Clip Wings only hits Kolaghan. Still have Tormentor, Zombies and very rarely but possibly Ruinous Path awaken land. You can also return Kolaghan with his command.
The mana base works out quite well. Maybe you can tweak here and there but it's basically U/B with splash red. I find that you can consistently hit BB for Grasp and have 3 colours by turn 3 for Flames and Truths.
Painful truths is very good. 3 cards for 3 mana is great value although I'd prefer it to be instant speed. I'm not a fan of the other blue draw spells apart from Anticipate.
Delirium is pretty hard to achieve with this deck and I don't want to give my opponent the option of sacking his worst creature. Bant Company and Mono White spew out creatures very fast and can just sac their 1/2 or whatever when you want to be hitting Avacyn or Angel of Tithes etc.
The reason I'm splashing red is for Radiant Flames. U/R only has access to Flames and U/B only has access to Languish. One is usually a turn too slow and the other can't hit things like Avacyn and all the x4's.
I'm going to tweak the sideboard to improve the mid range match up. X/5's are proving very difficult to get rid of
Based on the choice of RtB or Truths, I think I would lean towards RtB. Yes, you only draw two, but the fact that you (potentially) see 4 makes it marginally better. As posted by someone else on another thread, think of the three situations:
- scry 2 to the top, draw 2 = worse than a 3 colour Painful Truths in terms of draw.
- scry 1 to the top, 1 to the bottom, draw 2 = you've seen the same number of cards as Truths. It's about the same
- scry 2 to the bottom - now you've seen 4 cards, and it's better than Truths.
In terms of a 2 colour Truths, then RtB is always the same or better.
the other card that I've taken to thinking about is using Confirm Suspicions in a card draw slot instead of a counter slot. It's the same mana to cast as Jace's Ingenuity, a former Control staple, and then you get the flexibility of drawing when you have spare mana up. Could it be an option to run (say) 1-2 Negate, 3-4 Void Shatter in the counter spell slots, then a pair of Confirm Suspicions as well?
As for walkers, I'm thinking a mix of all three. They do different things at different times, and what's to hurt you flipping baby Jace, doing what you need early to maintain board control, -3 to flash back, then drop new Jace and bin the old one? A singleton ObNix gives extra options for kill and draw if needed, and the ultimate is an alternative win-con. Right now (see above), my list is 2/2/1 of Jace/Jace/ObNix.
Baby Jace is way too good not to run a play set especially in my deck where I want to hit the madness trigger for From Under the Floorboards.
I actually cut 2 Elusive Tormentors for 2 Ob Nixillis to improve the midrange/ramp matchup. In my setup I run Ob Nixillis over Unraveler Jace but in an esper or U/W setup I'd probably run Jace since you are most likely playing more counter magic and have better overall answers like Anguished Unmaking, Stassis Snare etc. Bouncing threats and then digging for an answer is a good strategy but in my setup I don't have a catch all answer like Anguished unmaking so I'd rather just run Ob Nixillis and kill something.
Read the Bones vs Painful Truths is a toss up imo. Both are pretty great but I find that I can consistently hit 3 colors for truths which I think is just strictly better than getting 2 from Bones.
I really want it to work, but right now I don't see it surviving. White runs Declaration in Stone, big Eldrazi kill it, Esper Dragons has removal, R(x) Aggro has Lightning Axe. It seems to me that it's far easier to kill it than to flip it. That said, I'm two cards short for my Standard list right now, so will replace with the two Things I have and will report back!
I have settled on my main 60 for States this coming weekend.
Out of curiosity is the lack of 2-mana Jace budgetary? I'm fairly new to this deck as this Standard.
I took a break before Oath came out.
I picked up my foil Jace, Vryn's Prodigy set at $40 each when people were telling me the card was horrible and I had to explain that a turn 4 flip into Languish was actually nuts.
His lack of inclusion is not a budgetary concern.
The fact is that removal right now, is the best we have seen for Standard in a long time - and when you aggro decks are running removal, your cards like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Thing in the Ice lose a lot of stock value. Sure, you had red decks running Wild Slash, but those decks were designed to do 20 damage to you, and not 24 damage to you, meaning those Slashes usually had to go to the dome and were not really dedicated removal like Declaration in Stone is, another card I picked up a foil set on for cheap while it was called garbage in the Esper thread.
While he is nuts when you get a flip out on him, it not even remotely as easy to flip and hardly worth the effort protecting it like it previously was.
The deck looks really sweet Kamahl.
A couple questions though:
How do you feel about the upside on scatter vs void shatter? (For eg. Jace, den protector, world breaker)
Do you ever wish prerogative was another confirm or vice versa?
You kind of have to have Scatter to the Winds. You can get through World Breaker loops with tight play easier than you can if you simply get stripped of DLS's. If Breaker loops are difficult for you to manage, you best just play Infinite Obliteration out of the board, but I have not had too much of an issue with it unless I was already super behind. As for Jace and Protector, meh. I have actually killed a good number of people with an Awoken lands, especially post board.
I love Perogative, sometimes I want a second before realizing that I sometimes come really close to decking myself. Confirm is great and all, but having it stuck in your hand turns 1-4 can really suck. I don't want a second copy adding to that.
EDIT: I ask because I'm thinking of taking this deck, with a slight alteration, to FNM this week and am pulling together what I have and determining what I need to pick up
Makes sense.
I really really want confirm suspicions to be good, but paying five to counter and then more to draw the cards is too slow most of the time. Your deck looks like it wants to tap out on five and six fairly often too.
Good luck at States!
I rarely ever tap out for a walker on turn 4, or turn 6. They are usually dropped when the board is clear - whenever that may be. Or when I have enough mana to protect them in the same turn. Just because I have 5 drops that are played at sorcery speed, does not mean I have to tap out for them. They are a win condition by themselves, Control never just tosses win cons out there like that, regardless of the deck.
EDIT: I ask because I'm thinking of taking this deck, with a slight alteration, to FNM this week and am pulling together what I have and determining what I need to pick up
2 Negate
1 Dispel
3 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Duress
1 Transgress the Mind
3 Flaying Tendrils
1 Ultimate Price
2 Mizzium Meddler
Likely to change a bit. Duresses will likely be Negate + Dispel and the Price/Meddlers may end up being To the Slaughter/Grasp of Darkness or even just all 3 Meddlers.
For one, it's super important to run hand disruption versus any sort of control deck. U/R control, for example, boards in (and sometimes has mainboard) Fevered Visions. It's a hard card to fight against from experience. Against other decks you can strip them of Collected Company or Eerie Interlude or even a planeswalker.
@Kamahl, I really like how your deck looks. Mine has ended up pretty similar after taking your advice. Big difference is that I was looking at a 3/1 split of Grasp of Darkness to Ultimate Price because of manlands (turns out that Sinkhole is a good Magic card ) and Eldrazi. I also had a fourth Anticipate vs the Confirm Suspicions , but I have to admit that after testing it, it's pretty insane.
I have settled on my main 60 for States this coming weekend.
Out of curiosity is the lack of 2-mana Jace budgetary? I'm fairly new to this deck as this Standard.
I took a break before Oath came out.
I picked up my foil Jace, Vryn's Prodigy set at $40 each when people were telling me the card was horrible and I had to explain that a turn 4 flip into Languish was actually nuts.
His lack of inclusion is not a budgetary concern.
The fact is that removal right now, is the best we have seen for Standard in a long time - and when you aggro decks are running removal, your cards like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Thing in the Ice lose a lot of stock value. Sure, you had red decks running Wild Slash, but those decks were designed to do 20 damage to you, and not 24 damage to you, meaning those Slashes usually had to go to the dome and were not really dedicated removal like Declaration in Stone is, another card I picked up a foil set on for cheap while it was called garbage in the Esper thread.
While he is nuts when you get a flip out on him, it not even remotely as easy to flip and hardly worth the effort protecting it like it previously was.
Thank you so much for the thorough write-up and response to my comment, I was just asking because I want to make this (or try it) on MTGO, and I was just looking into what I should pick up!
If it's not a problem, may I ask what your lands look like?
For one, it's super important to run hand disruption versus any sort of control deck. U/R control, for example, boards in (and sometimes has mainboard) Fevered Visions. It's a hard card to fight against from experience. Against other decks you can strip them of Collected Company or Eerie Interlude or even a planeswalker.
@Kamahl, I really like how your deck looks. Mine has ended up pretty similar after taking your advice. Big difference is that I was looking at a 3/1 split of Grasp of Darkness to Ultimate Price because of manlands (turns out that Sinkhole is a good Magic card ) and Eldrazi. I also had a fourth Anticipate vs the Confirm Suspicions , but I have to admit that after testing it, it's pretty insane.
Right. But I dont see it anyone's list. Maybe one or two in the SB. Why not 4x main?
I would assume because white aggressive decks are everywhere and Duress and Transgress the Mind are awful against them. You can load up on discard out of the sideboard for other matchups but it might be too much of a reliability in game one against much of the field right now. Though your mileage may vary, so if it seems better for you in your local meta to play them in the main then do just that!
Right. But I dont see it anyone's list. Maybe one or two in the SB. Why not 4x main?
Ah okay I totally understand where you're coming from now. Fitzlock has a very good explanation for why they aren't in the main so I don't believe it needs repeating. Although yeah, there's always the caveat of local meta.
I have settled on my main 60 for States this coming weekend.
Out of curiosity is the lack of 2-mana Jace budgetary? I'm fairly new to this deck as this Standard.
I took a break before Oath came out.
I picked up my foil Jace, Vryn's Prodigy set at $40 each when people were telling me the card was horrible and I had to explain that a turn 4 flip into Languish was actually nuts.
His lack of inclusion is not a budgetary concern.
The fact is that removal right now, is the best we have seen for Standard in a long time - and when you aggro decks are running removal, your cards like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Thing in the Ice lose a lot of stock value. Sure, you had red decks running Wild Slash, but those decks were designed to do 20 damage to you, and not 24 damage to you, meaning those Slashes usually had to go to the dome and were not really dedicated removal like Declaration in Stone is, another card I picked up a foil set on for cheap while it was called garbage in the Esper thread.
While he is nuts when you get a flip out on him, it not even remotely as easy to flip and hardly worth the effort protecting it like it previously was.
Thank you so much for the thorough write-up and response to my comment, I was just asking because I want to make this (or try it) on MTGO, and I was just looking into what I should pick up!
If it's not a problem, may I ask what your lands look like?
4 Choked Estuary
4 Sunken Hollow
2 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
2 Blighted Cataract
2 Mage Ring Network
2 Evolving Wilds
5 Island
5 Swamp
Can be tweaked, without a doubt. I am still messing with things.
Evolving Wilds I get - fixing in spots that need them. What I'm not 100% on is why the Mage-Ring Networks? I don't see what the ramping up helps with, but am willing to be enlightened! Would they not be better as something like Submerged Boneyard (for more dual lands), or as GR suggested, one more each of Swamp and Island, or even 2 more Evolving Wilds? I have a win-a-box tonight at my LGS, and I'm running a similar list to Kamahl's, but using Sphinxes as the win-cons (two each of Magosi and Alhammarret, then 2 DLS as well. Oh, and 2 Sphinx of the Final Word in the side). I really want to see how they work (and I'm more than happy to be wrong!), and I've always enjoyed playing a little outside the conventions :). I don't have my new Jace yet, so will probably run flippy Jace or Things instead, unless anyone has other suggestions in the next couple of hours before it starts...
Interesting that you would ask for my mana, get a response with the mana base and a message saying:
Can be tweaked, without a doubt. I am still messing with things.
Then start being critical of the mana base... Just seems odd is all. I left the mana out of my post for a reason - because it is wonky in a deck that has a ridiculous amount of possible varieties when it comes to the mana base. That all being said, here is a bit about the mana base if you really want to know.
Haven of the Spirit Dragon is what gets me through Blighted Fen and other removal, it gives you the option to pitch extra dragons in your hand if you need to discard, and it can let you leave certain variations of U and B up when casting Dragonlord Silumgar.
Mage-Ring Network was a residual piece of the Eldrazi titan package I was testing. The problem was not having to activate the lands to get to casting range - it was the Eldrazi themselves. Ultimately, the land gave me a lot of late game playability, especially in control mirrors or against WB Eldrazi / Control when you wanting to use 3 counters to cast a walker and leaving excessive mana up for cheap counters and removal or a well placed Silumgar's Command. The lands give you a lot of playability in the late game in any match that is slow, and you hardly ever sacrifice your mana in the early game if you are sequencing your land drops correctly. The card has been worth the 2 slots, is it absolutely necessary? Probably not. Better than a wide array of other lands I can think of at the moment however.
Evolving Wilds. If you have ever opened game 1 of a match and stared at Island, Swamp, Silumgar's Scorn, and Grasp of Darkness - you would not really need to know why you should appreciate Evolving Wilds in a 2 color deck. It lets you get in a mana drop while figuring out what you are up against to help you make the most of your early turns. It is also good for giving me references on deck content if I ever want to take a mental snapshot during a complex game state.
Blighted Cataract, because I do not want to be using Blighted Fen in a format where boards are going wide and I have more than enough ways to deal with whatever Blighted Fen would deal with anyways.
The lands are really not going to make or break the deck. If you are skimming on DLS, then skip Havens if you want. They are just utility and will change depending on your list. For my 4 DLS finisher set up, this is what I have been using effectively. For people trying Sphinxes out, they might find that none of them are optimal.
Evolving Wilds. If you have ever opened game 1 of a match and stared at Island, Swamp, Silumgar's Scorn, and Grasp of Darkness - you would not really need to know why you should appreciate Evolving Wilds in a 2 color deck. It lets you get in a mana drop while figuring out what you are up against to help you make the most of your early turns. It is also good for giving me references on deck content if I ever want to take a mental snapshot during a complex game state.
This happened right after I cut the Evolving Wilds earlier :x
Without splashing white for Angelic Purge as a guaranteed way out, I would not run Demonic Pact. This meta is looking like it is starting to favor the controly over the top decks more and more - and I don't advise getting caught up in that without a sure fire way to get Pact out of the way, or actually kill your opponent with it before it kills you.
I'm thinking of running it, but I'm having second thoughts 'coz I'll only be able to use some critical pieces (pact, petition, etc) for 6 months...
I don't see this as a reason not to play a deck. Everything in Standard rotates out eventually. By this logic, you don't want to play Languish or flippy Jace, as they will be unusable in 6 months as well? I can understand the sentiment is rotation was happening in 2-3 weeks, but why not grab the pieces, play the deck for 6 months, and enjoy it?
@Kamahl - I also wasn't intending to be critical, but like Rabblemaster, I was purely enquiring as to your thought process in the mana base, in order to tweak my own, or maybe to discuss pros and cons one way or another.
Talking of pros and cons, I finished Top 8 in the win-a-box last night, at which point the store credit was split equally between all Top 8 people so we could go home early (it was around midnight at this point!). Sphinx of Magosi was a surprising house, allowing me to turn the corner and win pretty easily in every game it came down. I took the logic that Kamahl posted on the last page, and only dropped the Sphinx when I had counterspells available. At that point, I was pulling at least 2 cards a turn and winning within 2-3 turns. I was a little disappointed with my mana base, and also I was very susceptible to hand disruption (like most counter decks). I had one rough match where the opponent dropped 3 Goblin Dark-Dwellers, recurring Duress and Transgress the Mind, so I got hit 6 times with that. I also think that I need to find more draw options, as three Anticipate and one DLP just didn't come up enough (note that I didn't have new Jace, and was running a pair of flippy Jace instead). Any thoughts on what could improve that? Finally, I did have one game against a tokens/Westvale Abbey deck, and Oblivion Strike was surprisingly helpful there. Languish kept the board down for a while, then when Abbey flipped, I stole it with DLS (who died before attacking), then just dropped OStrike for the fun of it. The opponent's face was worth it!
I'm thinking that the OStrikes can go in the side, as they were kind of useful against Abbeys, and more spot removal/draw is needed to replace them. Right now I'm thinking of adding in 2 To the Slaughter in their place. I also think that one less land may be an option, and run an extra Ultimate Price.
What specifically did you not like about your manabase? I am thinking either 25 or 26 lands to pilot the deck. And I am not sure on draw options. I mean I will be using 2 Ob Nixilis and 2 Jace the Unraveler in conjunction with 4 DLS as my wincons. I am not for sure now on playing To The Slaughter as it gives the opponent a choice, but it is instant speed versus Ruinous Path.
For the mana base, first of all, I agree and think 26 is a good call. I guess disappointed is the wrong word - undecided, maybe? Evolving Wilds is great to pull a basic when needed, and Submerged Boneyard was surprisingly useful to give multiple U and B options. It just felt a little clunky though, and I don't know why. When it worked, it was great. When it didn't, I don't know what was causing the problems. Lack of draw to find lands, random clumping variance, all problems that I had.
The reasons that I was thinking To The Slaughter is to get rid of indestructible creatures, and if the board is clear, gets rid of planeswalkers at instant speed...
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The mana base works out quite well. Maybe you can tweak here and there but it's basically U/B with splash red. I find that you can consistently hit BB for Grasp and have 3 colours by turn 3 for Flames and Truths.
Painful truths is very good. 3 cards for 3 mana is great value although I'd prefer it to be instant speed. I'm not a fan of the other blue draw spells apart from Anticipate.
Delirium is pretty hard to achieve with this deck and I don't want to give my opponent the option of sacking his worst creature. Bant Company and Mono White spew out creatures very fast and can just sac their 1/2 or whatever when you want to be hitting Avacyn or Angel of Tithes etc.
The reason I'm splashing red is for Radiant Flames. U/R only has access to Flames and U/B only has access to Languish. One is usually a turn too slow and the other can't hit things like Avacyn and all the x4's.
I'm going to tweak the sideboard to improve the mid range match up. X/5's are proving very difficult to get rid of
- scry 2 to the top, draw 2 = worse than a 3 colour Painful Truths in terms of draw.
- scry 1 to the top, 1 to the bottom, draw 2 = you've seen the same number of cards as Truths. It's about the same
- scry 2 to the bottom - now you've seen 4 cards, and it's better than Truths.
In terms of a 2 colour Truths, then RtB is always the same or better.
the other card that I've taken to thinking about is using Confirm Suspicions in a card draw slot instead of a counter slot. It's the same mana to cast as Jace's Ingenuity, a former Control staple, and then you get the flexibility of drawing when you have spare mana up. Could it be an option to run (say) 1-2 Negate, 3-4 Void Shatter in the counter spell slots, then a pair of Confirm Suspicions as well?
As for walkers, I'm thinking a mix of all three. They do different things at different times, and what's to hurt you flipping baby Jace, doing what you need early to maintain board control, -3 to flash back, then drop new Jace and bin the old one? A singleton ObNix gives extra options for kill and draw if needed, and the ultimate is an alternative win-con. Right now (see above), my list is 2/2/1 of Jace/Jace/ObNix.
I actually cut 2 Elusive Tormentors for 2 Ob Nixillis to improve the midrange/ramp matchup. In my setup I run Ob Nixillis over Unraveler Jace but in an esper or U/W setup I'd probably run Jace since you are most likely playing more counter magic and have better overall answers like Anguished Unmaking, Stassis Snare etc. Bouncing threats and then digging for an answer is a good strategy but in my setup I don't have a catch all answer like Anguished unmaking so I'd rather just run Ob Nixillis and kill something.
Read the Bones vs Painful Truths is a toss up imo. Both are pretty great but I find that I can consistently hit 3 colors for truths which I think is just strictly better than getting 2 from Bones.
I really want it to work, but right now I don't see it surviving. White runs Declaration in Stone, big Eldrazi kill it, Esper Dragons has removal, R(x) Aggro has Lightning Axe. It seems to me that it's far easier to kill it than to flip it. That said, I'm two cards short for my Standard list right now, so will replace with the two Things I have and will report back!
I took a break before Oath came out.
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I picked up my foil Jace, Vryn's Prodigy set at $40 each when people were telling me the card was horrible and I had to explain that a turn 4 flip into Languish was actually nuts.
His lack of inclusion is not a budgetary concern.
The fact is that removal right now, is the best we have seen for Standard in a long time - and when you aggro decks are running removal, your cards like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and Thing in the Ice lose a lot of stock value. Sure, you had red decks running Wild Slash, but those decks were designed to do 20 damage to you, and not 24 damage to you, meaning those Slashes usually had to go to the dome and were not really dedicated removal like Declaration in Stone is, another card I picked up a foil set on for cheap while it was called garbage in the Esper thread.
While he is nuts when you get a flip out on him, it not even remotely as easy to flip and hardly worth the effort protecting it like it previously was.
You kind of have to have Scatter to the Winds. You can get through World Breaker loops with tight play easier than you can if you simply get stripped of DLS's. If Breaker loops are difficult for you to manage, you best just play Infinite Obliteration out of the board, but I have not had too much of an issue with it unless I was already super behind. As for Jace and Protector, meh. I have actually killed a good number of people with an Awoken lands, especially post board.
I love Perogative, sometimes I want a second before realizing that I sometimes come really close to decking myself. Confirm is great and all, but having it stuck in your hand turns 1-4 can really suck. I don't want a second copy adding to that.
EDIT: I ask because I'm thinking of taking this deck, with a slight alteration, to FNM this week and am pulling together what I have and determining what I need to pick up
Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans
I rarely ever tap out for a walker on turn 4, or turn 6. They are usually dropped when the board is clear - whenever that may be. Or when I have enough mana to protect them in the same turn. Just because I have 5 drops that are played at sorcery speed, does not mean I have to tap out for them. They are a win condition by themselves, Control never just tosses win cons out there like that, regardless of the deck.
2 Negate
1 Dispel
3 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Duress
1 Transgress the Mind
3 Flaying Tendrils
1 Ultimate Price
2 Mizzium Meddler
Likely to change a bit. Duresses will likely be Negate + Dispel and the Price/Meddlers may end up being To the Slaughter/Grasp of Darkness or even just all 3 Meddlers.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
For one, it's super important to run hand disruption versus any sort of control deck. U/R control, for example, boards in (and sometimes has mainboard) Fevered Visions. It's a hard card to fight against from experience. Against other decks you can strip them of Collected Company or Eerie Interlude or even a planeswalker.
@Kamahl, I really like how your deck looks. Mine has ended up pretty similar after taking your advice. Big difference is that I was looking at a 3/1 split of Grasp of Darkness to Ultimate Price because of manlands (turns out that Sinkhole is a good Magic card ) and Eldrazi. I also had a fourth Anticipate vs the Confirm Suspicions , but I have to admit that after testing it, it's pretty insane.
If it's not a problem, may I ask what your lands look like?
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C Long Live Eldrazi C
Ah okay I totally understand where you're coming from now. Fitzlock has a very good explanation for why they aren't in the main so I don't believe it needs repeating. Although yeah, there's always the caveat of local meta.
4 Choked Estuary
4 Sunken Hollow
2 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
2 Blighted Cataract
2 Mage Ring Network
2 Evolving Wilds
5 Island
5 Swamp
Can be tweaked, without a doubt. I am still messing with things.
Then start being critical of the mana base... Just seems odd is all. I left the mana out of my post for a reason - because it is wonky in a deck that has a ridiculous amount of possible varieties when it comes to the mana base. That all being said, here is a bit about the mana base if you really want to know.
Haven of the Spirit Dragon is what gets me through Blighted Fen and other removal, it gives you the option to pitch extra dragons in your hand if you need to discard, and it can let you leave certain variations of U and B up when casting Dragonlord Silumgar.
Mage-Ring Network was a residual piece of the Eldrazi titan package I was testing. The problem was not having to activate the lands to get to casting range - it was the Eldrazi themselves. Ultimately, the land gave me a lot of late game playability, especially in control mirrors or against WB Eldrazi / Control when you wanting to use 3 counters to cast a walker and leaving excessive mana up for cheap counters and removal or a well placed Silumgar's Command. The lands give you a lot of playability in the late game in any match that is slow, and you hardly ever sacrifice your mana in the early game if you are sequencing your land drops correctly. The card has been worth the 2 slots, is it absolutely necessary? Probably not. Better than a wide array of other lands I can think of at the moment however.
Evolving Wilds. If you have ever opened game 1 of a match and stared at Island, Swamp, Silumgar's Scorn, and Grasp of Darkness - you would not really need to know why you should appreciate Evolving Wilds in a 2 color deck. It lets you get in a mana drop while figuring out what you are up against to help you make the most of your early turns. It is also good for giving me references on deck content if I ever want to take a mental snapshot during a complex game state.
Blighted Cataract, because I do not want to be using Blighted Fen in a format where boards are going wide and I have more than enough ways to deal with whatever Blighted Fen would deal with anyways.
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Basically its wincons are:
4 demonic pact
3 crush of tentacles
1 ob nix
and it has 3 duress, 2 transgress.
I'm thinking of running it, but I'm having second thoughts 'coz I'll only be able to use some critical pieces (pact, petition, etc) for 6 months...
I don't see this as a reason not to play a deck. Everything in Standard rotates out eventually. By this logic, you don't want to play Languish or flippy Jace, as they will be unusable in 6 months as well? I can understand the sentiment is rotation was happening in 2-3 weeks, but why not grab the pieces, play the deck for 6 months, and enjoy it?
@Kamahl - I also wasn't intending to be critical, but like Rabblemaster, I was purely enquiring as to your thought process in the mana base, in order to tweak my own, or maybe to discuss pros and cons one way or another.
Talking of pros and cons, I finished Top 8 in the win-a-box last night, at which point the store credit was split equally between all Top 8 people so we could go home early (it was around midnight at this point!). Sphinx of Magosi was a surprising house, allowing me to turn the corner and win pretty easily in every game it came down. I took the logic that Kamahl posted on the last page, and only dropped the Sphinx when I had counterspells available. At that point, I was pulling at least 2 cards a turn and winning within 2-3 turns. I was a little disappointed with my mana base, and also I was very susceptible to hand disruption (like most counter decks). I had one rough match where the opponent dropped 3 Goblin Dark-Dwellers, recurring Duress and Transgress the Mind, so I got hit 6 times with that. I also think that I need to find more draw options, as three Anticipate and one DLP just didn't come up enough (note that I didn't have new Jace, and was running a pair of flippy Jace instead). Any thoughts on what could improve that? Finally, I did have one game against a tokens/Westvale Abbey deck, and Oblivion Strike was surprisingly helpful there. Languish kept the board down for a while, then when Abbey flipped, I stole it with DLS (who died before attacking), then just dropped OStrike for the fun of it. The opponent's face was worth it!
EDIT : deck list added
2 Blighted Cataract
3 Evolving wilds
3 Submerged Boneyard
4 Choked Estuary
4 Sunken Hollow
5 Swamp
6 Island
Wincons (8)
2 Dragonlord Silumgar
2 Sphinx of Magosi
2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Alhammarret, High Arbiter
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
3 Anticipate
1 Dragonlord's Prerogative
Counterspells (7)
4 Scatter to the Winds
2 Confirm Suspicions
1 Negate
Removal (14)
1 Engulf the Shore
1 Silumgar's Command
1 Ultimate Price
3 Grasp of Darkness
2 Oblivion Strike
1 Flaying Tendrils
2 Ruinous Path
3 Languish
1 Duress
1 Alhammarret, High Arbiter
1 Learn from the Past
1 Tainted Remedy
1 Ugin's Insight
1 Negate
1 Sphinx of the Final Word
2 Dispel
2 Flaying Tendrils
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Transgress the Mind
I'm thinking that the OStrikes can go in the side, as they were kind of useful against Abbeys, and more spot removal/draw is needed to replace them. Right now I'm thinking of adding in 2 To the Slaughter in their place. I also think that one less land may be an option, and run an extra Ultimate Price.
For the mana base, first of all, I agree and think 26 is a good call. I guess disappointed is the wrong word - undecided, maybe? Evolving Wilds is great to pull a basic when needed, and Submerged Boneyard was surprisingly useful to give multiple U and B options. It just felt a little clunky though, and I don't know why. When it worked, it was great. When it didn't, I don't know what was causing the problems. Lack of draw to find lands, random clumping variance, all problems that I had.
The reasons that I was thinking To The Slaughter is to get rid of indestructible creatures, and if the board is clear, gets rid of planeswalkers at instant speed...