Recently picked up the deck, and am loving it. This deck has brought me back to Modern, as it plays some of my favorite cards from the Modern era: Wall of Omens, Gideon Jura, Path to Exile, and Spreading Seas. I love how some new cards have come to the fold after the original Zendikar era and the deck still has that Alara-Zendikar vibe going!
Looking for some advice here.
Really struggling with the Eldrazi Tron match. With as much land disruption as the deck has, I find that multiple Thought-Knot Seer are crippling when they grab a removal spell or a key planeswalker. This seems to be my downfall in this match, dealing with Seers. I have thought about making some room for Ceremonious Rejection but it seems difficult to really justify it just for the Eldrazi Tron match. Cards I was looking at shaving in the board are 1 Vendilion Clique and 1 Grafdigger's Cage to make room for 2 Ceremonious Rejection.
Overall, I am pretty happy with the list. I tend to lean towards more Planeswalkers because our local scene does not really pack much to deal with them and they do a ridiculous amount of work. The Narset Transcendent could probably go, she was a pet add. Surprisingly though, she is flexible in what I want to use her for and comes in for a fair amount of games because of it. Elspeth, Sun's Champion is another consideration for being cut. I understand why she is in the list, I just felt she might not be the card I want for my local scene. Hard to say.
Any tips on how I should board with my current list, against Eldrazi Tron? How should I approach this match overall? I feel my strategy is slightly different than what I would do with more traditional Tron decks.
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STANDARD|UW Control MODERN| UBG Midrange PAUPER| UG Fog COMMANDER| UBG The Mimeoplasm
Oust seems bad to me because you're giving a troublesome creature right back to them and doing it at sorcery speed. Unless you're prepared to counter it the next time, you've bought yourself a turn at most and UW Control doesn't have much to capitalize on that tempo.
It buys you 2 turns, which during the first 4 turns of the game is a lot. It also depends on the nature of the creature you are trying to deal with. If it's a Meddling Mage, Queller, Freebooter, Arbiter etc, just getting it off the table that turn might be good enough, in which case unsummon is just as well. But if it is just gaining them an advantage every turn, like BOB for example, then getting it off the table for a few turns until you have the mana to cast a sweeper is huge.
You'll cast it sorcery speed on your turn and then get one "free" turn before your opponent draws & recasts it. It's close to even CA, mildly positive on mana tempo. That's not awful, but in my opinion it's still not a great option (although neither were my suggestions). I wouldn't want to make "delay" a part of my primary game plan, in the same sense that I'm not prioritizing Cryptic Command's ability to tap opponent's creatures. I'd rather counter (maybe Spell Snare or Censor?) or permanently remove the creature; your mileage may vary though.
@Superna7ural your board is pretty good for E-tron, I've never played Narset although I like her, but I'd probably change that for a crucible if you can. Also probably switch those tec edges and 1 ghost quarter to field of ruins. You should board something like -4 serum visions, -1 path, -1 Jace, - think twice: +2 stony, 1 Blessed alliance, verdict, elspeth, 1-2 negates, and timely, Clique is probably good too so maybe take out one gideon.
Oust seems bad to me because you're giving a troublesome creature right back to them and doing it at sorcery speed. Unless you're prepared to counter it the next time, you've bought yourself a turn at most and UW Control doesn't have much to capitalize on that tempo.
It buys you 2 turns, which during the first 4 turns of the game is a lot. It also depends on the nature of the creature you are trying to deal with. If it's a Meddling Mage, Queller, Freebooter, Arbiter etc, just getting it off the table that turn might be good enough, in which case unsummon is just as well. But if it is just gaining them an advantage every turn, like BOB for example, then getting it off the table for a few turns until you have the mana to cast a sweeper is huge.
You'll cast it sorcery speed on your turn and then get one "free" turn before your opponent draws & recasts it. It's close to even CA, mildly positive on mana tempo. That's not awful, but in my opinion it's still not a great option (although neither were my suggestions). I wouldn't want to make "delay" a part of my primary game plan, in the same sense that I'm not prioritizing Cryptic Command's ability to tap opponent's creatures. I'd rather counter (maybe Spell Snare or Censor?) or permanently remove the creature; your mileage may vary though.
You get 2 draw steps, 2 untap steps and get to make 2 land drops before you have to deal with the creature again. It trades even on cards because they literally have 1 less card for the remainder of the game, and it trades 1 Mana for 2 at the worst (if they ever recast it) and scales as the threats cost more. Hitting a 2 Mana creature is trading 1 Mana for 4.
Also, cryptic tap draw is very powerful, but also not a good analogy - when you have 4+mana, there are so many options of what you can do to react to your opponents play - on turn 1 and 2, that is not the case.
I'm not saying that everyone should be playing these cards, I'm just trying to find the best arguments for or against these cards. I have yet to incorporate anything past 4 Path, 2 Sphere and 3 verdict into my build, because I believe in needing strong reasoning for testing out cards.
@Slowgod and others - speaking of testing out cards, I see you are testing out the the 5 colourless sources package. I love that this is a thing now, I've been advocating for it for a long time, though I had originally suggested 3 Field, 2 GQ, I believe 4/1 is better now. I watched Benny's stream replay last night, I can't agree that cutting a fetch is correct though. I think it's too important to have access to early basics against blood moon decks. I've always been on irrigated over temple, but I think I would swap out the mystic gate for a flooded strand in his Mana base as well, potentially dropping a glacial for a prarie stream could alleviate the pressure from all the fetches as well. The thing is though, you don't need to find a basic of off field in the way late game, it just turns into either an expensive tec edge or expensive ghost quarter. Obviously it is ideal to keep being able to fetch off of it, but we don't need to warp our Mana base for it. Flooded Strand is just the best dual land we have access to, and I'm never playing less than 4.
I would have never even thought of taking out a fetch for a field of ruin, but I have ran out of basics to fetch a bunch of times lately and end up drawing dead flooded strands in the late game. I think someone needs to run some math on an optimal mana base while running 4x fields.
Oust seems bad to me because you're giving a troublesome creature right back to them and doing it at sorcery speed. Unless you're prepared to counter it the next time, you've bought yourself a turn at most and UW Control doesn't have much to capitalize on that tempo.
It buys you 2 turns, which during the first 4 turns of the game is a lot. It also depends on the nature of the creature you are trying to deal with. If it's a Meddling Mage, Queller, Freebooter, Arbiter etc, just getting it off the table that turn might be good enough, in which case unsummon is just as well. But if it is just gaining them an advantage every turn, like BOB for example, then getting it off the table for a few turns until you have the mana to cast a sweeper is huge.
You'll cast it sorcery speed on your turn and then get one "free" turn before your opponent draws & recasts it. It's close to even CA, mildly positive on mana tempo. That's not awful, but in my opinion it's still not a great option (although neither were my suggestions). I wouldn't want to make "delay" a part of my primary game plan, in the same sense that I'm not prioritizing Cryptic Command's ability to tap opponent's creatures. I'd rather counter (maybe Spell Snare or Censor?) or permanently remove the creature; your mileage may vary though.
You get 2 draw steps, 2 untap steps and get to make 2 land drops before you have to deal with the creature again. It trades even on cards because they literally have 1 less card for the remainder of the game, and it trades 1 Mana for 2 at the worst (if they ever recast it) and scales as the threats cost more. Hitting a 2 Mana creature is trading 1 Mana for 4.
Also, cryptic tap draw is very powerful, but also not a good analogy - when you have 4+mana, there are so many options of what you can do to react to your opponents play - on turn 1 and 2, that is not the case.
I'm not saying that everyone should be playing these cards, I'm just trying to find the best arguments for or against these cards. I have yet to incorporate anything past 4 Path, 2 Sphere and 3 verdict into my build, because I believe in needing strong reasoning for testing out cards.
It trades even on cards but with the caveat that it very likely improves a future draw (as compared to one chosen at random from their deck, otherwise why are you worried about removing it). That's a pseudo scry, hence the -ish. In my opinion it's a bit of a stretch to say it's 1 CMC trading for 4 after they recast, because at that point you likely still need to answer it with removal or a counter at some CMC cost. Also may not be a great choice for anything with ETB. It actually shares a lot in common with Reflector Mage regarding pros/cons.
Cryptic tap-draw is a decent analogy if you follow where I'm going with it. Versatility is certainly valuable (and powerful), but if that's all CC did I'm not sure anyone one would play it. My point is about wanting cards to follow a general strategy. For me, that means I want clean, efficient answers in UW Control rather than tempo. I want my CC primarily for counter-draw and my removal not to kick the can down the road. That's my personal preference/playstyle though, so by all means give it a try if you think it's worth it. I'm a big proponent of throwing out new ideas, discussing possible options, and such so good on you for asking the question and throwing out suggestions worth contemplating.
Oust seems bad to me because you're giving a troublesome creature right back to them and doing it at sorcery speed. Unless you're prepared to counter it the next time, you've bought yourself a turn at most and UW Control doesn't have much to capitalize on that tempo.
It buys you 2 turns, which during the first 4 turns of the game is a lot. It also depends on the nature of the creature you are trying to deal with. If it's a Meddling Mage, Queller, Freebooter, Arbiter etc, just getting it off the table that turn might be good enough, in which case unsummon is just as well. But if it is just gaining them an advantage every turn, like BOB for example, then getting it off the table for a few turns until you have the mana to cast a sweeper is huge.
You'll cast it sorcery speed on your turn and then get one "free" turn before your opponent draws & recasts it. It's close to even CA, mildly positive on mana tempo. That's not awful, but in my opinion it's still not a great option (although neither were my suggestions). I wouldn't want to make "delay" a part of my primary game plan, in the same sense that I'm not prioritizing Cryptic Command's ability to tap opponent's creatures. I'd rather counter (maybe Spell Snare or Censor?) or permanently remove the creature; your mileage may vary though.
You get 2 draw steps, 2 untap steps and get to make 2 land drops before you have to deal with the creature again. It trades even on cards because they literally have 1 less card for the remainder of the game, and it trades 1 Mana for 2 at the worst (if they ever recast it) and scales as the threats cost more. Hitting a 2 Mana creature is trading 1 Mana for 4.
Also, cryptic tap draw is very powerful, but also not a good analogy - when you have 4+mana, there are so many options of what you can do to react to your opponents play - on turn 1 and 2, that is not the case.
I'm not saying that everyone should be playing these cards, I'm just trying to find the best arguments for or against these cards. I have yet to incorporate anything past 4 Path, 2 Sphere and 3 verdict into my build, because I believe in needing strong reasoning for testing out cards.
In my opinion it's a bit of a stretch to say it's 1 CMC trading for 4 after they recast, because at that point you likely still need to answer it with removal or a counter at some CMC cost. Also may not be a great choice for anything with ETB. It actually shares a lot in common with Reflector Mage regarding pros/cons.
Fair point, I didn't consider the Mana you would have to spend later to deal with it again. I do think that Mana is less important though since we will outspend the opponent in the mid and late game in !OST cases anyways.
I also think reflector mage is a fair comparison, though I think Oust is a fair bit better considering it only costs 1 Mana, can be snapcasted back, and found by azcanta in addition to actually trading for a card. Thinking about it in terms of being a reflector mage makes me appreciate it a fair bit more. That card was absurd in the right context. Granted we can't capiilize on the tempo in the same fashion, a bit of tempo without losing a card is welcome in the early game.
I have thought about Meddling Mage, but I think it's just to fragile, Runed Halo is harder to deal with although not quite as versatile. I always feel really safe at least for awhile when I play Halo against Storm or Valakut. I'm having some incredible matches with my latest list, I won a game where my opponent had a Karn, O stone, and 14/14 ballista when I was at 15 health with no nonland permanents haha
He's been switching it up lately to test the new cards so I doubt he will settle on the current list. If you look at the link in my signature his deck is almost the same as mine. Take out the crucible of worlds, 1 snap and 1 glacial fortress and add 1 mystic gate, 1 temple of enlightenment and another search for azcanta and that's his latest deck. His sideboard is the same as mine except crucible instead of Elspeth and a 2nd surgical instead of runed halo.
Not any need for super huge changes here. I thought about maybe Timely but decided that Verdict is better. The reason you board them out, tho, is that Jund opponents play around them easily, so the mana disadvantage is huge. You really just want to keep threats off of the board (using counters on what you can and removal on what slips through the cracks) and leverage powerful spells in the late game, namely planeswalkers. You can get marginal value with Seas on a manland, and sometimes you just strip them off of a color, so Seas isn't terrible to keep in, tho I would probably board 1 out if I had a card to bring in, and Clique isn't fantastic either.
This matchup is a lot like Jund, but it's also a little more difficult since they have Lingering Souls tokens for pressure. You need counters for Lili and Souls, but not too many or you get really behind when a creature somehow resolves and you don't have an answer. You want Verdicts to maintain card parity as much as possible, even if they're playing around them. I think Queller is probably good in this matchup too, but I'm not 100% certain. I'm not sure what else you would cut tho -- MAYBE a Leak? Probably not.
Overall though, I definitely do not agree with your friend's analysis -- counters are typically great against BGx, you just have to position yourself correctly in the matchup to get full advantage.
Hey everyone! Really enjoying the thread and everyone's contributions. I really like how cards are constantly being reevaluated and new cards tested with the changing meta. I know that myself, playing on MTGO seems like I'm seeing a lot of Eldrazitron, Azban, and CC decks recently. I've also been watching BennyHillz stream and that has helped immensely. If you all recommend any other streamers, please let me know! Here is my latest deck list with finally a real SB lol:
I've gone down a Colonnade to keep in my Crucible. I still really like it as it has helped me really lock down games when I get to resolve it and find it hard to just leave in my SB. I'm going to run this for a bit to see if I like but trying to see if I want to bring back big Elspeth for Jura. I think Jura brings a lot to the table (fog, assassinate, a beater, and emblem enabler) but I've had him die too easily as a regular 6/6, while I have yet to lose a game when I've resolved Elspeth. Also, if anyone plays mainly on MTGO, I'd love to watch some games/brainstorm :). Keep up the good fight!
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Modern Decks: UWAzorius Titan ControlUW BWOrzhov ControlBW
@Chantu9Y The one thing that really stands out is the 4 hallowed fountains, I've mostly always just played with 1 and never had a problem, I suggest no more than 2. I haven't tried Secure the Wastes too much, but I think it's a good card, some people used it in place of Jura, but it could be interesting having both, let us know how that goes. I also think 4 Spreading Seas is still the way to go, I tried going to 3, but I don't think it's right. I'd also get at least 1 Vendilion Clique in the sideboard, the pithing needle and 2 copies of celestial purge are suspicious, and you should have a cage if playing against a lot of coco decks.
@Slowgod I'll take a look at the manabase and change up the HF count, good point on that. I'm also interested in seeing how the Secure the Wastes feels in this build. I like Pithing and Purge as answers to resolved Vials/Planeswalkers but may switch them out based on what I see lately. Been getting a lot of Merfolk and Hatebears/5C humans online the past few days. Man, I'll tell you guys, Search For Azcanta and Field of Ruin already feel like game changers for me. Very pleased with how they're testing.
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Maybe I just caught him at a bad time but I tried watching HolyShamgar play UW once and had to turn it off after like 5 minutes of straight missplays. If he's normally better, that would be good since he's almost always streaming when I'm on twitch.
Heatchecker's music is a little loud and distracting and also presents the problem of having his stream silenced when watching VODs due to copyright concerns, but yea informative and tight play.
Shamgar tends to reason out his plays very well but his execution is not great. What I mean by that is a lot of times he will identify the best line out loud, and then take a different line by mistake. I think the reason for this is how much he interacts with chat strains his cognitive load. I prefer him to the other popular UW streamers because he never gets tilted, his tolerance for results oriented thinking is zero, never blames variance and because he just focuses on the game and doesn't get sidetracked with nonmagic related things. Also his music is easy on the ears and doesn't interfere with VODs.
Is anyone else finding the MU against 5c humans and Hatebears particularly difficult? If not, are there any recommendations on the strategy to beat them/how best to sideboard?
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Depends on the build of hatebears, but I've never found them difficult (assuming you mean the GW builds. Death and taxes is different). Occasionally, they will have arbiter, thalia, gq, etc, in such a combination that you can not win, but every other time is pretty good.
For humans, it kind of depends. Meddling maga, thalia, and freebooter are annoying sometimes, but otherwise the rest of their deck is just random idiots to us, for the most part. Having a splash color for more removal is a lot better here, but even in just UW, its alright.
Having more spot removal in the board is good, and playing awrath of god over the last supreme verdict can be relevant as well.
They have some annoying things out of the board that you have to be careful for as well, (necromancer of vial in particular).
In generally one of those matchups that comes down to draws, IMO. Sometimes we draw a lot of removal, and sometimes they just draw all of their relevant cards.
For those interested, I decided to feature UW Control with Search for Azcanta and other new Ixalan cards like Settle the Wreckage and Field of Ruin on my YouTube channel this week. You can find the deck tech and second match here: Searching for Azcanta in UW Control. It starts with the second match, but if you're looking for the first match, I included it at the end of the playlist with non-live commentary (due to technical difficulties) followed by some closing statements about the deck as a whole.
I'm always looking for feedback on how to get better as a content creator and a player so constructive criticism is always appreciated. Also, if you think the build could be improved, I'd be happy to engage in discussion so we can continue to improve UW Control.
To summarize my thoughts, I still think Supreme Verdict is miles better than Settle the Wreckage, although some time of split that favors the former seems natural to me (ex. 3/1 split). Field of Ruin has also been incredible, allowing you to disrupt manabases while fixing yours and not leaving you behind on land drops. Search for Azcanta is often times the best or worst card in your deck, which leads me to believe that 0-2 copies of the card in UW Control is a safe range, depending on expected metagames.
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Looking for some advice here.
Really struggling with the Eldrazi Tron match. With as much land disruption as the deck has, I find that multiple Thought-Knot Seer are crippling when they grab a removal spell or a key planeswalker. This seems to be my downfall in this match, dealing with Seers. I have thought about making some room for Ceremonious Rejection but it seems difficult to really justify it just for the Eldrazi Tron match. Cards I was looking at shaving in the board are 1 Vendilion Clique and 1 Grafdigger's Cage to make room for 2 Ceremonious Rejection.
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Wall of Omens
Planeswalker
2 Gideon of the Trials
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Gideon Jura
Sorcery
4 Serum Visions
3 Supreme Verdict
Enchantment
4 Spreading Seas
2 Detention Sphere
1 Search for Azcanta
Instant
4 Path to Exile
3 Mana Leak
1 Think Twice
1 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Cryptic Command
4 Celestial Colonnade
4 Flooded Strand
2 Ghost Quarter
3 Glacial Fortress
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Irrigated Farmland
4 Island
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Temple of Enlightenment
3 Plains
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Dispel
1 Blessed Alliance
2 Negate
1 Narset Transcendent
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Supreme Verdict
Overall, I am pretty happy with the list. I tend to lean towards more Planeswalkers because our local scene does not really pack much to deal with them and they do a ridiculous amount of work. The Narset Transcendent could probably go, she was a pet add. Surprisingly though, she is flexible in what I want to use her for and comes in for a fair amount of games because of it. Elspeth, Sun's Champion is another consideration for being cut. I understand why she is in the list, I just felt she might not be the card I want for my local scene. Hard to say.
Any tips on how I should board with my current list, against Eldrazi Tron? How should I approach this match overall? I feel my strategy is slightly different than what I would do with more traditional Tron decks.
STANDARD|UW Control MODERN| UBG Midrange PAUPER| UG Fog COMMANDER| UBG The Mimeoplasm
You'll cast it sorcery speed on your turn and then get one "free" turn before your opponent draws & recasts it. It's close to even CA, mildly positive on mana tempo. That's not awful, but in my opinion it's still not a great option (although neither were my suggestions). I wouldn't want to make "delay" a part of my primary game plan, in the same sense that I'm not prioritizing Cryptic Command's ability to tap opponent's creatures. I'd rather counter (maybe Spell Snare or Censor?) or permanently remove the creature; your mileage may vary though.
You get 2 draw steps, 2 untap steps and get to make 2 land drops before you have to deal with the creature again. It trades even on cards because they literally have 1 less card for the remainder of the game, and it trades 1 Mana for 2 at the worst (if they ever recast it) and scales as the threats cost more. Hitting a 2 Mana creature is trading 1 Mana for 4.
Also, cryptic tap draw is very powerful, but also not a good analogy - when you have 4+mana, there are so many options of what you can do to react to your opponents play - on turn 1 and 2, that is not the case.
I'm not saying that everyone should be playing these cards, I'm just trying to find the best arguments for or against these cards. I have yet to incorporate anything past 4 Path, 2 Sphere and 3 verdict into my build, because I believe in needing strong reasoning for testing out cards.
@Slowgod and others - speaking of testing out cards, I see you are testing out the the 5 colourless sources package. I love that this is a thing now, I've been advocating for it for a long time, though I had originally suggested 3 Field, 2 GQ, I believe 4/1 is better now. I watched Benny's stream replay last night, I can't agree that cutting a fetch is correct though. I think it's too important to have access to early basics against blood moon decks. I've always been on irrigated over temple, but I think I would swap out the mystic gate for a flooded strand in his Mana base as well, potentially dropping a glacial for a prarie stream could alleviate the pressure from all the fetches as well. The thing is though, you don't need to find a basic of off field in the way late game, it just turns into either an expensive tec edge or expensive ghost quarter. Obviously it is ideal to keep being able to fetch off of it, but we don't need to warp our Mana base for it. Flooded Strand is just the best dual land we have access to, and I'm never playing less than 4.
It trades even on cards but with the caveat that it very likely improves a future draw (as compared to one chosen at random from their deck, otherwise why are you worried about removing it). That's a pseudo scry, hence the -ish. In my opinion it's a bit of a stretch to say it's 1 CMC trading for 4 after they recast, because at that point you likely still need to answer it with removal or a counter at some CMC cost. Also may not be a great choice for anything with ETB. It actually shares a lot in common with Reflector Mage regarding pros/cons.
Cryptic tap-draw is a decent analogy if you follow where I'm going with it. Versatility is certainly valuable (and powerful), but if that's all CC did I'm not sure anyone one would play it. My point is about wanting cards to follow a general strategy. For me, that means I want clean, efficient answers in UW Control rather than tempo. I want my CC primarily for counter-draw and my removal not to kick the can down the road. That's my personal preference/playstyle though, so by all means give it a try if you think it's worth it. I'm a big proponent of throwing out new ideas, discussing possible options, and such so good on you for asking the question and throwing out suggestions worth contemplating.
Fair point, I didn't consider the Mana you would have to spend later to deal with it again. I do think that Mana is less important though since we will outspend the opponent in the mid and late game in !OST cases anyways.
I also think reflector mage is a fair comparison, though I think Oust is a fair bit better considering it only costs 1 Mana, can be snapcasted back, and found by azcanta in addition to actually trading for a card. Thinking about it in terms of being a reflector mage makes me appreciate it a fair bit more. That card was absurd in the right context. Granted we can't capiilize on the tempo in the same fashion, a bit of tempo without losing a card is welcome in the early game.
I assume you mean you mean Jund and Abzan midrange, like with Thoughtseize, Liliana, and Goyf? I suggest this for Jund:
Out: 2x Verdict --> In: 1x Elspeth, 1x Celestial Purge
Not any need for super huge changes here. I thought about maybe Timely but decided that Verdict is better. The reason you board them out, tho, is that Jund opponents play around them easily, so the mana disadvantage is huge. You really just want to keep threats off of the board (using counters on what you can and removal on what slips through the cracks) and leverage powerful spells in the late game, namely planeswalkers. You can get marginal value with Seas on a manland, and sometimes you just strip them off of a color, so Seas isn't terrible to keep in, tho I would probably board 1 out if I had a card to bring in, and Clique isn't fantastic either.
Abzan:
Out: 1x Clique, 1x Blessed Alliance, 1x Seas, 1x Wall --> In: 1x Purge, 1x Elspeth, 2x Relic
This matchup is a lot like Jund, but it's also a little more difficult since they have Lingering Souls tokens for pressure. You need counters for Lili and Souls, but not too many or you get really behind when a creature somehow resolves and you don't have an answer. You want Verdicts to maintain card parity as much as possible, even if they're playing around them. I think Queller is probably good in this matchup too, but I'm not 100% certain. I'm not sure what else you would cut tho -- MAYBE a Leak? Probably not.
Overall though, I definitely do not agree with your friend's analysis -- counters are typically great against BGx, you just have to position yourself correctly in the matchup to get full advantage.
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.
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Wall of Omens
2 Gideon of the Trials
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Gideon Jura
4 Path to Exile
1 Secure the Wastes
4 Serum Visions
1 Blessed Alliance
2 Mana Leak
1 Negate
1 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Cryptic Command
3 Supreme Verdict
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Search for Azcanta
3 Spreading Seas
2 Detention Sphere
4 Field of Ruin
4 Flooded Strand
1 Glacial Fortress
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Island
1 Mystic Gate
3 Plains
1 Dispel
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Celestial Purge
1 Negate
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Pithing Needle
2 Rest in Peace
1 Runed Halo
2 Stony Silence
3 Leyline of Sanctity
I've gone down a Colonnade to keep in my Crucible. I still really like it as it has helped me really lock down games when I get to resolve it and find it hard to just leave in my SB. I'm going to run this for a bit to see if I like but trying to see if I want to bring back big Elspeth for Jura. I think Jura brings a lot to the table (fog, assassinate, a beater, and emblem enabler) but I've had him die too easily as a regular 6/6, while I have yet to lose a game when I've resolved Elspeth. Also, if anyone plays mainly on MTGO, I'd love to watch some games/brainstorm :). Keep up the good fight!
UWAzorius Titan ControlUW
BWOrzhov ControlBW
UWAzorius Titan ControlUW
BWOrzhov ControlBW
Shamgar tends to reason out his plays very well but his execution is not great. What I mean by that is a lot of times he will identify the best line out loud, and then take a different line by mistake. I think the reason for this is how much he interacts with chat strains his cognitive load. I prefer him to the other popular UW streamers because he never gets tilted, his tolerance for results oriented thinking is zero, never blames variance and because he just focuses on the game and doesn't get sidetracked with nonmagic related things. Also his music is easy on the ears and doesn't interfere with VODs.
UWAzorius Titan ControlUW
BWOrzhov ControlBW
For humans, it kind of depends. Meddling maga, thalia, and freebooter are annoying sometimes, but otherwise the rest of their deck is just random idiots to us, for the most part. Having a splash color for more removal is a lot better here, but even in just UW, its alright.
Having more spot removal in the board is good, and playing awrath of god over the last supreme verdict can be relevant as well.
They have some annoying things out of the board that you have to be careful for as well, (necromancer of vial in particular).
In generally one of those matchups that comes down to draws, IMO. Sometimes we draw a lot of removal, and sometimes they just draw all of their relevant cards.
I'm always looking for feedback on how to get better as a content creator and a player so constructive criticism is always appreciated. Also, if you think the build could be improved, I'd be happy to engage in discussion so we can continue to improve UW Control.
To summarize my thoughts, I still think Supreme Verdict is miles better than Settle the Wreckage, although some time of split that favors the former seems natural to me (ex. 3/1 split). Field of Ruin has also been incredible, allowing you to disrupt manabases while fixing yours and not leaving you behind on land drops. Search for Azcanta is often times the best or worst card in your deck, which leads me to believe that 0-2 copies of the card in UW Control is a safe range, depending on expected metagames.