Hey guys, I thought I'd share my version of the the deck since I've had pretty good success with it. From Todd's list I removed the Highland Lake in favor of basics because they seemed too slow and added Fiery Impulse's to flip Thing faster and 2 Stormchaser Mages for more damage in the air. Burn From Within is in the side for Westvale Abbey and Avacyn and also acts as Fall of the Titans 3-4. I may be adding Invasive Surgery in the side for Season's Past since it has a strong showing in my LGS. So far I've went 3-2 and Top 8 in one FNM and 3-0-2 on Game Day and made Top 8 as well, both times variance got the best of me in the first rounds of the Top 8. Game Day I played against Aristocrats and Season's Past and it was solid both times. You can check out my rounds more in depth here http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/ur-goggle-mage/.
I am and didnt have a great showing at the Game Day 2-2. i Splashed white in my list as stated before but this time it was more for Nahiri, who, by the way, friggin all star. I lost to Naya Walkers and to LSV's BG Aristocrats list. I probably side boarded way wrong. in both match ups.
Im not sure where to go from here, im not dropping the goggles package or chandra or nahiri at this point, all of them are way to powerful.
Im lost... lol
I will say this, my round two win over Bant coco was a marathon and it was delightful lol
I played Jeskai Goggles to mediocre results this weekend as well (2-1-1). I moved 4 Fevered Visions to the main in place of Thing in the Ice; Titi just hasn't been very good for me, and I was expecting a lot of slower decks. They worked as well as I was hoping, but I still lost to Bant Company and drew with a BG Seasons Past deck.
As much as I like the deck, I'm probably going to be moving on to Grixis and/or 4 Color Rites.
Did you sideboard out your creatures for those two matches you lost?
I did, yes.
In fact against aristocrats, i blanked his removal. When we finished the game, he had 3 ultimate price in hand. I boarded in Chandra number 3 and dispels and negates. I have a mass of removal in the main board already, I lost game 1 outright, but game 2, i beat myself by playing really badly. I told him that i just lost the game on one play and i did. I went to kill his husk, had negate in hand, and Island in hand. I forgot to play the land first and he responded by casting coco, hitting two Sifters. All becuase i didnt play the land first. My own fault, and it clearly ended my run that day.
Against walkers, i backed down to 2 titi and 2 jace, and brought in negate and declaration in stone, radiant flames to go with the main board copies of kozi return.
I got rolled by him too. IM not sure if i was just already pissed and playing like crap after the previous round, mulliganing bad? dont recall, i do know that almost every game i played i mulled to 5. Except that final game, so its entirely possible that i just let myself go at that point.
I know their is alot of talk about TiTi, and how its not that great or whatever, i'll be the first to admit it, its not. i've considered dropping them out all together and just keeping blue for Jace in the main deck and runnign something more like Louis Salvotta from the PT.
Do you run Impulse main? If you want to flip TiTi faster have less tap lands and put impulse in the main. Esp in this creature heavy meta, when I won against Ariatocrats both games I played a TiTi turn 2 and flipped it by turn 4-5 with Impulse, Axe, and Temper. Less tap lands make a huge difference because you can play your 1 mana spells end of their turn alot.
I went 3-0 in Swiss with an id in the fourth round on game day.
Round 1
RG goggles 2-1
Round 2
UB rise from the tides 2-1
Round 3
UW Agro 2-1
Round 4 ID don't know what he was playing
Top 8 RG googles 1-2
Mana screwed in the last game.
Lands 25
4 x Wandering fumarole
4 x shivan reef
1 x highland lake
4 x drownyard temple
2 x sea gate wreckage
7 x mountain
3 x island
Creatures 8
3 x jace, vryn's prodigy
4 x thing in the ice
1 x Jori En, Ruin Diver
Artifact 3
3 x pyromancer's goggles
Planeswalker 2
2 x chandra, flamecaller
Sorcery and instant 22
4 x tormenting voice
3 x magmatic insight
4 x fiery temper
3 x lighting axe
3 x fiery impulse
2 x fall of the Titans
2 x kozilek's return
1 x burn from within
Side board
4 x fevered vision
2 x dispel
2 x negate
2 x void shatter
3 x malevolent whispers
2 x rending volley
Yes, I play impulse. 3 copies. I don't have many enter tapped lands. In fact I play think the only ones are Fumarole. My white splash is mainly battlefield forge and prairie stream.
I'm considering adding roast roast to the main deck as well as more ways to deal damage. Making them sac 2 guys to keep husk alive I plays valuable
What does everyone think of a 1-2 of of Rise From the Tides, late game it can force an opponent to have a sweeper or just die, near the end of the game when you could cast it I usually have about 10-12+ instants/sorceries in the graveyard.
Rise of the Tides out of the board is not great. Other decks will be bringing in Negates and Duress, also the Zombies come in untapped.
A third color is necessary, I'm thinking of going URb Grixis, soft splashing black ex Ultimate Price. The UR version does not deal well at all versus the Humans list.
I agree with Basti, in that the just standard UR is dead. Three colors is not that difficult to run and there are not enough tools in just the two colors to deal with some of this meta. I do diagree with Ultimate Price. I don't think it's very well positioned currently. Many decks are very planeswalker centrist right now. If you want black removal I would go with To the Slaughter or Ruinous Path currently. Path is definitely harder to cast, but it will be a dead card in your hand much less of the time. I have actually been running a couple of Devour in Flames in a Jund list. They hit a creature hard and can also take out an early Planeswalker.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern xWBreakfast at Urza'sxW UWGBantUWG GWRNaya ZooRWG
I think I as well will move on to Grixis. This deck was a blast to play but alot of people know about it now. After my initial back to back Top 8 weekend I played another standard FNM and got mowed over 0-4 against G/R creature/token deck, G/R Omnath Ramp, U/B Control, and G/W Tokens. I won one game in all 4 rounds against Omnath Ramp. People are just learning how to deal with our lines of play, when I told the U/B player what my post board plan was after the match with boarding out creatures and adding Fevered Visions and counters he was like oh yea I knew you were going to do that. I think it was at its best when it was new and unknown for the most part in local metas.
i realized I never posted again, but I tried the mono red version of this deck with vessel of volatility and really didn't enjoy it. it felt very cheesy. when you stick t3 goggles or t4 Chandra, that's great, but I really missed the blue even for such trivialities as attacking with wandering fumarole.
I found out I have to attend a wedding so I can't make it to GP Pittsburgh which took a lot of the wind from my sails. despite this, magic is magic and i was away last week. I plan to play straight UR again tonight and report back again. I do think the time has come to consider a third color. I am leaning toward white because I already have the duals and I could literally just be splashing for a fully powered radiant flames and ojutai's command to return my things and jaces.
sorry for double posting, but it's been 16 hours and this thread ain't as busy as it used to be.
3-1 last night with a fairly stock U/R list with the exception of 1 copy of jace unraveler of secrets I wanted to try. I dropped maindeck things in the ice and had them in the sideboard.
round 1 vs esper dragons. always lose to this deck g1 but g2 and 3 fevered visions just does so much work. I am starting to think this card alone is the reason to play blue in the deck.
round 2 vs sultai control? he had a lot of interesting things, call the bloodline, worldbreakers, from under the floorboards. game 1 wasn't particularly close. game 2 he gets out orbs of warding which gave me a LOT of trouble but I manage to rip through my deck with goggles and tormenting voices and draw into a Chandra and a wandering fumarole I needed to close out the last few points of life.
round 3 vs mardu control. got my hand absolutely shredded g1, 3 transgress the mind, a duress, and two thought-knots all in the same game. g2 and 3 fevered visions left his removal heavy deck out to dry and I coasted through both games with counterspells in hand for any planeswalker shenanigans.
round 4 vs naya midrange. my one loss of the evening. I think it may have been the exact GP Tokyo winning list, although I did not confirm this with my opponent. I was able to grind and win game 1 but lost g2 and 3 which both felt like uphill battles. nahiri was part of the problem. when goggles go unanswered I bury people in card advantage but in the last two games he had nahiri for every copy of goggles I was able to put into play and I didn't get the raw card advantage out of it that I usually do.
brainstorming after the tournament. big jace was nice, albeit a bit expensive. he got a lot of action in for being a 1 of but I was not convinced he was necessary. I have plenty of ways to draw cards already. I'm thinking I need some ways to deal with planeswalkers besides fall of the titans and fiery tempers hitting them. Gideon out of the side gave me a lot of trouble and nahiri can jump to 6 loyalty right off the bat which was definitely an issue for me. I am considering devour in flames, exquisite firecraft, burn from within, and rolling thunder for next time. they all go to the face or kill planeswalkers easily and can deal lots of damage when copied with goggles. devour is especially interesting because the downside is nonexistent if you have no lands to play before you cast it and it also sets up a nice play of bouncing your drownyard temple into a magmatic insight which will just let you return it to the battlefield later.
another consideration is cutting jace from the deck altogether and playing the 4 fevered visions maindeck. visions seems really bad against creature based decks but there are many discard outlets in this deck after all. there is just so much removal and I am not a fan of wasting my turn just to get jace silkwrapped or something like that. I may try something like goblin dark dwellers in lesser number just because I get value out of them as soon as they resolve.
I still think straight UR has the tools needed to get the job done, I will continue experimenting and avoid a third color splash if possible.
can I ask how you came to include anticipate, overwhelming denial, and grip of the roil in your main deck? those choices are interesting. i'm also curious about talent of the telepath and brutal expulsion in the sideboard. what decks are you looking to target with those cards?
and have you missed jace in the maindeck at all? I am very close to playing creatureless at this point. fevered visions seems really bad against creature decks but we do have lots of ways to discard it when we don't need it. having it in the maindeck means all these removal heavy matchups like esper dragons, mardu control, and esper control are basically a bye.
Anticipate - Makes mulliganing better. Postboard, opponents will bring in handdisruption. Anticipate means T2 Transgress the Mind can afford to hit your 3CMC win-condition (Fevered Visions/Sphinx's Tutelage), as Anticipate will likely find you a replacement copy fast and more consistently.
Overwhelming Denial - A silver bullet counterspell, why not play one? Also, my dream is to Anticipate into it with UU open and play it off the Anticipate pile.
Talent of the Telepath - My Postboard strategy is to win with 4 Fevered Visions + 3 Sphinx's Tutelage by milling them out. Talent aids the mill, spell mastery will almost always be online, and against the right deck, you can blow some people out. Killing somebody's things with their own removal spells is also incredibly rude.
Creatureless is always my preference. Game 1s are often won simply because their 7-card hand, if it include creature removal, blanks the handsize down to a 3-4 card hand. Postboard is more difficult. I have not missed Jace, Vryn's Prodigy or Thing in the Ice since the advantages of creatureless far outweigh creature benefits, and all decks feature much creature removal these days.
I do like being rude, talent is pretty funny. I guess im down on the blue spells because they can't be copied with goggles, but i would like to test with a few. i was too tired to go try rolling thunder and ravaging blaze last night. i would kill for electrolyze to be legal in standard right now...
Back from GP Charlotte. Participated in the side events with the list I posted earlier. Went 3-1 in Standard side event, losing 2-1 to a Westvale Abbey BW list where the two games I lost he saw a flipped Abbey. Need to identify a reliable sideboard method for dealing with the card, tho currently Burn from Within does help by removing the indestructibility from a flipped Abbey.
Participated in a second side event, dropping after going 1-1 to play Sealed. The 1 loss was to a GR Eldrazi ramp deck, and without Eldrazi Obligators in my sideboard, the matchup feels nigh unwinnable.
Sphinx's Tutelage was a bust. The card really doesn't win games, although it was the most fun card in the deck. It has been cut for Eldrazi Obligator's to fix the ramp matchup.
After taking in everything, I am sitting currently on the following list:
4 Drownyard Temple
3 Island
10 Mountain
4 Shivan Reef
4 Wandering Fumarole
Creatures (10)
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4 Thing in the Ice
2 Stormchaser Mage
2 Fall of the Titans
3 Magmatic Insight
4 Tormenting Voice
3 Fiery Impulse
4 Fiery Temper
4 Lightning Axe
3 Pyromancer's Goggles
2 Chandra, Flamecaller
4 Fevered Visions
4 Negate
3 Dispel
2 Kozilek's Return
2 Burn From Within
Im not sure where to go from here, im not dropping the goggles package or chandra or nahiri at this point, all of them are way to powerful.
Im lost... lol
I will say this, my round two win over Bant coco was a marathon and it was delightful lol
As much as I like the deck, I'm probably going to be moving on to Grixis and/or 4 Color Rites.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
I did, yes.
In fact against aristocrats, i blanked his removal. When we finished the game, he had 3 ultimate price in hand. I boarded in Chandra number 3 and dispels and negates. I have a mass of removal in the main board already, I lost game 1 outright, but game 2, i beat myself by playing really badly. I told him that i just lost the game on one play and i did. I went to kill his husk, had negate in hand, and Island in hand. I forgot to play the land first and he responded by casting coco, hitting two Sifters. All becuase i didnt play the land first. My own fault, and it clearly ended my run that day.
Against walkers, i backed down to 2 titi and 2 jace, and brought in negate and declaration in stone, radiant flames to go with the main board copies of kozi return.
I got rolled by him too. IM not sure if i was just already pissed and playing like crap after the previous round, mulliganing bad? dont recall, i do know that almost every game i played i mulled to 5. Except that final game, so its entirely possible that i just let myself go at that point.
I know their is alot of talk about TiTi, and how its not that great or whatever, i'll be the first to admit it, its not. i've considered dropping them out all together and just keeping blue for Jace in the main deck and runnign something more like Louis Salvotta from the PT.
I will say this again, Nahiri is gas
I top 8'd game day playing the deck.
I went 3-0 in Swiss with an id in the fourth round on game day.
Round 1
RG goggles 2-1
Round 2
UB rise from the tides 2-1
Round 3
UW Agro 2-1
Round 4 ID don't know what he was playing
Top 8 RG googles 1-2
Mana screwed in the last game.
Lands 25
4 x Wandering fumarole
4 x shivan reef
1 x highland lake
4 x drownyard temple
2 x sea gate wreckage
7 x mountain
3 x island
Creatures 8
3 x jace, vryn's prodigy
4 x thing in the ice
1 x Jori En, Ruin Diver
Artifact 3
3 x pyromancer's goggles
Planeswalker 2
2 x chandra, flamecaller
Sorcery and instant 22
4 x tormenting voice
3 x magmatic insight
4 x fiery temper
3 x lighting axe
3 x fiery impulse
2 x fall of the Titans
2 x kozilek's return
1 x burn from within
Side board
4 x fevered vision
2 x dispel
2 x negate
2 x void shatter
3 x malevolent whispers
2 x rending volley
I'm considering adding roast roast to the main deck as well as more ways to deal damage. Making them sac 2 guys to keep husk alive I plays valuable
A third color is necessary, I'm thinking of going URb Grixis, soft splashing black ex Ultimate Price. The UR version does not deal well at all versus the Humans list.
Modern
xWBreakfast at Urza'sxW
UWGBantUWG
GWRNaya ZooRWG
I found out I have to attend a wedding so I can't make it to GP Pittsburgh which took a lot of the wind from my sails. despite this, magic is magic and i was away last week. I plan to play straight UR again tonight and report back again. I do think the time has come to consider a third color. I am leaning toward white because I already have the duals and I could literally just be splashing for a fully powered radiant flames and ojutai's command to return my things and jaces.
3-1 last night with a fairly stock U/R list with the exception of 1 copy of jace unraveler of secrets I wanted to try. I dropped maindeck things in the ice and had them in the sideboard.
round 1 vs esper dragons. always lose to this deck g1 but g2 and 3 fevered visions just does so much work. I am starting to think this card alone is the reason to play blue in the deck.
round 2 vs sultai control? he had a lot of interesting things, call the bloodline, worldbreakers, from under the floorboards. game 1 wasn't particularly close. game 2 he gets out orbs of warding which gave me a LOT of trouble but I manage to rip through my deck with goggles and tormenting voices and draw into a Chandra and a wandering fumarole I needed to close out the last few points of life.
round 3 vs mardu control. got my hand absolutely shredded g1, 3 transgress the mind, a duress, and two thought-knots all in the same game. g2 and 3 fevered visions left his removal heavy deck out to dry and I coasted through both games with counterspells in hand for any planeswalker shenanigans.
round 4 vs naya midrange. my one loss of the evening. I think it may have been the exact GP Tokyo winning list, although I did not confirm this with my opponent. I was able to grind and win game 1 but lost g2 and 3 which both felt like uphill battles. nahiri was part of the problem. when goggles go unanswered I bury people in card advantage but in the last two games he had nahiri for every copy of goggles I was able to put into play and I didn't get the raw card advantage out of it that I usually do.
brainstorming after the tournament. big jace was nice, albeit a bit expensive. he got a lot of action in for being a 1 of but I was not convinced he was necessary. I have plenty of ways to draw cards already. I'm thinking I need some ways to deal with planeswalkers besides fall of the titans and fiery tempers hitting them. Gideon out of the side gave me a lot of trouble and nahiri can jump to 6 loyalty right off the bat which was definitely an issue for me. I am considering devour in flames, exquisite firecraft, burn from within, and rolling thunder for next time. they all go to the face or kill planeswalkers easily and can deal lots of damage when copied with goggles. devour is especially interesting because the downside is nonexistent if you have no lands to play before you cast it and it also sets up a nice play of bouncing your drownyard temple into a magmatic insight which will just let you return it to the battlefield later.
another consideration is cutting jace from the deck altogether and playing the 4 fevered visions maindeck. visions seems really bad against creature based decks but there are many discard outlets in this deck after all. there is just so much removal and I am not a fan of wasting my turn just to get jace silkwrapped or something like that. I may try something like goblin dark dwellers in lesser number just because I get value out of them as soon as they resolve.
I still think straight UR has the tools needed to get the job done, I will continue experimenting and avoid a third color splash if possible.
3 Magmatic Insight
4 Tormenting Voice
3 Pyromancer's Goggles
2 Chandra, Flamecaller
1 Burn from Within
1 Jori En, Ruin Diver
2 Anticipate
4 Fiery Temper
4 Lightning Axe
1 Overwhelming Denial
1 Grip of the Roil
2 Fiery Impulse
2 Fall of the Titans
4 Drownyard Temple
4 Shivan Reef
4 Wandering Fumarole
4 Island
7 Mountain
3 Negate
2 Dispel
1 Fiery Impulse
2 Rending Volley
3 Sphinx's Tutelage
2 Talent of the Telepath
2 Brutal Expulsion
Will anyone here be at Charolette?
and have you missed jace in the maindeck at all? I am very close to playing creatureless at this point. fevered visions seems really bad against creature decks but we do have lots of ways to discard it when we don't need it. having it in the maindeck means all these removal heavy matchups like esper dragons, mardu control, and esper control are basically a bye.
Overwhelming Denial - A silver bullet counterspell, why not play one? Also, my dream is to Anticipate into it with UU open and play it off the Anticipate pile.
Grip of the Roil - Surge is nice, cantrips are nice. The tap effect is good at slowing down their biggest threats. Good against Hangarback Walker, Sylvan Advocate. Bad against Dragonlord Ojutai.
Brutal Expulsion - I figure this is my best answer to Westvale Abbey strategies.
Talent of the Telepath - My Postboard strategy is to win with 4 Fevered Visions + 3 Sphinx's Tutelage by milling them out. Talent aids the mill, spell mastery will almost always be online, and against the right deck, you can blow some people out. Killing somebody's things with their own removal spells is also incredibly rude.
Creatureless is always my preference. Game 1s are often won simply because their 7-card hand, if it include creature removal, blanks the handsize down to a 3-4 card hand. Postboard is more difficult. I have not missed Jace, Vryn's Prodigy or Thing in the Ice since the advantages of creatureless far outweigh creature benefits, and all decks feature much creature removal these days.
Participated in a second side event, dropping after going 1-1 to play Sealed. The 1 loss was to a GR Eldrazi ramp deck, and without Eldrazi Obligators in my sideboard, the matchup feels nigh unwinnable.
Sphinx's Tutelage was a bust. The card really doesn't win games, although it was the most fun card in the deck. It has been cut for Eldrazi Obligator's to fix the ramp matchup.
After taking in everything, I am sitting currently on the following list:
4 Island
3 Highland Lake
4 Wandering Fumarole
4 Shivan Reef
4 Drownyard Temple
1 Burn from Within
2 Fall of the Titans
3 Fiery Impulse
4 Lightning Axe
4 Fiery Temper
4 Tormenting Voice
4 Thing in the Ice
3 Anticipate
1 Jori En, Ruin Diver
3 Pyromancer's Goggles
2 Chandra, Flamecaller
1 Fiery Impulse
2 Dispel
3 Negate
4 Fevered Visions
4 Eldrazi Obligator
1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets