep in the Condescend as a hard-counter answer to Geist. I want to keep in Sphinx’s Rev to counter their burn. I even want to keep in Emrakul because I’m scared of them countering everything. While they don’t play as many, Geist keeps us in check. They can sit tight on a single Geist and counter everything, so I’d rather be prepared with my top-end answer. I might consider boarding it out if I had Sundering Titan since I might present enough options, and half of their counters are Remands.
Naming blue post-board is better since they really should board out Paths to be more aggressive. They absolutely want to race, and are more than happy to do so. You can also reanimate Elesh Norn just to wipe the board. Sure, they can bounce, but when Path is gone that’s not too bad. Killing like a Delver and Geist is pretty strong. And the deck doesn’t necessarily run all four Cryptics, so sometimes you’re not even likely to get it bounced.
Sundering Titan is reasonable post-board, again, it’s just a 3-colour deck and they have trouble recovering from blown up lands. Especially when we share lands, you’re going to get full value from Titan. Wurmcoil is also reasonable post-board because it puts a lot of pressure on them to answer it quickly. If they don’t bounce or Path it, it will take over the game, regardless of what they try. It isn’t something I would reanimate, I think Iona or Elesh Norn would be better on average, but it’s a nice value card to have.
This deck, despite also being Delver, is significantly different from USA Delver for us. USA Delver is a deck based on not dying to very early threats like Delver and Geist. Their deck revolves around Geist really dealing some damage. RUG Delver, on the other hand, plays out a bit more like a midrange. It is going to play a full set of Cryptics and a set of Goyfs. The deck tends to be a bit slower, but a bit more resilient. They’ll play 12-16 counters main, and have fewer answers to threats since there’s no white.
For us, no white is a good thing. Geist is insane against us, and not having to deal with it is fantastic. There’s also no super early pressure from Steppe Lynx either, so we’re never really dead on turn 4. There’s also no Path, which means Iona just got a whole lot better.
Reanimating Iona is the best option here, naming blue. Without their counters, you’re probably okay. Aside from Goyf and Bolt it’s primarily a blue deck, and knocking out that many cards will work well for us. They often play something like Huntmaster but just the sheer number of cards we knock out shows us how good naming blue is. Again, it’s the only colour that can remove her. You can reasonably race them at this point, and you actually really do want to race them. That’s because they play Vedalken Shackles. The card can actually steal Iona fairly easily if you give them the time. Hell, people sometimes play the 15 blue sources for Shackles to steal Emrakul, not that it’s a likely scenario.
In comes some aggro hate and some counters. Their deck is a weird mix for us, because they don’t play aggro creatures that Timely interacts with, nor do they play much burn. Wurmcoil I especially want when there’s no Paths, but Timely becomes really bad because both Delver and Goyf get around it quite easily such that I’m not getting the value from the tokens. I’m not planning to race so tokens that aren’t blocking are bad. More specifically, tokens that aren’t trading are bad. Ghostly Prison is still good, it taps them out to attack so all my spells like Wrath now resolve. I like bringing in Negate and Dispel because of their high counter count. It even answers Shackles which is admittedly a problem if we don’t get going quickly.
Elesh Norn comes out because the Wurmcoil is just as good here. It kills things all the same and gains me life, plus there’s no need for Elesh Norn to kill something small with hexproof. Elesh Norn also doesn’t kill Goyf so it’s not as potent - it doesn’t kill the big threats. I like pulling out a single Map and Thirst to make room for stuff. I also like pulling out Sphinx’s as the deck doesn’t really give us much opportunity to cast it with all their counters. I also like pulling out Repeal because it’s not that effective against their deck. I can bounce Goyf as the best option, and that’s not even that great, it buys me like half a turn. This game can realistically grind out to Emrakul, so keeping the extra Map as opposed to a Repeal or Sphinx’s can go a long way. While Sphinx’s draws many more cards, Map is more likely to resolve and do something.
I like leaving in Emrakul and Eye in this matchup because it’s slower than other Delver lists, and because they have so many counters I want something that I can guarantee. You can’t guarantee Gifts combo so I’d rather not rely too heavily on it.
You can bring in Sundering Titan if you have it, but I think Wurmcoil and Iona is good coverage here. Again, they can’t really kill Iona outside of blue so I’m fine with her. The key is always two colours of removal, and they only have one.
Griselbrand Reanimator
Favours: Even
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona
Key cards: None
The matchup, thanks to there being Through the Breach, is now only an even matchup. The deck presents a really quick combo; I’ve played iterations of the deck that could potentially win on turn 1. At the same time, the deck can lose to itself quite easily, and a bit of hate can do wonders. This matchup can go fairly differently depending on the list. The ones that are simply Goryo’s Vengeance and Through the Breach, which potentially need to combo off twice, seem a lot worse against us. We don’t particularly interact favourably with either combo, so if they play the all-in combo, they should be fairly good to go.
I think pre-board they might be a slight favourite. We don’t have good ways to just stop the combo, and an early Emrakul probably wins them the game. On the other hand, post-board, you have way too many options to stop them. When you board into several cards that all favourably interact with the combo then you’re probably going to be in a good spot.
Iona naming black seems best. While they can still win via Through the Breach, I think I’m okay banking on Iona with black since it makes the game much harder. Additionally, if I get to keep Iona through Emrakul or whatnot, it becomes difficult for them to go off again. While 15 is often enough due to shocks and fetches, we take almost no damage so they have to hit us with something else.
Remember that you can Remand the Goryo’s Vengeance after they pitch Emrakul to have them lose the Emrakul, assuming they can’t recast Vengeance. That would definitely suck for them.
Relic and the counters are obvious, I board into Purge as an answer to Griselbrand. It’s not the best but when we have a ton of dead cards it works out fairly well. I also board into a Ghostly Prison because the deck typically doesn’t have extra mana to spend, so fogging an attack can work out well. When they have to sac end of turn, denying them an attack is pretty powerful. They typically can’t remove it as well, and if they do they probably can’t go off as well.
All your slow removal or sorcery speed removal is awful in this matchup. Everything happens on their turn since they give haste or sac at end of turn. So Oblivion Ring and Wrath do basically nothing. Repeal is really slow, especially when their only permanents are typically Emrakul and Griselbrand, one which we can’t hit and one which we probably won’t be able to hit. And Elesh Norn is obviously just not doing anything against a 7/7 flying lifelink or Emrakul. I also don’t mind boarding out a single Map, I don’t really think it does enough and I’d actually rather leave in something like Sphinx’s Revelation since you can EOT it without risking anything.
This matchup is pretty bad since they’ve got a good metagame’d deck. More specifically, they play a lot of cards that mess around with our searching effects (Gifts, Map, Eye). The fact they can reliably interact with it and prevent it or diminish our results is what makes them good on average.
You need to just stave off the early game by keeping Arbiter or Mindcensor in check. I don’t care too much about a couple of points per turn, but I do care that my turn 1 Map is effectively rendered useless on the draw. Searching with a Map early is definitely important because you don’t want to get blanked, and you’re quite often forced to turn 2 fetch instead of casting Signet. It’s not the worst scenario, but remembering to do it is key. Turn 2 Signet into turn 3 Gifts is much worse than normal, and you’re potentially better off just going turn 2 Map into turn 3 Signet leaving up Remand mana.
You really need to watch out for Mindcensor the most. You could potentially lose the game when you cast Gifts into it and get blown out. Sometimes you have to just to find more cards, but other times you want to hold back and keep the Mindcensor in their hand. More often than not, they’re more willing to leave it up to prevent something like Gifts. Even though we may want the card, preventing Mindcensor damage is almost as good. Sometimes you also have to just cast Gifts or activate Map into Mindcensor. Hell, I’ve even had to Ghost Quarter my own land to find my one-of Island through Mindcensor (which I found and still lost the match). You need to play it by ear and see how the game is going to determine the correct plays. Sometimes it’s not that difficult to determine, since your hand is awfully dead.
Iona naming white is the plan if you can get there. They have a lot of ways to mess up your Gifts so you’re really not all that likely to get it. It’s really quite devastating for them if it does resolve though, they don’t have a good way to interact with it and there’s really not much non-white out of their deck.
Gaddock Teeg is also an option that you need to be aware of. It means we can’t cast cards like Sphinx’s Rev, and Repeal, but more importantly Gifts, Wrath, or any other expensive card. Keeping Path for him is important. He is basically always the card you Path when choosing a Path target. You’ll feel really bad if you Path something else and draw into a Wrath effect.
Post-board we’re trying to rely on Iona. Getting to Emrakul in a match where they have multiple land destruction and multiple cards that make me mess up my search is bad for me. I’m not likely to get there so it’s not worth my time and effort.
Timely comes in to save me some life, I need just a bit more time here. Ghostly Prison and Wurmcoil do much the same. I need to get to Iona so I just need more time to make that happen, since cards like Arbiter or Mindcensor will mess around with that happening.
I board out the Emrakul and Eye, as well as two Maps. I want to not search my deck if I can avoid it. The Gifts are fine to leave in simply because I need to get to Iona to win, and that’s a win condition I don’t want to mess around with.
Infect
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Elesh Norn
Key cards: None
The reasoning the deck is so good against us is that they voltron a creature really early. We have to draw some way to interact with that single creature, and it’s not easy. Especially when they can give it hexproof easily enough, it’s difficult to interact. While there’s no card I’m specifically scared of, you need to just remember the hexproof situation.
Elesh Norn pretty much wins you the game. They tend to not play any removal assuming that they’re good to go. If you resolve it, enjoy your free win. They should literally just scoop, as they have no outs and should board no outs.
Sideboard:
+1 Purge
+1 Ghostly Prison
+1 Rule of Law
+2 Negate
+1 Dispel
+1 Spellskite
-3 Wrath
-1 Oblivion Ring
-1 Eye
-1 Emrakul
-1 Sphinx’s Revelation
In comes anything that can interact with them early or slow them down. Spellskite is particularly good since you pay life to redirect to buff it, and now you can block. Purge is sort of sketchy since it rarely hits anything but you have to be able to interact early, and they play Plague Stinger. In the case of playing it or a Wrath, I’ll take my chances because I’d typically lose before Wrath.
We’re taking out anything slow. The game is likely over by turn 4, so the Wraths are slow, as is the Oblivion Ring. Eye and Emrakul aren’t the way to go, we win from Elesh Norn, and Sphinx’s Rev is also quite slow and only nets us cards once the game is basically over.
Jund/BGx
Favours: You
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona
Key cards: Liliana, Scavenging Ooze
*Note that Jund and BGx are grouped together because they play out the same way for us. Whether they add red for Bolts or not doesn’t concern us, and most of the sideboard options either deck has are going to be the same.
Without Deathrite Shaman, this matchup is slightly favourable for us. They have limited ways to stop the Gifts combo. They have Liliana and Scavenging Ooze available, and that’s it. Liliana can be a pain because we have a hard time interacting with her. Ooze, on the other hand, isn’t that bad. He does stop the combo (though so does Lili), but he’s much less impactful as a card. We don’t provide any targets for him to grow with, which is really nice.
Your goal is to go for Iona, plain and simple. Naming black keeps them off all the removal for her. Yeah, they can cast stuff like Bolt or Courser of Kruphix, but I’m not overly scared of those cards. As long as Iona is safe, she generally gets the job done. I’m not going to get scared off a potential triple Bolt, it’s extremely unlikely.
Late game they will fold to an Emrakul. The deck typically hurts itself enough that the 15 damage does it. I haven’t had much testing against Courser of Kruphix to see if it gains them enough life, and I suspect it won’t. Either way, their deck is still soft to Emrakul. You generally have enough card advantage when Emrakul comes down that them sacrificing 6 permanents makes it troublesome for them to go on. Even if they keep some things, they likely don’t get far enough since they have to win on the spot.
Pretty straight forward sideboard, anti-aggro cards and the Purge because they’re black.
We board out Remands because they’re really bad as the game drags on. While they can be decent in the early game, if the game gets to the mid game and they have 5 or 6 mana in play, it doesn’t really do a lot. The games will go fairly long so there’s just not enough value there. I also board out Elesh Norn because I’d basically rather go for Iona every time, and in the case I don’t, the Wurmcoil should be just as good as Elesh Norn. 6 life and surviving Lili is huge, it effectively trades with all their creatures and no single card can remove it.
This matchup is good because Pod as a whole is bad against us. The fact that they require numbers to beat us is what’s good for us. It’s hard for them to get a bunch of creatures in play.
This matchup is worse than Melira Pod because they play an instant-speed combo (Restoration Angel to Kiki), as well as playing Deceiver Exarch and Zealous Conscripts, both which are good against us. While early Wraths are still quite nice, they can still just win from out of nowhere; such is the power of Birthing Pod. There’s also generally a Phantasmal Image in the MB, so they can copy Elesh Norn and negate her ability.
Elesh Norn is quite safe in this matchup. They play no ways to actually kill her typically. Zealous Conscripts can be quite a beating because you’re looking at 9 damage in return, at the minimum, and they can potentially Pod her for nothing.
Outside of watching out for that, Zealous Conscripts can steal Emrakul. It may seem ludicrous to think like that, but it has been relevant. Deceiver Exarch is capable of tapping Emrakul, so whenever they play those types of cards, you need to be weary of this eventuality. Especially with Kiki and Restoration Angel, there are several ways to do it repeatedly, though I mostly refer to Angel since with Kiki they would just win. I have lost to Exarch into Angel into Conscripts steal your Emrakul.
Like normal, we’re boarding into all of the combo hate cards, and then Purge because it kills a number of their creatures (Kiki, Conscripts, Redcap, etc). Even though Purge doesn’t hit everything, I like it because I’m more scared of them going off and comboing as opposed to grinding me out when I have Wraths.
I board out Iona because I’d rather Elesh Norn. Condescend isn’t particularly good when they play cards like Pod to fetch creatures, and as the game goes on I find it’s not as good in this matchup since I care less about their game as opposed to my own. I like Remand more since it’s better early as we cantrip off it, and we really want Gifts for Elesh Norn. Map and Thirst come out just as filler removed since I should be okay to grind them out after either Elesh Norn or Wrath.
I don’t like boarding into Disenchant to hit Birthing Pod only. Sure, it’s a cool card and does wonders, but we still play spot removal and Wraths and with Elesh Norn in play the card does nothing. I would rather leave in the Oblivion Ring instead.
The deck is predicated on two major things: not getting their grave hated out and Living End resolving. It’s also, to a lesser extend, predicated on their board staying in tact. We happen to be good at all the above.
With Remand, you basically destroy Living End. While they’re trying to Cascade into it, I can just Remand it back to their hand. It’s really neat because they generally don’t have 3 turns to wait and don’t often hard cast.
Iona is very tricky here because it’s difficult to know what to name. The problem is, they have removal in two colours. That makes it impossible to always name the right colour. You get to name either green or black. Below is an examination of both options:
Black shuts off Living End completely, and also shuts off Shriekmaw and Demonic Dread, and to a lesser extent, Fulminator Mage. Demonic Dread doesn’t really matter, because a) they can’t cast Living End anyways, and b) we don’t provide them targets. So you’re essentially blanking 4 Living End and a single Shriekmaw.
Green shuts off Beast Within and Violent Outburst. So you’re effectively shutting down Beast Within and half the Living Ends. Although we generally don’t provide Demonic Dread targets, it’s now got a target. So they can still go off while you name green.
Ultimately naming green is typically better, especially post-board. I don’t think the one-of Shriekmaw is good enough for them to keep in, nor can they reasonably board any. They can definitely leaving in Beast Within though. Essentially, they have 8 green cards that are blanked or 4-5 black cards.
Watch out for Fulminator beats as well. We’re a good deck to use Fulminator against since our lands are important to us. You might realistically see a couple sac’d at your Tron, then Living End and another two sac’d at your Tron.
Sideboard:
+2 Relic
+2 Negate
+1 Ghostly Prison
+1 Suppression Field
+1 Rule of Law
+1 Wurmcoil
-1 Oblivion Ring
-4 Path
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Sphinx’s Rev
-1 Thirst
A lot of sideboard action going in here. What we’re ultimately concerned with are two things: stopping Living End from happening and if it does, responding to the creatures.
Relic and Rule of Law should be straightforward, they both directly stop the combo. They don’t want to ever hard cast the Living End. Suppression Field is fun because Cycle now costs 2 more, making it difficult to do multiple times in a turn, and it slows them down. Especially on the draw, you can shut down their turn 2 Cycle, which is huge. They can still cycle the pay 2 life creature but that’s their only play for the turn. Ghostly Prison is good for a backup plan if it resolves, as is Wurmcoil. Wurmcoil happens to be really cool because if they cast Living End with it in play, they get to give you two tokens. If you get a chance to discard it, that’s also cool, since now their Living End brings back Wurmcoil, which is hard to deal with. I imagine 6 life and trading a creature each time is enough to stop them from winning.
I don’t like boarding into Purge since it does very little. If they’ve already gone off, killing one creature isn’t that great, and there’s also Fulminator Mage.
Oblivion Rings and Paths come out for obvious reasons. They don’t play many creatures without playing Living End, and if Living End, there’s many creatures to answer. Elesh Norn ends up being too flimsy since she kills nothing and can’t save herself from either Beast Within or Living End. I find Sphinx’s Rev to be fairly lackluster, it’s kind of hard to get off for a decent amount through Fulminator Mage, and I’m not concerned about the life gain, I need to answer Living End or the aftermath or I will lose, I can’t stall around it. Thirst is also my defacto card to pull out, I want to leave in all the Maps and Signets because of Fulminator Mage as well as the Wraths and Remands for Living End.
Ideally we have enough ways to interact with Living End itself that it doesn’t become a problem. We’re prepared when it does happen, but it’s overall unlikely given the amount of removal we add. Between Relic, Remand, Negate, Condescend, and Rule of Law, that’s 1/6th of the deck that stops Living End.
This matchup is fairly good for us because their combo requires a lot of pieces. We have way too many ways to spot remove creatures or Wrath the board. The deck doesn’t provide enough pressure early and usually grinds out games via Gavony Township, which sucks against us. Generally speaking, one early Wrath gives you the time to win late game.
You always want to go for Elesh Norn because it kills everything. They get to keep what, Wall of Roots? I’m okay with that. They can’t combo off while she’s in play, and they typically don’t run ways to remove her. Generally speaking they’d rather side into Abrupt Decay than Path, so you should be safe with her. Especially since they’ve stopped playing the 1-of Metamorph, they’re essentially just running a Shriekmaw as an out to her.
The cards I’m most concerned about are Scavenging Ooze, which stops our combo, and Shriekmaw, which can kill our reanimated creature. Other than that, watching out for them comboing off is important. They need either Finks/Redcap, Melira, and a sac outlet (traditionally Viscera Seer), or Spike Feeder + Archangel of Thune. Their mid-range plan won’t work so they should force comboing off.
Just bringing in tons of hate cards here. I think they have to combo off against us since we run so much board removal. They're not going to grind us out, so their combos are much more appealing. Purge only hits a few cards, but when you're hitting Redcap or Viscera Seer, it's really good. Relic hits their combo and neutralizes cards like Eternal Witness. Suppression Field is good for hitting a ton of things like Birthing Pod while stopping their combo as a whole, and Torpor Orb comes in for the same reason.
I bring out Iona since the Elesh Norn is good. Condescend is a little expensive and I can stall out the game very easy so I don't need the hard answer. I like taking out Maps and a Thirst since my deck is just answer after answer and lets me eventually get there, I'm not in a rush for Maps.
Disenchant only for Pod seems lackluster, I'll leave the Oblivion Ring instead. I’m never going to turn 2 the Disenchant really, and the Oblivion Ring is still quite solid as a whole since their deck is slow in assembling the combo. It’s not like Kiki Pod where there’s a quick 1-2 punch or the whole 1-drop, 2-drop shenanigans.
This matchup is slightly favourable for Merfolk simply due to us playing blue. We have Wraths, yes, but they have decent resiliency and numbers. An active Aether Vial + a lord means even after we Wrath, they can put 6 power on board right away. It’s quite problematic for us. Still, the Wraths are very good since their deck works via critical mass of creatures. One lord on its own isn’t really a problem, but two or three and I’m in real trouble.
Additionally there is the Spreading Seas to worry about. If they just stop Tron entirely and draw cards off it, we’re going to have a bad time. It’s not that bad, we can use the blue mana and Gifts Combo, but it’s still not great.
Iona is generally the target of choice, obviously naming blue. These versions are mono blue to facilitate Master of Waves and Thassa, so cutting off blue works well for us.
Elesh Norn is reasonable as well in some situations simply because their creatures, individually, have less than two toughness. If you can get a situation that works to kill their board from her, she can do wonders. They play Vapor Snags, so watch out though. In general their creatures won’t be X/2s because it only takes two lords to stop it. The amount of times I actually want Elesh Norn are really not that much. It happens mostly if they get like a slow start from double Aether Vial or something.
Games with a turn 1 Aether Vial are completely different games. Instead of turn 1 Cursecatcher into turn 2 lord into turn 3 hit me for 5, they have turn 2 two lords into turn 3 hit me for 6. And if they curve out with two more lords on turn 3, I take 10. Ouch! Not only that, but it gives them a way around Remand and even Wraths, since they EoT activate the Vial. Answers to Vial are a must.
Ghostly Prison is really good here, they play a lot of cheap creatures and don’t really want to pay mana to attack with them. Disenchant is a must for Aether Vial, it’s just so important. Even if they don’t get early Aether Vial they play 4 Spreading Seas we can hit. Wurmcoil also puts a lot of pressure on them and they usually don’t have good answers for it.
Timely is somewhat on the fence because they usually have Islandwalk, and with 4 Spreading Seas and us playing some Islands they have a decent chance to have it up. Gaining the 6 life isn’t negligible though, which is why I like it here.
I cut Elesh Norn, she’s just so much worse than Iona. Thirst and Map are just expendable here, I need to interact early instead of durdling and Tron doesn’t really do enough with 4 Spreading Seas. Continuing on the Tron discussion, cutting the Sphinx’s Revelation actually seems quite good since I won’t get to Tron easily nor will the card really do a lot. I’m usually dead by the time I would cast it.
Nivmagus Combo
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Elesh Norn
Key cards: Pact of Negation, Apostle’s Blessing
Matchup is basically horrible for every deck not running spot discard. They win fast, as early as turn 2, and most decks aren’t equipped to handle it. Even if you have the Path, they have a bit of resiliency and the potential to Pact it or Blessing it. The deck is extremely well positioned to play filler cards like that which are never dead.
You basically have to hope they draw poorly and you see Path. Without an early Path, you will lose the game for sure. Even with one, there’s a good chance you still lose.
Iona naming black seems like your best choice, but it’s not particularly good. They still can go off around it most likely. You also have to name black since they typically play 3 Slaughter Games which is problematic for us if we name a different colour. Elesh Norn is also good if you get into a good position for it, though it’s usually not the case.
All the cards we board in are good against their combo in some way. Spellskite isn’t exactly great but when they need the Apostle’s Blessing to resolve, it’s great to redirect. It also chumps early if we get into such a scenario, as they otherwise need Ground Rift to kill us around it. We also board into the counters just because they can potentially interact.
We board out all the slow cards, Eye and Emrakul are not doing anything, Sphinx’s Rev is way too slow, and Thirst is just the next best slow option, since I do want to keep Wraths in as extra removal, and we can’t board out Gifts. Honestly, if you’re casting Thirst you’re doing well so it’s not really something I care to leave in. Map is also quite expendable as we’re not aiming to race.
Scapeshift
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Sundering Titan, Iona
Key cards: Cryptic
Scapeshift is a difficult matchup because the deck presents a clock faster than ours and we cannot use Gifts combo to win, at least in the MB. That makes it insanely difficult for us to try and race, because we’re essentially trying to stall out a game against Primeval Titan and Scapeshift. Either card can do some serious damage and we have no good answers. Remand doesn’t really do the trick. MB, you should probably lose most of the games.
Sundering Titan is fairly good against them. It should hopefully give you time to find something else to win. Blowing up 3 lands is almost guaranteed to happen and that’s good for us. If they’re playing a list with Prismatic Omen, we can maybe blow up 4 or 5 lands and get some insane value from it.
Cryptic is a huge pain because it shuts down Iona. You can’t really name blue when all their win conditions are green. You’d need to have backup ready for them when they go off. At the same time, if you name green, they will bounce her. You just don’t get nearly enough consistency out of her to want to bank on it. Especially if you tap out for it turn 4, which you basically can’t. I do think naming blue and having counters for backup is the best option you’re going to get. Considering how quickly we can potentially do it and how much of their deck shuts down, you can easily race. Again, you better be prepared for their combo with Remands or whatnot. If you can muster two Iona attacks + a Colonnade, you only need like two turns. They’re not going to interact at all with you outside of going off, and at sorcery speed. The big thing is that they can’t go off early because we don’t actually take any damage ourselves. They’re going to need 7 lands in play to do it.
Boarding into the counters is good because we really want to force stop the Scapeshift. This is also one of the matchups that I’m really happy I have Dispel instead of a third Negate because we’re going to fight over the Scapeshift, and they play an abundance of counters as well. Rule of Law is nice because Scapeshift is a sorcery, meaning Remand turns into “delay you an entire turn”. We can totally race if that’s the case.
Wurmcoil might seem a bit strange, but the deck doesn’t play much hard removal, and their deck is also predicated on exact math. Typically at 2 Valakut and 10 Mountains, it’s somewhat difficult for them to do more than 18 damage. That’s great for us since we don’t really take any damage ourselves and should have life. But more pertinently, if you were to gain life from Wurmcoil you’d almost assuredly win the game. Similarly for Spellskite, you can redirect for 2, and since all the triggers happen at the same time, you basically trade Spellskite to mitigate 1 damage for each trigger, which likely saves you. Again, predicated on exact math, and having no ability to try again, it should easily win you a game.
Wraths are really bad here, as is Elesh Norn. No cards that I really care about. Repeal and Path come out because there’s not many permanents to bounce, maybe Prismatic Omen but it’s not that important. They’re known to play Primeval Titan so leaving in a few Paths is going to be better than Wraths, especially since Path is instant speed (if they tap out ever), and lets us fight counters much easier. I would also rather leave in one Oblivion Ring since it’s still decent against the Titan, but can act as that catch all for something like Prismatic Omen.
Also watch out for stuff like Obstinate Baloth. They often board then just as a midrange option to stall, and they could potentially get some good damage in seeing we side out a lot of creature removal. I’m not too scared of it killing me though, but playing around the potential might just come back to save you.
In the case of Baloths, Iona becomes a lot worse. Even if you name blue there are real things they can do with green mana, especially if they play Primeval Titan. You should at least be aware of it and not get blown out by that fact.
Soul Sisters
Favours: You
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona
Key cards: None; Rest in Peace
This matchup is pretty decent for us. With ways to interact to slow them down just a bit plus Wraths, we can hopefully stall out long enough. We’re one of the decks that doesn’t care about 40 life on their side, so that whole advantage doesn’t do anything for them.
Iona is obviously the nuts, you can’t lose after reanimating her.
Boarding in aggro hate cards, nothing particularly special. With them playing Path, and I think they can probably leave some amount in, I don’t think there’s a reason to board Wurmcoil. It doesn’t really do a lot for you, especially when they can block + sac the Martyr and have Ascendant to fly over to get damage through. At the worst the Ascendant nulls the damage so you’re only buying one turn per Wurmcoil attack. Especially with cards like Squadron Hawk they can produce quite a few blockers for a while.
I board out Elesh Norn because I want to get to Iona and I envision very few scenarios where I actually want to get her as opposed to Iona. Leaving in the triple Wrath as well, should I actually need to force it the option is there. I like boarding out a Map and Thirst because they’re a bit slow in a matchup where we really just want to get to Gifts. You usually know whether the matchup is going to be tough on the second turn or not. On the play Remand is so much better because you get to counter their turn 2 Martyr of Sands. If they play it again they leave it exposed to being Path’d.
Be prepared for Rest in Peace in the board as it can stop your ability to combo off. I don’t want to board in Disenchant for just the one card, but I can leave in Oblivion Ring and Repeal to handle it. Sadly we can’t Gifts for anything to get rid of it, but if one of the answers is Repeal, we’d have a hard time answering it well anyways.
Storm
Favours: Even
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Elesh Norn
Key cards: Echoing Truth
Storm is a pretty even matchup in testing. They have the capability to go off really early and we have limited interaction. With a deck like Twin, we can Path creatures, but against Storm, we’re basically trying to race to Iona. Electromancer or Pyromancer’s Ascension gives them the ability to kill us on turn 4. Remand is particularly bad as the only counter since their spells are cheap or get copied. I can’t really Remand a copied ritual, it doesn’t do much.
Iona is always good in this matchup, you get to name blue or red and shut them down. It’s hard to reach critical mass when either colour is named. Blue is slightly better because they board Echoing Truths, but that’s about it, it’s not significantly better. They can also win with red available through it if they get lucky (they normally don’t). Especially with one ritual cut after bans, it’s a lot harder.
Elesh Norn is also good if you expect them to switch to Empty the Warrens. It’s not something you proactively reanimate, but that you can keep in the 60 in-case it happens. If you’re playing triple Wrath though, the Elesh Norn is no longer worth it. It’s just a nice out if you need to force a response to Empty the Warrens.
It’s important to know how the deck functions to know what to counter. For example, say they go off without Ascension or Electromancer and just go: ritual, ritual, ritual, Past in Flames, ritual flashback, and have 0-1 mana left over. You’re now in a position where countering the last ritual can almost win you the game straight up. On the flip side, if you let the rituals all resolve and there’s a 4th in hand, you’re straight up dead. So sometimes you need to gamble and be aware. Generally speaking with Electromancer or active Ascension in play, you’re boned. You probably should just counter the first one and live to see another turn. Remand gets progressively worse against them as the game goes on or as either card enters, since costing them an extra mana or being useless doesn’t particularly help.
You bring in basically anything that interacts with them and take out everything that doesn’t. Disenchant hits Ascension and Purge hits Ascension and Electromancer. It’s pretty difficult to go off without either. Everything else is really obvious, counters, Rule of Law, and grave hate.
Emrakul is slow as is Eye; you’re going to win off Iona plain and simple. They’re not really looking to interact with you, just to win around your hate. Similarly speaking, Wraths and Paths are bad, they don’t do much. I’ll leave in a 1-of Path since I don’t need anything else, it does at least hit Electromancer. I also leave in Elesh Norn for the chance that they board into Empty the Warrens and go off. Storm typically can’t go off twice, so if you Elesh Norn after the Warrens you should be safe and have enough answers to close out the game. It’s much better than Wrath since your Gifts turns into it and you have a 1-of as opposed to 3-of.
Playing Relic correctly is key in this matchup. Relic can be used in two main scenarios: to stop Past in Flames and to stop Ascension from getting counters. Honestly, it’s difficult to know when to crack it. Sometimes you want to pro-actively stop Ascension, because Ascension with two counters will probably kill you. On the other hand, removing the grave is usually good in response to Past in Flames. In my experience, I like cracking early to stop Ascension. Even if you remove the grave, if they have 2 counters and enough cards in hand, they can go off. While the grave is nice, doubling up spells usually does the trick. If they start chaining the draw spells there’s little hope for you.
They’re capable of bringing in Blood Moon, though typically don’t. While it’s a strong card they’d rather focus on combo hate answers as opposed to proactively stopping an opponent from hating, especially when a lot of hate is easily playable, like Relic.
Also note that Ethersworn Canonist is typically just as good as Rule of Law. They normally only board into the Echoing Truth against us because it’s typically a Shatterstorm for Affinity (it is bad to board it for us) and Bolts, which again are bad against us. Now I’m not here saying go play Canonist so you can beat them down over 10 turns, but I’m just pointing it out if you’re in such a situation or would rather play this for some reason. It’s potentially better for us since we play artifacts, but Rule of Law is typically better as a whole.
Mono U Tron
Favours: Even
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Terastodon
Key Cards: None
Matchup plays out a lot like a mirror, we’re both blue Tron decks. When we get access to Path it doesn’t particularly do a lot, nor do Wraths. The matchup ends up being bad due to the main difference in our decks. Mono U Tron has counters instead of removal, which turns out to be very good when none of us are playing any creatures.
Iona for blue is probably the best option, you cut off a lot of the deck. Sundering Titan and Platinum Angel don’t really do anything and I’m generally just not scared of the over the top things until they get to Mindslaver. Terastodon is good as well, it’s Tron and you blow up lands. You'll need to watch out for Oblivion Stone if you're doing that though, because it can still kill your dudes. Honestly though, you will probably not end up going for the combo because you'll be scared to play into their counters. You'll likely be playing a slower game.
Typically they don’t play Emrakul, they play Mindslaver, and fetch it with Treasure Mage. Treasure Mage conveniently fetches their Platinum Angel and Sundering Titan too, not that either really do anything here. Mindslaver is something they can potentially win with before we get to Emrakul, since it’s slightly cheaper. However, in the interest of a win condition that goes through counters, Emrakul is clearly better in that regard, and this is a control mirror.
In comes Relics to deal with Mindslaver. I want to stop it because I’m reasonably concerned about it, even early game. Disenchant seems great, they’re playing Maps and Signets/Talismans (typically UB ones) just for a bit of ramp and filtering. It’s also just a nice out to a bunch of random cards that they can play, like Platinum Angel. Suppression Field is also great against Mindslaver lock and slowing down stuff like Map. Counters are obviously good in control mirrors.
I basically board out all the removal, I’m really not concerned about their creatures. If I die to a Treasure Mage repeatedly hitting me then that’s cool. I’m going to go over the top and try to counter as many things as I can. With 8 counters I should hopefully be able to do that, while being proactive enough.
RG Tron
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Terastodon
Key cards: Karn
This matchup is extremely difficult because their threats pose huge problems for us. It essentially boils down to two main issues: their speed and Karn.
Karn is a problem because we can’t effectively handle him. He’s very large and scary, and exiling a land is a huge concern for us. We can’t particularly put any reverse pressure on him. We bank highly on Remand to do the job and stall, but Karn does real work. Playing cards like Condescend, Pithing Needle, and Oblivion Ring help, but they matchup is still problematic. Playing 3 cards MB to deal with a threat coming down on turn 4 that is easily found by them is difficult to say the least.
Their speed is also a problem for us. Our deck relies half the time on the principle that, if we get to late game we win. Emrakul and Mindslaver are difficult cards to deal with. However, they’re playing basically the same win conditions except with a faster clock. We don’t really have an option to race them, so it just becomes difficult to win. Even if we deal with multiple Karns (say Needle that sticks), they can just race us.
You basically can only reanimate Terastodon to interact, and even then it’s not always enough. It’s certainly powerful if you can get it off, but it doesn’t win the game on its own like Iona naming their only colour does. Between Karn and Oblivion Stone they have outs to it, that are actually decently reasonable. Additionally, we average turn 4 with it, so there’s a good chance we simply can’t get it off in time. I’ve had plenty of games where it would have been great, but due to the speed of their deck, I didn’t get a chance. You would have to play Terastodon in combination with several other early-game cards like Spreading Seas to do something.
Sideboard:
+1 Suppression Field
+1 Rule of Law
+2 Negate
+2 Relic
-3 Wrath
-1 Iona
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Unburial Rites
We’ve got a lot of dead cards so we’re just boarding out everything that’s bad here. The Gifts combo is particularly awful so all of it comes straight out, as do Wrath effects.
Suppression Field is quite good at stemming things since they play Relic, Oblivion Stone, Karn, and Map. You can get a decent amount of value out of it and at least slow them a little bit. Rule of Law works quite similarly, since they play a lot of cheap eggs and ramp spells, you slow them down a little bit. It can hurt us in a grindy game but I think we get more value out of it.
Negate is quite obviously good against Karn so it naturally comes in. We also bring in Relic just to draw. There’s nothing else in the board worth bringing in, Wurmcoil and Spellskite both do very little here.
If you’re playing Terastodon, you board that in and keep Unburial Rites in as well. You then either don’t bring in the Relics or board out some number of Path / Repeal. With only 4 Wurmcoils to deal with, Path has very little impact, but an unchecked Wurmcoil will kill you really fast. Similarly, Repeal has very little impact since most cards that stay in play cost too much to reasonably bounce. Even if you try to bounce something else like Relic or Chromatic Star, they can sacrifice in response and blank your card.
The matchup is actually quite even. We don’t play a lot of instant-speed interaction (4 Path, 4 Remand), and they can win at instant speed. That said, one answer is often enough to let us keep going. Additionally, Pestermite and Exarch can tap Emrakul, which can buy them a lot of time. The fact that Elesh Norn and Iona both do wonders against them are important.
This matchup largely comes down to who gets their key cards. If you can get answers for their creatures or for their combo, you'll be in good shape. If they get to combo you early while you have nothing, then you'll be in more trouble. A lot of the games will play out very slowly as neither of us want to tap out. One thing to know is not to be afraid to play things on your turn if your opponent can't punish you for it.
Iona is always the reanimation target of choice. She simply stops them from going off entirely. I would prefer to name blue to cut them off more cards, especially since their answer, Cryptic, isn't an answer anymore. However, if they have an Exarch or Pestermite in play when I’m choosing the colour, then I will slam name red. I would rather stop them from winning as a whole, and they win with one blue and one red card, not two of the same. If I name blue after Exarch hits, I give a window for Kiki or Twin to get cast and lose me the game.
Elesh Norn is also quite good in this matchup. It kills everything except Exarch and I’m not scared of a -⅓. It stops them from going off so I can reasonably reanimate it early. Again, Iona is better, but Elesh Norn is perfectly reasonable. If they’re not playing Cryptic, they may present no outs to her. That’s potentially a game winner, and it has happened to me before where my opponent conceded to Elesh Norn.
Be weary of Remands when you try to combo, but don’t go crazy. If you try to reanimate while they have 3 mana up, you’re generally safe in terms of not losing the game. While getting Remanded might suck, they won’t have the mana to win. But if you’re out of cards it could be troubling trying to keep up with them.
*Note that the cards in brackets are not always boarded. Dispel comes in against the all-in version and then we pull out a Thirst to make room.
This matchup boarding is rough because we have to board in so many cards. We want basically anything that interacts with their combo. That’s all the direct combo hate, and then counters. Everything but the counters should interact with the combo well enough (noting that they usually play 4 Twin and no Kiki), and then the Negates already stop Twin. We’re not concerned with them trying to race us for the most part, our deck goes over the top reasonable fast if we interact well. It's all about having good answers to them and not taking too much damage early.
We take out Wrath and Oblivion Ring as is standard against Twin decks. Then we also board out a couple Maps and a Thirst just to make room. The game either ends from our fatty or from Emrakul, and hopefully we have enough answers to interact. We'll also be playing a slow game against them. Unburial Rites comes out because we're likely not going to go for it, they'll basically always have counter mana up.
Twin will most likely board out some of the combo, if not all. The combo is unreliable in a matchup where we have Paths and board in several answers. It might not be worth boarding in Suppression Field/Torpor Orb if you're expecting them to board out the combo, but it's good if they keep it in.
This matchup is going to be tough. They not only play an instant speed combo, but also play Goyfs, which are really good against us. Despite we clock them, they can put enough pressure early, and don’t really fold to Wraths. Ooze is particularly good since it can remove our graveyard cards, like if we try to combo. I’d say it’s the hardest Twin matchup available.
Elesh Norn and Iona are both acceptable. Elesh Norn makes comboing impossible, and a smallish Goyf I can deal with. The issue with Iona is that you call one combo colour, but they can always just cast Goyfs and whatnot. So even if we get to that situation, Goyfs and Oozes potentially race her. I think Iona is likely better in this matchup because if I get to name blue, I can race. They can’t combo off, and all their fliers aren’t available either.
Post-board this deck almost always turns into a midrange deck. They try to grind the game out with Goyfs. As long as we can answer everything well enough we’re okay. I’m not confident they will do it against us because despite Goyf being solid, the combo is also fairly solid because they can’t grind it out, our deck has too good of a late game.
We still want to board in all the combo hate. Orb, Prison, Field, and Spellskite are all good. Wurmcoil is also good simply because they’re going to have a ton of Goyfs in play and we can stall out like that. If they draw enough Pestermites and Exarchs that’s fine.
Wraths all come out because they’re clunky. I don’t really care about Wrathing a Goyf and Pestermite simply because the combo threat is still real, and enough things have Flash. If you know they board out of the combo, then leaving in Wraths can work. However, I think we should be fine grinding out. Oblivion Ring comes out for the same reason, and then a Map as well just because it’s expendable.
This matchup plays out very similar to the UR Twin matchup. They try to grind us out with card advantage (Twin on Wall of Omens for example) and use Colonnade beats to win. Thankfully our deck presents enough of a clock. The main difference in this matchup is that they try to force combo us, because their cards aren’t exactly that great for grinding (Wall of Omens doesn’t attack, Restoration Angel costs 4, Colonnade is expensive to activate, etc.).
They will try to and go off, so the same way as the previous one, a single answer works. You can often get by just Pathing one creature. The list is usually 4 Twin, 1-2 Kiki, so the amount of combo pieces are there. But in playing Restoration Angel, the amount of combinations they can win off decreases (Twin on Angel doesn’t work), and also makes the deck slightly slower.
Iona is worse here than vs most Twin decks because you can’t shut off a win condition against them without leaving her exposed. They can win with blue + white or red + white, and naming red leaves them with Cryptics and Paths available. It’s not exactly where I’d like to be with this card. MB you probably actually don’t want to grab any reanimation target and try to attrition them other ways. With 4 ways in either colour to answer her, you’re in serious trouble hedging. If you’re going for her, I think blue is the best to call. I hit more targets this way, and I can use Path / Remands to answer Restoration Angels and Twins more reliably, and if my Iona gets Path’d, I still get some small value.
We board the same way as UR Twin for the same reasons. They’re forcing the combo on us so all the combo hate cards are good.
Sundering Titan is also acceptable against a 3-colour deck. It’s quite possibly the best answer simply because it stops them from having a chance. If I blow up three lands, they’re going to have a hard time coming back. I just need to stall until I get to a critical mass situation where I can always deal with their answers. Especially since we share UW, I don’t blow up any of my lands either.
Ultimately which reanimation target you pick depends on the situation. If Sundering Titan looks like a blowout, you have to just sort of go for it. On average Iona is likely better. I think we should be willing to accept like 1 Path answering us and try to go for her rather than Sundering Titan and let them do whatever they want, assuming they have mana. They tend to be able to play around Sundering Titan quite easily.
As a precursor to this matchup, I cite the main difference between this deck and UWR Midrange as Geist. While there are several other cards that will differ in each version, Geist is the one that impacts us the most. It drastically changes how we need to think about the matchup, play the matchup, and the odds of us winning.
This matchup is really good for us. We’re basically playing a control mirror except one of us clocks someone and the other doesn’t. When we present such a hard clock with such a difficult to interact with answer, it’s hard for them to really combat it. They play a very slow, grind-oriented game, which involves them eventually winning with a Snapcaster, Colonnade, or Planeswalker, while we have nothing to do. But since we play something like Emrakul as a win condition, they can’t interact with it well. Often times, 15 in the air should win the game outright. And even in the case it doesn’t, it’s still not looking well for them.
In the current meta, if people are playing soft Wraths (like Anger of the Gods), it works well for us because they can only tap Emrakul with Cryptic. It’s impossible for them to actually kill it, which is oh so good for us. They can also tap it with Ajani if we let them, though we should usually be able to kill it before they get such a chance.
We force them to try to race us, which can go horribly wrong for them. Their deck is also just not suited to race us. They play a ton of slow, grindy cards, and it likely doesn’t work out well for them. They have to play as the aggressor, and it can work, but I think as a whole, we should be okay to just grind out a win on turn 10.
While you don’t need to reanimate, Sundering Titan works well here. Slowing them down is always great, and sharing colours with us means we don’t lose any ourselves. If they remove the Sundering Titan, those 6 lands are probably winning us the game straight up. Iona is also acceptable, naming blue, but only post-board because of Paths. In the MB, naming something from Iona is a toss up, they play 3-4 path and 3-4 Cryptic.
Sideboard:
+2 Negate
+1 Dispel
+2 Timely
+1 Rule of Law
+1 Wurmcoil
-1 Path
-3 Wrath
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Oblivion Ring
-1 Repeal
This matchup completely changes post-board. They turn into more of an aggro deck, trying to race us. They know that if the game drags on, they have no hope of winning. With builds running as many as 4 Bolt, 4 Helix, 3 Electrolyze, they can reasonably race us with Snapcaster, Ajani, and Colonnade. Your goal is to stave off the race they’re now trying to have.
They may or may not board out Paths. They should board out some number, perhaps not all but definitely some. Assuming that, Iona naming Blue becomes much better as an option. Wurmcoil also becomes really good since they can’t remove it as effectively and it crushes their race. Sundering Titan will always be a good choice, especially after boarding out Paths.
Negates and Dispels are great here, they play next to no creatures. Dispel on a Bolt is actually quite reasonable after board. Timely comes in because they race us rather slowly. Since it’s mostly spell based, buying a lot of time is good. Whether we get the creatures or not doesn’t matter. There’s always the chance you get to blank Snapcaster which is cool. Rule of Law aims to slow them down, especially since Snapcaster now does nothing. And while we’re on the plan of gaining life, Wurmcoil is now a viable card.
Wraths instantly come out, they’re useless. They might run some number of Cliques and Angels, but given they have flash, it’s rather difficult to Wrath well against them. Elesh Norn comes out for the same reason, they may have very few creatures. I also board out the catch all Oblivion Ring and Repeal because there’s nothing in particular I even want to target. They may or may not play Ajani, and Gideon doesn’t particularly scare me. At least against Gideon the Path is just as good, as are the creatures. Oblivion Ring isn’t exactly my idea as a Clique answer. I also board out a single Path since I don’t really need all four.
This matchup is particularly difficult because of Geist. Our deck is quite weak to that card. It’s very powerful and presents a really fast clock, and we simply can’t deal hexproof well. We have little in the way of hard counters for it and we can’t expect a Wrath or something similar to resolve when they have Mana Leak, Remand, and Cryptic available. Typically we rely on the fact that our deck can answer everything, but Geist is one of the few cards we can’t.
Remand is also quite good against us in this matchup. Oh, you want to cast Gifts? That resolves, I’ll Remand the Unburial Rites. You sometimes bank too hard on it and flop on your face. For them it’s so good because it nets them a card while protecting their Geist for another turn. Just like us trying to stall, they will stall out on a Geist.
We sort of just have to hope to avoid Geist and get lucky. Timely is insanely good and non-Geist cards aren’t a problem. I can handle exactly everything not named Geist in the MB.
Timely is going to be great to interact with their deck as a whole. What they can’t do with Geist they can do with Bolt, Helix, and Snapcaster. Lifegain is going to favour us in this matchup. Timely is also just a really good Geist answer since it’s good on the play or draw, whereas Wrath is significantly better on the play since they run t3 Geist into Wrath. Timely generates 3 tokens against them, which is really good for trying to fight Geist. I will always triple block Geist.
Counters are obviously good here, and we have room to spare. Even if there’s not a lot Dispel hits, it’s a really good card to help resolve Gifts combo because it only costs 1. You may be able to stave a turn, and since they can’t Spell Snare anything, you only have to dodge double Mana Leak/Remand.
I also like Wurmcoil in this matchup since he’s proactively gaining us life. When burning us out is a real strategy and Paths are boarded out, I’m basically running Wurmcoil into Cryptic which seems fine to me. One block does wonders.
This matchup tends to be quite difficult for us. They play just a really good host of cards that we struggle against, and there’s not a lot of uniformity. Their deck is usually 5c Good Stuff, and that’s a deck we legitimately have problems with.
Geist is a beating, as always. It’s difficult to deal with and puts insane pressure on us. Additionally, they’re playing cards like Tribal Flames, which help them speed up damage. Turn 4 casting two Tribal Flames would deal 10 to us. Just think of this as being a really aggressive Geist deck. No holds barred and we’ll go all-in on an aggro plan hoping that we do enough good things really fast.
This deck has trouble against more aggressive decks because they kill themselves, but they are great against us because we do nothing. We don’t put any pressure, so their destructive nature doesn’t actually make a difference. They are free to take however much damage they would like to and not be scared of losing.
Reanimating either Elesh Norn or Iona is lackluster in this matchup. Elesh Norn kills all their creatures, but doesn’t really stop anything like Tribal Flames -> Snapcaster -> Tribal Flames. When the deck potentially plays 4 Tribal Flames, 4 Bolts, 4 Helix, you’re not exactly getting away with anything. Add in that they play Paths and you’re in real trouble. For Iona, you’re in the same position. You’re forced to name white hoping they don’t have Cryptics (they probably don’t), but then they can still play half their deck against you anyways, and it might be too little too late. MB you should reserve reanimating for whatever seems best at the time.
We board into aggro hate to slow them down a bit. I’m not overly a fan of bringing in Ghostly Prison because it doesn’t slow them down much. The deck can be as little as Geist + Snapcaster, and we really need to answer them more aggressively. Stalling them two mana per turn isn’t going to do a lot when Geist races us really well. Even if we manage to answer Geist, they likely have tons of burn to finish us. Negates and Dispels come in because of how much burn they have. I really do want to try to answer it, and Negating a Tribal Flames is really good.
I board out Eye and Emrakul because they’re slow and the deck won’t let us get there. Oblivion Ring is bad against Geist, as is Repeal. Map and Thirst tend to be a tad on the slow side in multiples. I like leaving in Iona and Elesh Norn because we’d rather have that flexibility. The marginal difference between Iona and Elesh Norn being there as opposed to Map and Thirst isn’t that much, and having the exact answer in a bad matchup is better than slightly more consistency.
Sideboarded, the Wurmcoil is much better since it’s typically only Paths and any swing with it buys me a ton of time. Again though, it depends on the situation, as there are many when something else is better. It gets particularly better as you have backup for Path. Sundering Titan will always be the best option, so bring that in if you have it.
Leylines are also quite good in this matchup if you have them. With 12 burn spells to the face, it can do a lot of work.
Small Zoo
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Sundering Titan, Iona
Key cards: Boros Charm, anything that gives hexproof
The deck is fast, and can usually grind out the last few points of damage. The biggest problem with this deck is that none of your reanimation targets do enough.
Iona typically has to name white in the MB because they play Path. They can still Bolt you, and most of their creatures resolve as well. Considering she’s only a 7/7, Ghor-Clan Rampager can mess you up if you block, or if you don’t as well.
Elesh Norn still dies to Path, but even still, she doesn’t kill most of their creatures, which is unfortunate.
Sundering Titan can be surprisingly effective. Since they play a low land count and a lot of fetches and shocks, you can hit multiple lands quite easily and keep them off mana.
The most important card to watch out for is Boros Charm. All 3 modes are quite devastating to us. The most obvious is the indestructible, as they blow us out trying to Wrath. Sometimes you’re forced to play into it, which isn’t exactly fun. Double strike is also pretty crazy since our removal is light, and if they have a hexproof spell, that could spell trouble. Lastly, 4 to the face is not bad, it’s damage all the same.
Vines of Vastwood has also been a blowout against me in testing. While the card isn’t all that common, it’s really good when we play a small amount of spot removal. Them 1-for-1ing us is really good for them as we usually rely on Paths to resolve.
Sideboard:
+1 Purge
+2 Timely
+1 Ghostly Prison
+1 Wurmcoil
If you’re on the play:
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Condescend
-1 Thirst
-1 Oblivion Ring
-1 Map
If you’re on the draw:
-1 Elesh Norn
-4 Remand
In goes aggro hate plus Purge because they play enough red creatures, as well as Domri. They really should board out Domri but even still you’re looking at Goblin Guide, Kird Ape, and Vexing Devil.
Out comes Elesh Norn in either scenario, she isn’t really doing much.
On the draw Remands are slow and won’t cut it. What happens is that we don’t get to counter anything early, they get two creatures into play before we can counter. Once that happens we’re not going to get anything from Remand, they’re going to go into creature protection mode with cards like Boros Charm, Vines of Vastwood or other sorts of stuff. They just don’t really need to cast creatures at this point, and even if they do, we’re not really dealing with the ones in play.
On the play I love Remand because it can counter a potential Goyf or force their second creature to be something like Vexing Devil, in which I’m happy to take the 4. In this case, I cut Condescend because it’s mana intensive and their spells are cheap, Thirst and Oblivion Ring because they’re slow, and Map, because I ultimately don’t need Tron that early.
They won’t board into Blood Moon, not when they’re playing Nacatl and Kird Ape. This also means if you are playing a Sundering Titan, it’s going to be really good here. Since they play a light land count due to their curve, you can really mess them up. On top of that, Nacatl and Kird Ape get significantly worse in that case. Bolts go either way post-board as well, some people will side them out recognizing things like land hate or artifact hate might help them drag the game and grind, while others will keep them recognizing the matchup is based on killing us fast and use it to push the last few points. Paths also go either way post-board, typically I would suspect them to come out. They actually don’t really do much since Iona names white proactively. I would strongly consider naming red post-board if I could still put up a reasonable fight if there was a Path.
This matchup is really quite bad for us. It’s like Loam, where they play a lot of cards that are just good against us, while also being somewhat like RG Tron where our cards don’t cut it.
Raven’s Crime is a house, and with Loam to recur it, we’re in trouble. The same goes for Qhost Quarter, that lock is really solid against us. Combined with them having actual cards that do actual things, they can keep recurring it and get us to nothing. Liliana is also always good against us. There’s also no guarantee they play Lili, but you need to be concerned for that possibility. It’s actually rather unlikely they play her, recent builds shifted away, but she’s still perfectly fine and a strong card.
Don’t Remand stuff like Raven’s Crime or Loam if you can avoid it, they’re just going to get the value next turn. With their win conditions, they should be fine to grind us to nothing in the mid game. Even if I buy a bit of time now with a Loam activation, I’m still going to see it next turn and see the Ghost Quarter then too. It doesn’t really do me any good to delay them a turn since I need a ton of turns for stuff. It only makes sense if you need to do it to support resolving Gifts.
I think Sundering Titan is the best choice, they play a lot of colours and you’d get a lot of value here. Iona can work, but is troubling. With double colours of removal she’s not that safe. In fact, this deck plays triple colours for removal, playing Wraths, Paths, Doom Blades, and Cryptics. Honestly I would rather avoid her. This is probably one matchup you won’t win without Sundering Titan or Crucible. It’s a good thing the deck has never been that popular, I’d be scared if it ever did get popular though.
In comes grave hate for Raven’s Crime, Ghost Quarter lock, and Gifts. In comes Negate as I want counters, and despite they don’t play a ton of instants, it seems much better than something like Path staying in.
I’m not scared of their creatures, they’ll combo off after I’m already depleted. I just board out the Wraths and a Path. They are known to play Terastodon so the Paths are going to be good in that scenario. Again, not so much on a Terastodon guarantee but it’s something to be aware of.
Leyline of Sanctity is insane against them. It would stop Gifts, Liliana, and Raven’s Crime. Definitely board those in for this matchup if you have them. Crucible is also great here because of their GQ lock plan, so if you’re playing Mindslaver lock your matchup instantly gets better.
8-Rack
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona
Key cards: Liliana
Discard is typically really good against us, which makes this matchup somewhat difficult. We’re really banking on getting Gifts early to find Iona and to dodge Liliana. If you see Lili, you’re probably just dead. She should stop your Gifts shenanigans while also putting huge pressure on you. I think the fact that our top decks are sometimes bad gives them a slight edge in the match. It’s not that bad though, and I think it’s close to even, Iona being the reason. If it weren’t for Iona, it would probably be a lot worse because we’d have little to no outs.
Iona is the clear choice, they’re mono black. They can still cast The Rack through it but I’m not overly concerned; we’ll race. The ability for us to just take the matchup like this is what makes it good. Even still, if they have stuff like The Rack and Shrieking Affliction in play already, we could be in trouble going for Iona if we’re down cards. Hopefully you can just not play cards and be okay. Like if you resolve Iona, just passing the turn works because they should have 0 outs to her. As long as you don’t die from what’s in play or a top deck Rack you should be fine.
We’re seemingly boarding in a lot of random stuff, but we have a lot of garbage to take out. Timely are good just to stall, we won’t ever get creatures but we don’t care, 6 life is good against The Rack. Negates are great as well since they answer every card in the deck, especially Lili. Purge, again, they’re mono black. Disenchant stops all their kill spells, aka The Rack and Shrieking Affliction, as well as potential hate cards like Ensnaring Bridge. Wurmcoil is also good just to put pressure, gain life, and be good against Doom Blade / Lili. Relic comes in for the express purpose that it cantrips and we have space.
Wraths and Paths come straight out, as does Elesh Norn. No creatures? No need to play removal. Last card is simply the Emrakul because you’re not going to win with it, finding the Iona is your game plan and Wurmcoil is likely decent enough if you get to that place. I find it unlikely we grind out the game long enough. I would also rather keep in cards like Map and Thirst because they draw, and the Relic drawing as well is not insignificant. They’re also known to play Raven’s Crime which means we’re getting value on the Relics potentially.
10. Other Tron Decks
If you like Tron as a style, but don’t like UW Tron for whatever reason, then try looking at the other Tron decks. Maybe one of them better suits you.
1. RG Tron. This is a ramp deck at heart. You cast a bunch of ramp spells and then cast something big early on. You can assemble Tron as early as turn 3 and cast something for 7. Typically the deck will play Karn Liberated and Wurmcoil Engine. Of course, the deck still plays Emrakul, since it races to Emrakul very quickly. Outside of that, it plays cards like Pyroclasm, Oblivion Stone, and Relic of Progenitus to tie itself over. You play a lot of “eggs”, like Chromatic Sphere and Chromatic Star to dig through your deck and also filter your mana to cast cards like Ancient Stirrings and Pyroclasm. If you’re a Timmy and like slamming giant things, this is for you. Traditionally, this is the most competitive Tron list, though it has fallen far out of favour as of late, due to it having a poor Twin/Storm matchup.
2. Mono U Tron. This is as blue as it gets. The deck is basically counters, draw spells, and Mindslaver lock. They play a few random cards for certain purposes like Sundering Titan and Platinum Angel. The deck is considerably cheaper for those that have money as a concern. It does not typically play Gifts Combo or Emrakul. The deck plays cards like Remand, Condescend, and Repeal, to basically just stem the early game and try to find more cards. You also get to play Treasure Mage as a way to search out your bigger answers. While not necessarily more competitive than UW Tron, it tends to see more play on average due to the cost, having a good competitive-to-price ratio. I think it has seen less competitive (GP or higher) play.
3. Izzet Tron. This is a blue red control deck that tries to cheat Eldrazi into play via Through the Breach. You play more Eldrazi if you enjoy putting them into play. It’s basically the format’s version of Through the Breach that doesn’t lose if you never resolve Through the Breach. It otherwise functions similarly to any other blue Tron deck, mostly to UW Tron since it generally plays Gifts as well. It also often plays 1 of each Eldrazi to guarantee it from Gifts, which is cool for Through the Breach. Instead of having Wrath and Day of Judgment you instead get cards like Pyroclasm, Firespout or Anger of the Gods. This deck has seen relatively little play.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below is a list of questions that get asked frequently that I’m just going to answer to help everyone out. I will add to it as more questions pop up.
What do you think of my list?
If your list is close to the lists other people are posting, it’s probably fine. UW Tron has a bit of flexibility within the list, so if you’re sticking to commonly played cards, it’s probably fine. Here’s a guideline of the kinds of things your deck should probably have:
This puts you at 59 cards on the high end, and probably more realistically around 56, giving you a few cards of flexibility. If your deck is falling within something like this, it’s probably okay. If you’re posting something that seems pretty crazy, then we can have a discussion.
Should I play 24 or 25 lands?
This question depends largely on how you feel the deck is playing. The short answer is that either is fine. In more detail, 25 lands gives you more consistency on hitting your lands, but also makes your top deck worse because lands are typically bad off the top. Playing 4 versus 5 Signets factors in as well, because 24 lands is not nearly as bad if you play the 5th Signet. The number of Maps you play also matters because Maps somewhat act as lands, in a sense. It all boils down to what you think is right, and you can really play either number.
Should I play 4 or 5 Signets? Should I play Talisman instead of a Signet?
For starters, you need to understand your deck and understand the tradeoff with Talisman versus Signet. Talisman offers you immediate mana to use, but doesn’t filter your colours. In a traditional list playing, say 3 Maps and 4 Paths, you have exactly 7 cards in the deck that can make use of turn 2 Talisman providing immediate mana. In those lists, I see it being not as good because it’s not as big a deal. Path on turn 2 isn’t always the best play either. Some new lists are cutting Tron lands and playing more 1-mana spells like Spell Snare, which ups the value on Talisman.
If you’re playing a list with 12 Tron lands, perhaps another 1-2 colourless sources, you definitely want to be playing Signet. Signet filters your mana, in that it takes colourless mana and gives you coloured mana. Our deck is already not playing enough coloured sources, meaning you get a lot of value by being able to produce coloured mana. So with that said, I typically prefer to play the 4th Signet over the Talisman in these traditional lists with all 12 Tron lands.
Playing a 5th Signet really boils down to how often you want to have the early mana. Signet is one of the worst cards you can draw late, and you generally want it on turn 2. If you’re more concerned about being able to cast Gifts on turn 3, playing a 5th one can help. If you’re concerned about drawing dead cards, playing a 5th one is not as great. The 5th Signet is also much better when you’re playing less lands, and I typically wouldn’t advise playing the 5th Signet in a list with 25 mana producing lands (Eye does not count toward that total).
Should I play Eye of Ugin?
Eye of Ugin depends on whether or not you want to be able to force Emrakul. On one hand, Eye is often a dead card in the early-mid game. It gets small utility if you play Wurmcoil or Sundering Titan, but for the most part you rarely want to draw it before turn 10. At the same token, playing Eye allows you to be able to force Emrakul on your opponent. In games where you’re expecting to go to late game, it’s extremely valuable to be able to do this. An example is any control deck. We have a really good matchup against them, but mostly because our win conditions are hard to interact with and when we get to late game, we can force it.
I would play Eye of Ugin in a meta where you expect to be winning by Emrakul a decent amount. If you’re seeing decks like BGx, UWR Control, Esper Mentor, and Twin, then Eye is probably quite good. If you’re in a meta where you’re seeing primarily decks like Infect, Affinity, and Burn, it’s bad because you’re boarding it out a lot.
Should I play Mindslaver or Emrakul?
I think this one comes down to personal preference. Both are fine cards and fine win conditions, it just depends which one you prefer to play. I typically don’t like playing both of them, and if I am playing both, I’m not playing both full packages.
Let me quickly go over what either offers.
Mindslaver gives you a cheaper win condition and also a card that’s good in the mid game. Since it’s only 6 to cast and 10 to cast + activate, you can do it much earlier than Emrakul. Additionally, there are decks where activating it once will give you a lot of value since you can kill their creatures or mess up their combo. Mindslaver is harder to guarantee because you can’t fetch it with Eye of Ugin, only Gifts. Since the deck is already Gifts-centric, you’re adding even more equity to the card with the highest equity in the deck. Additionally, it loses to grave hate, which people sometimes board in against us.
Emrakul is obviously much more difficult to cast. Against decks like Twin or UWR Control, they can potentially answer it with cards like Cryptic Command, Pestermite, and Deceiver Exarch. That said, Emrakul is often harder to answer. Even while those decks can answer it, they often still have to find other cards to prevent themselves from losing the next turn.
Playing Emrakul requires only Emrakul, but often Eye. Eye is a card that’s not that great and generally just to facilitate it, so that sort of sucks. Playing Mindslaver requires Academy Ruins, which is another colourless land. If you want to guarantee Mindslaver to any degree, you have to play a second Academy Ruins and a Crucible of Worlds. Double Ruins is sometimes awkward to play with, and Crucible is only good sometimes (it’s good against BGx primarily).
My personal preference lies with Emrakul. I don’t think Mindslaver is a card I want to keep in against aggro decks, so the fact that it’s cheaper and isn’t totally dead against them isn’t that relevant. Even against Twin, where I found Emrakul can get tapped down fairly easily, I found myself wanting to guarantee my win condition instead of hoping to get there with Mindslaver. Again, this is my preference, and your mileage will vary, so you should try them and see which one works best for you.
What do you think about Leyline of Sanctity? Should I play 3 or 4 Leylines?
Leyline is a good card. It’s very good against Burn, but it’s also good against BGx and other fringe decks. I like it against BGx because it shuts down all their spot discard and Liliana (-2 and -6). BGx is a deck that’s designed to try to 1-for-1 you and then hope you draw the wrong cards, can’t play your game because you don’t have cards, or that cards like Goyf and Liliana are too hard to answer. When you start leaving them with dead cards and allowing yourself to play your game uninterrupted, it ends up very good.
As for whether to play 3 or 4, there are some tradeoffs to both. Most obviously is that you are less likely to opening hand it with fewer Leylines, but get an extra sideboard slot. It’s about 8.4% more likely that you get it opening hand if you play the 4th one, so while it’s a decent amount, it’s not something crazy. Remember that while Leyline is good against decks like Burn or BGx, it won’t instantly win you games. I notably lost a game against Burn having resolved 3 Leylines and Iona after my opponent drew most of his sideboarded cards.
What we do know is that playing a 4th will improve the matchups we want it against, but playing a different card can improve other matchups (or perhaps still be good in those matchups and improve others).
I wrote a post where I did some math on this with a simple example. You can view all about it here and here.
Why are you playing only one Unburial Rites?
Unburial Rites is a card we never want to draw. On its own, it does absolutely nothing. We only want to Gifts combo for it, so as we play more, the odds we draw it increase.
Some people may then argue, what do you do if you draw your only one? Well, we hope not to draw it, first off. The odds you draw it aren’t high enough to convince me playing a second one is a good idea. You have to factor in what will happen if you do draw it, and how it’s probably going to do nothing. Secondly is that we’re playing Thirst For Knowledge, which is our answer if we draw it. Thirst reasonably lets us discard it and then we can perform the combo.
Can I play a black source?
Certainly. Should you? Probably not. The black source is really difficult to justify because the mana already sucks. As it stands, we’re not playing enough coloured sources. It’s also statistically unlikely to draw Unburial Rites, so I’m not exactly expecting to draw it a bunch. While you may be able to cover yourself somewhat in that scenario, you’re not even always doing so. Sometimes you draw the Unburial Rites without the black source or a Map, which effectively negates the whole point you’re playing it.
Ultimately, it’s just not where I want to be. If you do decide you want to play it, then I would recommend looking into Engineered Explosives as well because it synergizes well with you playing an extra colour so you have x=3 as an option.
Have you tried splashing other colours?
Yes, I have. I tried splashing black to play Lingering Souls. It seems like the card would be really good for us. It’s a source of good blockers, synergizes very well with Gifts and Thirst, and is just a really good card.
The verdict? It was downright awful. Playing black meant I wanted more than one black source, and that created more trouble than you can imagine. At more than one black source, it was very apparent that I wasn’t playing enough coloured sources. I always ended up with the wrong colour combinations and I just couldn’t consistently cast the cards I wanted.
Honestly, it’s just too difficult to play 3 colours and play 12 colourless lands at the same time.
How many Remands should I play?
You can play 3 or 4. I think Remand is a good card, and I personally like playing 4. It draws a card and it’s a cheap answer to things. Early draw spells are hard to play in this fast format, making Remand a good compromise.
Some people would prefer hard counters, so cutting a Remand to play something like Condescend is fine. While Remand is a solid card, it sometimes falls by the wayside, and is usually much worse than Condescend in the late game because of how Condescend scales.
Wurmcoil vs Batterskull
Wurmcoil and Batterskull offer similar things, as a midgame card with lifelink. Wurmcoil is better on its own, but dies to Path, whereas Batterskull doesn't. However, you often won't want to just slam Batterskull on 5 mana. Wurmcoil can get fetched up if you play Eye, which is nice.
I'm typically more of a fan of Wurmcoil because I think it's overall just a better card. That said, I don't think either are that great right now. Most of the fast decks are too fast, and BGx is typically playing Path. Instead, I'm playing Ugin over it because Ugin is so much better in the matchups where I want Wurmcoil (read: mostly BGx). Ugin is also better against a larger range of decks because his -X is really strong.
How many basic lands should I play?
I don’t really like playing more than 3. You’d play an Island, a Plains, and a Snow-covered something. Whether it’s an Island or Plains is up to you. I think because we need both colours, playing too many basics is a problem, especially since we play a lot of colourless lands. As I tested more basics, I had consistency problems.
Decks like Twin get away with playing one Mountain only because they play an abundance of fetches that can find it or a dual land, and play Blood Moon as well. On top of that, the red isn’t as important as the blue, as it’s primarily for their win condition and then single red removal spells like Bolt and Electrolyze. We’re not Twin, we’re not capable of playing that many basics.
Should I play all 12 Tron lands?
The short answer is that I don’t know; the long answer is a lot more complicated.
Recently, decks have shown up cutting Tron lands. At first, I was definitely skeptical of doing it. The consistency for Tron drops a fair bit, and I really do like having Tron. But by that same token, Tron isn’t something we necessarily need early, and our deck has consistency issues with the colours. Cutting Tron lands and playing more coloured sources allows us to have better mana early game.
It’s too early for me to say whether I like this or not. I am testing it to see how it goes. I think, where the format is now, this is probably okay to do. With all the aggressive decks, Tron isn’t something you need as often. Among the top decks, you’re going to want Twin against BGx and Twin and the rest you don’t care as much. Realistically, most of the time Tron isn’t something you’re going to need to win.
The reason most of the 10 Tron lists are 10 Tron lands is because they always Tectonic Edge (or Fulminator Mage) your Tower, so you’re still playing the full 4 in that case. In the matchups where I expect to be Tectonic Edged, I also expect to want Tron, which is BGx and Twin. Twin usually doesn’t play too many Tec Edges and they play Blood Moon, so having more fetches and basics helps out there as well.
What are your thoughts on this card?
If it’s common enough, I’ve probably discussed it somewhere, so feel free to search the thread for my posts and that card. If it’s some farfetch’d card, feel free to post and ask. I took a large break playing Magic, so I don’t know all the cards.
12. Closing Remarks
I hope you’ve enjoyed the primer. A lot of hard work and time has gone into creating this, so I hope you’ve gotten a lot of information out of it.
If you see amiss, please don’t hesitate to let me know and bring it up. This guide is about providing the best information we can, and I’d rather be wrong and fix it than have bad information up. If you’d like to see more content or help provide content, send me a PM as well.
Shout outs to John Doe (for helping with the previous primer), the mods (for letting me post it), the pro players who have played the deck and displayed it to the world (LSV, Gerry Thompson, and Reid Duke), and you, for making my efforts be worth the while.
I'm getting into Mono-U Tron as we speak, and this primer is pretty helpful for that as well. Elevating my Mindslaver game to the next level. Now I need to build UW Tron. Fantastic primer. 10/10 would berry.
Thanks for the new primer Darksteel? The only thing that I don't like is that Emrakul is included in the images at the top of it when Mindslaver is just as viable of an option.
Empyrial Archangel - A cool utility creature that negates damage to the face. It’s particularly good against Scapeshift because they can’t go off if it resolves. Not only does it clock them, but they have no way to remove it aside from dealing 8 to the face, and that’s difficult for them. It should basically only die to Scapeshift, at which point they can’t Scapeshift you twice. The deck involves exact math that they can’t recover from. They can kill her, sure, but they won’t have enough Mountains left in the deck to kill you. The biggest downside to this creature is that you can only resolve it from Gifts combo, and against Scapeshift, they have counters to stop it.
This doesn't actually work, as far as I'm aware? The Valakut Bolts all go on the stack. Your opponent targets them all at you. They then resolve one by one. The first three are redirected to the Archangel, at which point the Archangel is dead so subsequent triggers can't be redirected.
They predicate themselves on exact math. Even if they manage to kill her, chances are the remaining triggers won't kill me.
Empyrial Archangel - A cool utility creature that negates damage to the face. It’s particularly good against Scapeshift because they can’t go off if it resolves. Not only does it clock them, but they have no way to remove it aside from dealing 8 to the face, and that’s difficult for them. It should basically only die to Scapeshift, at which point they can’t Scapeshift you twice. The deck involves exact math that they can’t recover from. They can kill her, sure, but they won’t have enough Mountains left in the deck to kill you. The biggest downside to this creature is that you can only resolve it from Gifts combo, and against Scapeshift, they have counters to stop it.
This doesn't actually work, as far as I'm aware? The Valakut Bolts all go on the stack. Your opponent targets them all at you. They then resolve one by one. The first three are redirected to the Archangel, at which point the Archangel is dead so subsequent triggers can't be redirected.
They predicate themselves on exact math. Even if they manage to kill her, chances are the remaining triggers won't kill me.
But Empyrial Archangel even good? It seems really cute, but maybe a waste of a sideboard slot.
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Standard UGRB Emerge
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Legacy UWBRG The E.P.I.C. Storm
Empyrial Archangel is a great finisher even outside the Scapeshift match. I mean *****, she is played in Legacy Reanimator because she is so good. It's usually a toss up between her and Inkwell Leviathan since both of them represent a huge protected evasive fatty.
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Not just the Tendo King, the power of the Galactic Leyline surpasses that of the Tempa Emperor, No!, It's magnificent power is even greater than that!
Empyrial Archangel is a great finisher even outside the Scapeshift match. I mean *****, she is played in Legacy Reanimator because she is so good. It's usually a toss up between her and Inkwell Leviathan since both of them represent a huge protected evasive fatty.
Empyrial Archangel is definitely not played in Legacy Reanimator.
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1. About the Deck
2. Results and sample lists
3. How to play the deck
4. All about Gifts Combo
5. All about Gifts
6. Mindslaver Lock
7. Card Analysis
8. Sideboarding
9. Matchup Analysis
10. Other Tron decks
11. Closing Remarks
30/4/2014 - Version 1.0 posted.
9/7/2014 - Added information on Spell Burst and Batterskull
9/7/2014 - Add primer version with Mindslaver
11/11/2014 - Added some more card analysis for Mana Leak, Flooded Strand, River of Tears, Dig Through Time, and Treasure Cruise
2/11/2015 - Remove analysis for Dig and TC after they got banned. Update analysis for Amulet Combo
2/26/2015 - Change the primer list to run a Flooded Strand
5/1/2015 - Cleanup some of the main post and add more discussion
6/10/2015 - Added an FAQ section at the end.
8/10/2015 - Changed some matchups info a bit. I'm working on rewriting them with a new list.
This guide is copyright darksteel88. This guide may not be re-posted anywhere without express written consent from its author. Any re-post must be "as-is", including but not limited to posting the full guide with no alterations, in the original language posted. This guide is posted "as-is", and its owner is not liable for anything that happens as a result. All Magic the Gathering trademarks are copyright Wizards of the Coast.
UW Tron is a combo-control deck. At heart, it’s really a control deck: we play counters, spot removal, card draw, and MB Wrath effects. On the other hand, we’re playing Tron, which in itself is considered a combo, and our win conditions are combo oriented as well. We’re basically a control deck that stalls until a combo finisher.
Tron is a combo consisting of three cards: Urza’s Mine, Urza’s Power Plant, and Urza’s Tower. Each land, individually, produces one colourless mana. However, all three lands combined produce 7. Mine and Power Plant both produce 2 instead of 1 if all three are in play, and Tower produces 3 instead of 1 if all three are in play. So we’re capable of ramping our mana from 2 to 7 for free.
So what do we do with all this mana? We play some win condition that requires an insane amount of mana that’s nearly impossible to interact with. There are two main win conditions via Tron mana, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, and Mindslaver Lock. Emrakul is a 15 mana creature that can’t be countered and Time Walks, meaning we get an extra turn. Mindslaver Lock (more can be seen below) involves us repeatedly controlling our opponent on their turn, and eventually milling them.
Unlike traditional Tron decks, we have a much stricter colour requirement. Tron decks are traditionally ramp decks, where you play ways to get to Tron as fast as you can, and then drop a huge threat like Wurmcoil Engine or Karn Liberated. For us, however, we’re not in ramp colours. We’d rather stall out a game while trying to assemble Tron because we know when we get to mana for a win condition, it’s hard to beat us.
Unlike traditional control decks, we put a clock on our opponent. We have a win condition we can facilitate as early as turn 3, Gifts Combo (more can be seen below), which involves us reanimating a huge creature that we fetch out of our deck. Outside of this win condition, we put a hard clock on our opponent via the other win conditions, Emrakul, and Mindslaver Lock. So for us, the plan is to try and not die before we can win. We also play Celestial Colonnades as an alternative win condition, though you more often win via the other win conditions.
This deck, at heart, is a control deck that happens to play Tron for a good late game. A lot of the time, forcing early Tron when you can serves no purpose. We have limited ways in the early game to make use of Tron mana. We don’t play a lot of cards that strictly only cost colourless mana around the 7 mark, and most expensive cards we’d consider or play have coloured requirements as well. You generally don’t go for turn 3 Tron, instead opting to get to it on turn 4-6 when you have coloured mana as well to use.
I would recommend this deck to anyone that likes doing unfair things. Gifts Combo is absolutely not fair, and instantly wins against certain decks. A 15/15 creature that can’t be countered doesn’t seem particularly fair either. And I know taking all my opponent’s turns and watching them slowly lose the game is excruciatingly painful for them. This deck is also known for having very good average matchups and good chances in bad matchups due to Gifts combo and its flexibility. You’ll also notice that several of the bad matchups are not the most popular decks, meaning sometimes the deck is really good in a given meta.
I would recommend this deck for anyone that wants to play control but doesn’t have the patience for it. Since most control decks stall out the game very long and win relatively late into the game, having the option to win quickly and having a clock makes it easier to decide when the game ends. I would also recommend this deck for anyone that wants to play combo, but dislikes how easy it is to interrupt, or who likes combo but doesn’t want to go infinite with it.
If this sounds like the deck for you, then you’ve come to the right place.
4 Urza’s Mine
4 Urza’s Power Plant
4 Urza’s Tower
4 Celestial Colonnade
1 Flooded Strand
3 Seachrome Coast
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Eye of Ugin
Creatures: 4
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Snapcaster Mage
3 Expedition Map
4 Azorius Signet
Instants: 19
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Remand
4 Path to Exile
1 Condescend
1 Repeal
1 Sphinx’s Revelation
Sorceries: 4
1 Wrath of God
1 Day of Judgment
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Unburial Rites
Enchantments: 1
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Celestial Purge
1 Disenchant
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Suppression Field
1 Torpor Orb
1 Rule of Law
2 Negate
1 Dispel
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Spellskite
4 Celestial Colonnade
1 Eye of Ugin
3 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
3 Seachrome Coast
1 Tolaria West
4 Urza’s Mine
4 Urza’s Power Plant
4 Urza’s Tower
Creatures: 4
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
4 Azorius Signet
1 Condescend
1 Day of Judgment
3 Expedition Map
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Oblivion Ring
4 Path to Exile
1 Repeal
1 Talisman of Progress
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Unburial Rites
1 Wrath of God
2 Celestial Purge
1 Disenchant
2 Dispel
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Ghostly Prison
2 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Negate
1 Pact of Negation
1 Rule of Law
2 Timely Reinforcements
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Terastodon
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Lands: 25
1 Island
1 Plains
2 Celestial Colonnade
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Hallowed Fountain
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Urza’s Mine
4 Urza’s Power Plant
4 Urza’s Tower
2 Academy Ruins
4 Azorius Signet
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Expedition Map
1 Talisman of Progress
4 Gifts Ungiven
3 Path to Exile
4 Remand
3 Repeal
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Mindslaver
3 Timely Reinforcements
1 Unburial Rites
3 Torpor Orb
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Faith’s Fetters
4 Spreading Seas
1 Celestial Purge
2 Negate
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
Lands: 25
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Snow-Covered Island
4 Celestial Colonnade
3 Hallowed Fountain
3 Seachrome Coast
4 Urza’s Mine
4 Urza’s Power Plant
4 Urza’s Tower
Spells: 32
4 Azorius Signet
2 Batterskull
2 Expedition Map
1 Talisman of Progress
1 Detention Sphere
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Condescend
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Path to Exile
2 Remand
1 Sphinx’s Revelation
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Day of Judgment
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Unburial Rites
1 Wrath of God
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Torpor Orb
1 Spellskite
3 Ghostly Prison
2 Celestial Purge
1 Disenchant
1 Dispel
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Negate
1 Pact of Negation
2 Remand
4 Urza’s Mine
4 Urza’s Power Plant
4 Urza’s Tower
4 Celestial Colonnade
3 Seachrome Coast
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
1 Plains
2 Academy Ruins
Creatures: 3
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Snapcaster Mage
Artifacts: 8
2 Expedition Map
4 Azorius Signet
1 Mindslaver
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Remand
4 Path to Exile
1 Condescend
1 Repeal
1 Sphinx’s Revelation
Sorceries: 4
1 Wrath of God
1 Day of Judgment
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Unburial Rites
Enchantments: 1
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Celestial Purge
1 Disenchant
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Suppression Field
1 Torpor Orb
1 Rule of Law
2 Negate
1 Dispel
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Spellskite
This deck, at heart, is a UW control deck. Your goals are to kill creatures, counter spells, and get to the late game. Unlike many control decks, this one presents a hard clock. The win conditions are generally really strong and instantly win you a game. You’re not concerned about grinding points of damage, and you aren’t concerned about gaining incremental advantage. You want to just not die before X happens. In that sense, the deck plays to stall the game out a lot.
I like to view this deck as a combo-control deck because of how we win. Control decks generally grind you out, but we’re playing more of a combo win, where we just do something insane and hope they lose to it. Gifts combo, Emrakul, Mindslaver lock, they all should just come down and win the game (barring a few exceptions). You can win other ways, like Colonnade, though I find it’s not as common to win that way, or even via Ghost Quarter + Crucible if you play the pair, which is also not as common.
Our game plan is a mix of trying to stave off whatever the enemy does while trying to ramp our lands and find more answers. It’s composed of a mix of cards like Path and Remand that interact well with the opponent, while playing Map and Signet to advance your own game. You also have the opportunity to combo with Gifts. You just stall out the game trying to stop whatever your opponent’s plan is with cards like Wrath, and eventually get to one of your end game win conditions.
*Note that a large portion of this section assumes you already understand the basics of the deck. If you are new to the deck, I recommend playing it a few times first and also reading the sections on Gifts first.
You generally want to keep something with a reasonable amount of things to do early. You’re looking for 2-4 lands, Path/Remand, Signet/Map, and Thirst/Gifts. That would be a good opening hand. The idea is to actually be able to interact with an opponent while also progressing your own game.
In game ones you tend to be a lot more flexible in what you keep. You don’t really have much inclination about what they’re playing, so you can’t afford to aggressively mulligan into something. As long as the hand has something reasonable to do early and not too many dead cards, you’re okay. You’re willing to keep hands that seem like they don’t do much because you’re really not sure what your opponent is doing, and you’re fine trying to do your own thing. Especially if you have a Gifts in the hand, it can win enough matchups on its own, and with little hate, you’re actually fine trying to bank on it.
Dead cards include: Emrakul, Eye of Ugin, Iona, Elesh Norn, Unburial Rites, Sphinx’s Revelation - basically anything that costs more than 4 mana or doesn’t do anything early. You can normally get away with a single dead card but you can’t afford to have more than one. If you have two dead cards, that’s basically a 5 card hand. Especially if the dead card is part of Gifts Combo since you’re losing out on that ability. Do note that if your dead card is from that combo, Thirst negates some of it. I could still see keeping something like 3 lands, Remand, Gifts, Emrakul, Sphinx’s, but that’s still not even necessarily that great.
In sideboarded games, don’t assume a hand you are fine keeping in game one is okay. You know what you’re up against and you can tell what cards are going to be good or not. Sometimes you’re in a matchup where your cards aren’t going to cut it. Depending on the matchup, you need to aggressively mulligan into certain cards to stand a chance. An example would be Loam vs us with Leylines. If you didn’t draw a Leyline/Purge/Oblivion Ring, you’d probably lose the game. It’s a matchup where you have to be aggressive into finding solutions. Knowing your matchups and knowing which ones require you to find specific answers is going to be a big asset for you.
Your opening land decision actually makes a significant impact on the game. A lot of the time you’re presented with the option to play Colonnade or play untapped land + Map. In such a case, it depends entirely on the rest of your hand.
If you have two lands, you snap play Colonnade. You want to leave up mana on turn 2, and would rather play the tapped land early while it’s rather insignificant that you’re falling behind. If you play turn 2 Map, you have 1 mana tapped and 1 mana up. If you play turn 1 Map, you have 1 colourless up instead of non-colourless. Additionally, you often have better turn 2 plays, like leaving up Remand or casting Signet. You basically just get more options this way. Even so, getting the Map into play early doesn’t really do us much. If we’re not absolutely short on mana and not near Tron, then the Map sort of loses value. Yes, we’ve got only two lands, but hopefully you can get one in two turns. Even if you don’t you’ve still got the option for turn 2 Map.
If my hand contains 2 Tron lands and a Seachrome, I will play Tron land on turn 1, but Seachrome on turn 2. I don’t often cast anything with just 1 coloured mana, but I have Remand as a turn 2 play that I would love to cast or even just bluff. If I have a Signet in hand that I plan on casting turn 2 though, I will play the Tron land; the coloured source won’t matter until turn 3 when I can still play the Seachrome, but this option gives me the chance to turn 3 main phase Gifts Combo if I get lucky and have natural Tron with Gifts. If instead I have a Hallowed Fountain or Colonnade, I would rather play that turn 1 and slow down Tron a turn because I don’t want the tapped land to hinder me later and I don’t want to shock myself, plus I have coloured mana to do things.
If you get a chance for turn 3 Tron with no coloured sources or to play a coloured source, always go for the coloured source. The deck doesn’t do a lot with just Tron, it requires colours. I would much rather delay it a turn and have potential plays. Remember that Signet counts as a coloured source. 2 colourless + 1 u/w source is much better than 7 colourless for us.
It's perfectly fine to play Hallowed Fountain untapped into Map if you so desire, it's also fine not to. Sometimes people play Thoughtseize/Inquisition and take Map, so in the dark you can do it either way. If you're playing against Burn, you might dig yourself a bit of a grave, but against a lot of decks it could also be good that you have more options.
When I have a situation of Map and two Tron lands, I will always Map for Seachrome Coast unless I can guarantee a Signet will resolve. I need access to colours way too badly. This reason alone is why I like playing at least one Seachrome, because it's way too important for this situation. Some will debate the number to play, but at least one is the correct way to go.
Activating Map as soon as it’s available isn't always the best idea. This comes largely in part due to us needing specific cards from it. Knowing what to take and when to take it is key.
When you have only one Tron land in play, you want to try and hold off. You have 8 live draws that result in Map getting you to Tron, but if you find one with Map, then you only have 4 live draws. So holding off greatly increases your odds of getting to Tron.
That’s the ideal case though, and sometimes you need to crack early. If you need to hit a land drop (say you kept 2 lands), then cracking early is advisable. You want to have 4 mana on turn 4 if you can manage, so keeping up Map for the potential extra value isn’t there anymore.
If you’re cracking it early to find Tron lands, try not to take Tower. If an opponent blows up a land, it’s always Tower. If we don’t present a Tower, that’s better. If you fetch with two Maps for Tron lands, taking the Tower from the first Map means you likely use Tower to get the third Tron piece, and now have only 2 mana from your untapped Tron land while Tower provides 3.
Map finds all your utility lands, including Ghost Quarter, Boseiju, Eye, and Academy Ruins. If one of these lands seems important for the game, don’t hesitate to take it over a Tron land. Remember, we’re a control deck. Tron is nice, but controlling the game is better. Especially late game with Eye available, Eye produces two mana in terms of Emrakul, so being able to fetch it early is great.
Don’t be afraid to attack with Colonnade. Winning via Colonnade is a legitimate plan. In the mid game when you have 8-10 mana, you can lay down some nice beats. Especially when your hand does'’t present a lot of options, it’s a great way to progress the game. It’s also nice that Colonnade leaves up Path mana. Attacking a couple of times with one, then finding a second, you can really clock opponents. Especially those that have greedy mana bases and go fetch, take 2, or decks playing Gitaxian Probe.
That said, sometimes you have to let it do nothing. What I mean is, just because you have an opportunity to get in some damage, doesn't mean it is a good idea. Often times advancing the cards in your hand is better. If I have 6 mana available with Gifts in hand that I can be reasonably sure will resolve, I would generally rather play the Gifts, as I like having more options. If your hand already presents a bunch of options, say a couple Paths or Path + Remand, then getting in with Colonnade is quite reasonable. It’s mostly that you should not force it in situations when you don’t have the resources to support it.
Don’t try to race with Colonnade if you can avoid it. Colonnade is mana intensive and can still die from several things like Path, Ghost Quarter, Tectonic Edge, double Bolt, etc. It’s hard to bank on it in tight situations. If you go all-in with the Colonnade plan and it dies, you’re back to square one.
Be weary of blocking with Colonnade. It represents a great blocker, but then immediately dies to Bolt. If the mana it presents is too important for you to lose, it’s generally not worth it.
The main reason we play Gifts is to give us a strong early play. Gifts, according to the Oracle text (which was updated with the Modern Masters printing), lets you search for up to 4 cards with different names, and you get two, and two go to the grave (the opponent chooses). In particular though, the opponent picks two, and those go to the grave, and the remaining cards go to our hand. What makes it special is that we can instantly fetch a creature and Unburial Rites and put them into our graveyard, without our opponent being able to choose. Effectively, Gifts becomes 4 mana, find my reanimator combo.
The most popular reanimation choices remain Iona, Shield of Emeria, and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Other popular choices include Terastodon, Sundering Titan, and Wurmcoil (though it’s not so much of a reanimation choice, but it can be relevant). Lists always play the first two, and waver on whether they play the other three.
Off the nut hand, we can facilitate this combo on our turn 3 main phase. That would involve a turn 3 natural Tron as well as a turn 2 Signet. Tron + Signet produces you 6 colourless, 1 white, and 1 blue, conveniently enough for Gifts and Unburial Rites. This rarely happens though, maybe 1/100 games, if even that. You’re more likely to cast Gifts on the end step of their turn 3 and cast Unburial Rites on your turn 4, which happens via any 3 lands and a Signet.
For anyone that still has the original Gifts from Kamigawa, the card text does not indicate up to 4, and says to search for 4 cards. This can confuse players and cause them to doubt your ability to force two cards to the grave. Before the MM printing, when I played on Cockatrice, it happened a lot. The official Gatherer page has a ruling stating that a player may fail to find any number of cards, indicating you can find less than 4 if you’d like. I actually had to bookmark it. You can find the ruling here.
To understand why the ruling exists, and why the card text was updated, we examine how the card works. Gifts makes you search your library for 4 cards with different names. In more detail, that’s search a hidden zone for 4 cards with a specific restriction on the cards. A hidden zone is a zone in which one or more players has no knowledge of the cards in the zone, regardless of whatever inference they may be able to generate. As an example, a deck is a hidden zone, and your opponent has no knowledge about the cards there. They cannot make any claim about what is in your library, even if they can guarantee what’s in the deck (say they had a deck list). So when you fail to find in your deck, your opponent cannot say that you’re lying. If you search for Unburial Rites and Iona, you mathematically must have a third card with a different name if there are at least 7 other cards remaining. Yet as far as this rule goes, your opponent cannot make such an inference, as it’s a hidden zone. This ruling stems from the fact that, if you searched your library and found only Island, it could possibly be the only card remaining. The card itself being 4 mana, put two cards to the grave, isn’t broken enough to force you to have 4 different cards. It’s a ruling where someone did this, they recognized the rules would support it, and allowed it on the basis that the interaction wasn’t strong enough. It’s certainly powerful but doesn’t break the format, meaning it’s at a nice power level.
In an official tournament, a judge should be able to rule in your favour and explain it to an opponent. You are able to request the official Oracle text if you need to, which should easily clear any misconception.
Below are the top reanimation choices for the decks where matchup analysis is done. Most matchups indicate either Iona or Elesh Norn since that’s what everyone always plays. In matchups where neither of those are specified, they’re usually downright awful to reanimate.
In many matchups, multiple cards will be listed. The first card is the better choice, but the second choice is also acceptable under certain circumstances, or sometimes is just as good. If you want to know more about the decision process, you can find it in the matchup’s analysis further down.
Affinity - Elesh Norn
Amulet Combo - Iona, Terastodon
Assault Loam - Iona
Blue Moon - Iona
Boggles - Iona, Elesh Norn
Boros - Iona
Burn - Iona
BW Tokens - Iona
URx Delver - Iona, Elesh Norn
USA Delver - Sundering Titan, Iona, Elesh Norn
RUG Delver - Iona
Griselbrand Reanimator - Iona
Hatebears - Iona
Infect - Elesh Norn
Jund - Iona
Junk - Sundering Titan/Sigarda
Kiki Pod - Elesh Norn
Living End - Iona, Wurmcoil
Melira Pod - Elesh Norn
Merfolk - Iona, Elesh Norn (Wurmcoil)
Nivmagus Combo - Iona
BGx Rock - Iona
Scapeshift - Iona
Soul Sisters - Iona
Storm - Iona
Mono U Tron - Iona, Terastodon
RG Tron - Terastodon
UR Twin - Iona, Elesh Norn
RUG Twin - Elesh Norn, Iona
UWR Twin - Iona, Sundering Titan
UWR Control - Sundering Titan, Iona
UWR Midrange - Sundering Titan, Iona, Elesh Norn
Domain Zoo - Iona, Sundering Titan, Wurmcoil
Small Zoo - Sundering Titan, Iona
4C Gifts - Sundering Titan, Iona
8-Rack - Iona
Iona colour choices are listed below for several decks. If a deck is not listed, it is because reanimating Iona against that deck is not worth it (to a point where I will not pick her). More information on the colour choices can be found in the specific matchup analysis.
Amulet Combo - Green
Assault Loam - Black
Blue Moon - Blue
Boggles - White
Boros - White
Burn - Red
BW Tokens - White
UR Delver - Blue
USA Delver - Blue/White
RUG Delver - Blue
Domain Zoo - White
Griselbrand Reanimator - Black
Hatebears - White
Jund - Black
Living End - Green/Black
Merfolk - Blue
Nivmagus Combo - Black
BGx Rock - Black
Scapeshift - Green/Blue
Soul Sisters - White
Storm - Blue/Red
Mono U Tron - Blue
UR Twin - Blue/Red
RUG Twin - Blue
UWR Twin - Blue/White
UWR Control - Blue/White
UWR Midrange - Blue/White
Small Zoo - White
8-Rack - Black
4-C Gifts - White/Black
When naming a colour with Iona, there are two main concerns: which colour(s) kills her and which colour(s) allow my opponents to still win. You have to always be conscious of both in order to determine what colour choice you make, along with whether you actually want to reanimate her.
The first concern is their removal colours. Many decks play only one colour of removal, so naming that colour is generally best. For example, Jund can only kill her with black spells, so naming black keeps her safe. Yes, they could still cast Bolt or Goyf, but it’s usually enough to win the matchup, because many of their cards are now dead, and you’ve got a 7/7 staring them down.
On the other hand, some decks play multiple colours of removal. For example, UWR Control plays Path and Cryptic, which both adequately deal with her. In those matchups, it’s often best not to reanimate her MB if you’re going all-in on her. Naming either colour works, though neither is particularly good. I generally think it’s better to name blue against UWx decks since they play more blue cards than white, but that you should name white if you could answer Cryptic. Post-board, you should always name blue against UWx decks. They should board out some number of Paths (because Path doesn’t really do much against us), while leaving in all their Cryptics. Even if they leave in a 1-of miser Path, the odds are stacked against them when naming blue as opposed to white.
The second concern is their combo colours. Sometimes this conflicts with the first issue as well. You generally want to name the combo colour to prevent them from winning, but sometimes that means Iona can reasonably die. For example, against Scapeshift, green is the combo colour but blue is the removal colour. In Scapeshift particularly though, naming blue means all they can do is kill you or durdle, so you’re actually well off just naming blue and trying to counter them. I don’t particularly think either colour is any better to name, and if I had to pick, it would most likely still be the removal colour. Naming the removal colour leaves Iona putting pressure on the opponent, and you can potentially answer the combo, especially when they can’t cast some spells. Other matchups are not as forgiving. For example, UWR Twin can win with blue + red or white + red. Naming red would stop the combo, but that means all the removal spells are still live. Naming a removal colour is still probably best, but their deck can still do quite a bit if you do that.
You do also get free wins from time to time when playing against mono-coloured decks. Just beware that the cards in play still do things, and that Aether Vial and Birthing Pod are cards. Decks like Soul Sisters or Mono Red end up being free wins for the most part because of it. This is what makes this deck have such high potential, because you occasionally just get free wins and get to have lunch while people are still playing.
Again, another thing to remember is sideboarding for Iona. A lot of decks will have to board out some number of removal spells because we provide few targets. A deck like USA Delver or UWR Midrange wants to board out Paths and be much more aggressive, since they’re often dead cards. On the other hand, a deck like Melira Pod would board into the Paths (if they have them) because they simply can’t beat Elesh Norn and won’t put enough pressure fast enough. Knowing what options a deck has to sideboard and what their likely plan is will be key to your success.
When you put Iona into play and name a colour, remember that this is not a trigger. Iona says “as it enters the battlefield” and not “when”. This means that your opponent cannot respond to it.
The only time to respond to Iona naming a colour is before she is in play, and once she’s in play, it’s too late. An opponent who tries to respond to it as though it were a trigger should not be allowed to take back or rewind the game state. It is not of our concern that the opponent doesn’t understand the rules of the game or how this card works (when they are able to read it). If a player tries to do something, call the judge. In small tournaments a player may be allowed to rewind, though it’s somewhat unfair because they are privy to some information because of this resolving. You should make every attempt to dissuade a judge, though remember they always have final say. I don’t see the game rewinding though since it’s not a failed game state, and at competitive REL this should never rewind.
One cool thing about it not being a trigger is that we can still play Torpor Orb without us ruining Iona. I think Torpor Orb is a fantastic card, so this is a huge plus for us.
Additionally, against Twin, they need to respond with their Pestermite/Exarch before you name the colour. So if they cast it, you can change your mind about what colour to pick (which should generally now be red to prevent the combo), as opposed to just naming blue because it’s better.
Even though there are matchups where it’s evident Iona is a better choice, sometimes you have to go for Elesh Norn. These are primarily decks that play a lot of small creatures as win conditions, like Delver. While playing Iona would stop most or all of the removal, sometimes killing all their creatures is just as good, if not better. You can often get into situations where you’d otherwise be dead on board, so just Wrathing them with Elesh Norn buys you a lot of time. And even if you’re likely not going to reanimate Elesh Norn, in the mid-late game, having a 4th copy of Wrath essentially is quite nice. Even against decks where Iona is exclusively better (like Soul Sisters), you can get into situations where you’re dead on board and have to go for Elesh Norn. So be weary when boarding out Elesh Norn, because sometimes Elesh Norn is good too.
She’s generally worth boarding out in mono coloured matchups, but in matchups like Delver, she’s typically fine. I like leaving her in against Geist because it’s another option to stop Geist. I dislike leaving her in for matchups where I should win from Iona. So a matchup like Jund, where I will kill a good amount of their creatures with Elesh Norn, is a matchup I board her out in; I would always rather go for Iona and should win off that more often than Elesh Norn does anything.
Aside from using Gifts to fetch the combo, we can use Gifts as a value card. At worst, it’s 4 mana get two cards. It’s really not that bad of a card in general, and with all our extra mana from Tron, we don’t care it costs 4. The real caveat to this card is that when we fetch 4 cards, our opponent gets to choose which two go to the grave and which two go to our hand. It’s not ideal, but we can use this to try and get what we want.
Every time you fetch for >2 cards, you need to consider what your opponent would do. We want to think like them, decide what seems best for us, and then consider what happens when we get the other two. For example, if we need Tron, we can fetch Map + Tron land. However, we won’t get it, so we’ll have to consider what the other two cards do for us. The goal is always to make the decision as difficult as possible for our opponent. This often involves us finding a mix of cards that progress our plan and stop our opponent’s plan.
There are some generic packages we fetch to facilitate stuff. Better to be aware of them.
5.1.1 Wrath Package
Any three Wrath effects and/or Timely Reinforcements / Path / Oblivion Ring
This lets us play guarantee our Wrath effects. Timely often acts as well as a Wrath. In a lot of situations, Wrath and Day get binned, but we can guarantee the other two. You need to be aware of how much mana the third Wrath costs, because if you’re playing something like Hallowed Burial, costing 1 extra mana can be extremely relevant.
Sometimes Path works well enough when you really want a Wrath that you can grab it as a card in the package. If your opponent is playing Affinity and has a Plating in play, a Path is essentially a free turn, assuming they don’t have double black.
Whenever you’re forcing an extra card, I tend to like Gifts. When you’ve successfully Wrathed, you’re buying enough time to just cast another Gifts for value. Unless there’s another card you specifically need for something, just fetching the Gifts does quite a bit.
5.1.2 Lands Package
Urza’s Mine, Urza’s Power Plant, Urza’s Tower, Expedition Map
Gives you good stuff for getting Tron. You’ll rarely get Map when you need one land, nor the land you need. I tend to frown upon this package simply because you’re not getting what you actually need. There’s no way in hell they give you the two you want, and you made Tron that much harder. That package is particularly only good when you’ve already got Tron. In reality, those packages look something like:
Tron land, Map, Gifts, Thirst / value card
You’re giving them a much harder to make decision because now the other two cards they give you do real things. Do I give you access to Tron, or do I let you just have another Gifts. Maybe they’ve got a Goyf in play, so the value card is Path. Do I want my Goyf to live at the expense of you getting Tron? If you get Tron, how much harder is it for me to win this game?
Tron land, Map, Crucible, anything
If you have Crucible, this forces the Tron land. It’s neat if you’ve been hated out a bit and just need to complete Tron. You likely won’t need to force this all that often, but it’s relevant if you have it. You mostly get the Map because it’s the slowest and doesn’t provide the resiliency the Crucible provides. Depending on the last card and the board state though, you may find yourself getting two of the three Tron focused cards.
5.1.3 Unburial Rites Package
Unburial Rites, any creature that doesn’t shuffle the grave
I’ve already explained it above, but just to reiterate, you grab Unburial Rites and a creature and force them into the graveyard. This gives you access to reanimate your creature and proceed to wreak havoc.
Unburial Rites, Creature, Thirst, any card
If you’re playing a black source, sometimes you can get away with doing this. I, however, strongly advise against it. If your opponent is smart, they let you keep the Creature + X. The creature does little to nothing while in your hand, and you should have no way to pitch it. I’ve done it before, and it’s a cool little trick, but it’s more so a gimmick than anything. Good opponents should see what’s potentially coming and recognize how to play around it. You mostly fool opponents who suspect you have incompetence with the deck and don’t recognize how to play Gifts properly. It’s also significantly more difficult since the rewording of the card on the Modern Masters version.
5.1.4 Counters Package
Remand, Condescend, Negate, Dispel
Basically you’re playing against combo and don’t want to die, something like Scapeshift. This is only available post-sideboard when we board into the Negates and the one-of Dispel. You’re now guaranteed to get two counters to interact with them, which is great.
As tempting as it can be to just fetch Remand and Path because of how good they are, sometimes they can be the wrong cards. Specifically, if you’re trying to get one of the two and fetch them, then your opponent bins them, you’re decreasing those odds. So actually fetching those cards can be the wrong choice. It’s not strictly wrong, because knowing they won’t give them to you means you can select another two cards.
This isn’t the only scenario where you may fetch the wrong cards. For example, fetching Emrakul when you have mana is almost always wrong - you’re never going to get it and shuffling your grave back means you have less of a chance to naturally draw it.
At first, it will be difficult to fetch the correct cards from Gifts. It’s not an easy card to use, you have so many lines of play similar to Birthing Pod, and have to consider what your opponent is thinking as opposed to understanding your own deck. As long as you remember to think about what your opponent would do, you should eventually get the hang of it.
Fetching Emrakul is a weird situation. You almost never want to find it early, and you almost never get it mid-late game. That said, Emrakul has the neat function of shuffling your grave back in. You can use it to reset the count of cards in your deck. Especially if you’ve used Wraths and such, you can gain access to them again. When this happens it’s quite often a game you’re not likely to lose.
You can also use it to reset the graveyard if your opponent is using it. Against Goyf decks, it’s not irrelevant to shuffle, especially since we provide artifacts which many decks don’t. Saving a potential couple of points of damage can sometimes be relevant, and many Goyf matchups become attrition based to where you get to play Emrakul, so letting you get it early isn’t all that bad.
Another cool feature of this is to have an out against soft infinite combos, like Melira Pod gaining infinite life. Since we have a way to reset our graveyard, we can just mill them out by having Emrakul reset our deck count. I know Reid Duke was successful in doing this at GP Richmond 2014. How this would work is that you play Emrakul and attack until they have no permanents in play. You would, at some point, Wrath your Emrakul away, have the graveyard shuffle back in, and then find Emrakul again (with Eye of Ugin this is easy). You cast again and keep attacking, knowing that your deck should be big enough. Rinse and repeat as necessary until they run out of cards.
Fetching Gifts itself is actually really good most of the time. It seems strange, but you can get so much value from a second Gifts. When they give you Gifts again, you’re basically netting one card from the first one. You also get extra information to reassess the situation and decide again. Honestly, a lot of the time, you won’t get Gifts. It’s too much value to let us have. You can use it to your advantage to try and force certain cards. Say I need just one Tron land. I can fetch Gifts, Tron land, Map, Remand. Now my opponent has to let me get Tron, or give me something just as good, like another Gifts and Remand. Particularly in the mid-late game, you can often chain multiples together. If you have 8 mana up, Gifts into Gifts is perfectly reasonable and nets you three cards, plus thins out your deck considerably.
It may seem counter intuitive at first - why do I want to get Gifts when I could get another card? The whole point is that we’re gaining incremental advantage and winning the attrition battle. More cards is exactly what we want to do.
Read Gifts again. You’ll notice that it says “target opponent”. That’s right. If an opponent has a Leyline in play, you actually can’t cast Gifts. It doesn’t happen often, and is unlikely to happen, but still relevant to know. If they know you’re playing Mindslaver, they might board them in. Depending on how they want to handle our deck and whether Gifts combo kills them, they will board in Leyline. At a small tournament though, people may overlook this detail.
Whenever you’ve got part of the combo in the grave already, you only need to fetch for one card. However, you can fetch for two cards and still put the second combo piece in the graveyard. I like to fetch for dead cards in that situation. Typically that would be a Seachrome Coast, as I’m past the point I want to draw it and like thinning out my deck.
Playing 3 copies of any effect is particularly powerful with this card because it allows us to guarantee a card with the desired effect ends up in our hand. The most common would be a triple Wrath package, which allows you to guarantee a Wrath. 3-of counters are also nice since you force find one. Even playing 4-ofs are nice because you can force two of the same effect. While a lot of the time you only need one card, sometimes each card is good enough so that getting two is good for you. This also makes cards like Snapcaster and Noxious Revival better than normal since we can use it to proxy as a third copy of anything.
Mindslaver is a card which allows us to take control of a player during their turn. We can use this as a combo to take over all their turns. We use Academy Ruins to to place Mindslaver back on top of our Library, and do this every turn. With enough mana, we can draw it every turn, replay it, and put it back on top for next turn. We eventually mill their entire deck, as they’re forced to draw a new card each turn while we always draw Mindslaver.
The combo is predicated on Mindslaver and Academy Ruins. Academy Ruins lets you place an artifact in your graveyard on top of your library. This lets you cast Mindslaver, activate, and then place it on top. In total, it costs 12 mana + Academy Ruins (essentially 13 including Ruins), and requires one blue source.
On your turn, you cast and activate Mindslaver, taking your opponent’s turn. Before your next turn, you place it back on top of your deck via Academy Ruins. You will proceed to draw the Mindslaver next turn, in which you can do this again.
Each time you take your opponent’s turn, you just draw a card, tap their resources, and pass the turn, discarding where applicable. On your turn, they have no mana to do anything, so you just combo again. Despite it being a soft lock (they can theoretically do things), you have perfect information and deny them of any resources. Additionally, despite they could cast cards that have no mana cost (like Surgical Extraction, which could potentially counter us), it’s difficult to do so when I get the first choice for casting it (since I control them the turn they draw it). It’s a pretty safe combo in that regard.
Each time, they are drawing a new card, and you’re drawing Mindslaver, so eventually they mill their entire deck. It takes a while, but it’s a solid combo. On MTGO it can take a long time, but in real life, it doesn’t take that long due to shortcuts. On top of that, a lot of people just scoop because they know you’ve got it.
A neat trick for this deck is to use Gifts to force the combo. What that means is, given a single Gifts, you can fetch the combo pieces, and guarantee you get them. You search for the package:
Mindslaver
Academy Ruins
Expedition Map
Crucible of Worlds
You also MUST have a second copy of Academy Ruins in the deck.
Every iteration of the pair you get allows you to force the combo.
1. Mindslaver + Academy Ruins is the combo.
2. Mindslaver + Expedition Map lets you Map for the second Academy Ruins.
3. Mindslaver + Crucible lets you play Crucible to play the binned Academy Ruins.
4. Academy Ruins + Expedition Map/Crucible lets you play Academy Ruins to put Mindslaver back on top.
5. Map + Crucible lets you play Map and find the second Ruins or Crucible to get the binned Academy Ruins, and then place Mindslaver back on top.
Option 5 is the best for our opponent. It’s going to cost us 3 mana plus a land drop plus a Ruins activation and a draw to get our Mindslaver. It’s not the best, but it enables us to use just a single Gifts to guarantee the combo. Since we’re a deck that tries to present a hard clock and decide what turn the game ends, this is extremely helpful. We know exactly when the game ends, and we still have tons of mana up until when we combo. Casting Crucible or activating Map / Ruins are cheap enough that we can leave up answers like Path and Remand while going for our combo.
Mindslaver is not a hard lock, but is pretty close. The combo is disruptable after we go off, but difficult to stop.
Pact of Negation is one of the only cards I know of that interacts with this combo after we have started. However, they still have to pay 5 next turn and only get one turn, so it’s difficult for them to interact after it in any meaningful way.
Once their hand has 8 cards in it, you get to discard a card each time you pass their turn. So in doing so, after 8 cards they can’t stop it. Even if they drew a Pact of Negation, you’d be able to discard it. At this point, there’s no card that stops it.
Grave hate is good at stopping it before we go off, however, Relic of Progenitus is not. When we put Mindslaver to our grave, the Relic player has two choices: crack now, or crack later. If they crack now, we can put Mindslaver back on top with Academy Ruins. Crack later is actually not an option since we’re planning to take their next turn. If they wait until their turn and don’t use it, then they’ll never have a chance. We can just use it on their turn while Mindslaver is on top, or since we always just keep them tapped, they won’t ever have mana to activate, and we can always tap it on their turn targeting them. Mindslaver and Relic forces Relic to be cracked on my turn and that just doesn’t cut it.
1. Don’t limit yourself only to using Mindslaver in the combo. Mindslaver is a powerful card on its own. If you use it earlier, you can often get a huge swing from it. Especially while the format has a lot of combo decks, you can often punish them really hard.
2. Always use a card to search their deck and fail to find if you can. Knowledge is power. You get full information about their deck when you do this.
3. Consider trying to kill them. Decks like mono red have enough burn for them to finish themselves. So if you get a chance, it’s faster like that.
4. Look at their sideboard. The rules state that a player may look at their sideboard at any time. Since you control that player during their turn, you can make any decisions for them, except concede. So it’s perfectly legal to look at their sideboard. Make sure you write it down as well and be prepared.
5. Make sure they do not unnecessarily retain priority. When you have Mindslaver lock going, you have full knowledge about what they can do. If you know they cannot do anything, they may not retain priority. This is considered stalling the game. If they do try and retain priority, call a judge immediately.
6. Shortcuts are your friend. In real life, you can keep their lands tapped and keep their hand face up while performing your combo. This is just to keep things going smoothly and quickly. It’s possible to do this in a matter of a few minutes if you use the shortcuts. Again, it is perfectly legal to do this, so please call a judge if an opponent is not happy about it.
7. A player is allowed to concede at any time. If you attempt to look at your opponent’s sideboard and they elect to concede in response, you don’t get to look. It’s perfectly acceptable for them to do so (and actually the correct play in this scenario). Be happy you don’t need to perform the entire combo.
8. Despite the combo costs a full 13 (12 + Academy Ruins), you don’t need 13 mana in play when you do it. If you have mana in your hand, you can do it earlier than you would before. The main portion only costs 10, with 3 to place it back on top. You can still place it back on top during your upkeep provided you can make 10 mana on your turn. So if you’ve got a land in your hand that can provide the extra mana to get to 10, you can do it a lot earlier. A Tower would let you do it while you only have 10 mana in play, getting to 13 the following turn.
9. For reference, Mindslaver is not an infinite combo. This means you cannot propose a shortcut to end the game in a win for you. The reason is that an infinite combo needs to not be conditioned on anything. In the case of Mindslaver lock, the combo is completely conditioned on what your opponent draws. Even though there are limited ways to possibly interact with it, the fact that it relies on some hidden information is what makes it work this way. The same way that Gifts allows you to find two cards despite there needing to be other options, you can't assume your opponent doesn't have anything. Yes, even though you get to see every card, and once they have 8 cards you can discard the card they draw each turn, but you can't assume there's no way to interact. Theoretically, 8 Eldrazi breaks the lock, so you can't assume
While the matchup analysis and sideboarding plans I have done are based on a sample sideboard, there are tons of cards that are useful for this deck we haven’t covered. This section provides more details about those cards. Remember, sideboards are tuned for events/metas. While the one above is broad-spectrum, you may find your meta is different, doesn’t have certain decks, and thus your board would benefit more from some changes. There are also several cards that would be played in the MB that we haven’t really gone over because they’re not in the list, so those are discussed here as well.
Crucible of Worlds - This card is great for forcing the Gifts package to get Mindslaver lock. When you fetch up the Map, Academy Ruins, Crucible, and Mindslaver, your opponent has to give it to you. The fact that the card does other things that are generally good for our deck (stopping LD) is what makes the card nice. I don’t really believe in playing the card when we’re not playing Mindslaver though. I don’t think you see enough LD to support it, and we’re not as reliant on Tron as Tron decks traditionally are. I would not really want to sideboard this card, it would have to be MB for the combo and then potentially boarded out (though if you’re playing Mindslaver it should stay basically every time).
Cyclonic Rift - An all-purpose bounce spell. It’s 2 to bounce anything, not exactly thrilling, but not horrible either. The Overload is what makes it really appealing. At 6U to overload, it’s very reasonably cast in our deck. Tron plus a blue source is all you need. I gets to act as a pseudo-Wrath effect, which can buy you multiple turns. It’s generally worse than Repeal early game, but better than any bounce spell late game. I've had some great success with this card.
Detention Sphere - A second Oblivion Ring basically. Due to Gifts this is better than the second Oblivion Ring, but due to the colour constraints of our deck, worse than the first Oblivion Ring. The value you get exiling multiple permanents from Sphere is minimal and doesn't offset the Oblivion Ring being that much more playable.
Hallowed Burial - Another cool 3rd Wrath card since it doesn’t kill creatures but puts them on the bottom. It does cost more than other Wraths, but putting creatures on the bottom is often more advantageous. Against Zoo or Pod, it’s really relevant they went to the bottom. No Voice trigger, no Boros Charm, no Persist, no Eternal Witness - there’s a lot of reasons why putting them other than the graveyard is better.
Karn Liberated - Karn is certainly a very powerful card, but the real power comes from casting it early. Most decks playing Karn, primarily RG Tron, are going to power it out on turn 3 or 4. It’s faster than the combo deck can go off and since it exiles something, it gets around losing the next turn most of the time. For us, the card is typically a lot slower, so it loses a lot of value. I think it’s best played as a 1-of as a sort of mid range card to put some pressure. It’s really not a win condition for us, but we really don’t need it to be. It has to contend with other cards like Sphinx’s Revelation and Mindslaver for a spot though. I don’t think it’s a replacement for Oblivion Ring, the card is more difficult to cast and unreliable. It is nice to present a Gifts pile of all threats and have them figure out which is the lesser of the evils.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon - Ugin has been a nice addition to my deck. I play it as a 1-of and typically in the sideboard. I think he's better as a sideboard card because he's really awful in some matchups like Affinity, Twin, or Burn. Ugin's -X ability is pretty much a win on a stick against some decks. Against decks like BGx and BW Tokens, they simply can't beat that mode. The first ability is also nice since it makes Ugin never a dead card, although often that ability simply doesn't cut it. I think it's significantly better than Oblivion Stone for us because it doesn't kill our Signets, which was always a problem with Oblivion Stone. It also costs the same amount if you're doing it in the same turn.
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth - I think he’s pretty much worse than Ulamog and downright unplayable. Drawing 4 cards is cool, but you can’t tap out for him as you risk losing. And when you do have mana to leave up after casting him, well, Emrakul would just be better. The fact that all he does is put a huge body on the board means you really need backup when playing him. Putting pressure on an opponent who’s playing a combo deck doesn’t really do much and he’s too slow for the aggro matchup. He may be playable in other lists with Through the Breach simply because Gifts would then guarantee an Eldrazi, but short of that, it’s bad. I think 3 Eldrazi is bad in this deck, and I’m never playing Kozilek over Ulamog.
Martial Coup - A cool 3rd Wrath card since it can also be used offensively. Essentially it’s a 7 mana Wrath that actually puts pressure on the opponent. It tends to be slow against aggro decks but solid against midrange decks. It’s more so meta dependant. What’s nice about it is that even if it doesn’t Wrath, it still gives you some value, and more importantly, that value synergizes well with Elesh Norn. 1/1 tokens turn into 3/3s and bam, now they’re scared. It essentially Wraths and provides pressure, and after Tron it’s really easy to get x=5+. That said, this isn’t the value the deck particularly needs.
Noxious Revival - Similar to Snapcaster, this card provides us with a free copy of any card. Unlike Snapcaster though, we’re forced to actually pay 2 life and skip a draw step. On the other hand, the cost to get the card is 0 mana. So in the situation where you fetch double Wrath + Revival, vs double Wrath + Snapcaster, you’re more likely to cast the Wrath the next turn off Revival because it ends up costing you 4 instead of 6 (3 of which is coloured). And of course, unlike Snapcaster it can get back permanents like Map, which is really huge. It can actually function as a budget replacement for Crucible if you need one because if you fetch Mindslaver, Academy Ruins, Noxious Revival, Map (with second Academy Ruins in the deck), you’re also guaranteed the combo.
Oblivion Stone - Another option for a Wrath. It tends to be a little slow for our deck so I’d rather not play this one. I can cast it at 4, but not activate until I get another mana, and then I’m wasting two turns to do it. I really don’t want to be doing that. Yeah, Academy Ruins and all that, but the decks I want to Wrath are often faster than Oblivion Stone is. Sure, I can hit non-creatures as well, which is cool, but it hits my Signets as well in the process. Sure, I can play it pro-actively and leave it in play until it’s relevant. Still, the extra mana required by it is a lot, since I have to do it over two turns or waste an entire turn late game.
Repeal - A nice early-game bounce spell to handle a lot of pesky permanents. Drawing a card is also really nice, which is why most lists prefer this card. Another really cool thing is that it dodges a lot of potential answers. As long as x isn’t 1, you dodge both Spellskite and Spell Snare (since x+1 has to equal 2 for this to work). And in some situations, you get to bounce things like flipped Delver or Voice’s Elemental token for U.
Snapcaster Mage - As a 1-of it’s not that bad of a card. It gets to act as a free copy of any spell. Particularly for Gifts, being able to find a bunch of cards and a Snapcaster means you get to essentially have a second copy of each spell there when they decide what you’re getting. If you find double Wrath, it’s now triple Wrath (provided you can pay the mana). The one downside is that it’s mana intensive a lot of the time, and our deck is already tailored to not need a second copy of a spell most of the time. This deck is primarily concerned with the early game, so trying to do something like second Wrath off of him is sometimes challenging. Still, he offers a lot of utility for a deck that’s filled with utility. Especially since between Gifts and Thirst you discard a lot of cards, he sees many options when you play him. Decks also bring in Relic/Cage against us, so his value diminishes greatly post-board.
Sphinx’s Revelation - Similar to Supreme Verdict, the mana cost is quite prohibitive. Costing triple colour is a real concern. On the other hand, when are we looking to cast this card? If your answer was turn 3 Tron into turn 4 Revelation, that might be unreasonable. If your answer was turn 7, it’s actually not that bad. A single Signet can make this much more reasonable to cast. I tend to feel like this card doesn’t do a lot, because we already have 12 cards that draw. On the other hand, when you’re trying to cast Gifts to get cards for value, presenting this is pretty cool, because they really can’t let you gain 7 and draw 7, they’ll lose. If you’re playing it you have to support the mana base properly. It means limiting your colourless lands. Instead of playing upwards of 16 colourless sources, you should try to play around 13, and possibly the Talisman as well. It’s just a good mid-game threat because it really does act like a threat. In the heavy-combo meta, it’s especially nice because you leave up all your mana and do it at the end of turn, as opposed to slamming a Karn that gets countered or having them win around it because you had little to no mana up.
Sundering Titan - Another neat reanimator target that can shore up some problem areas. One of the biggest problems for reanimating are double removal colour decks. So any deck that plays black and white, as they’ll have something like Liliana and Path, or blue and white, as they’ll have Cryptic and Path. Elesh Norn is never safe if they have removal for her, but Iona is safe if they only have one colour for removal. These decks that have two create a huge concern for us. There’s not a lot of black and white decks running Lili and Path, but there are quite a few blue and white decks running Cryptic and Path. Particularly for the blue and white decks, they’re normally blue/white/red, so we can get a lot of value from hitting 3 lands, especially when we don’t need to target one of our own. This also applies to combo decks like Scapeshift, who run the combo and removal in different colours (meaning you have to choose between letting them win or letting them remove your reanimated creature). It’s particularly good against Scapeshift when they run Prismatic Omen since you can hit 5 lands. In general, it’s great against 3+ colour decks simply because the tempo swing is too much. Even against decks like Zoo, despite them being fast, you can starve their lands really hard (and they generally don’t play that many), and when it also makes Nacatl a 1/1, you’re perfectly fine with their retaliation.
Supreme Verdict - This card can be either really good or really bad. The issue is that it costs WWU and wants to be cast on turn 3 or 4 in a deck with half non-coloured sources. That makes doing this reliably difficult. It’s nice sometimes though because if you cast Gifts to fetch triple Wrath, it costs only 4 mana. Still, we’re not ever going to play the correct number of sources to support 3 colours on turn 4. It’s also good against Geist, which is a plus if that’s a problem for you. You need to tool your deck around supporting it, which means limiting the number of utility lands. You no longer get to play Emrakul and Mindslaver lock together, nor can you play all these crazy cards like Ghost Quarter or Boseiju, you need to just play coloured sources.
Talisman of Progress - Basically it’s a 5th Signet. It’s nice to have if you want to guarantee enough coloured sources. When Reid Duke played Sphinx’s Revelation and Supreme Verdict MB, as well as a Detention Sphere, having the extra source is good. You’re playing it on top of a spell and not a land, so it does decrease the spell count. The nice thing about Talisman is that it can tap right away, so you can do turn 2 Talisman into Path or Map. I think it’s worse than the 4th Signet, so it should always be a 5th one. The reasoning there is that this gives you only one colour, and at a life cost, whereas the Signet ramps and filters into both colours.
Terastodon - This card is a very good reanimation target. It blows up any three non-creature permanents. Between it and Elesh Norn, it will cover a lot of matchups. The reason we play Iona over it is because Iona is better than Terastodon in most of the matchups where Elesh Norn is bad. For instance, against Storm, blowing up 3 lands or 2 lands + Ascension is really good. On the other hand, Iona is just as good and more or less guarantees a win if you name blue. Against a deck like UWR Control though, they should board out most Paths and race us. If we give them 3 creatures, maybe they Cryptic bounce our Terastodon and we just lose on the spot. Terastodon is the only reasonable answer against RG Tron though, so take that into mind. If you play against it a lot, you definitely want to put it in. RG Tron, as of writing this, is at an all-time low in the format. Additionally, Terastodon doesn’t mean you beat RG Tron, it’s just an out. You can lose with it in the deck, but on the other hand, you will lose with it not in the deck.
Tolaria West - This card is sometimes very sweet. It allows you to fetch for x=0 artifacts, which if you’re playing Explosives, can be very nice. It essentially allows you to turn a Map into an Explosives. It tends to be on the slow side and coming into play tapped isn’t exactly good for us. The Transmute costing UU is also not great, since you can’t Transmute from a single Signet or blue source. If you’re playing a matchup where Explosives is really important, then it becomes very good, but otherwise it’s lacking and slow. With already 7-10 lands that sometimes come into play tapped, you really don’t want any more.
Snow-Covered Island - This and the Plains are interesting options. They allow you to have Gifts packages where you can fetch up three basics. It's certainly been relevant before for me. The more I play with Seachrome Coast, the more I dislike it as a card. However, the more that I play with more basics, the more I miss that Seachrome does tap for both colours (which is primarily relevant on the early turns). I tend to like the Island more than the Plains, because despite that we run no double blue but several double white cards, blue mana is typically more important than white mana for us since our deck has significantly more blue cards (typically around double). I have not liked the idea of playing both because I think we run too few duals at this point.
Seachrome Coast - I really like this card, but not in the higher numbers. The card is primarily good because it's an unconditional dual at the beginning of the game, which is the most important part for us. Having coloured mana early that doesn't come in tapped or ping us is great. Often times you'll go Tron land, Map, go, then Tron land, crack Map for Seachrome. I think it's wrong to play no Seachromes, but I'm also now thinking more and more that playing 3 is wrong as well. I'd swap with Snow-Covered basics or Flooded Strands most likely. It's still just a good card to play.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre - This card is good for tying together the mid and late game. At a cost of 11, he’s perfect in that situation. Since he also has a Vindicate ability, it’s not unreasonable to tap out for him in some matchups. That said, many matchups are combo-oriented where he’s just awful. Killing one creature for 11 and putting pressure on a combo deck isn’t exactly the best idea. He’s solid in the Jund matchup, that’s for sure, but lackluster in basically every combo matchup and most aggro matchups. When you play a card that costs 11 and don’t want to tap out for it, you might as well wait for Emrakul. If you wait for 13 for Ulamog, you can stall until 15 most likely. You absolutely tap out for Emrakul every time, but almost never for Ulamog. He provides a lot of pressure on the board, but combo decks will play around him and aggro decks will win faster than he can come out.
Spell Burst - This card gets tossed around a lot so I figured I should add it. The premise of this card is that it works exactly like Condescend, minus the Scry and plus Buyback. The real difference is that this card is good late game or against decks that play only expensive spells. In the early turns, you don't have mana to Buyback, so you're losing out on the Scry value. Late game it's significantly better, but our deck is typically not bad in the late game, since we have lots of mana and cards like Gifts and Thirst to use our mana efficiently. I'm not convinced it's strictly worse, it's better against some slow decks, but I think in general it's worse than Condescend.
Batterskull - Basically does the same thing Wurmcoil does, but with minute differences. Wurmcoil has Deathtouch, so in attrition based matchups like Jund, Wurmcoil tends to be slightly better, since it kills Goyfs more efficiently. Wurmcoil can be fetched from Eye of Ugin and reanimated via Unburial Rites, meaning you have better access to it. Batterskull costs 1 less, but that is negligible for us. Batterskull also can be bounced, meaning it offers more protection for itself. Batterskull tends to be better against decks with Path because it doesn't die to it, but worse against decks with Abrupt Decay only (like Jund) because they can kill the token.
Mana Leak - It comes up a lot why we're a control deck not playing one of the better control counters. The problem with this card is that it is a pseudo-answer as opposed to buying more time. Mana Leak is a card that hard answers a card, but only situationally (when they can't pay). When they can't pay is generally the early turns, where we'd rather be playing cards like Map or Signet. So ultimately we end up in a situation where we don't want to play this card. In fact, the deck doesn't particularly need to hard answer cards, but rather buy time. If I can survive a turn, that's great. Remand is much better because it buys me a turn while also drawing a card. Seeing more cards is particularly good because we're a combo deck (we want to find Gifts or Tron lands, for example). If you want a hard answer, Condescend ends up better because it scales much better.
River of Tears - River sees some play every now and then when someone tries to splash the black source. Personally, I don't think River is any better than a dual land. Think about when you want the black source: I have Unburial Rites in hand or I have something like Explosives. What this means is that in order for River to produce black, you need to have a land in hand. Sometimes that becomes awkward. The real question is whether the two life vs having a mana now is going to be a problem. You could directly substitute it for Watery Grave, Darkslick Shores, or Underground River to see what the effects were. With Watery Grave, you sometimes get no downside for it, but sometimes pay two life. If I'm playing it the same turn that I'm using the black source, then I generally don't mind, because the effect is way better than the cost. If I'm playing it early, then I'm potentially having a problem because I may need to pay two. However, if the card you substituted was a Hallowed Fountain, this cost should be negligible because you had the same problem before. The same sort of argument applies for the other two cards. IF I was going to play a black source, I'd use a shock land (and I generally advocate for Godless Shrine instead because we have more double white).
Flooded Strand - Finally we have the fetch we've wanted. I think a 1-of is probably good, especially if you're on a list that has two or three shocks. I don't particularly like playing more than one because we don't have many targets. Most will have around 4 targets possible and if you play two and draw a shock first, a second Strand would be forced to find a basic (which is not necessarily bad but not ideal). What this really does allow you to do is play around Blood Moon slightly better, since this card proxies as either the dual or basic, at the cost of one life. Sometimes you have this problem that you'd rather not pay two for the shock but you want the mana now, and this offers up a one life option. It's mostly relevant in the Scapeshift matchup because the difference between 19 and 18 is huge.
Wurmcoil Engine - Just a solid creature that’s a huge road block. Short of Path there’s not a good answer for it. Traditionally a huge hoser against Jund since they play no good removal for it, and deathtouch hurts their creatures. It’s another aggro hate card but it’s a bit of a threat as well as opposed to something like Timely which just slows them down. Wurmcoil Engine is much less impressive against Burn now that they play 6-8 Skullcracks, but it's good against BGx, probably enough so to still justify a slot. It's fairly close though, and maybe a Karn instead might be good enough depending on the meta you predict.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - Generally the win condition if the game goes late. In fast matchups like Zoo, Affinity, or Storm, boarding it out is your best bet. You really can’t rely on him if they’re going to win before you can play him, or get drained of resources. He’s really good against fair decks and blue decks though, so a lot of matchups still want him in.
Eye of Ugin - Generally speaking it’s a pair with Emrakul. If Emrakul goes, so does Eye, and if Emrakul stays, so too should Eye. It’s basically just used to tutor it. Sure, you can find Wurmcoil or Sundering Titan but the value just isn’t there for them. Emrakul or bust, basically.
Iona, Shield of Emeria - Is really good in matchups where naming a single colour will win you the game. While most of those end up being mono coloured decks, even two colour decks like UR Storm or UR Twin, or even three colour decks like RUG Twin or Jund still get destroyed by her. Boarding her out really just depends on whether you want her or not. Against Affinity or RG Tron, probably not, they’re not really playing coloured spells. Against Soul Sisters? They’ll probably concede on the spot.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - Good for creature based matchups where she can Wrath the board. Decks like Merfolk, Pod, even Twin has applications, or Storm if they side into Empty the Warrens. She’s even still fine against Geist decks just on the basis that she’s an answer to Geist. In non-creature matchups like RG Tron, Scapeshift, and basically any control deck, she comes out instantly.
Remand - Remand is boarded out against Affinity, Tron mirrors, and any really grindy match. Against a deck like Jund where they grind you out, you really don’t want to draw a mid-late game Remand and get nothing. I’ll counter your Goyf, draw a card, and you can replay him? You’ll cast no spells and I’ll have it stick around? I’d rather draw into actual spells. Affinity really just plays too cheap of cards to want to counter them, and Tron just doesn’t care, they’ll cast it again.
Path to Exile - Comes out against all non-creature decks the same way Elesh Norn does. Sometimes you leave it in against certain lists, like I’ll leave a copy in against RG Tron, I’ll leave some in against Scapeshift (for Primeval Titan/Obstinate Baloth), but as you would suspect, I’ll board them all out against UWR Control.
Oblivion Ring - It’s really slow for removal. You trade off it’s expensive and slow for the benefit that it answers a wide variety of cards. Depending on your needs you decide what to do. Twin is the deck you don’t want it, they’re doing it all where we need instant speed interactions.
Expedition Map - It’s a card that only benefits our ramp strategy, so in some matchups we’d rather not do that too much. Since it only slows us down a bit, some matchups don’t really care that we’re slightly slower. It’s a great card to board out in a pinch since you don’t accidentally have no Wraths against Zoo or no Paths against Twin.
Thirst for Knowledge - A great card but a tad expensive. Sometimes in the fast matches you don’t have time to slowly gain card advantage. If I’m in a fast matchup or need a bit more room, this card can definitely come out. Even though it’s advantage, it’s expensive. 3 mana can be a lot to actually pay when you’re trying to interact with your opponent.
Repeal - A nice silver bullet answer: it’s instant speed and draws a card. It also does get around some answers to it, potentially. That said, it’s not the best card in several matchups. If they’re not particularly playing any single card we care about, they’re not really playing permanents, or playing hexproof, we really don’t want it. It’s not going to answer Bogle or Geist so why keep it in?
Wrath of God - Bad against non-creature decks. Basically the fewer creatures you see, the less you want to see this. It’s a necessary evil against Geist just because it’s one of the few answers. It’s also really bad against Twin since it’s really bad at interacting with them - they go quickly and instant speed. This applies for all Wraths.
Knowing how to sideboard is important. You can over-board and bring in too many cards, and not get your deck rolling, or bring in too little and find yourself with no answers. It’s really important when you board in or out win conditions because you may be making a terrible mistake. In fact, I lost a match in a tournament way back when because of it.
There’s a section below on matchup analysis that gives in-depth information on several of the top decks, however, there’s no guarantee your opponent is playing something popular. In lieu of that, this section will provide more general analysis on what the cards are for and what you should be looking to board in our out.
Spellskite - This card is really good in the format as it hates on a lot. It’s also an artifact to use with Thirst for Knowledge should the option present itself. Against decks like Twin or Boggles, it’s the absolute nuts. It can also protect your other artifacts by redirecting stuff. Even against other decks like Scapeshift or Burn, paying 2 to redirect 3 damage is relevant. A lot of Scapeshift math is ruined by it doing 1 less each time. In a Twin-heavy meta, it’s definitely a solid card.
Timely Reinforcements - This is here to shore up aggro matchups, particularly creature-based ones. Getting blockers is huge, and in matchups where you reanimate Elesh Norn, they can do some work. Gaining life is really huge against burn decks, and mono red isn’t the only deck playing Bolts; several UWR decks will turn into hyper-aggressors post-board. The card is also fairly good at blocking Geist.
Relic of Progenitus - Generally a really powerful graveyard answer. It doesn’t hinder ours in any way, which is something to be concerned of when playing Gifts combo and Mindslaver. You’re more excited to play this than, say Tormod’s Crypt, on the basis that drawing a card is better than being cheaper. Affinity might play Crypt on the basis that it’s a 0 mana artifact for them, but I think we’d rather draw a card. Especially in some matchups, the removing a single card can be much better (like against Goyf/Ooze, Snapcaster, Storm, etc.) so I’d prefer to have that ability. It does require me to leave up a mana each time but I mean, if that card will win me the game just sitting there then it’s a small price to pay. It's a good card to try to beat a wide range of decks because it's okay against a lot of decks.
Celestial Purge - Just a sweet card in general. Exiling permanents with no downside is great. Well, the downside is the restriction, but it’s vague enough that you can find enough matchups to use it in. General cards that answer a lot but are more widespread are really nice sideboard options, especially if you face an unknown deck and randomly show up with a good answer.
Disenchant - Basically, Affinity is a deck. We don’t want something that only applies to Affinity though, so we end up here. Disenchant can hit a number of cards like Birthing Pod or Splinter Twin.
Ghostly Prison - A really flexible card since it has applications in both aggro and combo matchups. Most combo matchups are creature based, like Twin and Kiki-Pod. Getting the jump on everything at the same time is really big game. It’s particularly good against a deck like Merfolk where the Timely isn’t that good. It’s obviously better in multiples but I prefer running a split of Kiki hate to be able to fetch it, and we already have other aggro-hate cards.
Suppression Field - Fills a nice niche since it classifies as Pod/Twin hate, but hates on other decks. In particular, it’s good against Affinity and Living End. For Affinity, it’s great because their manlands, Ravager, Cranial Plating, and any other activated abilities now cost more. For a deck that plays few lands and wants to attack with lands, it’s going to slow them down a lot. For Living End, it’s great because cycle now costs 2 more. It’s even good at slowing down Planeswalkers or the likes, and it’s just a nice flex card.
Torpor Orb - Specifically this is the best Twin answer. It shuts down all parts of the combo plus all the creatures they normally play individually (Pestermite, Exarch, Snapcaster, Clique, Wall of Omens) for every version of the deck. It’s also still good against Pod because you stop all their creatures as well. Generally just a really good card for us. It’s a bit of a nombo with some of our stuff but that’s fine, I’m okay losing out on my Snapcaster if their whole deck doesn’t function.
Rule of Law - A very specific card for Storm. It’s basically bad everywhere else but we can afford one spot for them.
Negate - A great counter when you need to answer specific stuff. A lot of the time we’re concerned with answering spells and not creatures. I’m more concerned about Twin than Pestermite, about Past in Flames than Wild Nacatl, about Scapeshift than Sakura Tribe-Elder. It’s not as cheap as alternatives like Dispel but the fact it answers a lot more cards makes it valuable.
Dispel - With Gifts I like playing a split of counters. Flexibility is good for us, and going up to 4 different counters means we can Gifts for an all counters package. There are a lot of options here but in a pinch, Dispel is great. Particularly it’s good when they counter our counter; the cheaper the better.
Spellskite - Really good against Twin, which always manages to be pretty popular. It’s also a nice fringe answer card, it’s great against Boggles. I also really like it against Scapeshift since it can really ruin their math. 3 damage now becomes 2 and everything goes wrong for them.
Pithing Needle - Pithing Needle is a great card to answer pesky activated abilities. Some key ones include: Karn, Liliana, Aether Vial, Birthing Pod, most of Affinity, and any man land. Pithing Needle mostly depends on whether you’re expecting the first four permanents in large volumes or not. When Jund was far and away the best deck, we saw a ton of Lili and Karn as a response, so basically the Pithing Needle was great. However, when the meta shifts away to decks not using them as much, it’s just a lot worse. While Pithing Needle still does things against Twin, it’s difficult to use it correctly. Twin gives the permanent an extra ability, so the Exarch or Pestermite is what you would need to name, and you can’t really proactively name either card nor can you name in response. Remember that Pithing Needle isn’t a trigger, it’s “as it comes into play”. They cannot react to you naming, they must react before it resolves. Sometimes you can name things like Map or a fetch and prevent them from activating.
Leyline of Sanctity - This card is very good against decks frequently targeting you. Decks like Jund, Burn, and Loam are the primary targets here. While it has implications against Storm, it’s usually going to just get bounced and not do much for us. If Storm is going off, they should bounce it no problem. For a deck like Scapeshift, they have tons of outs to bounce it with Cryptic as well. Suffice to say, it’s generally bad against combo decks targeting us and good against fair decks targeting us. If you have a high Jund or Burn turnout, it’s definitely a good card to consider. You should also play as a 4-of to increase the odds of drawing it. Against Loam, this card is absolutely insane and wins game. It’s worth aggressively mulling into if your hand is mediocre. If you play against a lot of Loam, I urge you to board it, the matchup is otherwise horrendous.
Mindbreak Trap - A great anti-storm card as you cast it for free. When they go off, usually it’s key to stop like their one Past in Flames that really needs to resolve. They won’t care so much if you Negate it, but exiling it does a lot. And again, it’s free so you can be pro-active and tap out while not losing the game. This card is also good against opposing Tron decks because it’s one of the few pro-active answers to Emrakul. Yes, you can Mindbreak Trap Emrakul, it doesn’t actually counter, it exiles while on the stack.
Boseiju, Who Shelters All - Boseiju is an interesting card. It’s a land, but it provides a very cool spell-based ability. For a deck that wants to guarantee a couple of key spells resolving, it’s actually pretty solid. You drop it early, then use it to resolve Gifts and Unburial Rites, paying only 4 life. Sure, it puts you a bit behind, but the value you can get from it is nice. In matchups like UWR Midrange or Delver, force resolving is pretty neat. If you’re playing Timely, it synergizes nicely; pay 2, I now have less life, cast Timely. Especially with map, you get to force it out early.
Bribery - An interesting card to use against Tron mirrors. Being able to hit Emrakul gives this card a big punch. Against Mono U Tron, which typically doesn’t play Emrakul, it’s a bit lacking. Needing to hit 5 mana, it’s somewhat troubling against a deck like RG Tron. You’ll often lose before 5 mana and if they have a Karn, they can easily just exile their Emrakul after it. It gets a lot of talk but because it’s slow it’s ultimately not the nuts.
Sigarda, Host of Herons - A really nice Gifts combo option. Sigarda has Hexproof so she keeps herself alive against the face of removal like Dismember or Path. What's extra nice is that she's really good at staying alive against Junk because they cannot make you sacrifice her to Liliana. Typically their only out to her would be a 5/6 Goyf, because she can block every other creature (Tasigur, Ooze, manlands, Rhino). In the Wilted-Abzan, she's a little less impressive because of Noble Heirarch, but that's not enough to dissuade me from playing her there either, because they still have two colours of removal. Even if they're a little more light on black removal (typically only Slaughter Pact), you probably don't want to risk it.
Engineered Explosives - This card is very good in the format. It’s a 2-mana Wrath, or close to it. Our deck is typically not capable of paying 3. You can play a single black source to support it (typically a Godless Shrine), but it does hurt the mana a little bit. Between being able to fetch it though, you can force it if you try. It’s not exactly a Wrath, it doesn’t kill everything. But it has the benefit of killing non-creature permanents as well. For example, against Storm, you can kill Electromancer and Pyromancer's Ascension at the same time, and it’s so much better than a Wrath; even if they board into Empty the Warrens, you kill all tokens at x=0 for 2 mana only. The one downside is that our deck plays Signets, and you occasionally need to blow them up. It sucks, but the upside that it does things against several decks where Wrath doesn't is nice. You can also recur it easily with Academy Ruins for value, or even fetch for it with Trinket Mage or Tolaria West.
Grafdigger's Cage - Another graveyard answer, but generally not that good for us. Cage is excellent against a deck like Pod, but at the same time, we've already got a good matchup against Pod. Cage also doesn't deal with decks like Living End. You take a trade off to play this card because you can’t reanimate with Gifts through it. It boils down to how good Cage is in the matchups you board it in: if Cage can win you the game on its own, then it’s fine, and if it can’t, then something else is probably better. Even for a deck like Storm, they don’t absolutely need the graveyard. It’s possible to go off with just Pyromancer's Ascension being active, so Pithing Needle is generally better.
Hurkyl’s Recall - A great card against Affinity if you’re having trouble. It buys you a lot of time and can help you get to your Elesh Norn with enough life to spare. It’s also really good if they sac everything with Ravager to nullify that plan. You even get to bounce their animated lands and Darksteel Citadels as well, so you can get a huge swing from this.
Kataki, War’s Wage - A nice answer to Affinity if that’s what you’re looking for. What’s nice is that it attacks and blocks as necessary, not that you’re like to. Making them pay all their mana to keep stuff in play is really big against them. Especially when you’re seeing something like a bunch if Citadels, making them pay is a huge game. Obviously Ravager still does its thing but it’s not a huge concern. We can also fetch it from Gifts in a pinch. The best part about this card probably has to be that you’re going to get around all the removal since they board it out. It’s really not reasonable for them to keep in the removal for you, and so this card just skirts around unchecked.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
Affinity
Amulet Combo
Assault Loam
Blue Moon
Boggles
Boros
Burn
BW Tokens
UR Delver
USA Delver
RUG Delver
Domain Zoo
Griselbrand Reanimator
Hatebears
Infect
Jund
Kiki Pod
Living End
Melira Pod
Merfolk
Nivmagus Combo
BGx Rock
Scapeshift
Soul Sisters
Storm
Mono U Tron
RG Tron
UR Twin
RUG Twin
UWR Twin
UWR Control
UWR Midrange
Small Zoo
4C Gifts
8-Rack
Favours: You
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Elesh Norn
Key cards: Arcbound Ravager, Cranial Plating, Inkmoth Nexus, Master of Etherium, Steel Overseer; Blood Moon
Affinity is actually a decent matchup for us because they bank on a large number of small creatures, or sometimes one big one. Their resilience is usually stemmed by Ravager or a manland, which we hopefully deal with.
Elesh Norn is always the reanimation target, they generally can’t beat her if it’s well timed. This matchup often ends up hedging on whether you can get to Elesh Norn fast enough. On their good starts, you can be in some trouble, but on our good starts they’re also in trouble.
There’s a lot of cards to watch out for in this matchup. The way they’re going to win is by getting some creatures to a decent toughness before Elesh Norn comes down. Arcbound Ravager, Master of Etherium, and Steel Overseer all help accomplish this goal. Landing one of those early can be troublesome. That said, a single Path is often enough to handle any of these if you’ve got the early Elesh Norn.
You’ll also see some plays for Ravager sac all the counters onto Inkmoth Nexus to dodge your Wrath or Elesh Norn. This puts them pretty all-in on the one Nexus, meaning your Path is really good here. Map into Ghost Quarter for anyone that plays it is also very good here.
Sideboard:
+2 Timely
+1 Disenchant
+1 Ghostly Prison
+1 Suppression FIeld
-4 Remand
-1 Iona
Timely, Disenchant, and Ghostly Prison are all straightforward. Suppression Field is really good, they rely on a lot of activated abilities: Cranial Plating, Inkmoth Nexus, Blinkmoth Nexus, Steel Overseer, and Arcbound Ravager.
I basically cut the Remands, they’re almost useless when cards are really cheap to cast. Iona is pretty obvious to cut.
They board in Blood Moon on occasion, but it hurts them more than us in this matchup. It takes away their ability to win with the manlands so I really don’t care about it. Since we’re also not on a Tron plan anyways, I’m just not going to care.
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Terastodon
Key cards: Amulet, Hive Mind
This matchup is not nearly as bad as I initially thought. They have the ability to get to a turn 2 Titan or Hive Mind, the latter of which would kill us. Remands are very good here because the turn 2 Hive Mind comes at the expense of Summer Bloom. They use Summer Bloom to play 3 additional lands, which end up being 3 bounce lands, well, actually the same bounce land 3 times. They just play the land, produce two mana, and bounce it, getting 6 mana only for that turn. Remand on the 6-drop is great here because it slows them down a lot. The reason this matchup isn't so bad is because they're all-in on a combo which doesn't necessarily win and isn't consistent. The deck can sometimes lose to itself, as it needs to hit specific cards to do anything. They need Amulet and Summer Bloom to generate the 6 mana to play Hive Mind or Titan, and they don't protect it outside of a Pact of Negation.
Outside of countering their 6-drop, we’re just not well equipped to stop a Hive Mind should it resolve. If it resolves I'd mostly assume I'm dead. However, given we play few creatures, Slaughter Pact ends up not working out that well, so it's mostly the Summoner's Pact we should be concerned with.
Iona naming green would be my choice here. If you get to name green, they can’t cast their Azusa or Primeval Titan anymore. Even if they get off a Hive Mind, there’s only about 3 more Pacts left, two of which we could pay for. You’d literally be trying to dodge Slaughter Pact, which is fine. When you name blue, you sometimes lose to Summoner's Pact or Primeval Titan finding Slaughter Pact. The line of play would be to fetch for a bounce land and Tolaria West, bounce Tolaria West, and transmute it for Slaughter Pact.
Sideboard:
+2 Negate
+1 Dispel
+1 Disenchant
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Eye
-1 Emrakul
-1 Supreme Verdict
This is one matchup where having Terastodon would be great. Blowing up some of their lands would be fantastic for us. Alas, I’m not playing the Terastodon, so we’ll have to accept the crappy options we have. Mindslaver would also be better than Emrakul since it’s quite possible to have this deck kill itself with Pacts in some situation. Just imagine they Pact something, you take their turn, and “oops, did I forget to pay for Pact?”.
Negates are great because they let us stop their combo. We really just want to answer the combo. Dispel comes in because I want to keep my Iona alive at all costs, and I can counter Pacts that are on the stack. When Hive Mind does its thing, I can just Dispel the copy that I'm casting, so then I don't have to pay on my upkeep. Disenchant also comes in because it can kill Amulet, which shuts down their deck decently.
I take out Elesh Norn, it doesn’t do much. They play Titan and Azusa, but I don’t primarily care about killing the Azusa as fast as possible, they get value before I can stop it. And even supposing I do kill it, Titan can still attack and fetch lands for value. Eye and Emrakul come out as well simply because the matchup is too fast for us to get there. I don’t think there’s any chance of it happening, and supposing we did get that far into the game we could go through Colonnade beats, since they typically don’t play much creature removal. I would rather leave in the Wrath effects to answer these creatures since Wrath kills both but Elesh Norn doesn’t. I do however cut the Verdict as Wraths are not really that great here, and Verdict is simply the worst.
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona
Key cards: Raven’s Crime, Liliana
Loam is a deck I loath because it’s basically just a different version of Jund that happens to be worse in general, and better against us.
The deck is good against us because of Raven’s Crime. In fact, this deck, and this deck alone, is the reason I started playing Leylines in the board. I couldn’t beat them, simple as that. Turn 1 Raven’s Crime turned into turn 3 my hand is gone. That really sucked for me. I actually had to concede that Leyline was the only reasonable way to win.
The deck is perfectly fine just grinding us out until they can use Seismic Assault and Loam to kill us. And since our hand is depleted, that’s not ideal for us, we can’t beat them in top-deck mode the entire game.
Iona naming black is what you want here. The deck is similar to Jund when you get down to things. Your Iona will still die to Seismic Assault but you’re forced to do it to dodge Liliana. You don’t really care about most other spells at that point and just hope to win faster than they can muster or find an answer.
As an aside, I have a story about Leyline and this deck. I was 1-1 against them in my first actual tournament and went to game 3. My opening hand was very reasonable, and included a Celestial Purge. I took a mulligan knowing that I really need to force the Leyline, it’s that important of a card. Low and behold, I drew into it on 6 and snap kept, slamming the Leyline. It allowed me to eventually get there with Iona. It’s definitely worth it to aggressively mulligan in this matchup.
Leyline is insane against them. Probably the second best deck for out (after burn). You get to fog all the spot discard, Liliana, and even Seismic Assault. They’re forced to grind with Goyfs and Bobs to kill you, which really isn’t too bad. Basically, it turns the matchup into Jund, a deck I can reasonably beat, from a deck I might as well take the time to eat.
Sideboard:
+2 Relic
+1 Purge
+1 Suppression Field
+2 Negate
+1 Wurmcoil
+1 Disenchant
-1 Elesh Norn
-4 Remand
-3 Wrath
In comes Relic, it’s good against Loam and Raven’s Crime. Purge hits everything not named Goyf, and Suppression Field stops Liliana and Seismic Assault. Negate is generally good against their deck, hitting mostly the same stuff Suppression Field does. Wurmcoil is always good against Jund coloured decks simply because they can’t easily deal with it, and Disenchant stops Seismic Assault.
Despite the deck may play Goyf and Ooze, as well as Bob, I’m not too frightened by them enough to keep in Wraths. The Paths are hopefully enough to get there. Remand is awful here, they play a ton of lands and can just wait until next turn, since Loam makes Seismic Assault deadly and the Assault itself costs nothing to use other than lands. They can deal enough damage quickly that we don’t want to tempo, they will beat us the next turn. Elesh Norn is also just bad because there’s not a lot it kills and it’s vulnerable to Lili, while not putting enough pressure on them. Assault to 3 lands also kills her, just to put it in perspective how many things are good against her.
Favours: You
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona
Key cards: Blood Moon
This deck is an evolution of tempo decks in the format. Between decks like UWR Midrange, Twin, and UR Delver, the thought was to provide a general control shell that was good in the format. More specifically, Blood Moon was considered good in the format, so they wanted to maximize on it. Basically the best control deck to run that card, two colours only, with a blue primary. Red is basically only for Bolt and Blood Moon.
Iona naming blue is basically a win here, they don’t have red outs to her. They have more than enough ways to try to stop her with counters though.
This matchup should be good, they’re trying to slow grind us and that’s generally not very good against us. However, Blood Moon being decent against us means we’ve got a legitimate problem. I think with 4 Signets and 2 basics, you probably can get around Blood Moon. You really only need to get off your combo, and Blood Moon doesn’t hurt us enough if we have a Signet in play. People always assume it instantly kills us, but with a Signet you’re actually in okay shape. Still, the fact they can get it down early and play counters is an issue. Unlike most Blood Moon decks, they can answer our spells. Even if I have 1 Signet in play, Remanding any of my spells makes me unable to play it again, since I will lack the coloured mana.
Sideboard:
+1 Disenchant
+1 Wurmcoil
+2 Negate
+1 Dispel
+1 Celestial Purge
-3 Wrath
-3 Path
Counters are good, especially the Dispel for resolving Unburial Rites. Wurmcoil is fine, they play only bounce removal for it and if they try to grind me out it’s a huge pain. Since a common win condition is Batterskull from them, it works out well there. Speaking of which, since Batterskull is also in the deck the Disenchant is quite nice to double up with Blood Moon. And since we have a decent amount of stuff to come out, I’m willing to bring in Purge explicitly for Blood Moon. As a side note, they play a full 4 copies which many decks boarding in Blood Moons don’t.
We take out all the creature-based stuff since there’s really nothing on their side. I’d rather leave in Elesh Norn than a Path here because the top end is usually Stormbreath Dragon that I can’t kill, and Elesh Norn interacts more favourably. I don’t need the early-game answer either since it’s late game cards and Snapcasters, and I don’t envision Snapcaster beats winning this matchup.
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Elesh Norn
Key cards: Totem Armor
This matchup can be really good or really bad depending on whether you see good board options. This is most notably true after what happened in the 2013 Player’s Championships. Reid Duke was on Boggles while Shahar Shenhar was on UWR Control. In an interview, he was joking about how he thought the matchup was 95-5 in Reid’s favour, and another teammate of his told him it was worse. But decks with answers can provide miracles.
Our deck is typically weak to hexproof, there’s not really any good answers for hexproof and because of Totem Armor it makes Wrath not that great as well. If they get going before you, there’s a good chance that you’re too far behind to actually interact, and they typically do a good job going Voltron style.
Our job is just to try to hold the fort. Path is pretty bad most of the time, but cards like Wrath, Timely, and Gifts combo are really good here. Especially if you subscribe to the MB Explosives or Cyclonic Rift, they do some work.
Iona and Elesh Norn both work depending on the situation. I would prefer to go for Iona naming white for the most part since they have Paths. Depending on the situation though, you may end up getting far too much value from Elesh Norn. The fact that all their creatures die to her is what makes her powerful here. They actually don’t play too many creatures on the premise that they are hard to remove, so sweepers tend to be great.
Sideboard:
+2 Timely
+1 Disenchant
+1 Ghostly Prison
+2 Negate
+1 Wurmcoil Engine
+1 Spellskite
-4 Path
-2 Map
-1 Eye
-1 Emrakul
Typical boarding here, bring in anything that interacts with the their enchantment voltron strategy. Disenchant blows things up, Ghostly Prison slows them down, and Spellskite is the best card in the deck now; once you resolve it they can’t put any more enchantments on their guys, and on top of that they’re basically going to be forced to Path it when they have a chance. Timely is good to stall and Wurmcoil can at least block fairly well, or at least stall the game out if they have a Spirit Mantle. Negates are great to stop some key enchantments.
I board out all the Paths because they’re a hexproof deck. While there are potentially cards like Kor Spiritdancer that can be Path’d, I really don’t want to play the odds. I’m essentially gambling that I’m going to see the right cards on their side, and if I don’t I’ll have this dead card. I could accept an argument to leave them in on the premise that it’s really good when it’s good, but I like playing the odds. I also board out a pair of Maps, they’re a bit clunky since I’m looking more so to find the combo than get my own thing.
I pull out Emrakul, there’s really no way I get there and I will grind out with Colonnades if I do. It’s slow and clunky and I’d rather reanimate something that does well instead.
Favours: Even
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona
Key cards: Boros Charm
Essentially just a two-colour aggro deck. It is going to play out quite a lot like Small Zoo. They’re going to have access to Path, Helix, and Bolt, of which we only care about Path. They often play the Landfall package, so they can win pretty fast.
Iona is generally good against decks with only one colour of removal, and this deck is no exception. If you name white, you blank most of the deck. While there’s still some stuff they can do, I’m not exactly afraid. At least, not enough to force me to do something differently. They’ll have like Bolt + Goblin Guide + Kird Ape, none of which are powerful enough on their own.
You absolutely need to remember Boros Charm is a card so you don’t Wrath and let them completely blow you out. Outside of that, you should be okay.
Sideboard:
+2 Timely
+1 Wurmcoil
+1 Purge
+1 Ghostly Prison
-1 Emrakul
-1 Eye
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Map
-1 Thirst
All the aggro hate in as we’re playing against an aggro deck that’s red.
Emrakul and Eye come out because they’re just too slow and we probably won’t grind. Elesh Norn comes out because she really can’t kill anything, what with them playing stuff like Loam Lion, Kird Ape, and Vexing Devil. Sure, she could hit like a Steppe Lynx or Goblin Guide but I think the value just isn’t there. Remember, they have access to Path. Map and Thirst come out, one each, since they’re somewhat slow. I could take out Remands instead, but trying to interact early seems like a much better idea than trying to cast early Thirst and actually not die at the same time.
Be prepared for potential Blood Moon. I think it’s typically unlikely with the fact that they need to use their fetches to guarantee and that Kird Ape and Loam lion get worse, as does Steppe Lynx. Still, people think the card is insane so it really wouldn’t surprise me.
Favours: You
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Wurmcoil
Key cards: Skullcrack; Blood Moon
The matchup is pretty good for us. Between Path and Remand, plus Timely, we can usually stave off the early game. Gifts is insane here because we can essentially just win the game on the spot.
You basically always reanimate Iona and name red and enjoy your free win. Remember that they do play Bump in the Night but it’s doubtful they race you from that 3 damage. It’s important to note that in some of the creature-heavy variants (the ones that run Keldon Marauders), they can have you dead on board to creatures in which Elesh Norn or Wurmcoil make more sense.
Wurmcoil is just a huge beater as well. It’s a lot worse than Iona but still does solid work. They don’t play good answers to it, and artifact removal doesn’t particularly cut it. Gaining 6 life is quite often too hard to come back from.
Watch out for Skullcrack. Regardless of whether Wurmcoil/Sphinx’s/Timely are in your MB, the card can really do a number if you absolutely need the life gain. If you can avoid playing into it, it will help you a lot.
Sideboard:
+2 Timely
+1 Purge
+2 Negate
+1 Wurmcoil
+1 Spellskite
-1 Eye
-1 Emrakul
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Oblivion Ring
-3 Wrath
Timely, Wurmcoil, and Purge are all very straightforward to bring in. Negate is great because they’re playing so few creatures, usually only around 12, and we often just take the 4 from Vexing Devil anyways. Hitting a Bolt can even be fine in this matchup. Spellskite is also good, redirecting burn damage is always good.
Eye and Emrakul both come out for obvious reasons. Elesh Norn also comes straight out, she doesn’t really do anything. In the odd scenarios where you need her, Wurmcoil often does the job too, and better. Oblivion Ring tends to be slow and doesn’t provide enough, since you’re getting rid of like a Goblin Guide or something. Wraths come out as well since there’s so few creatures, the card just doesn’t do enough.
Blood Moon comes in for them, they almost always play it. It hurts us but usually isn’t too bad in this matchup. Since it’s mostly a race to Gifts combo, if you’ve got a single Signet you’re in the clear. If you find it enough of an issue, you can keep in Oblivion Ring or board into Disenchant. I’m not a fan since those cards are slow or dead in some situations, but if you have to then whatever. You can board out some number of Maps/Thirsts at this point, since again those are slow cards against this fast deck.
If you’re boarding Leyline, this is the deck to bring it in against. It’s also basically a free win, it blanks more than half their deck. Some lists run white to bring in Wear//Tear but hopefully you don’t see it and even still, a couple of turns of Leyline is hopefully really good for you.
Favours: Even
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Elesh Norn
Key Cards: Tidehollow Sculler, Lingering Souls
This matchup is okay but you really do need to draw some Wraths. They swarm the board really easily and can go pretty fast. The thing that makes it somewhat difficult is that just one Path doesn’t solve the problem because every creature can turn into a threat when they have anthem effects pumping all their creatures. You have to hope for a slow start.
Tidehollow Sculler is a real problem, it eats a card, which is often either Wrath or Gifts. You’re forced to spend a Path on him because you need that card back. You would love to be able to bank on a key card getting there but because of him you shouldn’t really try to, if you can avoid it. Considering that they play Thoughtseize/Inquisition as well you’re going to get a fair chunk of your hand eaten up. So playing as if that Wrath is staying in your hand is wrong.
In a similar vein, you can’t always bank on a Wrath because Lingering Souls is 4 damage back in play. The deck can make a lot of creatures pretty fast.
Reanimating Iona is best, naming white. Most cards in the deck are white, and you blank the Path. I still like the Elesh Norn just because it provides so much value as a card, since a lot of the time it does Wrath them, and they’re probably the deck that Wrath is the best against.
Sideboard:
+2 Timely
+1 Wurmcoil
+1 Ghostly Prison
-1 Oblivion Ring
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Sphinx’s Revelation
-1 Condescend
I want the aggro hate, but there’s not enough black permanents for Celestial Purge.
I take out a bunch of 1-ofs because I really don’t want them. Oblivion Ring is a slow catch-all against a deck primarily composed of tokens; I don’t think it gives me much value to pay 3 to kill a token they paid 1 for. I also take out Norn, while she’s good I’m almost never going to force her. I pull out a single Condescend because it’s a bit clunky, and a Sphinx’s Revelation because it’s slow. While the life gain would be nice, you’ll often face lethal much earlier and need more early game cards like Timely or Remand.
Favours: Even
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Elesh Norn
Key cards: None
This matchup is even, mostly because our reanimation targets are live the entire game. However, the deck presents a very good early game with the ability to out-tempo and race us. They can be either the tempo deck or the aggro deck, and they definitely want to be the aggro deck. As long as they keep up a counter for Gifts Combo, we’re actually going to probably be in serious trouble.
Our Wraths and Timely are really good here, as they play a bunch of smallish creatures (Pyromancer, Delver, Snapcaster). Getting a good jump on them is going to go a long way for you. Since they play a lot of cheap spells like Serum Visions and Gitaxian Probe, it’s easy for them to just tempo us out of the game with Pyromancer.
They typically play 6-9 counters MB, usually a split of Remand, Mana Leak, and Spell Snare. They don’t always play Cryptic, it’s a personal preference decision. It is definitely something to keep in mind though because you don’t want to play into it and get blown out.
Iona is the best option here, naming blue. They can’t cast most cards in their deck and can’t remove her anymore. They still have a few things they can do, but hopefully it’s not that hard for us to work around. Bolt might actually be the only red card MB, which I don’t care about if I resolve Iona.
Elesh Norn is also quite good. You get to kill every creature in their deck, which is always nice to have. It’s not my first choice, but sometimes they will present board states where it’s definitely a better go-to answer. Especially with Young Pyromancer, they can actually put a lot of pressure on you from creatures. Watch out for Vapor Snag/Cryptic if you do go for Elesh Norn, as it could ruin your day. I think most of the time when you do go that route, they should be depleted of resources such that it buys you enough time to hard cast it. The deck typically relies on putting pressure off the cheap creatures and getting a good jump. They have difficulty playing from behind so you’re pretty safe with Elesh Norn getting bounced after killing a few dudes.
Sideboard:
+2 Timely Reinforcements
+1 Ghostly Prison
+1 Dispel
-1 Emrakul
-1 Eye
-1 Oblivion Ring
-1 Thirst
In comes Timely as it’s very good against their creatures. I can actually trade many of them 1-for-1. The Ghostly Prison is insane in this matchup since they play Pyromancer. It will completely stop that plan, which is huge for me. I also like boarding in the Dispel only. I find most of their spells aren’t worth countering, but I would rather have a nice cheap option in counter wars, and this brings me up to 3-of counters for Gifts. They typically don’t play anything Dispel can’t hit that I’m scared of. Maybe Blood Moon on their end, but I’m not exactly expecting it. Most of their spells are rather lackluster, so I’d rather be on my own game than try to react to theirs. Even if they board out all the Vapor Snags and have no Cryptics, I think Wurmcoil is a bit lacking here. I would basically always prefer Elesh Norn to it, and I’d rather keep my curve lower to interact earlier.
I board out Emrakul and Eye. The cards are clunky in a rather fast matchup. Despite them being a blue deck where I like the fact it resolves, the game is decided much too quickly. Similarly, I think Oblivion Ring is clunky against their small creatures, and Thirst is slow. I would rather board out Thirst than Map because I’d rather play my game and advance my plan.
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Elesh Norn
Key cards: Delver, Geist
See UWR Midrange for more information, as the matchups are similar. They differ mostly on the decision to play Delver, and this matchup is slightly faster. This deck sometimes goes really heavy into Steppe Lynx, but either way, a large core is the same and the strategy vs us is the same for them.
This deck is a traditional Delver deck; 4 Delver, 4 Snapcaster, 4 Geist. It’s very similar to the UWR Midrange list actually, at least from our perspective. Geist is still just a beater that we can’t answer.
The deck often plays cards like Steppe Lynx to be really aggressive. Additionally they usually play more creatures than UWR Midrange so that means less counters, especially Cryptics. So they trade a bit on protecting Geist to slam turn 1 Delver. This deck tends to win a bit faster, and is also able to win without the ‘protect the Geist’ plan.
Let me tell you, turn 1 Delver into turn 2 Delver into turn 3 flip is near unbeatable. If we can’t answer them, eventually they’ll get to a golden spot with answers that we just take too much damage too fast. And even if we Path one Delver, the tempo their deck gets from an extra land is a lot more than you’d expect, especially with Steppe Lynx since they get extra landfall from it, or we have to give them the mana a turn early (aka they have access to it on their turn). Delver can be protected easily enough. Sure, Remand is bad against Path, but we potentially can’t recast. If you get a Wrath Remanded, you’re potentially taking 6 or something on the next turn, and they’ll race you.
You can reanimate literally anything against them, though none are particularly good. Iona can name either blue or white to stop removal and go to town. Elesh Norn is also good because she can wipe the board. On those boards with turn 1 Delver into turn 2 Delver, sometimes you’d rather just Wrath early and set them behind. Setting a tempo deck behind is actually really strong, as they’ll have a difficult time catching back up. And even when you do this with Elesh Norn, they need to Path or Cryptic her because the rest of their deck (except maybe some Angels) should die to her, and I’m not scared of ½ Angels that they might not even play. Especially with a Delver start, they’ll go way too fast for me.
Sideboard:
+2 Timely
+1 Ghostly Prison
+1 Wurmcoil
-1 Map
-1 Oblivion Ring
-1 Thirst
-1 Map / Repeal
I board out Repeal or an extra Map based on the version of their deck. If it’s Delver, Snapcaster, Geist, Repeal only hits 4 cards and it’s bad (I would never want to bounce Snapcaster). If it has Steppe Lynx, I definitely want to keep Repeal in. Repeal bounces Delver for U, and Steppe Lynx for 1U. Additionally, the Steppe Lynx really only does anything with fetches, so if you do it after they play a fetch and crack, you can get a nice tempo boost. They’ll also be down a mana when you cast it in response to fetching.
I want to board in all the aggro hate. Wurmcoil/Timely is better in this Delver matchup because they have a lot of burn. The life from a single Timely or Wurmcoil attack/block is going to put you far ahead. The deck also likely boards out most Paths, meaning your Wurmcoil gets a lot better post-board. Ghostly Prison is also nice against a blue deck because they have to tap out to win, meaning part of their deck is rendered useless.
I like boarding out Oblivion Ring, it’s slow against all their aggressive stuff and bad against Geist. I board out two Maps and a Thirst because I want to be quick and I want more actual cards. It’s also difficult to decide what to board out since their deck has numerous angles. I want to keep in the Condescend as a hard-counter answer to Geist. I want to keep in Sphinx’s Rev to counter their burn. I even want to keep in Emrakul because I’m scared of them countering everything. While they don’t play as many, Geist keeps us in check. They can sit tight on a single Geist and counter everything, so I’d rather be prepared with my top-end answer. I might consider boarding it out if I had Sundering Titan since I might present enough options, and half of their counters are Remands.
Naming blue post-board is better since they really should board out Paths to be more aggressive. They absolutely want to race, and are more than happy to do so. You can also reanimate Elesh Norn just to wipe the board. Sure, they can bounce, but when Path is gone that’s not too bad. Killing like a Delver and Geist is pretty strong. And the deck doesn’t necessarily run all four Cryptics, so sometimes you’re not even likely to get it bounced.
Sundering Titan is reasonable post-board, again, it’s just a 3-colour deck and they have trouble recovering from blown up lands. Especially when we share lands, you’re going to get full value from Titan. Wurmcoil is also reasonable post-board because it puts a lot of pressure on them to answer it quickly. If they don’t bounce or Path it, it will take over the game, regardless of what they try. It isn’t something I would reanimate, I think Iona or Elesh Norn would be better on average, but it’s a nice value card to have.
Favours: Even
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Wurmcoil, Sundering Titan
Key cards: Cryptic, Remand
This deck, despite also being Delver, is significantly different from USA Delver for us. USA Delver is a deck based on not dying to very early threats like Delver and Geist. Their deck revolves around Geist really dealing some damage. RUG Delver, on the other hand, plays out a bit more like a midrange. It is going to play a full set of Cryptics and a set of Goyfs. The deck tends to be a bit slower, but a bit more resilient. They’ll play 12-16 counters main, and have fewer answers to threats since there’s no white.
For us, no white is a good thing. Geist is insane against us, and not having to deal with it is fantastic. There’s also no super early pressure from Steppe Lynx either, so we’re never really dead on turn 4. There’s also no Path, which means Iona just got a whole lot better.
Reanimating Iona is the best option here, naming blue. Without their counters, you’re probably okay. Aside from Goyf and Bolt it’s primarily a blue deck, and knocking out that many cards will work well for us. They often play something like Huntmaster but just the sheer number of cards we knock out shows us how good naming blue is. Again, it’s the only colour that can remove her. You can reasonably race them at this point, and you actually really do want to race them. That’s because they play Vedalken Shackles. The card can actually steal Iona fairly easily if you give them the time. Hell, people sometimes play the 15 blue sources for Shackles to steal Emrakul, not that it’s a likely scenario.
Sideboard:
+1 Ghostly Prison
+2 Negate
+1 Dispel
+1 Wurmcoil
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Map
-1 Sphinx’s Revelation
-1 Thirst
-1 Repeal
In comes some aggro hate and some counters. Their deck is a weird mix for us, because they don’t play aggro creatures that Timely interacts with, nor do they play much burn. Wurmcoil I especially want when there’s no Paths, but Timely becomes really bad because both Delver and Goyf get around it quite easily such that I’m not getting the value from the tokens. I’m not planning to race so tokens that aren’t blocking are bad. More specifically, tokens that aren’t trading are bad. Ghostly Prison is still good, it taps them out to attack so all my spells like Wrath now resolve. I like bringing in Negate and Dispel because of their high counter count. It even answers Shackles which is admittedly a problem if we don’t get going quickly.
Elesh Norn comes out because the Wurmcoil is just as good here. It kills things all the same and gains me life, plus there’s no need for Elesh Norn to kill something small with hexproof. Elesh Norn also doesn’t kill Goyf so it’s not as potent - it doesn’t kill the big threats. I like pulling out a single Map and Thirst to make room for stuff. I also like pulling out Sphinx’s as the deck doesn’t really give us much opportunity to cast it with all their counters. I also like pulling out Repeal because it’s not that effective against their deck. I can bounce Goyf as the best option, and that’s not even that great, it buys me like half a turn. This game can realistically grind out to Emrakul, so keeping the extra Map as opposed to a Repeal or Sphinx’s can go a long way. While Sphinx’s draws many more cards, Map is more likely to resolve and do something.
I like leaving in Emrakul and Eye in this matchup because it’s slower than other Delver lists, and because they have so many counters I want something that I can guarantee. You can’t guarantee Gifts combo so I’d rather not rely too heavily on it.
You can bring in Sundering Titan if you have it, but I think Wurmcoil and Iona is good coverage here. Again, they can’t really kill Iona outside of blue so I’m fine with her. The key is always two colours of removal, and they only have one.
Favours: Even
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona
Key cards: None
The matchup, thanks to there being Through the Breach, is now only an even matchup. The deck presents a really quick combo; I’ve played iterations of the deck that could potentially win on turn 1. At the same time, the deck can lose to itself quite easily, and a bit of hate can do wonders. This matchup can go fairly differently depending on the list. The ones that are simply Goryo’s Vengeance and Through the Breach, which potentially need to combo off twice, seem a lot worse against us. We don’t particularly interact favourably with either combo, so if they play the all-in combo, they should be fairly good to go.
I think pre-board they might be a slight favourite. We don’t have good ways to just stop the combo, and an early Emrakul probably wins them the game. On the other hand, post-board, you have way too many options to stop them. When you board into several cards that all favourably interact with the combo then you’re probably going to be in a good spot.
Iona naming black seems best. While they can still win via Through the Breach, I think I’m okay banking on Iona with black since it makes the game much harder. Additionally, if I get to keep Iona through Emrakul or whatnot, it becomes difficult for them to go off again. While 15 is often enough due to shocks and fetches, we take almost no damage so they have to hit us with something else.
Remember that you can Remand the Goryo’s Vengeance after they pitch Emrakul to have them lose the Emrakul, assuming they can’t recast Vengeance. That would definitely suck for them.
Sideboard:
+2 Relic
+1 Purge
+2 Negate
+1 Dispel
+1 Ghostly Prison
-1 Map
-1 Oblivion Ring
-3 Wrath
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Repeal
Relic and the counters are obvious, I board into Purge as an answer to Griselbrand. It’s not the best but when we have a ton of dead cards it works out fairly well. I also board into a Ghostly Prison because the deck typically doesn’t have extra mana to spend, so fogging an attack can work out well. When they have to sac end of turn, denying them an attack is pretty powerful. They typically can’t remove it as well, and if they do they probably can’t go off as well.
All your slow removal or sorcery speed removal is awful in this matchup. Everything happens on their turn since they give haste or sac at end of turn. So Oblivion Ring and Wrath do basically nothing. Repeal is really slow, especially when their only permanents are typically Emrakul and Griselbrand, one which we can’t hit and one which we probably won’t be able to hit. And Elesh Norn is obviously just not doing anything against a 7/7 flying lifelink or Emrakul. I also don’t mind boarding out a single Map, I don’t really think it does enough and I’d actually rather leave in something like Sphinx’s Revelation since you can EOT it without risking anything.
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona
Key cards: Aven Mindcensor, Leonin Arbiter, Gaddock Teeg
This matchup is pretty bad since they’ve got a good metagame’d deck. More specifically, they play a lot of cards that mess around with our searching effects (Gifts, Map, Eye). The fact they can reliably interact with it and prevent it or diminish our results is what makes them good on average.
You need to just stave off the early game by keeping Arbiter or Mindcensor in check. I don’t care too much about a couple of points per turn, but I do care that my turn 1 Map is effectively rendered useless on the draw. Searching with a Map early is definitely important because you don’t want to get blanked, and you’re quite often forced to turn 2 fetch instead of casting Signet. It’s not the worst scenario, but remembering to do it is key. Turn 2 Signet into turn 3 Gifts is much worse than normal, and you’re potentially better off just going turn 2 Map into turn 3 Signet leaving up Remand mana.
You really need to watch out for Mindcensor the most. You could potentially lose the game when you cast Gifts into it and get blown out. Sometimes you have to just to find more cards, but other times you want to hold back and keep the Mindcensor in their hand. More often than not, they’re more willing to leave it up to prevent something like Gifts. Even though we may want the card, preventing Mindcensor damage is almost as good. Sometimes you also have to just cast Gifts or activate Map into Mindcensor. Hell, I’ve even had to Ghost Quarter my own land to find my one-of Island through Mindcensor (which I found and still lost the match). You need to play it by ear and see how the game is going to determine the correct plays. Sometimes it’s not that difficult to determine, since your hand is awfully dead.
Iona naming white is the plan if you can get there. They have a lot of ways to mess up your Gifts so you’re really not all that likely to get it. It’s really quite devastating for them if it does resolve though, they don’t have a good way to interact with it and there’s really not much non-white out of their deck.
Gaddock Teeg is also an option that you need to be aware of. It means we can’t cast cards like Sphinx’s Rev, and Repeal, but more importantly Gifts, Wrath, or any other expensive card. Keeping Path for him is important. He is basically always the card you Path when choosing a Path target. You’ll feel really bad if you Path something else and draw into a Wrath effect.
Sideboard:
+2 Timely
+1 Ghostly Prison
+1 Wurmcoil
-1 Eye
-1 Emrakul
-2 Map
Post-board we’re trying to rely on Iona. Getting to Emrakul in a match where they have multiple land destruction and multiple cards that make me mess up my search is bad for me. I’m not likely to get there so it’s not worth my time and effort.
Timely comes in to save me some life, I need just a bit more time here. Ghostly Prison and Wurmcoil do much the same. I need to get to Iona so I just need more time to make that happen, since cards like Arbiter or Mindcensor will mess around with that happening.
I board out the Emrakul and Eye, as well as two Maps. I want to not search my deck if I can avoid it. The Gifts are fine to leave in simply because I need to get to Iona to win, and that’s a win condition I don’t want to mess around with.
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Elesh Norn
Key cards: None
The reasoning the deck is so good against us is that they voltron a creature really early. We have to draw some way to interact with that single creature, and it’s not easy. Especially when they can give it hexproof easily enough, it’s difficult to interact. While there’s no card I’m specifically scared of, you need to just remember the hexproof situation.
Elesh Norn pretty much wins you the game. They tend to not play any removal assuming that they’re good to go. If you resolve it, enjoy your free win. They should literally just scoop, as they have no outs and should board no outs.
Sideboard:
+1 Purge
+1 Ghostly Prison
+1 Rule of Law
+2 Negate
+1 Dispel
+1 Spellskite
-3 Wrath
-1 Oblivion Ring
-1 Eye
-1 Emrakul
-1 Sphinx’s Revelation
In comes anything that can interact with them early or slow them down. Spellskite is particularly good since you pay life to redirect to buff it, and now you can block. Purge is sort of sketchy since it rarely hits anything but you have to be able to interact early, and they play Plague Stinger. In the case of playing it or a Wrath, I’ll take my chances because I’d typically lose before Wrath.
We’re taking out anything slow. The game is likely over by turn 4, so the Wraths are slow, as is the Oblivion Ring. Eye and Emrakul aren’t the way to go, we win from Elesh Norn, and Sphinx’s Rev is also quite slow and only nets us cards once the game is basically over.
Favours: You
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona
Key cards: Liliana, Scavenging Ooze
*Note that Jund and BGx are grouped together because they play out the same way for us. Whether they add red for Bolts or not doesn’t concern us, and most of the sideboard options either deck has are going to be the same.
Without Deathrite Shaman, this matchup is slightly favourable for us. They have limited ways to stop the Gifts combo. They have Liliana and Scavenging Ooze available, and that’s it. Liliana can be a pain because we have a hard time interacting with her. Ooze, on the other hand, isn’t that bad. He does stop the combo (though so does Lili), but he’s much less impactful as a card. We don’t provide any targets for him to grow with, which is really nice.
Your goal is to go for Iona, plain and simple. Naming black keeps them off all the removal for her. Yeah, they can cast stuff like Bolt or Courser of Kruphix, but I’m not overly scared of those cards. As long as Iona is safe, she generally gets the job done. I’m not going to get scared off a potential triple Bolt, it’s extremely unlikely.
Late game they will fold to an Emrakul. The deck typically hurts itself enough that the 15 damage does it. I haven’t had much testing against Courser of Kruphix to see if it gains them enough life, and I suspect it won’t. Either way, their deck is still soft to Emrakul. You generally have enough card advantage when Emrakul comes down that them sacrificing 6 permanents makes it troublesome for them to go on. Even if they keep some things, they likely don’t get far enough since they have to win on the spot.
Sideboard:
+2 Timely
+1 Purge
+1 Wurmcoil
+1 Ghostly Prison
-4 Remand
-1 Elesh Norn
Pretty straight forward sideboard, anti-aggro cards and the Purge because they’re black.
We board out Remands because they’re really bad as the game drags on. While they can be decent in the early game, if the game gets to the mid game and they have 5 or 6 mana in play, it doesn’t really do a lot. The games will go fairly long so there’s just not enough value there. I also board out Elesh Norn because I’d basically rather go for Iona every time, and in the case I don’t, the Wurmcoil should be just as good as Elesh Norn. 6 life and surviving Lili is huge, it effectively trades with all their creatures and no single card can remove it.
Favours: You
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Elesh Norn
Key cards: Zealous Conscripts, Phantasmal Image; Path, Sowing Salt, Aven Mindcensor
This matchup is good because Pod as a whole is bad against us. The fact that they require numbers to beat us is what’s good for us. It’s hard for them to get a bunch of creatures in play.
This matchup is worse than Melira Pod because they play an instant-speed combo (Restoration Angel to Kiki), as well as playing Deceiver Exarch and Zealous Conscripts, both which are good against us. While early Wraths are still quite nice, they can still just win from out of nowhere; such is the power of Birthing Pod. There’s also generally a Phantasmal Image in the MB, so they can copy Elesh Norn and negate her ability.
Elesh Norn is quite safe in this matchup. They play no ways to actually kill her typically. Zealous Conscripts can be quite a beating because you’re looking at 9 damage in return, at the minimum, and they can potentially Pod her for nothing.
Outside of watching out for that, Zealous Conscripts can steal Emrakul. It may seem ludicrous to think like that, but it has been relevant. Deceiver Exarch is capable of tapping Emrakul, so whenever they play those types of cards, you need to be weary of this eventuality. Especially with Kiki and Restoration Angel, there are several ways to do it repeatedly, though I mostly refer to Angel since with Kiki they would just win. I have lost to Exarch into Angel into Conscripts steal your Emrakul.
Sideboard:
+1 Purge
+1 Ghostly Prison
+1 Suppression Field
+1 Torpor Orb
-1 Iona
-1 Condescend
-1 Map
-1 Thirst
Like normal, we’re boarding into all of the combo hate cards, and then Purge because it kills a number of their creatures (Kiki, Conscripts, Redcap, etc). Even though Purge doesn’t hit everything, I like it because I’m more scared of them going off and comboing as opposed to grinding me out when I have Wraths.
I board out Iona because I’d rather Elesh Norn. Condescend isn’t particularly good when they play cards like Pod to fetch creatures, and as the game goes on I find it’s not as good in this matchup since I care less about their game as opposed to my own. I like Remand more since it’s better early as we cantrip off it, and we really want Gifts for Elesh Norn. Map and Thirst come out just as filler removed since I should be okay to grind them out after either Elesh Norn or Wrath.
I don’t like boarding into Disenchant to hit Birthing Pod only. Sure, it’s a cool card and does wonders, but we still play spot removal and Wraths and with Elesh Norn in play the card does nothing. I would rather leave in the Oblivion Ring instead.
Favours: You
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Wurmcoil
Key cards: Shriekmaw, Beast Within, Fulminator Mage
The deck is predicated on two major things: not getting their grave hated out and Living End resolving. It’s also, to a lesser extend, predicated on their board staying in tact. We happen to be good at all the above.
With Remand, you basically destroy Living End. While they’re trying to Cascade into it, I can just Remand it back to their hand. It’s really neat because they generally don’t have 3 turns to wait and don’t often hard cast.
Iona is very tricky here because it’s difficult to know what to name. The problem is, they have removal in two colours. That makes it impossible to always name the right colour. You get to name either green or black. Below is an examination of both options:
Black shuts off Living End completely, and also shuts off Shriekmaw and Demonic Dread, and to a lesser extent, Fulminator Mage. Demonic Dread doesn’t really matter, because a) they can’t cast Living End anyways, and b) we don’t provide them targets. So you’re essentially blanking 4 Living End and a single Shriekmaw.
Green shuts off Beast Within and Violent Outburst. So you’re effectively shutting down Beast Within and half the Living Ends. Although we generally don’t provide Demonic Dread targets, it’s now got a target. So they can still go off while you name green.
Ultimately naming green is typically better, especially post-board. I don’t think the one-of Shriekmaw is good enough for them to keep in, nor can they reasonably board any. They can definitely leaving in Beast Within though. Essentially, they have 8 green cards that are blanked or 4-5 black cards.
Watch out for Fulminator beats as well. We’re a good deck to use Fulminator against since our lands are important to us. You might realistically see a couple sac’d at your Tron, then Living End and another two sac’d at your Tron.
Sideboard:
+2 Relic
+2 Negate
+1 Ghostly Prison
+1 Suppression Field
+1 Rule of Law
+1 Wurmcoil
-1 Oblivion Ring
-4 Path
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Sphinx’s Rev
-1 Thirst
A lot of sideboard action going in here. What we’re ultimately concerned with are two things: stopping Living End from happening and if it does, responding to the creatures.
Relic and Rule of Law should be straightforward, they both directly stop the combo. They don’t want to ever hard cast the Living End. Suppression Field is fun because Cycle now costs 2 more, making it difficult to do multiple times in a turn, and it slows them down. Especially on the draw, you can shut down their turn 2 Cycle, which is huge. They can still cycle the pay 2 life creature but that’s their only play for the turn. Ghostly Prison is good for a backup plan if it resolves, as is Wurmcoil. Wurmcoil happens to be really cool because if they cast Living End with it in play, they get to give you two tokens. If you get a chance to discard it, that’s also cool, since now their Living End brings back Wurmcoil, which is hard to deal with. I imagine 6 life and trading a creature each time is enough to stop them from winning.
I don’t like boarding into Purge since it does very little. If they’ve already gone off, killing one creature isn’t that great, and there’s also Fulminator Mage.
Oblivion Rings and Paths come out for obvious reasons. They don’t play many creatures without playing Living End, and if Living End, there’s many creatures to answer. Elesh Norn ends up being too flimsy since she kills nothing and can’t save herself from either Beast Within or Living End. I find Sphinx’s Rev to be fairly lackluster, it’s kind of hard to get off for a decent amount through Fulminator Mage, and I’m not concerned about the life gain, I need to answer Living End or the aftermath or I will lose, I can’t stall around it. Thirst is also my defacto card to pull out, I want to leave in all the Maps and Signets because of Fulminator Mage as well as the Wraths and Remands for Living End.
Ideally we have enough ways to interact with Living End itself that it doesn’t become a problem. We’re prepared when it does happen, but it’s overall unlikely given the amount of removal we add. Between Relic, Remand, Negate, Condescend, and Rule of Law, that’s 1/6th of the deck that stops Living End.
Favours: You
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Elesh Norn
Key cards: Shriekmaw, Scavenging Ooze; Aven Mindcensor, Kataki
This matchup is fairly good for us because their combo requires a lot of pieces. We have way too many ways to spot remove creatures or Wrath the board. The deck doesn’t provide enough pressure early and usually grinds out games via Gavony Township, which sucks against us. Generally speaking, one early Wrath gives you the time to win late game.
You always want to go for Elesh Norn because it kills everything. They get to keep what, Wall of Roots? I’m okay with that. They can’t combo off while she’s in play, and they typically don’t run ways to remove her. Generally speaking they’d rather side into Abrupt Decay than Path, so you should be safe with her. Especially since they’ve stopped playing the 1-of Metamorph, they’re essentially just running a Shriekmaw as an out to her.
The cards I’m most concerned about are Scavenging Ooze, which stops our combo, and Shriekmaw, which can kill our reanimated creature. Other than that, watching out for them comboing off is important. They need either Finks/Redcap, Melira, and a sac outlet (traditionally Viscera Seer), or Spike Feeder + Archangel of Thune. Their mid-range plan won’t work so they should force comboing off.
Sideboard:
+1 Purge
+2 Relic
+1 Suppression Field
+1 Torpor Orb
-1 Iona
-1 Condescend
-2 Map
-1 Thirst
Just bringing in tons of hate cards here. I think they have to combo off against us since we run so much board removal. They're not going to grind us out, so their combos are much more appealing. Purge only hits a few cards, but when you're hitting Redcap or Viscera Seer, it's really good. Relic hits their combo and neutralizes cards like Eternal Witness. Suppression Field is good for hitting a ton of things like Birthing Pod while stopping their combo as a whole, and Torpor Orb comes in for the same reason.
I bring out Iona since the Elesh Norn is good. Condescend is a little expensive and I can stall out the game very easy so I don't need the hard answer. I like taking out Maps and a Thirst since my deck is just answer after answer and lets me eventually get there, I'm not in a rush for Maps.
Disenchant only for Pod seems lackluster, I'll leave the Oblivion Ring instead. I’m never going to turn 2 the Disenchant really, and the Oblivion Ring is still quite solid as a whole since their deck is slow in assembling the combo. It’s not like Kiki Pod where there’s a quick 1-2 punch or the whole 1-drop, 2-drop shenanigans.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Elesh Norn
Key cards: Aether Vial
This matchup is slightly favourable for Merfolk simply due to us playing blue. We have Wraths, yes, but they have decent resiliency and numbers. An active Aether Vial + a lord means even after we Wrath, they can put 6 power on board right away. It’s quite problematic for us. Still, the Wraths are very good since their deck works via critical mass of creatures. One lord on its own isn’t really a problem, but two or three and I’m in real trouble.
Additionally there is the Spreading Seas to worry about. If they just stop Tron entirely and draw cards off it, we’re going to have a bad time. It’s not that bad, we can use the blue mana and Gifts Combo, but it’s still not great.
Iona is generally the target of choice, obviously naming blue. These versions are mono blue to facilitate Master of Waves and Thassa, so cutting off blue works well for us.
Elesh Norn is reasonable as well in some situations simply because their creatures, individually, have less than two toughness. If you can get a situation that works to kill their board from her, she can do wonders. They play Vapor Snags, so watch out though. In general their creatures won’t be X/2s because it only takes two lords to stop it. The amount of times I actually want Elesh Norn are really not that much. It happens mostly if they get like a slow start from double Aether Vial or something.
Games with a turn 1 Aether Vial are completely different games. Instead of turn 1 Cursecatcher into turn 2 lord into turn 3 hit me for 5, they have turn 2 two lords into turn 3 hit me for 6. And if they curve out with two more lords on turn 3, I take 10. Ouch! Not only that, but it gives them a way around Remand and even Wraths, since they EoT activate the Vial. Answers to Vial are a must.
Sideboard:
+1 Ghostly Prison
+1 Disenchant
+1 Wurmcoil Engine
+2 Timely
-1 Sphinx’s Revelation
-1 Thirst
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Map
-1 Condescend
Ghostly Prison is really good here, they play a lot of cheap creatures and don’t really want to pay mana to attack with them. Disenchant is a must for Aether Vial, it’s just so important. Even if they don’t get early Aether Vial they play 4 Spreading Seas we can hit. Wurmcoil also puts a lot of pressure on them and they usually don’t have good answers for it.
Timely is somewhat on the fence because they usually have Islandwalk, and with 4 Spreading Seas and us playing some Islands they have a decent chance to have it up. Gaining the 6 life isn’t negligible though, which is why I like it here.
I cut Elesh Norn, she’s just so much worse than Iona. Thirst and Map are just expendable here, I need to interact early instead of durdling and Tron doesn’t really do enough with 4 Spreading Seas. Continuing on the Tron discussion, cutting the Sphinx’s Revelation actually seems quite good since I won’t get to Tron easily nor will the card really do a lot. I’m usually dead by the time I would cast it.
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Elesh Norn
Key cards: Pact of Negation, Apostle’s Blessing
Matchup is basically horrible for every deck not running spot discard. They win fast, as early as turn 2, and most decks aren’t equipped to handle it. Even if you have the Path, they have a bit of resiliency and the potential to Pact it or Blessing it. The deck is extremely well positioned to play filler cards like that which are never dead.
You basically have to hope they draw poorly and you see Path. Without an early Path, you will lose the game for sure. Even with one, there’s a good chance you still lose.
Iona naming black seems like your best choice, but it’s not particularly good. They still can go off around it most likely. You also have to name black since they typically play 3 Slaughter Games which is problematic for us if we name a different colour. Elesh Norn is also good if you get into a good position for it, though it’s usually not the case.
Sideboard:
+1 Purge
+1 Ghostly Prison
+1 Suppression Field
+1 Spellskite
+2 Negate
+1 Dispel
-1 Eye
-1 Emrakul
-1 Sphinx’s Rev
-3 Thirst
-1 Map
All the cards we board in are good against their combo in some way. Spellskite isn’t exactly great but when they need the Apostle’s Blessing to resolve, it’s great to redirect. It also chumps early if we get into such a scenario, as they otherwise need Ground Rift to kill us around it. We also board into the counters just because they can potentially interact.
We board out all the slow cards, Eye and Emrakul are not doing anything, Sphinx’s Rev is way too slow, and Thirst is just the next best slow option, since I do want to keep Wraths in as extra removal, and we can’t board out Gifts. Honestly, if you’re casting Thirst you’re doing well so it’s not really something I care to leave in. Map is also quite expendable as we’re not aiming to race.
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Sundering Titan, Iona
Key cards: Cryptic
Scapeshift is a difficult matchup because the deck presents a clock faster than ours and we cannot use Gifts combo to win, at least in the MB. That makes it insanely difficult for us to try and race, because we’re essentially trying to stall out a game against Primeval Titan and Scapeshift. Either card can do some serious damage and we have no good answers. Remand doesn’t really do the trick. MB, you should probably lose most of the games.
Sundering Titan is fairly good against them. It should hopefully give you time to find something else to win. Blowing up 3 lands is almost guaranteed to happen and that’s good for us. If they’re playing a list with Prismatic Omen, we can maybe blow up 4 or 5 lands and get some insane value from it.
Cryptic is a huge pain because it shuts down Iona. You can’t really name blue when all their win conditions are green. You’d need to have backup ready for them when they go off. At the same time, if you name green, they will bounce her. You just don’t get nearly enough consistency out of her to want to bank on it. Especially if you tap out for it turn 4, which you basically can’t. I do think naming blue and having counters for backup is the best option you’re going to get. Considering how quickly we can potentially do it and how much of their deck shuts down, you can easily race. Again, you better be prepared for their combo with Remands or whatnot. If you can muster two Iona attacks + a Colonnade, you only need like two turns. They’re not going to interact at all with you outside of going off, and at sorcery speed. The big thing is that they can’t go off early because we don’t actually take any damage ourselves. They’re going to need 7 lands in play to do it.
Sideboard:
+2 Negate
+1 Dispel
+1 Rule of Law
+1 Wurmcoil
+1 Spellskite
-3 Wrath
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Path
-1 Repeal
Boarding into the counters is good because we really want to force stop the Scapeshift. This is also one of the matchups that I’m really happy I have Dispel instead of a third Negate because we’re going to fight over the Scapeshift, and they play an abundance of counters as well. Rule of Law is nice because Scapeshift is a sorcery, meaning Remand turns into “delay you an entire turn”. We can totally race if that’s the case.
Wurmcoil might seem a bit strange, but the deck doesn’t play much hard removal, and their deck is also predicated on exact math. Typically at 2 Valakut and 10 Mountains, it’s somewhat difficult for them to do more than 18 damage. That’s great for us since we don’t really take any damage ourselves and should have life. But more pertinently, if you were to gain life from Wurmcoil you’d almost assuredly win the game. Similarly for Spellskite, you can redirect for 2, and since all the triggers happen at the same time, you basically trade Spellskite to mitigate 1 damage for each trigger, which likely saves you. Again, predicated on exact math, and having no ability to try again, it should easily win you a game.
Wraths are really bad here, as is Elesh Norn. No cards that I really care about. Repeal and Path come out because there’s not many permanents to bounce, maybe Prismatic Omen but it’s not that important. They’re known to play Primeval Titan so leaving in a few Paths is going to be better than Wraths, especially since Path is instant speed (if they tap out ever), and lets us fight counters much easier. I would also rather leave in one Oblivion Ring since it’s still decent against the Titan, but can act as that catch all for something like Prismatic Omen.
Also watch out for stuff like Obstinate Baloth. They often board then just as a midrange option to stall, and they could potentially get some good damage in seeing we side out a lot of creature removal. I’m not too scared of it killing me though, but playing around the potential might just come back to save you.
In the case of Baloths, Iona becomes a lot worse. Even if you name blue there are real things they can do with green mana, especially if they play Primeval Titan. You should at least be aware of it and not get blown out by that fact.
Favours: You
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona
Key cards: None; Rest in Peace
This matchup is pretty decent for us. With ways to interact to slow them down just a bit plus Wraths, we can hopefully stall out long enough. We’re one of the decks that doesn’t care about 40 life on their side, so that whole advantage doesn’t do anything for them.
Iona is obviously the nuts, you can’t lose after reanimating her.
Sideboard:
+2 Timely
+1 Ghostly Prison
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Map
-1 Thirst
Boarding in aggro hate cards, nothing particularly special. With them playing Path, and I think they can probably leave some amount in, I don’t think there’s a reason to board Wurmcoil. It doesn’t really do a lot for you, especially when they can block + sac the Martyr and have Ascendant to fly over to get damage through. At the worst the Ascendant nulls the damage so you’re only buying one turn per Wurmcoil attack. Especially with cards like Squadron Hawk they can produce quite a few blockers for a while.
I board out Elesh Norn because I want to get to Iona and I envision very few scenarios where I actually want to get her as opposed to Iona. Leaving in the triple Wrath as well, should I actually need to force it the option is there. I like boarding out a Map and Thirst because they’re a bit slow in a matchup where we really just want to get to Gifts. You usually know whether the matchup is going to be tough on the second turn or not. On the play Remand is so much better because you get to counter their turn 2 Martyr of Sands. If they play it again they leave it exposed to being Path’d.
Be prepared for Rest in Peace in the board as it can stop your ability to combo off. I don’t want to board in Disenchant for just the one card, but I can leave in Oblivion Ring and Repeal to handle it. Sadly we can’t Gifts for anything to get rid of it, but if one of the answers is Repeal, we’d have a hard time answering it well anyways.
Favours: Even
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Elesh Norn
Key cards: Echoing Truth
Storm is a pretty even matchup in testing. They have the capability to go off really early and we have limited interaction. With a deck like Twin, we can Path creatures, but against Storm, we’re basically trying to race to Iona. Electromancer or Pyromancer’s Ascension gives them the ability to kill us on turn 4. Remand is particularly bad as the only counter since their spells are cheap or get copied. I can’t really Remand a copied ritual, it doesn’t do much.
Iona is always good in this matchup, you get to name blue or red and shut them down. It’s hard to reach critical mass when either colour is named. Blue is slightly better because they board Echoing Truths, but that’s about it, it’s not significantly better. They can also win with red available through it if they get lucky (they normally don’t). Especially with one ritual cut after bans, it’s a lot harder.
Elesh Norn is also good if you expect them to switch to Empty the Warrens. It’s not something you proactively reanimate, but that you can keep in the 60 in-case it happens. If you’re playing triple Wrath though, the Elesh Norn is no longer worth it. It’s just a nice out if you need to force a response to Empty the Warrens.
It’s important to know how the deck functions to know what to counter. For example, say they go off without Ascension or Electromancer and just go: ritual, ritual, ritual, Past in Flames, ritual flashback, and have 0-1 mana left over. You’re now in a position where countering the last ritual can almost win you the game straight up. On the flip side, if you let the rituals all resolve and there’s a 4th in hand, you’re straight up dead. So sometimes you need to gamble and be aware. Generally speaking with Electromancer or active Ascension in play, you’re boned. You probably should just counter the first one and live to see another turn. Remand gets progressively worse against them as the game goes on or as either card enters, since costing them an extra mana or being useless doesn’t particularly help.
Sideboard:
+2 Negate
+1 Dispel
+1 Disenchant
+1 Purge
+1 Rule of Law
+2 Relic
-1 Emrakul
-1 Eye
-3 Wrath
-3 Path
You bring in basically anything that interacts with them and take out everything that doesn’t. Disenchant hits Ascension and Purge hits Ascension and Electromancer. It’s pretty difficult to go off without either. Everything else is really obvious, counters, Rule of Law, and grave hate.
Emrakul is slow as is Eye; you’re going to win off Iona plain and simple. They’re not really looking to interact with you, just to win around your hate. Similarly speaking, Wraths and Paths are bad, they don’t do much. I’ll leave in a 1-of Path since I don’t need anything else, it does at least hit Electromancer. I also leave in Elesh Norn for the chance that they board into Empty the Warrens and go off. Storm typically can’t go off twice, so if you Elesh Norn after the Warrens you should be safe and have enough answers to close out the game. It’s much better than Wrath since your Gifts turns into it and you have a 1-of as opposed to 3-of.
Playing Relic correctly is key in this matchup. Relic can be used in two main scenarios: to stop Past in Flames and to stop Ascension from getting counters. Honestly, it’s difficult to know when to crack it. Sometimes you want to pro-actively stop Ascension, because Ascension with two counters will probably kill you. On the other hand, removing the grave is usually good in response to Past in Flames. In my experience, I like cracking early to stop Ascension. Even if you remove the grave, if they have 2 counters and enough cards in hand, they can go off. While the grave is nice, doubling up spells usually does the trick. If they start chaining the draw spells there’s little hope for you.
They’re capable of bringing in Blood Moon, though typically don’t. While it’s a strong card they’d rather focus on combo hate answers as opposed to proactively stopping an opponent from hating, especially when a lot of hate is easily playable, like Relic.
Also note that Ethersworn Canonist is typically just as good as Rule of Law. They normally only board into the Echoing Truth against us because it’s typically a Shatterstorm for Affinity (it is bad to board it for us) and Bolts, which again are bad against us. Now I’m not here saying go play Canonist so you can beat them down over 10 turns, but I’m just pointing it out if you’re in such a situation or would rather play this for some reason. It’s potentially better for us since we play artifacts, but Rule of Law is typically better as a whole.
Favours: Even
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Terastodon
Key Cards: None
Matchup plays out a lot like a mirror, we’re both blue Tron decks. When we get access to Path it doesn’t particularly do a lot, nor do Wraths. The matchup ends up being bad due to the main difference in our decks. Mono U Tron has counters instead of removal, which turns out to be very good when none of us are playing any creatures.
Iona for blue is probably the best option, you cut off a lot of the deck. Sundering Titan and Platinum Angel don’t really do anything and I’m generally just not scared of the over the top things until they get to Mindslaver. Terastodon is good as well, it’s Tron and you blow up lands. You'll need to watch out for Oblivion Stone if you're doing that though, because it can still kill your dudes. Honestly though, you will probably not end up going for the combo because you'll be scared to play into their counters. You'll likely be playing a slower game.
Typically they don’t play Emrakul, they play Mindslaver, and fetch it with Treasure Mage. Treasure Mage conveniently fetches their Platinum Angel and Sundering Titan too, not that either really do anything here. Mindslaver is something they can potentially win with before we get to Emrakul, since it’s slightly cheaper. However, in the interest of a win condition that goes through counters, Emrakul is clearly better in that regard, and this is a control mirror.
Sideboard:
+2 Relic
+1 Disenchant
+1 Suppression Field
+2 Negate
+1 Dispel
-3 Wrath
-1 Elesh Norn
-3 Path
In comes Relics to deal with Mindslaver. I want to stop it because I’m reasonably concerned about it, even early game. Disenchant seems great, they’re playing Maps and Signets/Talismans (typically UB ones) just for a bit of ramp and filtering. It’s also just a nice out to a bunch of random cards that they can play, like Platinum Angel. Suppression Field is also great against Mindslaver lock and slowing down stuff like Map. Counters are obviously good in control mirrors.
I basically board out all the removal, I’m really not concerned about their creatures. If I die to a Treasure Mage repeatedly hitting me then that’s cool. I’m going to go over the top and try to counter as many things as I can. With 8 counters I should hopefully be able to do that, while being proactive enough.
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Terastodon
Key cards: Karn
This matchup is extremely difficult because their threats pose huge problems for us. It essentially boils down to two main issues: their speed and Karn.
Karn is a problem because we can’t effectively handle him. He’s very large and scary, and exiling a land is a huge concern for us. We can’t particularly put any reverse pressure on him. We bank highly on Remand to do the job and stall, but Karn does real work. Playing cards like Condescend, Pithing Needle, and Oblivion Ring help, but they matchup is still problematic. Playing 3 cards MB to deal with a threat coming down on turn 4 that is easily found by them is difficult to say the least.
Their speed is also a problem for us. Our deck relies half the time on the principle that, if we get to late game we win. Emrakul and Mindslaver are difficult cards to deal with. However, they’re playing basically the same win conditions except with a faster clock. We don’t really have an option to race them, so it just becomes difficult to win. Even if we deal with multiple Karns (say Needle that sticks), they can just race us.
You basically can only reanimate Terastodon to interact, and even then it’s not always enough. It’s certainly powerful if you can get it off, but it doesn’t win the game on its own like Iona naming their only colour does. Between Karn and Oblivion Stone they have outs to it, that are actually decently reasonable. Additionally, we average turn 4 with it, so there’s a good chance we simply can’t get it off in time. I’ve had plenty of games where it would have been great, but due to the speed of their deck, I didn’t get a chance. You would have to play Terastodon in combination with several other early-game cards like Spreading Seas to do something.
Sideboard:
+1 Suppression Field
+1 Rule of Law
+2 Negate
+2 Relic
-3 Wrath
-1 Iona
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Unburial Rites
We’ve got a lot of dead cards so we’re just boarding out everything that’s bad here. The Gifts combo is particularly awful so all of it comes straight out, as do Wrath effects.
Suppression Field is quite good at stemming things since they play Relic, Oblivion Stone, Karn, and Map. You can get a decent amount of value out of it and at least slow them a little bit. Rule of Law works quite similarly, since they play a lot of cheap eggs and ramp spells, you slow them down a little bit. It can hurt us in a grindy game but I think we get more value out of it.
Negate is quite obviously good against Karn so it naturally comes in. We also bring in Relic just to draw. There’s nothing else in the board worth bringing in, Wurmcoil and Spellskite both do very little here.
If you’re playing Terastodon, you board that in and keep Unburial Rites in as well. You then either don’t bring in the Relics or board out some number of Path / Repeal. With only 4 Wurmcoils to deal with, Path has very little impact, but an unchecked Wurmcoil will kill you really fast. Similarly, Repeal has very little impact since most cards that stay in play cost too much to reasonably bounce. Even if you try to bounce something else like Relic or Chromatic Star, they can sacrifice in response and blank your card.
Favours: Even
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Elesh Norn
Key cards: Pestermite/Exarch, Dispel, Cryptic; Blood Moon
The matchup is actually quite even. We don’t play a lot of instant-speed interaction (4 Path, 4 Remand), and they can win at instant speed. That said, one answer is often enough to let us keep going. Additionally, Pestermite and Exarch can tap Emrakul, which can buy them a lot of time. The fact that Elesh Norn and Iona both do wonders against them are important.
This matchup largely comes down to who gets their key cards. If you can get answers for their creatures or for their combo, you'll be in good shape. If they get to combo you early while you have nothing, then you'll be in more trouble. A lot of the games will play out very slowly as neither of us want to tap out. One thing to know is not to be afraid to play things on your turn if your opponent can't punish you for it.
Iona is always the reanimation target of choice. She simply stops them from going off entirely. I would prefer to name blue to cut them off more cards, especially since their answer, Cryptic, isn't an answer anymore. However, if they have an Exarch or Pestermite in play when I’m choosing the colour, then I will slam name red. I would rather stop them from winning as a whole, and they win with one blue and one red card, not two of the same. If I name blue after Exarch hits, I give a window for Kiki or Twin to get cast and lose me the game.
Elesh Norn is also quite good in this matchup. It kills everything except Exarch and I’m not scared of a -⅓. It stops them from going off so I can reasonably reanimate it early. Again, Iona is better, but Elesh Norn is perfectly reasonable. If they’re not playing Cryptic, they may present no outs to her. That’s potentially a game winner, and it has happened to me before where my opponent conceded to Elesh Norn.
Be weary of Remands when you try to combo, but don’t go crazy. If you try to reanimate while they have 3 mana up, you’re generally safe in terms of not losing the game. While getting Remanded might suck, they won’t have the mana to win. But if you’re out of cards it could be troubling trying to keep up with them.
Sideboard:
+1 Purge
+2 Negate
+1 Spellskite
+1 Ghostly Prison
+1 Suppression Field
+1 Torpor Orb
(+1 Dispel)
-2 Wrath (leaving in Verdict)
-1 Repeal
-1 Oblivion Ring
-2 Map
-1 Unburial Rites
(-1 Thirst)
*Note that the cards in brackets are not always boarded. Dispel comes in against the all-in version and then we pull out a Thirst to make room.
This matchup boarding is rough because we have to board in so many cards. We want basically anything that interacts with their combo. That’s all the direct combo hate, and then counters. Everything but the counters should interact with the combo well enough (noting that they usually play 4 Twin and no Kiki), and then the Negates already stop Twin. We’re not concerned with them trying to race us for the most part, our deck goes over the top reasonable fast if we interact well. It's all about having good answers to them and not taking too much damage early.
We take out Wrath and Oblivion Ring as is standard against Twin decks. Then we also board out a couple Maps and a Thirst just to make room. The game either ends from our fatty or from Emrakul, and hopefully we have enough answers to interact. We'll also be playing a slow game against them. Unburial Rites comes out because we're likely not going to go for it, they'll basically always have counter mana up.
Twin will most likely board out some of the combo, if not all. The combo is unreliable in a matchup where we have Paths and board in several answers. It might not be worth boarding in Suppression Field/Torpor Orb if you're expecting them to board out the combo, but it's good if they keep it in.
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Elesh Norn, Iona
Key cards: Scavenging Ooze
This matchup is going to be tough. They not only play an instant speed combo, but also play Goyfs, which are really good against us. Despite we clock them, they can put enough pressure early, and don’t really fold to Wraths. Ooze is particularly good since it can remove our graveyard cards, like if we try to combo. I’d say it’s the hardest Twin matchup available.
Elesh Norn and Iona are both acceptable. Elesh Norn makes comboing impossible, and a smallish Goyf I can deal with. The issue with Iona is that you call one combo colour, but they can always just cast Goyfs and whatnot. So even if we get to that situation, Goyfs and Oozes potentially race her. I think Iona is likely better in this matchup because if I get to name blue, I can race. They can’t combo off, and all their fliers aren’t available either.
Sideboard:
+1 Spellskite
+1 Wurmcoil
+1 Torpor Orb
+1 Ghostly Prison
+1 Suppression Field
-3 Wrath
-1 Oblivion Ring
-1 Map
Post-board this deck almost always turns into a midrange deck. They try to grind the game out with Goyfs. As long as we can answer everything well enough we’re okay. I’m not confident they will do it against us because despite Goyf being solid, the combo is also fairly solid because they can’t grind it out, our deck has too good of a late game.
We still want to board in all the combo hate. Orb, Prison, Field, and Spellskite are all good. Wurmcoil is also good simply because they’re going to have a ton of Goyfs in play and we can stall out like that. If they draw enough Pestermites and Exarchs that’s fine.
Wraths all come out because they’re clunky. I don’t really care about Wrathing a Goyf and Pestermite simply because the combo threat is still real, and enough things have Flash. If you know they board out of the combo, then leaving in Wraths can work. However, I think we should be fine grinding out. Oblivion Ring comes out for the same reason, and then a Map as well just because it’s expendable.
Favours: Even
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Sundering Titan
Key cards: Path, Cryptic
This matchup plays out very similar to the UR Twin matchup. They try to grind us out with card advantage (Twin on Wall of Omens for example) and use Colonnade beats to win. Thankfully our deck presents enough of a clock. The main difference in this matchup is that they try to force combo us, because their cards aren’t exactly that great for grinding (Wall of Omens doesn’t attack, Restoration Angel costs 4, Colonnade is expensive to activate, etc.).
They will try to and go off, so the same way as the previous one, a single answer works. You can often get by just Pathing one creature. The list is usually 4 Twin, 1-2 Kiki, so the amount of combo pieces are there. But in playing Restoration Angel, the amount of combinations they can win off decreases (Twin on Angel doesn’t work), and also makes the deck slightly slower.
Iona is worse here than vs most Twin decks because you can’t shut off a win condition against them without leaving her exposed. They can win with blue + white or red + white, and naming red leaves them with Cryptics and Paths available. It’s not exactly where I’d like to be with this card. MB you probably actually don’t want to grab any reanimation target and try to attrition them other ways. With 4 ways in either colour to answer her, you’re in serious trouble hedging. If you’re going for her, I think blue is the best to call. I hit more targets this way, and I can use Path / Remands to answer Restoration Angels and Twins more reliably, and if my Iona gets Path’d, I still get some small value.
Sideboard:
+1 Purge
+2 Negate
+1 Spellskite
+1 Ghostly Prison
+1 Suppression FIeld
+1 Torpor Orb
-3 Wrath
-1 Oblivion Ring
-2 Map
-1 Thirst
We board the same way as UR Twin for the same reasons. They’re forcing the combo on us so all the combo hate cards are good.
Sundering Titan is also acceptable against a 3-colour deck. It’s quite possibly the best answer simply because it stops them from having a chance. If I blow up three lands, they’re going to have a hard time coming back. I just need to stall until I get to a critical mass situation where I can always deal with their answers. Especially since we share UW, I don’t blow up any of my lands either.
Ultimately which reanimation target you pick depends on the situation. If Sundering Titan looks like a blowout, you have to just sort of go for it. On average Iona is likely better. I think we should be willing to accept like 1 Path answering us and try to go for her rather than Sundering Titan and let them do whatever they want, assuming they have mana. They tend to be able to play around Sundering Titan quite easily.
Favours: You
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Sundering Titan, Iona
Key cards: Tectonic Edge
As a precursor to this matchup, I cite the main difference between this deck and UWR Midrange as Geist. While there are several other cards that will differ in each version, Geist is the one that impacts us the most. It drastically changes how we need to think about the matchup, play the matchup, and the odds of us winning.
This matchup is really good for us. We’re basically playing a control mirror except one of us clocks someone and the other doesn’t. When we present such a hard clock with such a difficult to interact with answer, it’s hard for them to really combat it. They play a very slow, grind-oriented game, which involves them eventually winning with a Snapcaster, Colonnade, or Planeswalker, while we have nothing to do. But since we play something like Emrakul as a win condition, they can’t interact with it well. Often times, 15 in the air should win the game outright. And even in the case it doesn’t, it’s still not looking well for them.
In the current meta, if people are playing soft Wraths (like Anger of the Gods), it works well for us because they can only tap Emrakul with Cryptic. It’s impossible for them to actually kill it, which is oh so good for us. They can also tap it with Ajani if we let them, though we should usually be able to kill it before they get such a chance.
We force them to try to race us, which can go horribly wrong for them. Their deck is also just not suited to race us. They play a ton of slow, grindy cards, and it likely doesn’t work out well for them. They have to play as the aggressor, and it can work, but I think as a whole, we should be okay to just grind out a win on turn 10.
While you don’t need to reanimate, Sundering Titan works well here. Slowing them down is always great, and sharing colours with us means we don’t lose any ourselves. If they remove the Sundering Titan, those 6 lands are probably winning us the game straight up. Iona is also acceptable, naming blue, but only post-board because of Paths. In the MB, naming something from Iona is a toss up, they play 3-4 path and 3-4 Cryptic.
Sideboard:
+2 Negate
+1 Dispel
+2 Timely
+1 Rule of Law
+1 Wurmcoil
-1 Path
-3 Wrath
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Oblivion Ring
-1 Repeal
This matchup completely changes post-board. They turn into more of an aggro deck, trying to race us. They know that if the game drags on, they have no hope of winning. With builds running as many as 4 Bolt, 4 Helix, 3 Electrolyze, they can reasonably race us with Snapcaster, Ajani, and Colonnade. Your goal is to stave off the race they’re now trying to have.
They may or may not board out Paths. They should board out some number, perhaps not all but definitely some. Assuming that, Iona naming Blue becomes much better as an option. Wurmcoil also becomes really good since they can’t remove it as effectively and it crushes their race. Sundering Titan will always be a good choice, especially after boarding out Paths.
Negates and Dispels are great here, they play next to no creatures. Dispel on a Bolt is actually quite reasonable after board. Timely comes in because they race us rather slowly. Since it’s mostly spell based, buying a lot of time is good. Whether we get the creatures or not doesn’t matter. There’s always the chance you get to blank Snapcaster which is cool. Rule of Law aims to slow them down, especially since Snapcaster now does nothing. And while we’re on the plan of gaining life, Wurmcoil is now a viable card.
Wraths instantly come out, they’re useless. They might run some number of Cliques and Angels, but given they have flash, it’s rather difficult to Wrath well against them. Elesh Norn comes out for the same reason, they may have very few creatures. I also board out the catch all Oblivion Ring and Repeal because there’s nothing in particular I even want to target. They may or may not play Ajani, and Gideon doesn’t particularly scare me. At least against Gideon the Path is just as good, as are the creatures. Oblivion Ring isn’t exactly my idea as a Clique answer. I also board out a single Path since I don’t really need all four.
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona, Elesh Norn, Sundering Titan
Key cards: Remand, Geist
This matchup is particularly difficult because of Geist. Our deck is quite weak to that card. It’s very powerful and presents a really fast clock, and we simply can’t deal hexproof well. We have little in the way of hard counters for it and we can’t expect a Wrath or something similar to resolve when they have Mana Leak, Remand, and Cryptic available. Typically we rely on the fact that our deck can answer everything, but Geist is one of the few cards we can’t.
Remand is also quite good against us in this matchup. Oh, you want to cast Gifts? That resolves, I’ll Remand the Unburial Rites. You sometimes bank too hard on it and flop on your face. For them it’s so good because it nets them a card while protecting their Geist for another turn. Just like us trying to stall, they will stall out on a Geist.
We sort of just have to hope to avoid Geist and get lucky. Timely is insanely good and non-Geist cards aren’t a problem. I can handle exactly everything not named Geist in the MB.
Sideboard:
+2 Timely
+2 Negate
+1 Dispel
+1 Wurmcoil
-1 Oblivion Ring
-1 Thirst
-1 Repeal
-1 Path
-2 Map
Timely is going to be great to interact with their deck as a whole. What they can’t do with Geist they can do with Bolt, Helix, and Snapcaster. Lifegain is going to favour us in this matchup. Timely is also just a really good Geist answer since it’s good on the play or draw, whereas Wrath is significantly better on the play since they run t3 Geist into Wrath. Timely generates 3 tokens against them, which is really good for trying to fight Geist. I will always triple block Geist.
Counters are obviously good here, and we have room to spare. Even if there’s not a lot Dispel hits, it’s a really good card to help resolve Gifts combo because it only costs 1. You may be able to stave a turn, and since they can’t Spell Snare anything, you only have to dodge double Mana Leak/Remand.
I also like Wurmcoil in this matchup since he’s proactively gaining us life. When burning us out is a real strategy and Paths are boarded out, I’m basically running Wurmcoil into Cryptic which seems fine to me. One block does wonders.
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Sundering Titan, Iona, Wurmcoil
Key cards: Geist
This matchup tends to be quite difficult for us. They play just a really good host of cards that we struggle against, and there’s not a lot of uniformity. Their deck is usually 5c Good Stuff, and that’s a deck we legitimately have problems with.
Geist is a beating, as always. It’s difficult to deal with and puts insane pressure on us. Additionally, they’re playing cards like Tribal Flames, which help them speed up damage. Turn 4 casting two Tribal Flames would deal 10 to us. Just think of this as being a really aggressive Geist deck. No holds barred and we’ll go all-in on an aggro plan hoping that we do enough good things really fast.
This deck has trouble against more aggressive decks because they kill themselves, but they are great against us because we do nothing. We don’t put any pressure, so their destructive nature doesn’t actually make a difference. They are free to take however much damage they would like to and not be scared of losing.
Reanimating either Elesh Norn or Iona is lackluster in this matchup. Elesh Norn kills all their creatures, but doesn’t really stop anything like Tribal Flames -> Snapcaster -> Tribal Flames. When the deck potentially plays 4 Tribal Flames, 4 Bolts, 4 Helix, you’re not exactly getting away with anything. Add in that they play Paths and you’re in real trouble. For Iona, you’re in the same position. You’re forced to name white hoping they don’t have Cryptics (they probably don’t), but then they can still play half their deck against you anyways, and it might be too little too late. MB you should reserve reanimating for whatever seems best at the time.
Sideoboard:
+1 Wurmcoil
+2 Timely
+2 Negate
+1 Dispel
-1 Emrakul
-1 Eye
-1 Oblivion Ring
-1 Repeal
-1 Map
-1 Thirst
We board into aggro hate to slow them down a bit. I’m not overly a fan of bringing in Ghostly Prison because it doesn’t slow them down much. The deck can be as little as Geist + Snapcaster, and we really need to answer them more aggressively. Stalling them two mana per turn isn’t going to do a lot when Geist races us really well. Even if we manage to answer Geist, they likely have tons of burn to finish us. Negates and Dispels come in because of how much burn they have. I really do want to try to answer it, and Negating a Tribal Flames is really good.
I board out Eye and Emrakul because they’re slow and the deck won’t let us get there. Oblivion Ring is bad against Geist, as is Repeal. Map and Thirst tend to be a tad on the slow side in multiples. I like leaving in Iona and Elesh Norn because we’d rather have that flexibility. The marginal difference between Iona and Elesh Norn being there as opposed to Map and Thirst isn’t that much, and having the exact answer in a bad matchup is better than slightly more consistency.
Sideboarded, the Wurmcoil is much better since it’s typically only Paths and any swing with it buys me a ton of time. Again though, it depends on the situation, as there are many when something else is better. It gets particularly better as you have backup for Path. Sundering Titan will always be the best option, so bring that in if you have it.
Leylines are also quite good in this matchup if you have them. With 12 burn spells to the face, it can do a lot of work.
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Sundering Titan, Iona
Key cards: Boros Charm, anything that gives hexproof
The deck is fast, and can usually grind out the last few points of damage. The biggest problem with this deck is that none of your reanimation targets do enough.
Iona typically has to name white in the MB because they play Path. They can still Bolt you, and most of their creatures resolve as well. Considering she’s only a 7/7, Ghor-Clan Rampager can mess you up if you block, or if you don’t as well.
Elesh Norn still dies to Path, but even still, she doesn’t kill most of their creatures, which is unfortunate.
Sundering Titan can be surprisingly effective. Since they play a low land count and a lot of fetches and shocks, you can hit multiple lands quite easily and keep them off mana.
The most important card to watch out for is Boros Charm. All 3 modes are quite devastating to us. The most obvious is the indestructible, as they blow us out trying to Wrath. Sometimes you’re forced to play into it, which isn’t exactly fun. Double strike is also pretty crazy since our removal is light, and if they have a hexproof spell, that could spell trouble. Lastly, 4 to the face is not bad, it’s damage all the same.
Vines of Vastwood has also been a blowout against me in testing. While the card isn’t all that common, it’s really good when we play a small amount of spot removal. Them 1-for-1ing us is really good for them as we usually rely on Paths to resolve.
Sideboard:
+1 Purge
+2 Timely
+1 Ghostly Prison
+1 Wurmcoil
If you’re on the play:
-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Condescend
-1 Thirst
-1 Oblivion Ring
-1 Map
If you’re on the draw:
-1 Elesh Norn
-4 Remand
In goes aggro hate plus Purge because they play enough red creatures, as well as Domri. They really should board out Domri but even still you’re looking at Goblin Guide, Kird Ape, and Vexing Devil.
Out comes Elesh Norn in either scenario, she isn’t really doing much.
On the draw Remands are slow and won’t cut it. What happens is that we don’t get to counter anything early, they get two creatures into play before we can counter. Once that happens we’re not going to get anything from Remand, they’re going to go into creature protection mode with cards like Boros Charm, Vines of Vastwood or other sorts of stuff. They just don’t really need to cast creatures at this point, and even if they do, we’re not really dealing with the ones in play.
On the play I love Remand because it can counter a potential Goyf or force their second creature to be something like Vexing Devil, in which I’m happy to take the 4. In this case, I cut Condescend because it’s mana intensive and their spells are cheap, Thirst and Oblivion Ring because they’re slow, and Map, because I ultimately don’t need Tron that early.
They won’t board into Blood Moon, not when they’re playing Nacatl and Kird Ape. This also means if you are playing a Sundering Titan, it’s going to be really good here. Since they play a light land count due to their curve, you can really mess them up. On top of that, Nacatl and Kird Ape get significantly worse in that case. Bolts go either way post-board as well, some people will side them out recognizing things like land hate or artifact hate might help them drag the game and grind, while others will keep them recognizing the matchup is based on killing us fast and use it to push the last few points. Paths also go either way post-board, typically I would suspect them to come out. They actually don’t really do much since Iona names white proactively. I would strongly consider naming red post-board if I could still put up a reasonable fight if there was a Path.
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Sundering Titan, Iona
Key cards: Raven’s Crime, Ghost Quarter, Liliana
This matchup is really quite bad for us. It’s like Loam, where they play a lot of cards that are just good against us, while also being somewhat like RG Tron where our cards don’t cut it.
Raven’s Crime is a house, and with Loam to recur it, we’re in trouble. The same goes for Qhost Quarter, that lock is really solid against us. Combined with them having actual cards that do actual things, they can keep recurring it and get us to nothing. Liliana is also always good against us. There’s also no guarantee they play Lili, but you need to be concerned for that possibility. It’s actually rather unlikely they play her, recent builds shifted away, but she’s still perfectly fine and a strong card.
Don’t Remand stuff like Raven’s Crime or Loam if you can avoid it, they’re just going to get the value next turn. With their win conditions, they should be fine to grind us to nothing in the mid game. Even if I buy a bit of time now with a Loam activation, I’m still going to see it next turn and see the Ghost Quarter then too. It doesn’t really do me any good to delay them a turn since I need a ton of turns for stuff. It only makes sense if you need to do it to support resolving Gifts.
I think Sundering Titan is the best choice, they play a lot of colours and you’d get a lot of value here. Iona can work, but is troubling. With double colours of removal she’s not that safe. In fact, this deck plays triple colours for removal, playing Wraths, Paths, Doom Blades, and Cryptics. Honestly I would rather avoid her. This is probably one matchup you won’t win without Sundering Titan or Crucible. It’s a good thing the deck has never been that popular, I’d be scared if it ever did get popular though.
Sideboard:
+2 Relic
+2 Negate
+1 Dispel
-3 Wrath
-2 Path
In comes grave hate for Raven’s Crime, Ghost Quarter lock, and Gifts. In comes Negate as I want counters, and despite they don’t play a ton of instants, it seems much better than something like Path staying in.
I’m not scared of their creatures, they’ll combo off after I’m already depleted. I just board out the Wraths and a Path. They are known to play Terastodon so the Paths are going to be good in that scenario. Again, not so much on a Terastodon guarantee but it’s something to be aware of.
Leyline of Sanctity is insane against them. It would stop Gifts, Liliana, and Raven’s Crime. Definitely board those in for this matchup if you have them. Crucible is also great here because of their GQ lock plan, so if you’re playing Mindslaver lock your matchup instantly gets better.
Favours: Them
Difficulty:
Reanimate: Iona
Key cards: Liliana
Discard is typically really good against us, which makes this matchup somewhat difficult. We’re really banking on getting Gifts early to find Iona and to dodge Liliana. If you see Lili, you’re probably just dead. She should stop your Gifts shenanigans while also putting huge pressure on you. I think the fact that our top decks are sometimes bad gives them a slight edge in the match. It’s not that bad though, and I think it’s close to even, Iona being the reason. If it weren’t for Iona, it would probably be a lot worse because we’d have little to no outs.
Iona is the clear choice, they’re mono black. They can still cast The Rack through it but I’m not overly concerned; we’ll race. The ability for us to just take the matchup like this is what makes it good. Even still, if they have stuff like The Rack and Shrieking Affliction in play already, we could be in trouble going for Iona if we’re down cards. Hopefully you can just not play cards and be okay. Like if you resolve Iona, just passing the turn works because they should have 0 outs to her. As long as you don’t die from what’s in play or a top deck Rack you should be fine.
Sideboard:
+2 Timely
+2 Negate
+1 Purge
+1 Disenchant
+1 Wurmcoil
+2 Relic
-1 Emrakul
-1 Elesh Norn
-3 Wrath
-4 Path
We’re seemingly boarding in a lot of random stuff, but we have a lot of garbage to take out. Timely are good just to stall, we won’t ever get creatures but we don’t care, 6 life is good against The Rack. Negates are great as well since they answer every card in the deck, especially Lili. Purge, again, they’re mono black. Disenchant stops all their kill spells, aka The Rack and Shrieking Affliction, as well as potential hate cards like Ensnaring Bridge. Wurmcoil is also good just to put pressure, gain life, and be good against Doom Blade / Lili. Relic comes in for the express purpose that it cantrips and we have space.
Wraths and Paths come straight out, as does Elesh Norn. No creatures? No need to play removal. Last card is simply the Emrakul because you’re not going to win with it, finding the Iona is your game plan and Wurmcoil is likely decent enough if you get to that place. I find it unlikely we grind out the game long enough. I would also rather keep in cards like Map and Thirst because they draw, and the Relic drawing as well is not insignificant. They’re also known to play Raven’s Crime which means we’re getting value on the Relics potentially.
If you like Tron as a style, but don’t like UW Tron for whatever reason, then try looking at the other Tron decks. Maybe one of them better suits you.
1. RG Tron. This is a ramp deck at heart. You cast a bunch of ramp spells and then cast something big early on. You can assemble Tron as early as turn 3 and cast something for 7. Typically the deck will play Karn Liberated and Wurmcoil Engine. Of course, the deck still plays Emrakul, since it races to Emrakul very quickly. Outside of that, it plays cards like Pyroclasm, Oblivion Stone, and Relic of Progenitus to tie itself over. You play a lot of “eggs”, like Chromatic Sphere and Chromatic Star to dig through your deck and also filter your mana to cast cards like Ancient Stirrings and Pyroclasm. If you’re a Timmy and like slamming giant things, this is for you. Traditionally, this is the most competitive Tron list, though it has fallen far out of favour as of late, due to it having a poor Twin/Storm matchup.
2. Mono U Tron. This is as blue as it gets. The deck is basically counters, draw spells, and Mindslaver lock. They play a few random cards for certain purposes like Sundering Titan and Platinum Angel. The deck is considerably cheaper for those that have money as a concern. It does not typically play Gifts Combo or Emrakul. The deck plays cards like Remand, Condescend, and Repeal, to basically just stem the early game and try to find more cards. You also get to play Treasure Mage as a way to search out your bigger answers. While not necessarily more competitive than UW Tron, it tends to see more play on average due to the cost, having a good competitive-to-price ratio. I think it has seen less competitive (GP or higher) play.
3. Izzet Tron. This is a blue red control deck that tries to cheat Eldrazi into play via Through the Breach. You play more Eldrazi if you enjoy putting them into play. It’s basically the format’s version of Through the Breach that doesn’t lose if you never resolve Through the Breach. It otherwise functions similarly to any other blue Tron deck, mostly to UW Tron since it generally plays Gifts as well. It also often plays 1 of each Eldrazi to guarantee it from Gifts, which is cool for Through the Breach. Instead of having Wrath and Day of Judgment you instead get cards like Pyroclasm, Firespout or Anger of the Gods. This deck has seen relatively little play.
Below is a list of questions that get asked frequently that I’m just going to answer to help everyone out. I will add to it as more questions pop up.
What do you think of my list?
If your list is close to the lists other people are posting, it’s probably fine. UW Tron has a bit of flexibility within the list, so if you’re sticking to commonly played cards, it’s probably fine. Here’s a guideline of the kinds of things your deck should probably have:
24-25 lands
4-5 Signets
2-4 Maps
Iona/Elesh Norn/Unburial Rites
4 Gifts, 4 Thirst, 4 Path
2-3 Wrath effects
3-6 Counters
Emrakul or Mindslaver
This puts you at 59 cards on the high end, and probably more realistically around 56, giving you a few cards of flexibility. If your deck is falling within something like this, it’s probably okay. If you’re posting something that seems pretty crazy, then we can have a discussion.
Should I play 24 or 25 lands?
This question depends largely on how you feel the deck is playing. The short answer is that either is fine. In more detail, 25 lands gives you more consistency on hitting your lands, but also makes your top deck worse because lands are typically bad off the top. Playing 4 versus 5 Signets factors in as well, because 24 lands is not nearly as bad if you play the 5th Signet. The number of Maps you play also matters because Maps somewhat act as lands, in a sense. It all boils down to what you think is right, and you can really play either number.
Should I play 4 or 5 Signets? Should I play Talisman instead of a Signet?
For starters, you need to understand your deck and understand the tradeoff with Talisman versus Signet. Talisman offers you immediate mana to use, but doesn’t filter your colours. In a traditional list playing, say 3 Maps and 4 Paths, you have exactly 7 cards in the deck that can make use of turn 2 Talisman providing immediate mana. In those lists, I see it being not as good because it’s not as big a deal. Path on turn 2 isn’t always the best play either. Some new lists are cutting Tron lands and playing more 1-mana spells like Spell Snare, which ups the value on Talisman.
If you’re playing a list with 12 Tron lands, perhaps another 1-2 colourless sources, you definitely want to be playing Signet. Signet filters your mana, in that it takes colourless mana and gives you coloured mana. Our deck is already not playing enough coloured sources, meaning you get a lot of value by being able to produce coloured mana. So with that said, I typically prefer to play the 4th Signet over the Talisman in these traditional lists with all 12 Tron lands.
Playing a 5th Signet really boils down to how often you want to have the early mana. Signet is one of the worst cards you can draw late, and you generally want it on turn 2. If you’re more concerned about being able to cast Gifts on turn 3, playing a 5th one can help. If you’re concerned about drawing dead cards, playing a 5th one is not as great. The 5th Signet is also much better when you’re playing less lands, and I typically wouldn’t advise playing the 5th Signet in a list with 25 mana producing lands (Eye does not count toward that total).
Should I play Eye of Ugin?
Eye of Ugin depends on whether or not you want to be able to force Emrakul. On one hand, Eye is often a dead card in the early-mid game. It gets small utility if you play Wurmcoil or Sundering Titan, but for the most part you rarely want to draw it before turn 10. At the same token, playing Eye allows you to be able to force Emrakul on your opponent. In games where you’re expecting to go to late game, it’s extremely valuable to be able to do this. An example is any control deck. We have a really good matchup against them, but mostly because our win conditions are hard to interact with and when we get to late game, we can force it.
I would play Eye of Ugin in a meta where you expect to be winning by Emrakul a decent amount. If you’re seeing decks like BGx, UWR Control, Esper Mentor, and Twin, then Eye is probably quite good. If you’re in a meta where you’re seeing primarily decks like Infect, Affinity, and Burn, it’s bad because you’re boarding it out a lot.
Should I play Mindslaver or Emrakul?
I think this one comes down to personal preference. Both are fine cards and fine win conditions, it just depends which one you prefer to play. I typically don’t like playing both of them, and if I am playing both, I’m not playing both full packages.
Let me quickly go over what either offers.
Mindslaver gives you a cheaper win condition and also a card that’s good in the mid game. Since it’s only 6 to cast and 10 to cast + activate, you can do it much earlier than Emrakul. Additionally, there are decks where activating it once will give you a lot of value since you can kill their creatures or mess up their combo. Mindslaver is harder to guarantee because you can’t fetch it with Eye of Ugin, only Gifts. Since the deck is already Gifts-centric, you’re adding even more equity to the card with the highest equity in the deck. Additionally, it loses to grave hate, which people sometimes board in against us.
Emrakul is obviously much more difficult to cast. Against decks like Twin or UWR Control, they can potentially answer it with cards like Cryptic Command, Pestermite, and Deceiver Exarch. That said, Emrakul is often harder to answer. Even while those decks can answer it, they often still have to find other cards to prevent themselves from losing the next turn.
Playing Emrakul requires only Emrakul, but often Eye. Eye is a card that’s not that great and generally just to facilitate it, so that sort of sucks. Playing Mindslaver requires Academy Ruins, which is another colourless land. If you want to guarantee Mindslaver to any degree, you have to play a second Academy Ruins and a Crucible of Worlds. Double Ruins is sometimes awkward to play with, and Crucible is only good sometimes (it’s good against BGx primarily).
My personal preference lies with Emrakul. I don’t think Mindslaver is a card I want to keep in against aggro decks, so the fact that it’s cheaper and isn’t totally dead against them isn’t that relevant. Even against Twin, where I found Emrakul can get tapped down fairly easily, I found myself wanting to guarantee my win condition instead of hoping to get there with Mindslaver. Again, this is my preference, and your mileage will vary, so you should try them and see which one works best for you.
What do you think about Leyline of Sanctity? Should I play 3 or 4 Leylines?
Leyline is a good card. It’s very good against Burn, but it’s also good against BGx and other fringe decks. I like it against BGx because it shuts down all their spot discard and Liliana (-2 and -6). BGx is a deck that’s designed to try to 1-for-1 you and then hope you draw the wrong cards, can’t play your game because you don’t have cards, or that cards like Goyf and Liliana are too hard to answer. When you start leaving them with dead cards and allowing yourself to play your game uninterrupted, it ends up very good.
As for whether to play 3 or 4, there are some tradeoffs to both. Most obviously is that you are less likely to opening hand it with fewer Leylines, but get an extra sideboard slot. It’s about 8.4% more likely that you get it opening hand if you play the 4th one, so while it’s a decent amount, it’s not something crazy. Remember that while Leyline is good against decks like Burn or BGx, it won’t instantly win you games. I notably lost a game against Burn having resolved 3 Leylines and Iona after my opponent drew most of his sideboarded cards.
What we do know is that playing a 4th will improve the matchups we want it against, but playing a different card can improve other matchups (or perhaps still be good in those matchups and improve others).
I wrote a post where I did some math on this with a simple example. You can view all about it here and here.
Why are you playing only one Unburial Rites?
Unburial Rites is a card we never want to draw. On its own, it does absolutely nothing. We only want to Gifts combo for it, so as we play more, the odds we draw it increase.
Some people may then argue, what do you do if you draw your only one? Well, we hope not to draw it, first off. The odds you draw it aren’t high enough to convince me playing a second one is a good idea. You have to factor in what will happen if you do draw it, and how it’s probably going to do nothing. Secondly is that we’re playing Thirst For Knowledge, which is our answer if we draw it. Thirst reasonably lets us discard it and then we can perform the combo.
Can I play a black source?
Certainly. Should you? Probably not. The black source is really difficult to justify because the mana already sucks. As it stands, we’re not playing enough coloured sources. It’s also statistically unlikely to draw Unburial Rites, so I’m not exactly expecting to draw it a bunch. While you may be able to cover yourself somewhat in that scenario, you’re not even always doing so. Sometimes you draw the Unburial Rites without the black source or a Map, which effectively negates the whole point you’re playing it.
Ultimately, it’s just not where I want to be. If you do decide you want to play it, then I would recommend looking into Engineered Explosives as well because it synergizes well with you playing an extra colour so you have x=3 as an option.
Have you tried splashing other colours?
Yes, I have. I tried splashing black to play Lingering Souls. It seems like the card would be really good for us. It’s a source of good blockers, synergizes very well with Gifts and Thirst, and is just a really good card.
The verdict? It was downright awful. Playing black meant I wanted more than one black source, and that created more trouble than you can imagine. At more than one black source, it was very apparent that I wasn’t playing enough coloured sources. I always ended up with the wrong colour combinations and I just couldn’t consistently cast the cards I wanted.
Honestly, it’s just too difficult to play 3 colours and play 12 colourless lands at the same time.
How many Remands should I play?
You can play 3 or 4. I think Remand is a good card, and I personally like playing 4. It draws a card and it’s a cheap answer to things. Early draw spells are hard to play in this fast format, making Remand a good compromise.
Some people would prefer hard counters, so cutting a Remand to play something like Condescend is fine. While Remand is a solid card, it sometimes falls by the wayside, and is usually much worse than Condescend in the late game because of how Condescend scales.
Wurmcoil vs Batterskull
Wurmcoil and Batterskull offer similar things, as a midgame card with lifelink. Wurmcoil is better on its own, but dies to Path, whereas Batterskull doesn't. However, you often won't want to just slam Batterskull on 5 mana. Wurmcoil can get fetched up if you play Eye, which is nice.
I'm typically more of a fan of Wurmcoil because I think it's overall just a better card. That said, I don't think either are that great right now. Most of the fast decks are too fast, and BGx is typically playing Path. Instead, I'm playing Ugin over it because Ugin is so much better in the matchups where I want Wurmcoil (read: mostly BGx). Ugin is also better against a larger range of decks because his -X is really strong.
How many basic lands should I play?
I don’t really like playing more than 3. You’d play an Island, a Plains, and a Snow-covered something. Whether it’s an Island or Plains is up to you. I think because we need both colours, playing too many basics is a problem, especially since we play a lot of colourless lands. As I tested more basics, I had consistency problems.
Decks like Twin get away with playing one Mountain only because they play an abundance of fetches that can find it or a dual land, and play Blood Moon as well. On top of that, the red isn’t as important as the blue, as it’s primarily for their win condition and then single red removal spells like Bolt and Electrolyze. We’re not Twin, we’re not capable of playing that many basics.
Should I play all 12 Tron lands?
The short answer is that I don’t know; the long answer is a lot more complicated.
Recently, decks have shown up cutting Tron lands. At first, I was definitely skeptical of doing it. The consistency for Tron drops a fair bit, and I really do like having Tron. But by that same token, Tron isn’t something we necessarily need early, and our deck has consistency issues with the colours. Cutting Tron lands and playing more coloured sources allows us to have better mana early game.
It’s too early for me to say whether I like this or not. I am testing it to see how it goes. I think, where the format is now, this is probably okay to do. With all the aggressive decks, Tron isn’t something you need as often. Among the top decks, you’re going to want Twin against BGx and Twin and the rest you don’t care as much. Realistically, most of the time Tron isn’t something you’re going to need to win.
The reason most of the 10 Tron lists are 10 Tron lands is because they always Tectonic Edge (or Fulminator Mage) your Tower, so you’re still playing the full 4 in that case. In the matchups where I expect to be Tectonic Edged, I also expect to want Tron, which is BGx and Twin. Twin usually doesn’t play too many Tec Edges and they play Blood Moon, so having more fetches and basics helps out there as well.
What are your thoughts on this card?
If it’s common enough, I’ve probably discussed it somewhere, so feel free to search the thread for my posts and that card. If it’s some farfetch’d card, feel free to post and ask. I took a large break playing Magic, so I don’t know all the cards.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the primer. A lot of hard work and time has gone into creating this, so I hope you’ve gotten a lot of information out of it.
If you see amiss, please don’t hesitate to let me know and bring it up. This guide is about providing the best information we can, and I’d rather be wrong and fix it than have bad information up. If you’d like to see more content or help provide content, send me a PM as well.
Shout outs to John Doe (for helping with the previous primer), the mods (for letting me post it), the pro players who have played the deck and displayed it to the world (LSV, Gerry Thompson, and Reid Duke), and you, for making my efforts be worth the while.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
I always thought this deck was incredibly sweet, but never played it myself. Maybe i'll give it a go.
Decks:
Standard:
Nope
Modern:
Mono-Green Nykthos
Gifts Tron
Melira Pod
Legacy:
Maverick (retired)
RGOmnath, Locus of ManaRG
URThe Locust godUR
Modern
UWMiraclesUW
Legacy
BGIce Station Zebra (Living Fins)BG
UBRGrixis ControlUBR
RGLandsRG
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
They predicate themselves on exact math. Even if they manage to kill her, chances are the remaining triggers won't kill me.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
But Empyrial Archangel even good? It seems really cute, but maybe a waste of a sideboard slot.
Standard
UGRB Emerge
Modern
U Tron
Legacy
UWBRG The E.P.I.C. Storm
Empyrial Archangel is definitely not played in Legacy Reanimator.
Standard
UGRB Emerge
Modern
U Tron
Legacy
UWBRG The E.P.I.C. Storm
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=6763&d=238846&f=LE
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=6650&d=238206&f=LE
They're all over the place....
Two decks? Good job. It's not 2008 anymore.
I play plenty of Legacy.
Standard
UGRB Emerge
Modern
U Tron
Legacy
UWBRG The E.P.I.C. Storm