Honestly, the best tech I’ve found against storm is Runed Halo. It’s also quite applicable against Titanshift, another horrible matchhup.
I generally like Halo too, but it also has the problem of being permanent-based and thus weak to Wipe Away and Echoing Truth. I've lost because I tapped out on T2 for Halo on Grapeshot when he just combo'd on the untap, bounced my Halo, and won on the spot. I know it's not the likeliest, but it's just an example (albiet an extreme one) of the issue with boarding enchantment locks in against them. Surgical when backed by counters really is the best option, tho Silence seems dirty against them. Surg has overlap with Dredge tho.
Halo is massively overrated imo. Seems like people are wanting to maindeck it right now, and although I think that is the correct spot for it in the 75, I don't think it's in a very good spot. Artifacts and Enchantments are notoriously bad post-board, especially if you are leaning on them to stop you from losing the game. Detention Sphere is a bit of an exception because people generally don't mind trading a threat with a 3 mana sorcery speed card, they aren't going to bring in enchant hate for a 1 or 2-of card, but Sphere's value goes way down if they are bringing in enchant hate knowing you have at least halo and possibly some more enchantment/artifacts out of the board.
Silence is interesting, but the little mini-game of trying to establish when to cast it is not something i'm interested in doing since most of their spells cantrip, you're only getting a profitable exchange on Silence if they cast a bunch of Rituals or PIF, and they are generally much more conservative with storm counts in sideboarded games. Surgical takes care of the probably permanently, so even if you end up down a card, at least you have 1 less thing to play around going forward and the cross-match applicability of surgical is nice, Silence seems pretty narrow.
Anyone every experiment with light splashes? A Steam Vents for instance could allow for cards like Nahiri in the main, and Engineered Explosives in the side.
A light red splash is interesting, access to Nahiri and a better explosives are definitely nice cards. I could also get behind Crumble to Dust out of the sideboard which could potentially free up the spreading seas in the main.
I've been thinking about a light black splash as well to gain some points against lantern. An interesting piece of tech someone pointed out in the esper forum was Mystical Teachings And fracturing Gust. Combined with Snapcaster, we're almost certain to find a spot to completely blow them out. There isn't quite as many nice black cards to splash though, and any splash is going to require moving away from the up to 5 colourless lands we are able to play as straight UW.
I love playing Mystical Teachings in Pauper, but it's no good for this deck, so often the card we need is not an instant.
I agree, it's too narrow. Just an appealing Christmasland scenario with gust/snap vs lantern.
I also think the biggest strength of UW is the Mana base and i can't see too many scenarios where messing with that is a good idea, even a light splash is going to cost us in the matches where we need the LD lands.
Hey guys , just wondering why everyone seems to be playing 3 or more copies of field of ruin? Although i think its good. why is it a better option then something like tectonic edge or more ghost quarters? i don't get it. thanks!
We're a long game deck with path to exile. You exhaust your opponents relatively small basic land counts so it becomes a straight up better tectonic edge. Combined with the fact that we play many more basics than other decks you attack your opponents mana base while being able to keep progressing your own land count.
My honest opinion of Tectonic Edge is that it is a bad card. Against the decks where you really need early land destruction, working only after your opponent hits 4 lands is too slow. Additionally, hurting your land development is pretty bad in a deck that wants to be casting snap-cryptic and activating colonnade with mana up.
Ghost quarter sees less play because it is card disadvantage that also sets you back a land drop vs your opponent. It plays a key role of being faster and also being able to hit basics, which has surprisingly common applications.
Personally, I like 3-1 field/quarter in non-Crucible of Worlds builds of UW, going to 2-2 or 3-2 field/quarter in builds with Crucible main or side.
My honest opinion of Tectonic Edge is that it is a bad card. Against the decks where you really need early land destruction, working only after your opponent hits 4 lands is too slow. Additionally, hurting your land development is pretty bad in a deck that wants to be casting snap-cryptic and activating colonnade with mana up.
Ghost quarter sees less play because it is card disadvantage that also sets you back a land drop vs your opponent. It plays a key role of being faster and also being able to hit basics, which has surprisingly common applications.
Personally, I like 3-1 field/quarter in non-Crucible of Worlds builds of UW, going to 2-2 or 3-2 field/quarter in builds with Crucible main or side.
I agree with all of this, with the caveat that I haven’t tried out Ghost Quarter yet (but a 3/2 or even 4/1 split seems very nice).
^ Quite the spicy UW list that showed up in the results from this past weekend’s Modern Challenge. Two Halos, two Spell Snares, Disallow, Settle the Wreckage, and a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar all in the maindeck. Wild!
It’s also worth noting that both this list and the UW list that placed in the RPTQ ran two copies of Search for Azcanta, so those who’ve been saying that 2x Search is now stock are beginning to be proven right.
As a newer player to the deck, I’ve favored diversifiying my card advantage sources (1 Search, 1 Rev, 1 Crucible, 2 Jace as my main engines), partially to test everything out, and partially because I felt the second Search opened me up a little more to grave hate. Normally I’d consider the opponent siding that against us to be just fine—especially since Crucible is an easy side out in such cases—but the idea of running two Search and no Rev makes enemy grave hate seem a lot more troubling. Any thoughts/experiences with this?
I was the UW list in 31st place. I havn't liked Runed Halos, they're pretty clunky and they don't protect your planeswalkers. Pretty much nobody worth their salt sides in graveyard hate against UW. It only hits ~2 snapcasters and makes your searches worse. Modern draw options are pretty limited, if you dont like revelation you can play Glimmer of Genius.
I was the UW list in 31st place. I havn't liked Runed Halos, they're pretty clunky and they don't protect your planeswalkers. Pretty much nobody worth their salt sides in graveyard hate against UW. It only hits ~2 snapcasters and makes your searches worse. Modern draw options are pretty limited, if you dont like revelation you can play Glimmer of Genius.
Congrats on the placement!
I agree with what you say in regard to grave hate for the most part, but I just wonder whether a package of 2 Snapcasters (which could be 3 for all the opponent knows), 2 Searches, and a Crucible changes the opponent’s incentives enough to worry about.
I’ve actually had fantastic results with my one-of Rev so far. A second Search would probably replace the second Jace before the Rev, for me. Glimmer seems decent, but not quite powerful enough; I agree with whoever said a while back that it would be in the mix if it gave us literally anything useable in our deck instead of the energy counters.
I agree that opponents shouldn't be bringing in gravehate, but they don't seem to know that lol. In any case, I wouldn't let that factor too much into the decision to run multiple Azcanta because you will often find yourself shaving a copy of it in sideboard games anyways. It's also my experience that a lot of the gravehate that is brought in isn't the type that can keep you off Azcanta going long - you will eventually flip vs relic, cage doesn't effect it,surgical doesn't effect it, leyline of the void needs to be in thier opener and the decks running RIP are usually Snapcaster decks so they know not to bring it it in. As long as you stay away from logic knot, I think 2 snaps and 2 searches doesn't warrant being worried about gravehate, stay away from logic knot and you should be fine. And for what it's worth I think people are winning despite having crucible in the 75, not because of it. Its also probably the card in the list that gets hurt by gravehate the most;flash 2/1 and think tank are passable, but crucible can be completely blanked. Not to mention it often blanks itself until way way late if you don't draw a fetch in the early game and find the time to spend 3 Mana.
I'm just starting to play U/W Control and I was looking for some advice on my list. I was also wondering what the rationale behind not playing Spell Quellers and Geist of Saint Trafts is? I like the pressure that the Geist of Saint Trafts bring and Spell Queller can be very effective.
The reason to not run more creature based decks is so you can run more sweeper effects. So for instance, if I'm playing Spell Queller, Wrath of God and Supreme Verdict lose their effectiveness. Especially if you're Quelling creatures that could possibly block you Geist of Saint Traft, or they can re-cast the card underneath with little to no resistance after you've spent 4 mana sweeping away the board and are pretty much tapped out. Aside from that, there isn't much of a downside to playing a more "midrange" style of UW. I think it's just personal preference.
I prefer to have my 3 drops be Blade Splicer or Kitchen Finks and have a top end of Restoration Angel but that's just me. Finks and Splicer provide more value than Queller and Geist but don't provide as much of a clock. I'm also bias because Resto is one of my favorite cards ever.
I don't think it's wrong to play Geist but, there needs to be more of a reason to play it over some of the other cards in the list that you'd be replacing. The same is true for Queller. If you can justify it and it makes sense to you, then go for it. There's no right or wrong here. Innovations help all of us. As a community, we are results sdriven. If the deck provides the results, that's all that matters.
kanister_mtg: but actually lately UW control decks have started becoming reasonably good against Lantern postboard
kanister_mtg: while they were overall terrible against it for half a year
OK guys, what's the secret sideboard plan against Lantern? I need to know.
I don't think much has changed in the board other than the 1-of ceremonious rejection and the surgical extraction becoming more ubiquitous. I haven't played much lantern lately, so I'm not sure that surgical is good there but it probably comes in simply because of how many bad cards we have in the main. If UW has gotten better against lantern recently it's probably because of some of the new tools UW got for the main and the recent switch on Lanterns part to attempt to play a Mana base that requires UUU for whir of Invention.
It is my understanding that Kanister is one of the champions of lantern, but it sounds like he is suffering from base rate fallacy. As in, it's still likely that UW is a dog game 1, but much less of a dog than we have been previously. Given that more than half of all games are sideboard games, it's easier to attribute the losses as coming from there (which they mostly will be).
It's nothing inherent about the sideboard though. It's that we have more troublesome permanents than ever (Gideon 3 and Search as the newest additions) and they moved away from running multiple Decay/Maelstrom effects in the main in order to play whir of Invention. Look at the most recent lists - they run like 1 decay main and often no pulse. That means that if you ever resolve 2 gideon3's or 1 gideon3 and a gideon5 or 1 Gideon3 and 1 Search they can't win unless the UW pilot can't deal with or forgets to address academy ruins. Post board gets even better because you can start including Stony Silence, Runed Halo and additional counter-magic there.
Search for Azcanta is the reason UW can win games through lantern now. Once its online you can reasonably find specific cards to deal with situations and force damage through with gideons and collonades. Also the planeswalker uniqueness rule helped, as having multiple gideons out THEN finding a cryptic to bounce a bridge is usually game over. There's also small changes like the lantern players adopting whir of invention meaning the dispel(s) we sideboard in have more targets.
It's not a good matchup, but its much better than it used to be. You can certainly steal wins.
kanister_mtg: but actually lately UW control decks have started becoming reasonably good against Lantern postboard
kanister_mtg: while they were overall terrible against it for half a year
OK guys, what's the secret sideboard plan against Lantern? I need to know.
I don't think much has changed in the board other than the 1-of ceremonious rejection and the surgical extraction becoming more ubiquitous. I haven't played much lantern lately, so I'm not sure that surgical is good there but it probably comes in simply because of how many bad cards we have in the main. If UW has gotten better against lantern recently it's probably because of some of the new tools UW got for the main and the recent switch on Lanterns part to attempt to play a Mana base that requires UUU for whir of Invention.
It is my understanding that Kanister is one of the champions of lantern, but it sounds like he is suffering from base rate fallacy. As in, it's still likely that UW is a dog game 1, but much less of a dog than we have been previously. Given that more than half of all games are sideboard games, it's easier to attribute the losses as coming from there (which they mostly will be).
It's nothing inherent about the sideboard though. It's that we have more troublesome permanents than ever (Gideon 3 and Search as the newest additions) and they moved away from running multiple Decay/Maelstrom effects in the main in order to play whir of Invention. Look at the most recent lists - they run like 1 decay main and often no pulse. That means that if you ever resolve 2 gideon3's or 1 gideon3 and a gideon5 or 1 Gideon3 and 1 Search they can't win unless the UW pilot can't deal with or forgets to address academy ruins. Post board gets even better because you can start including Stony Silence, Runed Halo and additional counter-magic there.
Um, can't they just sac Codex Shredder to get back the first decay? I agree that a Lil' Gid into Jura could easily do it, but even then they can just wait until they've exiled a Colonnade with Pyxis of Pandemonium (assuming they play it) and sac it to start beating down Jura and end the game that way.
The reason to not run more creature based decks is so you can run more sweeper effects. So for instance, if I'm playing Spell Queller, Wrath of God and Supreme Verdict lose their effectiveness. Especially if you're Quelling creatures that could possibly block you Geist of Saint Traft, or they can re-cast the card underneath with little to no resistance after you've spent 4 mana sweeping away the board and are pretty much tapped out. Aside from that, there isn't much of a downside to playing a more "midrange" style of UW. I think it's just personal preference.
I prefer to have my 3 drops be Blade Splicer or Kitchen Finks and have a top end of Restoration Angel but that's just me. Finks and Splicer provide more value than Queller and Geist but don't provide as much of a clock. I'm also bias because Resto is one of my favorite cards ever.
I don't think it's wrong to play Geist but, there needs to be more of a reason to play it over some of the other cards in the list that you'd be replacing. The same is true for Queller. If you can justify it and it makes sense to you, then go for it. There's no right or wrong here. Innovations help all of us. As a community, we are results sdriven. If the deck provides the results, that's all that matters.
I would also say that playing Geist/Queller means you should likely just be playing Jeskai -- Bolt/Helix/Electrolyze clear the way for Geist and also act as reach. You also don't really need to play Verdicts in Jeskai either, so you don't have to worry about the awkwardness between wraths and Geist/Queller.
Um, can't they just sac Codex Shredder to get back the first decay? I agree that a Lil' Gid into Jura could easily do it, but even then they can just wait until they've exiled a Colonnade with Pyxis of Pandemonium (assuming they play it) and sac it to start beating down Jura and end the game that way.
Pyxis of Pandemoneum doesn’t work the way you seem to think it does. Each player puts all permanents exiled with Pyxis of Pandemoneum that they own into the battlefield, so if they’ve exiled a colonnade and then sac Pyxis, YOU get the colonnade, plus any other permanents youowned that err exiled by the Pyxis.
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I generally like Halo too, but it also has the problem of being permanent-based and thus weak to Wipe Away and Echoing Truth. I've lost because I tapped out on T2 for Halo on Grapeshot when he just combo'd on the untap, bounced my Halo, and won on the spot. I know it's not the likeliest, but it's just an example (albiet an extreme one) of the issue with boarding enchantment locks in against them. Surgical when backed by counters really is the best option, tho Silence seems dirty against them. Surg has overlap with Dredge tho.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
Silence is interesting, but the little mini-game of trying to establish when to cast it is not something i'm interested in doing since most of their spells cantrip, you're only getting a profitable exchange on Silence if they cast a bunch of Rituals or PIF, and they are generally much more conservative with storm counts in sideboarded games. Surgical takes care of the probably permanently, so even if you end up down a card, at least you have 1 less thing to play around going forward and the cross-match applicability of surgical is nice, Silence seems pretty narrow.
I've been thinking about a light black splash as well to gain some points against lantern. An interesting piece of tech someone pointed out in the esper forum was Mystical Teachings And fracturing Gust. Combined with Snapcaster, we're almost certain to find a spot to completely blow them out. There isn't quite as many nice black cards to splash though, and any splash is going to require moving away from the up to 5 colourless lands we are able to play as straight UW.
I agree, it's too narrow. Just an appealing Christmasland scenario with gust/snap vs lantern.
I also think the biggest strength of UW is the Mana base and i can't see too many scenarios where messing with that is a good idea, even a light splash is going to cost us in the matches where we need the LD lands.
Ghost quarter sees less play because it is card disadvantage that also sets you back a land drop vs your opponent. It plays a key role of being faster and also being able to hit basics, which has surprisingly common applications.
Personally, I like 3-1 field/quarter in non-Crucible of Worlds builds of UW, going to 2-2 or 3-2 field/quarter in builds with Crucible main or side.
I agree with all of this, with the caveat that I haven’t tried out Ghost Quarter yet (but a 3/2 or even 4/1 split seems very nice).
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/modern-challenge-2017-11-26
^ Quite the spicy UW list that showed up in the results from this past weekend’s Modern Challenge. Two Halos, two Spell Snares, Disallow, Settle the Wreckage, and a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar all in the maindeck. Wild!
It’s also worth noting that both this list and the UW list that placed in the RPTQ ran two copies of Search for Azcanta, so those who’ve been saying that 2x Search is now stock are beginning to be proven right.
As a newer player to the deck, I’ve favored diversifiying my card advantage sources (1 Search, 1 Rev, 1 Crucible, 2 Jace as my main engines), partially to test everything out, and partially because I felt the second Search opened me up a little more to grave hate. Normally I’d consider the opponent siding that against us to be just fine—especially since Crucible is an easy side out in such cases—but the idea of running two Search and no Rev makes enemy grave hate seem a lot more troubling. Any thoughts/experiences with this?
Congrats on the placement!
I agree with what you say in regard to grave hate for the most part, but I just wonder whether a package of 2 Snapcasters (which could be 3 for all the opponent knows), 2 Searches, and a Crucible changes the opponent’s incentives enough to worry about.
I’ve actually had fantastic results with my one-of Rev so far. A second Search would probably replace the second Jace before the Rev, for me. Glimmer seems decent, but not quite powerful enough; I agree with whoever said a while back that it would be in the mix if it gave us literally anything useable in our deck instead of the energy counters.
Here is my deck list:
2 Blessed Alliance
3 Cryptic Command
2 Detention Sphere
1 Mana Leak
2 Negate
1 Ojutai's Command
4 Path to Exile
4 Spreading Seas
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
2 Gideon Jura
1 Gideon of the Trials
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Eiganjo Castle
4 Celestial Colonnade
3 Field of Ruin
4 Flooded Strand
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Glacial Fortress
3 Hallowed Fountain
5 Island
2 Plains
4 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Spell Queller
I also dislike Spreading Seas as I would almost rather run more Field of Ruins and Ghost Quarters in addition to some combination Wall of Omens or Serum Visions. Any thoughts?
I prefer to have my 3 drops be Blade Splicer or Kitchen Finks and have a top end of Restoration Angel but that's just me. Finks and Splicer provide more value than Queller and Geist but don't provide as much of a clock. I'm also bias because Resto is one of my favorite cards ever.
I don't think it's wrong to play Geist but, there needs to be more of a reason to play it over some of the other cards in the list that you'd be replacing. The same is true for Queller. If you can justify it and it makes sense to you, then go for it. There's no right or wrong here. Innovations help all of us. As a community, we are results sdriven. If the deck provides the results, that's all that matters.
I don't think much has changed in the board other than the 1-of ceremonious rejection and the surgical extraction becoming more ubiquitous. I haven't played much lantern lately, so I'm not sure that surgical is good there but it probably comes in simply because of how many bad cards we have in the main. If UW has gotten better against lantern recently it's probably because of some of the new tools UW got for the main and the recent switch on Lanterns part to attempt to play a Mana base that requires UUU for whir of Invention.
It is my understanding that Kanister is one of the champions of lantern, but it sounds like he is suffering from base rate fallacy. As in, it's still likely that UW is a dog game 1, but much less of a dog than we have been previously. Given that more than half of all games are sideboard games, it's easier to attribute the losses as coming from there (which they mostly will be).
It's nothing inherent about the sideboard though. It's that we have more troublesome permanents than ever (Gideon 3 and Search as the newest additions) and they moved away from running multiple Decay/Maelstrom effects in the main in order to play whir of Invention. Look at the most recent lists - they run like 1 decay main and often no pulse. That means that if you ever resolve 2 gideon3's or 1 gideon3 and a gideon5 or 1 Gideon3 and 1 Search they can't win unless the UW pilot can't deal with or forgets to address academy ruins. Post board gets even better because you can start including Stony Silence, Runed Halo and additional counter-magic there.
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
It's not a good matchup, but its much better than it used to be. You can certainly steal wins.
Um, can't they just sac Codex Shredder to get back the first decay? I agree that a Lil' Gid into Jura could easily do it, but even then they can just wait until they've exiled a Colonnade with Pyxis of Pandemonium (assuming they play it) and sac it to start beating down Jura and end the game that way.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
I would also say that playing Geist/Queller means you should likely just be playing Jeskai -- Bolt/Helix/Electrolyze clear the way for Geist and also act as reach. You also don't really need to play Verdicts in Jeskai either, so you don't have to worry about the awkwardness between wraths and Geist/Queller.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
Pyxis of Pandemoneum doesn’t work the way you seem to think it does. Each player puts all permanents exiled with Pyxis of Pandemoneum that they own into the battlefield, so if they’ve exiled a colonnade and then sac Pyxis, YOU get the colonnade, plus any other permanents youowned that err exiled by the Pyxis.