MTG Salvation

Quote from Engsk »

Without LotV, there are no XBB costed cards. That’s why the missing “maybe” is significant.

On language:

Even if the Oxford English Dictionary had an mtg section, it wouldn’t matter because dictionaries aren’t lexical rulebooks; they document popular uses of words(ex: widespread misuse of “literal” led to a new definition being added several years ago). It’s not like it’s publically-visible, but you’re talking down to someone about the game’s basics, who has been playing for over two decades. I know the terminology because I’ve been on the groundfloor of its development for quite some time. “Fish” used to mean a disruptive blue-based weenie deck exclusively; since Lorwyn, it’s most common use refers to “merfolk”(I could go on with examples).

If you want “splash” to mean more than a small amount of another colour, that’s your business, but save the pedantry for private messages. Also,
if I made a UWb list, this isn’t the thread where I’d share it.

Well... I play this game for more than 15 years as well, and I haven't seen any different use of the term "splash" from jayjayhooks's definition. Ever. I watch streams, videos, read guides and never saw anyone call a deck that has more than 10 cards of some colour to be on a splash. My friends never said so as well, and some of them are as old on this game as I am. So... IMO, you're just wrong.

For me, you're splashing a colour to a deck if you're adding one or two mana producers of the colour to the deck (usually fetchable Shocklands in Modern), and than adding a couple of cards of the given colour to the deck. Something around 6 or less cards, and maybe a couple of sideboard techs, and that's about it.

If you're planning to add Fatal Pushes, Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseizes, Lilianas, Anguished Unmaking and Lingering Souls, you can't call that a black splash. You're just playing straight Esper. Depending on the build, you could even be playing BW with a blue splash, or UB with a white splash. But a deck with that amount of black could never be on a black splash.

Boros Burn, for example, plays much less white than you're planning to play black there, and everyone calls it Boros.

Quote from Engsk »

Without LotV, there are no XBB costed cards. That’s why the missing “maybe” is significant.

On language:

Even if the Oxford English Dictionary had an mtg section, it wouldn’t matter because dictionaries aren’t lexical rulebooks; they document popular uses of words(ex: widespread misuse of “literal” led to a new definition being added several years ago). It’s not like it’s publically-visible, but you’re talking down to someone about the game’s basics, who has been playing for over two decades. I know the terminology because I’ve been on the groundfloor of its development for quite some time. “Fish” used to mean a disruptive blue-based weenie deck exclusively; since Lorwyn, it’s most common use refers to “merfolk”(I could go on with examples).

If you want “splash” to mean more than a small amount of another colour, that’s your business, but save the pedantry for private messages. Also,
if I made a UWb list, this isn’t the thread where I’d share it.

I'm not talking down to anyone, and you're the one being pedantic; You're literally talking about dictionary definitions.

If anyone is talking down, it's you...you're assuming you have more experience with the game than I do by mentioning your time as a player. You're beginning to attack me, rather than my arguments and rely on your subjective experience, rather than strengthening your arguments.

To your actual point; even excluding the 1BB spells, all of the 1cmc black cards require massive changes to the manabase, which fundamentally change th deck and even skew the deck according to your own definition of splash....you cant add a 'small amount of another color' to play 1cmc black spells. You need more than half of your sources to provide that color, and by any pedantic definition you choose, we would no longer be splashing and would be full blown eaper.

I think that adding some black for discard will be the best move to protect and help Jace. I'll try to include shadow of doubt spreading seas and at least 2 fields of ruin. What do you guys think?

Quote from Coq-tail »

I think that adding some black for discard will be the best move to protect and help Jace. I'll try to include shadow of doubt spreading seas and at least 2 fields of ruin. What do you guys think?

I don't know. I have been seeing a lot of streamers play Jace on UBx shells with a lot of discards and removal, and I'm not sure it's a good idea. I think discards are good when you intend to play a cheap and powerful threat right after them, because they are likely dead by turns 4 and later. DS does that with Death's Shadow itself, Tasigur or Gurmag Angler, Jund does that with Bob and Goyf, eventually Liliana, Mardu does that with Young Pyromancer, Fairies and BW Tokens do that with Bitterblossom.

Jace on the other hand, is a late game powerhouse. So... I think it's antagonic to play both. The discard spells try to help you gain an advantage on the early game, and JTMS tries to make you win the late game. Discards suck in the late game, and Jace sucks in the early game. I think they don't help each other that much. Discards are really bad to draw from Jace's Brainstorm ability, and they won't really protect him unless you save one or two for turn 3, and in that case, they're not being really efficient, and you're probably not disrupting your opponent effectively. Of course you can return un uneeded Thoughtseize to the top of library and than shuffle it away with a fetch land, but I think the discard spells end up increasing the amount of bad draws in your deck on the late game, and that's exactly what JTMS does better.

I could see discards and JTMS being played on the same deck and working, but IMO, it would work better if you had powerful threats to slam on turns 2 and/or 3, like that Sultai deck with Jace, Goyfs, Bobs, Lillys and some discards. If you have a good threat density he might help by digging into more and more threats, maybe removals. I don't know, however, if Jace is really that good on this kind of deck, as he is on a deck like ours, where almost every card is relevant in the late game. I think in those B based Midranges, top ends like BBE and maybe even Chandra, Torch of Defiance make more sense. Chandra ends the game much faster, deals damage to creatures, to the opponent, and helps find more gas as well if needed (not as good as JTMS in the job, but...). BBE has a much higher immediate impact and also helps end the game faster.

Could be wrong obviously. But I don't feel like B based Midranges are the best home for JTMS. I think the best shell for Jace is an interactive deck based on counterspells, and not on discards. Counterspells are so much better on the late game, and if you're playing Jace, you should be wanting to make it to the late game oftenly.

Agreed with the above. I believe Jace can work in attrition-based discard decks, but specifically in BUG attrition decks (or similar) where you’re discarding while building a powerful board presence and windmill-slamming Jace on curve (preferably after a Liliana). Discard usually puts you behind on tempo, meaning your Jace is likely dead on board even if you stripped their Bolt ahead of time. Whereas with permission and removal, your opponent’s mana is being taxed to no avail, keeping you at the board parity (or parity -1) you want to drop Jace into.

I could be wrong of course, but that’s been my experience. Specifically, Esper with discard has felt middling at best for Jace, whereas UW with permission has felt really good.

I actually think discard works very well with Jace, but only under the right conditions. One of those conditions is that you can't pair it with white. The good white cards, outside of lingering souls, strain the Mana far too much. If I was going to build a discard shell around Jace it would be straight UB. I kind of look around jace as a fragile 1 card combo, so inquistions, doom blade variants, and cheap counter-magic sound about right. In a UB shell only you could also still running the seas/field package as well, so you still get game against big Mana. The biggest loss is Path, since Push isn't a great replacement. Trials, verdict and colonnade all have decent replacements in Lilly (either veil or Last hope), damnation and tar pit.

That said, I'm not ready to give up on UW just yet, and I've been running decent with stock UW " Jace. It feels better than UW ever has, and if it was good enough pre unban, it's good enough in the early stages of new modern in my books.

Quote from Coq-tail »

I think that adding some black for discard will be the best move to protect and help Jace. I'll try to include shadow of doubt spreading seas and at least 2 fields of ruin. What do you guys think?

I've added shadow of doubt to my UW shell and it's been amazing on MODO. With every deck jamming in jace in there are some very wonky mana bases and blanking a fetch crack is seriously hilarious. It also gives us a better matchup vs both tron types, and gives less ammo to storm.

Worst case scenario it cantrips, but you can also use it while holding priority for path to deny them that extra land.

You don't need to go into black though, I agree that discard isn't the best way to go with this shell. We are the deck of card advantage/consistency/finding answers and discard doesn't do that. I've found that doing a +2 for Jace on a deck with a bolt goes a long way with forcing them to use 2 spells to answer 1 Jace. This leads to a major advantage on the board, especially if they have to commit creatures to threaten the Jace.

I'm running something like the following, switching around a few cards here and there.



The cards I switch around a lot are usually the 4cmc cards, the 3rd wall of omens and the Secure the wastes. I feel like eight 4 drops is one too many, but without Gideon Jura or Rev it's probably fine, and I'm probably just stuck in old modes of thinking.

I haven't seen a lot of Stubborn Denial, which is why I'm on Settle over Verdict, but that's an early meta call. I can't really say how I feel about the list because I think the meta will continue to shift a lot. The only thing I can say for sure is that I really like Celestial Purge in the board right now. I'm also pretty high on UB right now, so I don't spend as much time on this list as I usually do. I'll continue to test UW, and keep up with the conversation here, but my heart just isn't in it like it has been in the past.

Quote from Yuzenn84 »

Quote from Coq-tail »

I think that adding some black for discard will be the best move to protect and help Jace. I'll try to include shadow of doubt spreading seas and at least 2 fields of ruin. What do you guys think?

I've added shadow of doubt to my UW shell and it's been amazing on MODO. With every deck jamming in jace in there are some very wonky mana bases and blanking a fetch crack is seriously hilarious. It also gives us a better matchup vs both tron types, and gives less ammo to storm.

Worst case scenario it cantrips, but you can also use it while holding priority for path to deny them that extra land.

You don't need to go into black though, I agree that discard isn't the best way to go with this shell. We are the deck of card advantage/consistency/finding answers and discard doesn't do that. I've found that doing a +2 for Jace on a deck with a bolt goes a long way with forcing them to use 2 spells to answer 1 Jace. This leads to a major advantage on the board, especially if they have to commit creatures to threaten the Jace.

What did you cut for shadow of doubt ? I'm thinking that cutting a spreading seas can be valuable because they have more and less the same role, but shadow of doubt can also help against many decks that search other things that a land. Agree ?

I'm also unsure that I want to play it in Main. I mean it's a good card on the play, but like spreading seas, on the draw it's pretty poor (obviously except against big mana decks for spreading seas and for decks that need to search things in library for shadow of doubt).

Quote from Coq-tail »

Quote from Yuzenn84 »

Quote from Coq-tail »

I think that adding some black for discard will be the best move to protect and help Jace. I'll try to include shadow of doubt spreading seas and at least 2 fields of ruin. What do you guys think?

I've added shadow of doubt to my UW shell and it's been amazing on MODO. With every deck jamming in jace in there are some very wonky mana bases and blanking a fetch crack is seriously hilarious. It also gives us a better matchup vs both tron types, and gives less ammo to storm.

Worst case scenario it cantrips, but you can also use it while holding priority for path to deny them that extra land.

You don't need to go into black though, I agree that discard isn't the best way to go with this shell. We are the deck of card advantage/consistency/finding answers and discard doesn't do that. I've found that doing a +2 for Jace on a deck with a bolt goes a long way with forcing them to use 2 spells to answer 1 Jace. This leads to a major advantage on the board, especially if they have to commit creatures to threaten the Jace.

What did you cut for shadow of doubt ? I'm thinking that cutting a spreading seas can be valuable because they have more and less the same role, but shadow of doubt can also help against many decks that search other things that a land. Agree ?

I'm also unsure that I want to play it in Main. I mean it's a good card on the play, but like spreading seas, on the draw it's pretty poor (obviously except against big mana decks for spreading seas and for decks that need to search things in library for shadow of doubt).

I cut 1 Search for Azcanta and Gideon Jura to make room for the Shadow of Doubts. I honestly like the card and it very often isn't a dead card even on the draw. The issue that i've been having isn't about the late game, it's the early game. Once we can get to turn 4 there aren't many decks I get really worried about. There are a bunch of turn 1-2-3 and sometimes 4 plays that I don't think we can as easily come back from so if you take them a turn off of their mana base our advantage gets even stronger into the mid game.

Against Tron, on turn 2 on the draw they are likely to pop their exploration map if they have it at your EoT. Shadow of doubt ruins that plan.

Against Jund/Other disruption based decks Turn 3 means Liliana probably and a shadow of doubt screws with their mana and gives you another turn to find an answer.

It's always useful against storm, play or draw and in game 1 they only usually have the grapeshot plan.

Against Burn if you cut off their white mana sources usually you can stall them completely out.

Sure there are going to be games where it's not screwing the mana base but U/W has placed Think Twice before so think of the card as think twice with more utility.

I would not cut Spreading Seas any more than 1, the card just does so much work and with Tron likely to get a lot more popular with all the Jaces running around we need to make sure we can keep those decks at bay.

I'm considering taking U/W Control to my first FNM back from a year-long hiatus. My LGS has tons of Tron and Eldrazi Tron, boatloads of Affinity, and some Death's Shadow making up most of the meta. Also a little Burn, GBx Midrange, Control (Jeskai/UW), and a die-hard Ad Naus fan. I assume some have picked up Hollow One as well, since it's up the alley of some of the playersl. From durdling around in testing, it seems like this is a good fit for a Jace deck to combat that field, with good interaction vs. the aggro but more ability than most others to combat the big-mana decks (via land hate package) than other control strategies. (I say that knowing that Burn would require a lot of sideboard space that I probably don't have, and super fast decks will overwhelm mine.)

Here's the list I'm working on for the moment:




Some thoughts:

• The Crucible is a greedy inclusion, but such a hard lock against a lot of decks that it feels worth a 1-of.
• Currently on 3 Colonnade, but I have the whole set so could go up to 4 if recommended.
• The permission is a little light below Cryptic. Currently on Mana Leak, but have used Spell Snare and Negate in the past as well. Jace for shuffle makes Leak dead less often. Not sold on this though. Thoughts?
• Opt over Visions. I like it, what can I say?
• Condemn, Blessed Alliance, and D-Sphere to round out the removal package. Not optimal, but that's U/W. /shrug
• Not sure on the Planeswalker package as I've never used Baby Gideon before, but seems strong and I've heard good things about him. Currently lack the card so I'd need to find one.
• Geist comes in for Ad Naus, Storm, and other uninteractive decks. Second Clique for combo disruption.
• Not sure how relevant Rest in Peace will be, but I prefer it to insta-scooping to GY decks. Runed Halo as a hedge since I don't know how the meta may have shifed.
• SB Elspeth and Jace for grindy matches and particularly any Lingering Souls decks I run into.

Any recommendations or adjustments you'd make? Advice on piloting?

Thanks in advance!

@rogue_LOVE - The only major standouts to me are the 4 Snapcaster and the Opts. Opt definitely makes Snapcaster a little better, probably not enough better to justify more than 3 snaps, but in conjunction with the extra removal in condemn and Blessed alliance 3 could be justifiable. In any case, Serum is just leagues ahead of Opt, and once you make that switch, which I recommend you do, anymore than 2 Snapcaster mage is unwarranted. A lot of the very good UW players are beginning to adopt a 1 Snapcaster list, something I've argued in favor of for a long time.

Other than that, I would try to find space for 1 more land. Crucible won't always help you if you don't draw a fetch, and you're running a couple cantrips and a pair of Search for Azcanta lighter than most other players who are on 25 lands.

Cheers.

So I now have several series under my belt with the following list, plus modifications listed below:

Quote from SavageGaul »

SavageGaul's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
1x Cryptic Command 1x Logic Knot 2x Mana Leak 1x Negate 4x Path to Exile 1x Secure the Wastes 1x Settle the Wreckage 1x Spell Snare 4x Serum Visions 1x Supreme Verdict	4x Celestial Colonnade 4x Field of Ruin 4x Flooded Strand 1x Hallowed Fountain 5x Island 3x Plains 2x Polluted Delta 1x Prairie Stream 1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar 1x Gideon Jura 2x Gideon of the Trials 1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor	2x Detention Sphere 2x Search for Azcanta 4x Spreading Seas 2x Snapcaster Mage 2x Vendilion Clique 2x Wall of Omens

Before playing, I sought to add another Mind Sculptor but was struggling for slots. That led me to cutting all four copies of Seas as an experiment, replacing them with four copies of Remand, which has long been a card that I wanted to like in this shell. One of the recent post-ban UW 5-0s on MTGO ran 3x Remand, so I decided to give it a shot. From there, I shaved a Search in favor of another JtMS and cut the Mana Leaks for a second Cryptic and a third Wall of Omens. Thought about spicing in a Shadow of Doubt as well, but I stopped shy of doing so.

Secure the Wastes really stood out in this setup. It’s everything from pseudo-removal to chump block factory to finisher (weird to win by going wide with UW, but it happened plenty of times between Warriors, Knight Allies, Snappers, Cliques, Colonnades, and animated Gideons).

While the meta is still in such flux I know it’s impossible to nail down a perfect build, but I thought I’d share these developments in case anyone wants to try an approach that puts more creatures into the field, usually at instant speed. That said, what I’d really like feedback on is a more broad and overarching string of thoughts that pertains to the underlying philosophy of UWC:

My first post in this thread, when I began buying into the deck, detailed my perception of UW as either tapout or draw-go, with various choices (like the number of Snapcaster) contingent upon that choice of play style. The consensus was—correctly, in retrospect—that tapout was stronger. I just wonder how true that is post-ban, with BBE decks making the Verdict-or-die setup look a little clunky, and enemy JtMS demanding an immediate answer, whether it be counter magic or instant speed board pressure.

I believe that the near-painless consistency of our manabase, along with our ability to disrupt the enemy manabase, is possibly the single best reason to play UWC. I am also coming to believe that there is a fundamanetal tension between Spreading Seas and the ability to play draw-go until it’s safe to drop a wincon. Remand in for Seas keeps our consistency levels just as high, and allows us to stall threats through the early and mid game while never being a dead card.

I don’t know which strategy will prove to be more powerful as the dust from the unbannings settles, but I do think it’s going to be useful to conceive of UW tapout and UW draw-go as two separate shells, at least for now, since the superiority of the former setup is no longer necessarily a given. Am I overrating the potential of draw-go?

Quote from jayjayhooks »

@rogue_LOVE - The only major standouts to me are the 4 Snapcaster and the Opts. Opt definitely makes Snapcaster a little better, probably not enough better to justify more than 3 snaps, but in conjunction with the extra removal in condemn and Blessed alliance 3 could be justifiable. In any case, Serum is just leagues ahead of Opt, and once you make that switch, which I recommend you do, anymore than 2 Snapcaster mage is unwarranted. A lot of the very good UW players are beginning to adopt a 1 Snapcaster list, something I've argued in favor of for a long time.

Other than that, I would try to find space for 1 more land. Crucible won't always help you if you don't draw a fetch, and you're running a couple cantrips and a pair of Search for Azcanta lighter than most other players who are on 25 lands.

Cheers.

I think I may try a 3/2 on Visions/Opt and see how that feels. The full Snap package was partially to represent a little board presence, but mostly to just increase the amount of spot removal. Although you're right that 4 is almost certainly excessive.

Thanks for the advice!

@SavageGaul - It's possible there's a draw-go shell that can do well, but I don't think the unbannings are going to change the fact that modern is predominantly a proactive format. The mid-range decks got some new tools, so we're going to be up against a few less linear strategies, but everyone is still more or less playing to to the board. The exception to that rule is the few URx decks that we're floating around before with Grixis leading the pack in mind.

I've been thinking a lot, as I'm sure we all have, about where UW fits in the new meta and I find it really hard to fathom us being the best Jace deck without access to red Mana simply because it would be hard to keep up on the red-jace matchups. But then I thought to myself that I've always felt favoured against Grixis and Jeskai, so there is probably a way forward. The solution I came up with, which is untested yet, was to double down on our proactive game plans, primarily the land destruction. I wanted to add a 2nd Ghost Quarter (on top of the 4 field of ruin) to ensure that we can cut the 3 colour Jace decks off of some.of thier powerful cards like Kolaghans Command. I'm not sure it will work in practice because it requires making at least one major sacrifice; cryptic command has to go.

Here's a list I've been thinking about, but haven't actually played with yet.


The idea here is that Gideon4 is actually really good against mirrors and pseudo mirrors and the deck needed a couple more ways to gain some card advantage since it can't really play cryptic anymore. Without cryptic, and with Gideon, it lacked instant speed interaction and I hate playing entirely above board, so despite the fact that I'm not usually a main-deck clique kind of guy, it might be necessary in a list like this. Same goes for Secure the wastes, just nice to have some instant interaction and it plays well with the threat of a Gideon4 emblem looming.

I plan on running it through some leagues, but I won't have time until next Friday at the earliest, I have a lot on my plate right now.

Quote from BloodyRabbit_01 »

I don’t know which strategy will prove to be more powerful as the dust from the unbannings settles, but I do think it’s going to be useful to conceive of UW tapout and UW draw-go as two separate shells, at least for now, since the superiority of the former setup is no longer necessarily a given. Am I overrating the potential of draw-go?

I'm basically stating the same. In my testing with Jace TMS, a Sea-less list put up WAY more results than when I worked with them in the main. I'm still with 5 land that mess with the opponents manabase, and I seriously think it's becoming the better deck - as much as I love the disruption package.

My thought is that the midrange decks will be more prevalent in the beginning, and most of the strong ones are going to be 3 colours. If that is true, we can also expect to see a number of big mana decks increase in the meta as well since they typically prey on the mid-range decks. If those are true, then we definitely want to be on the land disruption plan.

My other thought is less based on metagame predictions and more just a general reasoning thing and that thought process is this; without knowing what the metagame will look like, and knowing that draw-go has been absolutely horrid in all of modern's history, it doesn't follow that a couple new sorcery speed threats would make us want to move away from a shell that has always had some game historically, and recently has had a lot of success.

Did a couple more leagues and I think we should be playing 2 snapcasters, at least 1 clique, 2-3 JTMS, 1 Gideon of the Trials, 1 Gideon AoZ and secure the wastes as a basis for our shell. From there you can decide how you build the deck - be it with walls of omens, or anything else.

The deck just needs time to stablize but we also have to be able to turn the corner and put some pressure on the board. Game 1 almost always feels like we are threat light and I think we need to have a way to pressure the board, especially when an opposing Jace comes down. Secure the wastes + GAoZ is a great combo, and our deck is at it's best when other decks have to react to our board on their turn when we can have mana up for answers.

The decision we have to make is if we want to make sure all of our creatures are expendable to a Supreme Verdict, or if not going all the way wide by adding Geist/Queller or Monastery Mentor.

I think if we are going the mana denial/midrange version I think that the two gideons become a one of, and we rely on Supreme Verdict to keep the board clean and DSphere to keep the things we can't counter off the field.

@Yuzenn84 & @BloodyRabbit_01 - Both of your reasoning sounds solid enough to me, it's just too early to tell. But I'm glad to continue having these conversations until we see where the meta shakes out.

And yea, Rabbit, Exams are one of the reasons I'm swamped this week too.

@JayJay, your logic is sound—proactive game plans are historically the best ones, a fact which I remind my less experienced friends of often, when they naturally gravitate toward more reactive setups after losing to this or that deck. Having conceded that, I suppose we can probably agree that a draw-go build (and this term applies only in relation to the stock tapout list; my build, at least, is far from pure draw-go, with 6 Planeswalkers and plenty of other Sorcery-speed plays) has rarely looked as appealing as it does now, with the state of the meta such an open question, and the more draw-go oriented cards lining up better against Jace and BBE. In other words, even though UW may still be largely a tapout deck when the dust settles from this meta shift, now is a great time to be testing a more reactive build to see whether it has legs. I’m fairly optimistic, myself.

One thing I find interesting is that, regardless of diverging opinions regarding the core philosophy of the deck, most in this thread (and some pros who’ve run out UW lists recently) are high on Gideon, AoZ right now. I’ve liked him in this deck for a long time, but never quite managed to make space for him until the unbannings and subsequent changes. Some people are cutting Jura for him, but I’ve been loving a 2/1/1 split between Trials/AoZ/Jura.

Back to the more reactive, Seas-less setup: the more I think of it, the more Shadow of Doubt as a two-of sounds fantastic. That’s what I’ll be testing next. However, I confess to having no idea whether Opt will be better than Serum in this setup. That’s a tough one to call IMO. Serum may still be king despite Opt’s greater flexibility in a build running Remands and a Spell Snare.

One thing I will say: although Seas and Mana Leak have performed admirably for me over the last few months, it feels good to be working on a list that eliminates the negative synergies between those cards and Path + Settle. Time will tell whether UW can afford to forego those cards, but for the moment I think alternative options are well worth exploring.

Here is my current list. I really like the Gideon lock vs. a lot of match ups, especially Burn. Trying out Disrupting Shoal as a 1 of for now.