Storm is not as bad as people think it is, I think it's about on par with Dredge, which is to say not favourable, but certainly winnable.
I had a really fun match against storm last night where I won 2-0. They were on the version with fetches and I started pressure the life total with T2 and T3 Snapcaster for no value. He was forced to storm off early because I would have killed him, and I drew a string of Seas and Fields to cut him off red completely. I'm not sure if it's standard for the version with fetches to only run 2 mountains and 2 Islands, but in either case it was super satisfying to kill them in that fashion lol. Game 2 was less interesting, surgical'd a PIF after a gifts, then snap surgical'd a grapeshot after a gifts.
I've played against storm plenty and have only won a few times (often I felt it was due to miscalculation on my opponents part). In terms of strategy, what is our best course of action? Please tell me if I'm off:
-apply early pressure
-get rid of their goblin and baral asap
-make sure we keep our lands up to avoid combo when tapped out
-are we trying to keep them off red if possible?
-post sideboard, I'm assuming leyline of sanctity (for grapeshot), surgical, dispel, negate, runed halo, Rest In Peace are good? Is that correct?
-where do we look to counter and avoid the combo?
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Modern Decks: UWAzorius Titan ControlUW BWOrzhov ControlBW
I wouldn't recommend depending on cutting them off red, I've only won exactly 1 game off that in tons of matches, and the spreading seas are coming out for games 2 and 3.
Best thing you can do is start pressuring right away, 100% of the time i'm holding up mana to flash in snapcaster mage even if I have wall of omens or spreading seas in hand. If you can leak a reducer instead of no-value snap, then I usually make that play, especially if you were lucky enough to be on the play and cast a serum on T1. In that scenario, I'm taking the risk of tapping out for Snap-Visions - you can die from that position, but it's not super likely and it's the best way to make use of snapcaster. That is usually how I approach the first few turns of the match.
After board, you want Surgical Extraction and Dispels the most. The other stuff comes in too if you have it, but it's second rate to surgical in my opinion because they can play around all the of the permanents with stuff like wipe away. With surgical, you have a lot of leeway to tap out on their endstep because if they respond with a gifts you let it resolve, give them the rituals and surgical the PIF. At that point, it's very difficult for them to kill you with grapeshot in any timely manner, they have to assemble a turn where they can remand their own grapeshot and then probably still have to do another small cluster of grapeshot (so roughly 3 combos) unless you've taken a ton of incidental damage from your lands or random 2/2 or 1/3 beats. Otherwise they have to beat you with 2/2s and 1/3s because Empty rarely works, just make sure you don't side out Jace or Supreme Verdict.
Talk to me about the Humans matchup. Got crushed by it last night.
Hopefully someone else can help you out with that. I don't have nearly enough experience against humans and my list is skewed specifically with meddling mage in mind. After I saw the humans deck win the scg, and then saw it play someone on stream I figured it would be difficult, so I added 1 Oust, 1 Condemn and a Settle the wreckage in the main. The few times I did play against it, it seemed fairly straightforward, wipe the board and try not to get caught off guard by a vial'd creature.
Placed 15th with a 6-2 record at a Face to Face 3K open yesterday, basically playing the updated Bennyhill list with 2x Azcanta and 4x Field of Ruin. Possibly could have X-1'd if I didnt punt as hard as I did.
Round 1: 2-0 Boros Burn. Brought me down to 1 G1, then I dropped 3CMC Gideon and emblemed while protecting him. G2 he mulled and got dispelled/negated post board.
Round 2: 2-0 Grixis Shadow. Cut him off Black and Red mana with Field of Ruin and Seas G1. G2 he drew no threats, keeping in all his removal spells for colonnade and lost to 3CMC Gideon.
Round 3: 2-1 Storm. Lost G1 to the usual shenanigans. Won G2 and 3 off of RIP and Jace staying on board to shut down goblin tokens.
Round 4: 0-2 Living End (lol). G1 he managed to keep me off of hitting 4 mana with Fulminators and Beast Withins. I had a leak, but I was forced to leak a beast within that would have brought me down to 1 land. G2 I completely kept control of the game with RIP, 3CMC Gideon punching his face, and enough mana to activate 2 Colonnades and counter 2 Living Ends. Having picked up this deck only a couple months ago with no experience with blue, I had NEVER seen ricochet trap before, and he countered the negate I had for his second living end after I swung in with all my threats for lethal. I then failed to draw anything but the last lands in my deck while he hardcasted his creatures. Well deserved loss for the terrible play.
Round 5: 1-2 Grixis Shadow: Won G1 off a couple paths and 3CMC Gideon swinging in. Both G2 and 3 I kept decent hands that got dismantled by discard spells, followed up by T3 shadows protected by denials. I currently board out the leaks and negates, along with azcantas and snaps for GY hate and creature removal. Not sure if I'm boarding correctly, because those GDS hands are still hard to beat despite this match being in our favor. Maybe I need to take out Seas in favor or counterspells, doesn't feel good tapping out for a Seas to disrupt their mana slightly when they are dropping big threats so early.
Round 6: 2-1 5-color Shadow: Won G1 only seeing Grixis colors, lost G2 to Goyfs that were paired with the shadows. Won G3 against a Liliana Last Hope ulti off of a bunch of verdicts into colonnade swinging in.
Round 7: 2-0 Bant Eldrazi: Dropped Azcanta early on G1, used field of ruin to take out cavern, and took over after a couple big verdicts and azcanta card advantage. G2 went pretty similar with the azcanta and fields, except it was a D.Sphere on 3 skyspawners instead of a verdict.
Round 8: 1-0-1 UW Mirror: He was on the original 2x GQ 2x Tec Edge list. Extremely slow match where we both locked down each others colonnades using Gideons or land destruction. I eventually took over the match due to insane card advantage thanks to Azcanta, and also a misplay from him where he D'sphered my 3 early Spreading Seas on his UW lands, only for me to cryptic bounce them to draw 3 cards and also shut down his tapped GQ. With 15 minutes left for G2, I boarded in all my counterspells to survive until time.
Overall, I love the new changes with Field of Ruin and Azcanta, they are definitely here to stay in the deck. Looking forward to jamming this again at more competitive REL events.
Placed 15th with a 6-2 record at a Face to Face 3K open yesterday, basically playing the updated Bennyhill list with 2x Azcanta and 4x Field of Ruin. Possibly could have X-1'd if I didnt punt as hard as I did.
[...]
Overall, I love the new changes with Field of Ruin and Azcanta, they are definitely here to stay in the deck. Looking forward to jamming this again at more competitive REL events.
Sweet, thanks for the report!
Have to agree, Ixalan was great for us UW mages. I've been on 4 Field and 3 search and I'm not sure I can be convinced to go less on either of them!
Overall the deck plays really nice. The biggest thing that I have trouble with is Blood Moon, which is why Swan Song is in here. I also sort of want to go to 25 lands, but I'm not sure if that's a great idea. Any thoughts?
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My Decks:
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If you're worried about blood moon, I would think Negate would be better over Swan Song. It hits a lot more targets, doesn't give them a creature and comes down before moon unless opponent has T1 Dork or Rituals into it. Other options could include playing more fetches and/or including some fragmentize/disenchant effects out of the board.
The only other card that looks out of place to me is Knight, but without having tested it I'll just have to take your word on it. Just seems odd to have a card that only really plays an aggressive role in a control deck.
I'd recommend checking out the Bant Glittering Wish Control deck at cardknocklife if you're set on exploring bant control, it's a different strategy but might inspire some ideas for you. Personally, I like sticking with only 2 colors because I feel the mana disruption is stronger than most of this other stuff, but thats just me!
Basically UW control with a wish package, like the link you posted, with one caveat. Dramatic entrance + progenitus (or empyrial archangel) is a pretty powerful combo, and the fact that we can play glittering wish instead of half the combo is pretty big. We aren't going to be stuck with a dead progenitus in hand all game, because wish could just as easily become a supreme verdict.
The fact that wish exiles itself (and can't be snapcaster-ed) is really unfortunate, but its not the end of the world.
The mana is probably a bit too greedy to be casting cryptics, but wildwood is super good. Cutting the field of ruin for another blue source might be needed.
The sideboard is also a bit of a mess (the list is kind of old, and contains a lot of "I like this card" like bant charm, voidslime, flurry of wings, war monk, etc. Its possible opt, search for azcanta, etc, might improve it. I don't know, I haven't tried them.
@Cody_X - The dead card in hand problem isn't solved by progenitus being in the sideboard because the Dramatic Entrance is going to be dead without glittering wish. I like the way you're thinking though! If you're looking for some more gas to brew with, Glittering Wish also finds Thopter Foundry! We would still have to play Sword of the Meek I suppose, but maybe there's a way we can mitigate/abuse that? Just spitballing but something like Moorland Haunt makes 1/1s that could abuse the sword in the yard if we were to play something like Thirst for Knowledge or Chart a Course. That takes up a lot of slots though.
Yeah, my thought is that you're posting in the wrong thread.
Not only is this not accurate, it's also not constructive. The list that was proposed uses like 4 cards that we don't sometimes see in these lists. A lot of players have been talking about splashing green lately.
I mean, the problem is half solved. Yes, obviously dramatic entrance will still be dead, but the whole "died with a dead card in hand" is reduced by 50%.
I'm not sure if glittering wish makes it in, but moorland haunt + eternal scourge + thopter combo is a thing. Add in thirst for knowledge, gifts, or other stuff, maybe you have a deck.
Yea, I'm not sure the combo is strong enough to warrant dead cards though. Look at combos like Kiki + Pestermite... both halves do something, and it wins on the spot, and it's still barely playable. If you can figure out a way to have Glittering wish take up the slot of the 'do nothing' half of any given combo, then we might have something on our hands.
Glittering Wish is interesting for that kind of application, and probably gives us game against most of the field. My only issue is losing mana consistency hurts us against burn, and takes away the ability to play stuff like Field of Ruin which makes us worse against Tron. I feel like those are the classic issues with UWx control. Consistency was never really any issue.
You could do complicated things with, for example, knight of the reliquary (finds moorland haunt, is wish-able). Thopter foundry is wishable as you mentioned, so wish + sword of the meek + eternal scourge + moorland haunt in the main with KotR and foundry in the board could be something. Its also worth noting that wargate finds anything and is wishable (can also play it main).
Of course, the whole thing is probably just a jank pile thats too expensive and unfocused to work, but it could be neat.
I have been running Whir of Invention in my Thopter decks, but I hadn't really considered Wargate, basically does the same thing except isn't limited to the only 2 artifacts in the deck. The Darksteel Citadel might be better off as a Talisman of Progress, a 2nd piece of main deck Foundry fodder is necessary for the times that your Sword gets binned before you can assemble the combo. Citadel is kinda nice because you don't have to take it out in post board games to get around artifact hate and doesn't get hit by random Kolaghans commands.
Checking in with a report from my first paper event with this deck! It was a great debut, despite my build being a little bit of a mess: I ended up bringing a 61-card setup (the list I posted a couple pages back with a Crucible tacked on), which, as people here have pointed out, is definitely suboptimal; but I was willing to lose a few percentage points of efficiency to see how everything played. Things got a little worse when I showed up and found out that the dude who was lending me Cryptics for the night (the only cards in here I don’t own yet—waiting on the IM printing), only had two copies. Without any time to really think about it before the tourney kicked off, I threw my Vendilion Clique in the main and added a Disenchant to the side (also suboptimal, but decent in my meta).
Round 1 vs GW Combo Elves:
I was on the play, and kept a four-lander with Serum Visions, Wall of Omens, and Verdict. He had a full board and an empty hand by the end of his T3, which would have been a blowout for me if not for the fact that his opener included a maindeck Selfless Spirit. My Wall plus Jace and Gideon were able to stall for a while as I dug for a Path or D-Sphere for the Spirit, but I never found one and Ezuri overruns got him there. Game 2 he flooded the board similarly, but this time I had an EoT Path for his Spirit into a T4 Verdict and T5 Gideon Jura, who closed the game in a hurry. Game 3 he played a little more cautiously, which worked for me, as I kept an opener that was great in every way besides the lack of a wrath. Mana Leak countered his Archdruid, Dispel countered his CoCo, and Jace kept his dorks at bay while I took over the board. His topdecked Choke made the game last longer than it should have, but once more Jura beats got me over the line. 1-0
Round 2 vs Izzet Delver/Pyromancer:
Game 1 I got an early advantage with Verdict taking down a flipped Delver, a Pyromancer, and three tokens. From there I felt favored, but he burned me down to three life over time, then topdecked a Lightning Bolt on an empty hand. I responded to the Bolt by Revving for 4, and drew Search, Cryptic, Negate, and a land, which put the game on lockdown. Game 2 was crazily long and interactive, with a midgame highlight being my Jura, his Negate, my Negate, his Negate, my Dispel, his Dispel...lol. Later on I resolved a Gideon OTT, ticked him up, and next turn made his emblem, which combined with my card advantage and better topdecks put the game out of reach. 2-0
Round 3 vs RG Ponza:
Game 1 he kept a threat-less hand with a dork, a Blood Moon, and a couple of Stone Rains. My opener of five lands (two fetches, a basic, Field, and Farmland) Serum Visions, and Gideon OTT was well positioned against him. I slammed Gideon on T3, ticked him up, and then swung every turn after that. Besides his Arbor Elf, who chumped Gids at some point, the only other creature he found was a Goblin Dark-Dwellers while at 4 life, for which I had an EoT Path and the lethal swing to follow. Probably the quickest I’ve ever won a game with this deck, lol. Game 2 was a huge blowout for me...I Mana Leaked his T3 Stone Rain, then proceeded to lock him out of red with three straight Spreading Seas. Both Gideons hit the field shortly thereafter, and it was over rather quickly. 3-0
Round 4 vs Dredge:
I prepared myself for an early scoop G1, despite a respectable opening seven in my hand, but my opponent mulled to five on the play, which gave me some hope. Opponent made his first land drop and passed, then went two turns without hitting another land or a play. My progression was T1 Colonnade, T2 Serum and fetch, T3 Serum and pass holding up Mana Leak. His T4 saw him hit a second land drop and cast Cathartic Reunion, which I was crucially able to counter. From there I tried a Spreading Seas lock (didn’t work as he found lands 3 and 4), but Wall of Omens, Gideon OTT, and Jace took over the board and won me the game just as he was starting to really look threatening. Game 2 I kept an okay 4-land opener including a Grafdigger’s Cage. Cage was a huge stumbling block for him, but I flooded out hard, despite aggressively thinning out my deck (prioritizing fetches over Colonnades) and Scrying lands to the bottom whenever possible. He found an Abrupt Decay for my Cage and then went off as I continued to flood.
Game 3 I drew two unkeepable hands and mulled to a very sketchy five of Island, Cage, Celestial Purge, D-Sphere, and Settle the Wreckage, Scrying Gideon Jura to the bottom. Thankfully for me, I hit my land drops right away, and my opponent lacked an early answer for the Cage, so I was able to stabilize and recover from my card disadvantage. The game went on for ages as I hung on to my Settle, able to control the board well enough with Gideon OTT, a pair of Walls, and Paths/Spheres that I was never taking more than a Narcomeba hit on any given attack. The turning point of the game cane when he Decayed my Cage, and I knew I had two turns to find an answer. On the first turn of do or die I minused Jace and found a Search. Next turn I flipped the Search, activated it to find three lands and a Path, then cashed in Jace, at last finding my first Rest In Peace of the series. I immediately slammed it and then Verdicted his massive board. He shifted to a hardcast plan, but I was able to get in with Gideon OTT and a Colonnade while holding up seven mana for Settle, Path, and a counterspell, which got me the win. 4-0
Not bad for the deck’s paper debut, especially considering 61 cards + only two Cryptics + hurried inclusions of Clique main and Disenchant side ( I probably should have just left Clique in the side and played with 60). But I will say that I’ve never been so mentally exhausted after a local Modern event as I was last night. The cognitive load is real when piloting UW, even though some of that is probably due to me being new to the archetype.
Thrilled with the power of this deck, the challenge it presents as a pilot, and the types of matches it leads to. Before last night I was considering shaving a Jace, but he was arguably my MVP on the night, so I think in a couple weeks I’ll run it back exactly as is, 61 cards and all (though hopefully with a third Cryptic by then!).
Sorry for the huge wall of text, but thanks for all of the discussion that helped me nail down the decklist and playstyle before my first tourney, and thanks especially to bennyhillz and HolyShamgar for some great and informative streaming.
I'm open to talking about Swan Song or Nimble Obstructionist, but that list had 18 Creatures when most of us are running 4, it's clearly a different deck if not an entirely different archetype. It's one of the things I really appreciate about this forum that there's a thread for every different deck. If you want all sorts of UWx brews lumped together, there's a Facebook group for exactly that, and I don't follow that group nearly as closely as I follow this thread because, well, that's not what I'm looking for.
You as an individual can enjoy the thread however you see fit, if you only want to take part in conversation about the nuance of changing 1 card from whatever list has recently done well, then by all means do that. But don't tell us we can't have discussions about decks that use the same core of cards, and the same general strategy. The thread isn't titled 'Discuss the most recent 5-0 list from MTGO" its "UW control" and if you read the primer, you'll see that the decks that are posted there, and the card suggestions are nearly as far off from the best placing decks of today and that Bant list that was proposed. If you think that a specific list has deviated too far from the strategy, voice that concern, make recommendations and move on - being short and dismissive accomplishes literally nothing except turning the thread into an echo chamber, which is not conducive to bettering a strategy.
If you're worried about blood moon, I would think Negate would be better over Swan Song. It hits a lot more targets, doesn't give them a creature and comes down before moon unless opponent has T1 Dork or Rituals into it. Other options could include playing more fetches and/or including some fragmentize/disenchant effects out of the board.
The only other card that looks out of place to me is Knight, but without having tested it I'll just have to take your word on it. Just seems odd to have a card that only really plays an aggressive role in a control deck.
I'd recommend checking out the Bant Glittering Wish Control deck at cardknocklife if you're set on exploring bant control, it's a different strategy but might inspire some ideas for you. Personally, I like sticking with only 2 colors because I feel the mana disruption is stronger than most of this other stuff, but thats just me!
Cheers
Knight of the Reliquary is basically a significantly better version of Tarmogoyf. It usually comes down as a 4/4 or even 5/5 if I do play it on turn three (which isn't always the right play), so it's a pretty good roadblock against aggro decks.
It basically lets me play a tap out control deck if I need to, controlling the board with Wall of Omens, Knight, and Kitchen Finks.
Of course, against any combo decks, you wanna keep your mana up during their turn and play a more draw-go style. Restoration Angel, Nimble Obstructionist, and Vendilion Clique are perfect for that because they let you keep up mana while also letting you get some pressure in if you need to.
hmm not sure if I like that. Glittering Wish seems like an interesting plan, but I definitely think a list like that needs a bunch of tinkering to get anywhere close to consistent.
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My Decks:
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I had a really fun match against storm last night where I won 2-0. They were on the version with fetches and I started pressure the life total with T2 and T3 Snapcaster for no value. He was forced to storm off early because I would have killed him, and I drew a string of Seas and Fields to cut him off red completely. I'm not sure if it's standard for the version with fetches to only run 2 mountains and 2 Islands, but in either case it was super satisfying to kill them in that fashion lol. Game 2 was less interesting, surgical'd a PIF after a gifts, then snap surgical'd a grapeshot after a gifts.
-apply early pressure
-get rid of their goblin and baral asap
-make sure we keep our lands up to avoid combo when tapped out
-are we trying to keep them off red if possible?
-post sideboard, I'm assuming leyline of sanctity (for grapeshot), surgical, dispel, negate, runed halo, Rest In Peace are good? Is that correct?
-where do we look to counter and avoid the combo?
UWAzorius Titan ControlUW
BWOrzhov ControlBW
Best thing you can do is start pressuring right away, 100% of the time i'm holding up mana to flash in snapcaster mage even if I have wall of omens or spreading seas in hand. If you can leak a reducer instead of no-value snap, then I usually make that play, especially if you were lucky enough to be on the play and cast a serum on T1. In that scenario, I'm taking the risk of tapping out for Snap-Visions - you can die from that position, but it's not super likely and it's the best way to make use of snapcaster. That is usually how I approach the first few turns of the match.
After board, you want Surgical Extraction and Dispels the most. The other stuff comes in too if you have it, but it's second rate to surgical in my opinion because they can play around all the of the permanents with stuff like wipe away. With surgical, you have a lot of leeway to tap out on their endstep because if they respond with a gifts you let it resolve, give them the rituals and surgical the PIF. At that point, it's very difficult for them to kill you with grapeshot in any timely manner, they have to assemble a turn where they can remand their own grapeshot and then probably still have to do another small cluster of grapeshot (so roughly 3 combos) unless you've taken a ton of incidental damage from your lands or random 2/2 or 1/3 beats. Otherwise they have to beat you with 2/2s and 1/3s because Empty rarely works, just make sure you don't side out Jace or Supreme Verdict.
That said, it's still a rough match.
Here's my current list for reference: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/03-04-17-lxJ-uw-control/
Hopefully someone else can help you out with that. I don't have nearly enough experience against humans and my list is skewed specifically with meddling mage in mind. After I saw the humans deck win the scg, and then saw it play someone on stream I figured it would be difficult, so I added 1 Oust, 1 Condemn and a Settle the wreckage in the main. The few times I did play against it, it seemed fairly straightforward, wipe the board and try not to get caught off guard by a vial'd creature.
UWR Control
BR Hollow One
Round 1: 2-0 Boros Burn. Brought me down to 1 G1, then I dropped 3CMC Gideon and emblemed while protecting him. G2 he mulled and got dispelled/negated post board.
Round 2: 2-0 Grixis Shadow. Cut him off Black and Red mana with Field of Ruin and Seas G1. G2 he drew no threats, keeping in all his removal spells for colonnade and lost to 3CMC Gideon.
Round 3: 2-1 Storm. Lost G1 to the usual shenanigans. Won G2 and 3 off of RIP and Jace staying on board to shut down goblin tokens.
Round 4: 0-2 Living End (lol). G1 he managed to keep me off of hitting 4 mana with Fulminators and Beast Withins. I had a leak, but I was forced to leak a beast within that would have brought me down to 1 land. G2 I completely kept control of the game with RIP, 3CMC Gideon punching his face, and enough mana to activate 2 Colonnades and counter 2 Living Ends. Having picked up this deck only a couple months ago with no experience with blue, I had NEVER seen ricochet trap before, and he countered the negate I had for his second living end after I swung in with all my threats for lethal. I then failed to draw anything but the last lands in my deck while he hardcasted his creatures. Well deserved loss for the terrible play.
Round 5: 1-2 Grixis Shadow: Won G1 off a couple paths and 3CMC Gideon swinging in. Both G2 and 3 I kept decent hands that got dismantled by discard spells, followed up by T3 shadows protected by denials. I currently board out the leaks and negates, along with azcantas and snaps for GY hate and creature removal. Not sure if I'm boarding correctly, because those GDS hands are still hard to beat despite this match being in our favor. Maybe I need to take out Seas in favor or counterspells, doesn't feel good tapping out for a Seas to disrupt their mana slightly when they are dropping big threats so early.
Round 6: 2-1 5-color Shadow: Won G1 only seeing Grixis colors, lost G2 to Goyfs that were paired with the shadows. Won G3 against a Liliana Last Hope ulti off of a bunch of verdicts into colonnade swinging in.
Round 7: 2-0 Bant Eldrazi: Dropped Azcanta early on G1, used field of ruin to take out cavern, and took over after a couple big verdicts and azcanta card advantage. G2 went pretty similar with the azcanta and fields, except it was a D.Sphere on 3 skyspawners instead of a verdict.
Round 8: 1-0-1 UW Mirror: He was on the original 2x GQ 2x Tec Edge list. Extremely slow match where we both locked down each others colonnades using Gideons or land destruction. I eventually took over the match due to insane card advantage thanks to Azcanta, and also a misplay from him where he D'sphered my 3 early Spreading Seas on his UW lands, only for me to cryptic bounce them to draw 3 cards and also shut down his tapped GQ. With 15 minutes left for G2, I boarded in all my counterspells to survive until time.
Overall, I love the new changes with Field of Ruin and Azcanta, they are definitely here to stay in the deck. Looking forward to jamming this again at more competitive REL events.
Sweet, thanks for the report!
Have to agree, Ixalan was great for us UW mages. I've been on 4 Field and 3 search and I'm not sure I can be convinced to go less on either of them!
// 18 Creature
4 Kitchen Finks
3 Wall of Omens
3 Restoration Angel
1 Sun Titan
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Thragtusk
2 Eternal Witness
1 Nimble Obstructionist
// 3 Enchantment
3 Detention Sphere
// 10 Instant
3 Cryptic Command
4 Path to Exile
1 Swan Song
2 Mana Leak
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Flooded Strand
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Breeding Pool
2 Temple Garden
4 Island
3 Plains
1 Forest
3 Hallowed Fountain
// 3 Sorcery
3 Supreme Verdict
1 Thragtusk
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Spellskite
2 Nimble Obstructionist
2 Spreading Seas
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Rest in Peace
1 Swan Song
Overall the deck plays really nice. The biggest thing that I have trouble with is Blood Moon, which is why Swan Song is in here. I also sort of want to go to 25 lands, but I'm not sure if that's a great idea. Any thoughts?
Modern:
(online)Enduring Ideal
(online)BUG
(paper)Mono White Control
Standard:
(paper) Whatever I can throw together
(online) UWR Control
Legacy:
(paper)The Gate
(paper)Dream Halls
The only other card that looks out of place to me is Knight, but without having tested it I'll just have to take your word on it. Just seems odd to have a card that only really plays an aggressive role in a control deck.
I'd recommend checking out the Bant Glittering Wish Control deck at cardknocklife if you're set on exploring bant control, it's a different strategy but might inspire some ideas for you. Personally, I like sticking with only 2 colors because I feel the mana disruption is stronger than most of this other stuff, but thats just me!
Cheers
4 Serum Visions
4 Think Twice
4 Glittering Wish
2 Blessed Alliance
4 Path to Exile
1 Wrath of God
3 Dramatic Entrance
2 Logic Knot
4 Rune Snag
4 Cryptic Command
3 Island
2 Plains
1 Forest
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Breeding Pool
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Stirring Wildwood
2 Celestial Colonnade
1 Flooded Grove
1 Mystic Gate
1 Field of Ruin
1 Progenitus
1 Rhox War Monk
1 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Spell Queller
1 Meddling Mage
1 Detention Sphere
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Bant Charm
1 Sphinx's Revelation
1 Voidslime
1 Fracturing Gust
1 Flurry of Wings
2 Supreme Verdict
Basically UW control with a wish package, like the link you posted, with one caveat. Dramatic entrance + progenitus (or empyrial archangel) is a pretty powerful combo, and the fact that we can play glittering wish instead of half the combo is pretty big. We aren't going to be stuck with a dead progenitus in hand all game, because wish could just as easily become a supreme verdict.
The fact that wish exiles itself (and can't be snapcaster-ed) is really unfortunate, but its not the end of the world.
The mana is probably a bit too greedy to be casting cryptics, but wildwood is super good. Cutting the field of ruin for another blue source might be needed.
The sideboard is also a bit of a mess (the list is kind of old, and contains a lot of "I like this card" like bant charm, voidslime, flurry of wings, war monk, etc. Its possible opt, search for azcanta, etc, might improve it. I don't know, I haven't tried them.
Not only is this not accurate, it's also not constructive. The list that was proposed uses like 4 cards that we don't sometimes see in these lists. A lot of players have been talking about splashing green lately.
I'm not sure if glittering wish makes it in, but moorland haunt + eternal scourge + thopter combo is a thing. Add in thirst for knowledge, gifts, or other stuff, maybe you have a deck.
Glittering Wish is interesting for that kind of application, and probably gives us game against most of the field. My only issue is losing mana consistency hurts us against burn, and takes away the ability to play stuff like Field of Ruin which makes us worse against Tron. I feel like those are the classic issues with UWx control. Consistency was never really any issue.
Of course, the whole thing is probably just a jank pile thats too expensive and unfocused to work, but it could be neat.
Here's a pile:
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendillion Clique
Planeswalkers (1)
1 Gideon of the Trials
Countermagic (5)
1 Muddle the Mixture
2 Mana Leak
2 Cryptic Command
Removal (9)
4 Path to Exile
1 Oust
1 Detention Sphere
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
1 Settle the Wreckage
Card Quality (14)
4 Serum Visions
2 Spreading Seas
3 Glittering Wish
2 Search For Azcanta
2 Gifts Ungiven
1 Wargate
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Thopter Foundry
Land (25)
4 Colonnade
2 Field of Ruin
1 Darksteel Citadel
8 Fetch
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple Garden
4 Island
2 Plains
1 Forest
1 Thopter Foundry
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Detention Sphere
1 Sphinx's Revelation
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Spell Queller
1 Voidslime
1 Spreading Seas
3 Dispel
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Negate
I have been running Whir of Invention in my Thopter decks, but I hadn't really considered Wargate, basically does the same thing except isn't limited to the only 2 artifacts in the deck. The Darksteel Citadel might be better off as a Talisman of Progress, a 2nd piece of main deck Foundry fodder is necessary for the times that your Sword gets binned before you can assemble the combo. Citadel is kinda nice because you don't have to take it out in post board games to get around artifact hate and doesn't get hit by random Kolaghans commands.
Round 1 vs GW Combo Elves:
I was on the play, and kept a four-lander with Serum Visions, Wall of Omens, and Verdict. He had a full board and an empty hand by the end of his T3, which would have been a blowout for me if not for the fact that his opener included a maindeck Selfless Spirit. My Wall plus Jace and Gideon were able to stall for a while as I dug for a Path or D-Sphere for the Spirit, but I never found one and Ezuri overruns got him there. Game 2 he flooded the board similarly, but this time I had an EoT Path for his Spirit into a T4 Verdict and T5 Gideon Jura, who closed the game in a hurry. Game 3 he played a little more cautiously, which worked for me, as I kept an opener that was great in every way besides the lack of a wrath. Mana Leak countered his Archdruid, Dispel countered his CoCo, and Jace kept his dorks at bay while I took over the board. His topdecked Choke made the game last longer than it should have, but once more Jura beats got me over the line. 1-0
Round 2 vs Izzet Delver/Pyromancer:
Game 1 I got an early advantage with Verdict taking down a flipped Delver, a Pyromancer, and three tokens. From there I felt favored, but he burned me down to three life over time, then topdecked a Lightning Bolt on an empty hand. I responded to the Bolt by Revving for 4, and drew Search, Cryptic, Negate, and a land, which put the game on lockdown. Game 2 was crazily long and interactive, with a midgame highlight being my Jura, his Negate, my Negate, his Negate, my Dispel, his Dispel...lol. Later on I resolved a Gideon OTT, ticked him up, and next turn made his emblem, which combined with my card advantage and better topdecks put the game out of reach. 2-0
Round 3 vs RG Ponza:
Game 1 he kept a threat-less hand with a dork, a Blood Moon, and a couple of Stone Rains. My opener of five lands (two fetches, a basic, Field, and Farmland) Serum Visions, and Gideon OTT was well positioned against him. I slammed Gideon on T3, ticked him up, and then swung every turn after that. Besides his Arbor Elf, who chumped Gids at some point, the only other creature he found was a Goblin Dark-Dwellers while at 4 life, for which I had an EoT Path and the lethal swing to follow. Probably the quickest I’ve ever won a game with this deck, lol. Game 2 was a huge blowout for me...I Mana Leaked his T3 Stone Rain, then proceeded to lock him out of red with three straight Spreading Seas. Both Gideons hit the field shortly thereafter, and it was over rather quickly. 3-0
Round 4 vs Dredge:
I prepared myself for an early scoop G1, despite a respectable opening seven in my hand, but my opponent mulled to five on the play, which gave me some hope. Opponent made his first land drop and passed, then went two turns without hitting another land or a play. My progression was T1 Colonnade, T2 Serum and fetch, T3 Serum and pass holding up Mana Leak. His T4 saw him hit a second land drop and cast Cathartic Reunion, which I was crucially able to counter. From there I tried a Spreading Seas lock (didn’t work as he found lands 3 and 4), but Wall of Omens, Gideon OTT, and Jace took over the board and won me the game just as he was starting to really look threatening. Game 2 I kept an okay 4-land opener including a Grafdigger’s Cage. Cage was a huge stumbling block for him, but I flooded out hard, despite aggressively thinning out my deck (prioritizing fetches over Colonnades) and Scrying lands to the bottom whenever possible. He found an Abrupt Decay for my Cage and then went off as I continued to flood.
Game 3 I drew two unkeepable hands and mulled to a very sketchy five of Island, Cage, Celestial Purge, D-Sphere, and Settle the Wreckage, Scrying Gideon Jura to the bottom. Thankfully for me, I hit my land drops right away, and my opponent lacked an early answer for the Cage, so I was able to stabilize and recover from my card disadvantage. The game went on for ages as I hung on to my Settle, able to control the board well enough with Gideon OTT, a pair of Walls, and Paths/Spheres that I was never taking more than a Narcomeba hit on any given attack. The turning point of the game cane when he Decayed my Cage, and I knew I had two turns to find an answer. On the first turn of do or die I minused Jace and found a Search. Next turn I flipped the Search, activated it to find three lands and a Path, then cashed in Jace, at last finding my first Rest In Peace of the series. I immediately slammed it and then Verdicted his massive board. He shifted to a hardcast plan, but I was able to get in with Gideon OTT and a Colonnade while holding up seven mana for Settle, Path, and a counterspell, which got me the win. 4-0
Not bad for the deck’s paper debut, especially considering 61 cards + only two Cryptics + hurried inclusions of Clique main and Disenchant side ( I probably should have just left Clique in the side and played with 60). But I will say that I’ve never been so mentally exhausted after a local Modern event as I was last night. The cognitive load is real when piloting UW, even though some of that is probably due to me being new to the archetype.
Thrilled with the power of this deck, the challenge it presents as a pilot, and the types of matches it leads to. Before last night I was considering shaving a Jace, but he was arguably my MVP on the night, so I think in a couple weeks I’ll run it back exactly as is, 61 cards and all (though hopefully with a third Cryptic by then!).
Sorry for the huge wall of text, but thanks for all of the discussion that helped me nail down the decklist and playstyle before my first tourney, and thanks especially to bennyhillz and HolyShamgar for some great and informative streaming.
You as an individual can enjoy the thread however you see fit, if you only want to take part in conversation about the nuance of changing 1 card from whatever list has recently done well, then by all means do that. But don't tell us we can't have discussions about decks that use the same core of cards, and the same general strategy. The thread isn't titled 'Discuss the most recent 5-0 list from MTGO" its "UW control" and if you read the primer, you'll see that the decks that are posted there, and the card suggestions are nearly as far off from the best placing decks of today and that Bant list that was proposed. If you think that a specific list has deviated too far from the strategy, voice that concern, make recommendations and move on - being short and dismissive accomplishes literally nothing except turning the thread into an echo chamber, which is not conducive to bettering a strategy.
Knight of the Reliquary is basically a significantly better version of Tarmogoyf. It usually comes down as a 4/4 or even 5/5 if I do play it on turn three (which isn't always the right play), so it's a pretty good roadblock against aggro decks.
It basically lets me play a tap out control deck if I need to, controlling the board with Wall of Omens, Knight, and Kitchen Finks.
Of course, against any combo decks, you wanna keep your mana up during their turn and play a more draw-go style. Restoration Angel, Nimble Obstructionist, and Vendilion Clique are perfect for that because they let you keep up mana while also letting you get some pressure in if you need to.
hmm not sure if I like that. Glittering Wish seems like an interesting plan, but I definitely think a list like that needs a bunch of tinkering to get anywhere close to consistent.
Modern:
(online)Enduring Ideal
(online)BUG
(paper)Mono White Control
Standard:
(paper) Whatever I can throw together
(online) UWR Control
Legacy:
(paper)The Gate
(paper)Dream Halls