His match against New Perspectives highlights the power of the missing Gideon of the Trials. I've always found that matchup to be pretty favorable.
That is the first time I have seen that deck, so was not really sure what it was trying to do the whole time until he went off. But the last few weeks, Gideon has quietly been one of the super stars of my deck.
The only way they can deal with Gideon is via Cast Out. If you just sit there with your own Cast Out ready then they have an extremely hard time winning. Gideon also provides a convenient clock while that is going on.
Corey also showed a lack of experience sideboarding in that matchup when he pulled all the fumigates, in my opinion. You need to keep in at least two sweepers in any matchup where Sphinx of the Final Word is a possibility. Most control decks sideboard into enough threats that the fumigates are needed anyway to deal with their Whirler Virtuoso or Regal Caracal or Gifted Aetherborn onslaught anyway. The Blessed Alliance is the easy cut in control mirrors.
I leave the Blessed Alliance in against Temur and Zombies. It's not amazing in those matchups but the easiest way to lose post-sideboard games is for them to get an aggressive start while you sit there with nothing to do.
I had another 5-0 run today. The matchup RNG was definitely friendly, as things went:
Ramunap Red (2-1): not a friendly matchup, but his hand game one was terrible. No one drop, and his turn two play was Incendiary Flow. I think they are moving away from the lists that destroy us and going in a more big red kind of direction. He gets me in game two but game three his start is again slow and I'm able to ride Censor into Glimmer into Fumigate into Gideon to lock things up.
Zombies (2-0): Too many sweepers.
WG Ramp (2-0): Game one in this matchup is kind of funny. Their only way of interacting with you is by attacking your lands. Meanwhile you're avoiding blessed alliance every time a World Breaker attacks. Opponent has a nice play where he casts Immolating Glare on his own World Breaker so he can rebuy it, but I cast the approach before he even started world breaking and I get back to seven lands before he can finish me off. Gideon does a nice job of keeping the world breaker attacks in check. Game two I just have too much permission. Summary Dismissal into Gearhulk on Summary Dismissal feels good.
UB Control (2-1): He gets me game one. Just exhausts my ability to cast approaches and finishes the game with a scarab god push. Very well played by my opponent. Games two and three I have access to gearhulks and hard counters and I'm able to get home with approach. Westvale Abbey was a quiet mvp in putting pressure on the opponent to create opportunities to approach.
Zombies (2-1): Game one he buries me under zombies before I can do anything. Game two sweepers into approach take it down. Game three has an interesting situation--I fend him off early with blessed alliance on relentless dead (just to buy time), supreme will for the lord, and cast outs for the other relentless dead and the second appearance of the first one. Opponent resolves a Lost Legacy on approach. He's at 20, I'm at 6. His board is a Liliana's Mastery, Dread Wanderer, and Zombie token. Mine is a Gearhulk. Opponent has six lands and one card in hand. I have seven lands (including abbey) and in hand prairie stream, blessed alliance, supreme will, gideon.
After the lost legacy:
- First turn I draw fumigate, play gideon, plus on the token, attack him to 15.
- He attacks with the dread wanderer, I blessed alliance two modes, he plays liliana's mastery
- I draw Descend Upon the Sinful (instants only in gy); play fumigate, 0 and attack with Gideon (life total now 14-11 in my favor; I have delirium but he has scavenger grounds)
- Opponent draws and plays liliana's mastery (tapping all but two lands)
- I draw land, play Descend Upon the Sinful, attack with Gideon
- Opponent draws Dread Wanderer and concedes.
This is why I like Gideon and don't like Regal Caracal as an alternate wincon. We don't run that much targeted removal but we sure have a ton of sweepers.
74 cards are the same. I went minus one gearhulk, plus one linvala. I have been very happy with the gearhulks. The standard Gearhulk + Glimmer is always solid. It's extra sweet when you get to rebuy a specialty instant like Summary Dismissal against ramp or Blessed Alliance against burn. I wasn't bringing in all three very often and I like having access to Linvala for the life gain. Evasion is always nice for the post Lost Legacy wincon scramble, too.
I think we do benefit from not having a completely standard 75. In my match against UB he discarded Yahenni's Expertise to hand size in post board games. I assume he felt compelled to have it in as a hedge against Regal Caracal.
Thanks, I will have to give them a try again. The few times I ran them, they just felt really clunky but I was still learning to run the deck. And I also like the fact that we don't run the same 75. The main board almost everyone has the same 54-56 cards, but those 4-6 make a major difference in how the deck plays (and how you should play against it). My 2 Authority and 2 Gideon main plays very differently than the standard 2 unsummon and 2 Aether Meltdowns.
But the side boards are all over. A lot of that depends on your meta and your play style. I run 2 Invasive Surgery SB because sometimes half the guys at FNM are running Bx with a ton of hand disruption in their sideboard. Works for me but would not recommend it to most players because others cards are better.
Here is my current list (yes I know I run a different draw package) and this is my sideboard cheat sheet that has worked well for me so far. If there is a ? next to the card, then it depends on what version of the deck if I will bring it in or not.
Mono Red
+3 Regal Caracal
+2 Authority of the Consuls
+1 Linvala, the Preserver
+1 Descend Upon the Sinful
+2 Negates ?
-------------------------------------
-2 Cast Out
-4 Censor
-1 Gimmer of Genius
-2 Gideon ?
Control
+3 Regal Caracal
+3 Negate
+2 Invasive Surgery ?
+2 Sphinx of the Final Word
--------------------------------------
-4 Blessed Alliance ?
-2 Stasis Snare
-2 Authority of the Consuls ?
-2 Fumigate
Temur Energy
+2 Descend Upon the Sinful
+3 Negate
-------------------------------------
-2 Censor
-1 Fumigate
-2 Blessed Alliance
Bx Constrictor/Zombie
+2 Descend Upon the Sinful
+1 Linvala, the Preserver
+2 Invasive Surgery
------------------------------------
-2 Gideon
-2 Snare
-1 Fumigate
Howdy, I have not played standard since RTR with Sphinx's Revelation and Supreme Verdict. I saw Corey Burkhart's video on ChannelFireball, and I bought the deck immediately. I went with a really budget version. I already own 3x Blessed Alliance, and so I only had to spend $30 on buying the rest of the MD. My SB is terrible; it is just random blue instants that I have in my collection. Deck list at the bottom.
I went 3-1 today in my LGS's Sunday Showdown. I felt pretty good considering it was my first time to play with the deck. I beat Mono Black RD1, lost to Temur Energy RD2, beat Mono Red RD2, and beat GW Humans RD4. The deck is a blast to play.
My loss to Temur Energy in Roud 2 was interesting. I lost 0-2. Game 1, I was colored screwed. I had 4x Island and 1x Plains, and I died with 2x Stasis Snare and 2x Fumigate stuck in my hand. Game 2, I was just really foolish and got all my important spells countered. He drew 3 of his 4 SB Negates. My opponent hung out with me after the round, and we played some more. I was able to win both practice games.
Then some number of Negate (and Dispel if they have access to blue) for some number of Censor, according to taste. You can go down another Fumigate and one or two Stasis Snare if you want to bump your overall permission package.
Be aware that they will often sideboard into a more beatdown package with Thought-Knot Seer and whatnot, so you don't want to go too crazy preparing for the giant Eldrazi and open yourself up to getting blitzed out. I've also started seeing big Nissa out of them. In general their five mana stuff is where you really want to start keeping up permission.
Also be aware of Warping Wail. You can't always play around it but if they're going out of their way to leave it up and you can beat it then you might as well. OTOH if the game is at all close I'd just assume they don't have it and jam. You're most likely to see Warping Wail out of the mono white deck, sometimes you see it out of mono red, and fairly rare to see it out of ramp (if they want permission they can usually splash blue).
I've changed my main deck to include two Aether Hub instead of two Port Town. The come into play tapped lost me a couple of games and I think we have enough energy to get by.
Does Dovin Baan stand a chance in this deck? It's a card that I am curious about after rotation. It seems like control could potentially get a lot better, and for all the hate that Dovin gets, I still think he's pretty good.
I think its hard to discuss rotation until we have the full picture, the full spoiler. Im juust hoping for a wbite removal spell. With my current deck i have gone to stasis snare. It feels like tge right choice until rotation ans allows for more cycling end of turn
Over the last few days I've had about five consecutive 1-3 or 0-3 drops from competitive leagues. I've been matched up with mono-red a crazy high percentage of the time. I may need to go with the Caracal playset or just wait for rotation to keep running this deck.
How often do you side out Censors? I always seem to get rid of them in most matchups where I have to put in more than 3 cards from the sideboard. For example versus Mardu, I need both some Negates and some creatures (2 Torrential Gearhulk and Linvala, the Preserver) and there is no clear cut from the deck. After removing 1-2 Hieroglyphic Illumination and an Approach of the Second Sun, I start shaving Censors. I don't know if it's correct.
Also vs Energy they seem to be decent vs turn three Rogue Refiner or Whirler Virtuoso but I really need the other spells in my deck more (there aren't any bad cards in the main deck vs energy but you can't hope to resolve your Fumigates and Approaches with their Negates flying around so you need your own counters to have a chance).
Against most aggro decks, I cut them. Most of their dudes are small enough that they lose a lot of power very quickly. I feel our main board is pretty strong against Temur so I cut 2 Censor and 2 Blessed to make room.
Jacobk - my local meta is mostly aggro, red or black, so I run 2 Authority of the Consuls in place of the commonly run Unsummon. They really seem to help game 1. Even against other decks, the extra life is nice. Combine that with a Gideon on board, it really slows them down. Often times, game 1 just comes down to both of us waiting on me to cast Approach the second time so we can go to game 2.
How often do you side out Censors? I always seem to get rid of them in most matchups where I have to put in more than 3 cards from the sideboard. For example versus Mardu, I need both some Negates and some creatures (2 Torrential Gearhulk and Linvala, the Preserver) and there is no clear cut from the deck. After removing 1-2 Hieroglyphic Illumination and an Approach of the Second Sun, I start shaving Censors. I don't know if it's correct.
Also vs Energy they seem to be decent vs turn three Rogue Refiner or Whirler Virtuoso but I really need the other spells in my deck more (there aren't any bad cards in the main deck vs energy but you can't hope to resolve your Fumigates and Approaches with their Negates flying around so you need your own counters to have a chance).
I almost never remove Censors. They're very good against aggro decks, especially when you're on the play, and even on the worst case scenario they get your Approach 1 turn earlier (Play Approach - Draw a card next turn - cycle 1 - Use supreme will or Ipnu Rivulet - Draw Approach again).
Only scenario where I tend to remove them are against Control, and even then I usually leave at least 2 for the Cycling (card draw that can't be countered).
It also allows some mindgames, like cycling a Censor on a specific turn, inducing your opponent to commit to an on-curve play, only to punish him with another Censor. I've won a few games ut of this.
How often do you side out Censors? I always seem to get rid of them in most matchups where I have to put in more than 3 cards from the sideboard. For example versus Mardu, I need both some Negates and some creatures (2 Torrential Gearhulk and Linvala, the Preserver) and there is no clear cut from the deck. After removing 1-2 Hieroglyphic Illumination and an Approach of the Second Sun, I start shaving Censors. I don't know if it's correct.
Also vs Energy they seem to be decent vs turn three Rogue Refiner or Whirler Virtuoso but I really need the other spells in my deck more (there aren't any bad cards in the main deck vs energy but you can't hope to resolve your Fumigates and Approaches with their Negates flying around so you need your own counters to have a chance).
I almost never remove Censors. They're very good against aggro decks, especially when you're on the play, and even on the worst case scenario they get your Approach 1 turn earlier (Play Approach - Draw a card next turn - cycle 1 - Use supreme will or Ipnu Rivulet - Draw Approach again).
Only scenario where I tend to remove them are against Control, and even then I usually leave at least 2 for the Cycling (card draw that can't be countered).
It also allows some mindgames, like cycling a Censor on a specific turn, inducing your opponent to commit to an on-curve play, only to punish him with another Censor. I've won a few games ut of this.
I almost always cut some or all the Censors on the Draw against creature decks and leave a max of two in on the play. I leave in almost all of the removal spells (4 Blessed Alliance, 4 Immolating Glare, 4 Cast Out). The only way to lose those matchups, imo, is to get run over. It happens much more frequently when you have dead Censors that you have to take time cycling.
I'm much more likely to leave them in against Control. You just have so many bad cards in control matchups that Censor is often "good enough" to stay in over Glares, Blessed Alliance, etc.
I feel like right now we are not playing the most optimized version of this deck that we'll see in standard. I think we're getting by based on the fact that individual cards we play are very powerful and we have decent card selection that lets us get to those powerful cards. I don't really feel like I'm playing a smooth, streamlined deck. The big problem I see is what I call faux optionality.
Optionality is the fancy word for having options. One of the perks of playing at instant speed is that you can wait until the last possible second before you commit to a course of action. You can decide whether you want to play a removal spell, a counter spell or a draw spell after your opponent commits to their big move for the turn. Ideally you make sure that your opponent's decision is always wrong.
The problem is that we can't always do that. We have this mix of true instant speed spells, sorcery speed spells, and restricted instant speed spells. For example, if your opponent attacks on turn two, you have to either kill the creature during the attack or give up on the option of killing it altogether. You can't wait to see what they cast and then kill the creature.
We also get kind of locked into plays. Like how Glimmer is much better than most things we can do on turn four, so we try to cast it unless we're really desperate for something else. Or how Fumigate is usually better than everything else on turn five, and if we wait to see if a counterspell is more important then we miss out on the chance to sweep the board.
I think the post-Ixalan version of this deck will come together a lot better. I won't go into the new cards since it's forbidden, but I think even just switching to Aether Meltdown over Blessed Alliance (with the power level of aggro falling so meltdown is good enough) will be good for smoothing out the deck. We also look to have some actual four mana options over Glimmer, and a few other things that will help us out. Even though my recent results with the deck haven't been great I think the future is bright.
I mean old school UW control decks really had no good turn 4 play besides Wrath of God. That didn't mean the deck was bad, it just meant that the deck was designed to survive until turn 4 to turn the corner. I don't think the issue is having no other good options (cast out is a 4 mana spell too that does a lot), but rather GoG really is that damn good.
As for fake options? Well that's not an issue with the deck itself. Take UB for instance, they have the same issue with whether to cast a grasp of darkness on a two drop or hold mana to censor something potentially worse. That's a matter of learning matchups and knowing whether its okay to let the longtusk cub live in a given situation. It makes control decks often tougher to play, but its been like that for virtually all of the New Era of R&D with answers being more linear.
Well Settle the Wreckage will be a nice instant speed turn 4 board wipe (with Exile!), but it's gonna be a matter of making your opponent Ramp having an impact or not, I guess.
I feel like right now we are not playing the most optimized version of this deck that we'll see in standard. I think we're getting by based on the fact that individual cards we play are very powerful and we have decent card selection that lets us get to those powerful cards. I don't really feel like I'm playing a smooth, streamlined deck. The big problem I see is what I call faux optionality.
Optionality is the fancy word for having options. One of the perks of playing at instant speed is that you can wait until the last possible second before you commit to a course of action. You can decide whether you want to play a removal spell, a counter spell or a draw spell after your opponent commits to their big move for the turn. Ideally you make sure that your opponent's decision is always wrong.
The problem is that we can't always do that. We have this mix of true instant speed spells, sorcery speed spells, and restricted instant speed spells. For example, if your opponent attacks on turn two, you have to either kill the creature during the attack or give up on the option of killing it altogether. You can't wait to see what they cast and then kill the creature.
We also get kind of locked into plays. Like how Glimmer is much better than most things we can do on turn four, so we try to cast it unless we're really desperate for something else. Or how Fumigate is usually better than everything else on turn five, and if we wait to see if a counterspell is more important then we miss out on the chance to sweep the board.
I think the post-Ixalan version of this deck will come together a lot better. I won't go into the new cards since it's forbidden, but I think even just switching to Aether Meltdown over Blessed Alliance (with the power level of aggro falling so meltdown is good enough) will be good for smoothing out the deck. We also look to have some actual four mana options over Glimmer, and a few other things that will help us out. Even though my recent results with the deck haven't been great I think the future is bright.
Aether Meltdown is good, I like Ipnu Rivulet + Unquenchable Thirst version too.
But lets see how it goes, special against control dekcs
MtgBrewerSpark playing U\W Approach. Pretty interesting, he running 4 Disallow and 2 Declaration in Stone main. Not really a fan of the sorcery speed removals but the disallow seem very sweet.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern
Currently Playing UW UW Control/Miracles R Skred Red
The only way they can deal with Gideon is via Cast Out. If you just sit there with your own Cast Out ready then they have an extremely hard time winning. Gideon also provides a convenient clock while that is going on.
Corey also showed a lack of experience sideboarding in that matchup when he pulled all the fumigates, in my opinion. You need to keep in at least two sweepers in any matchup where Sphinx of the Final Word is a possibility. Most control decks sideboard into enough threats that the fumigates are needed anyway to deal with their Whirler Virtuoso or Regal Caracal or Gifted Aetherborn onslaught anyway. The Blessed Alliance is the easy cut in control mirrors.
I had another 5-0 run today. The matchup RNG was definitely friendly, as things went:
Ramunap Red (2-1): not a friendly matchup, but his hand game one was terrible. No one drop, and his turn two play was Incendiary Flow. I think they are moving away from the lists that destroy us and going in a more big red kind of direction. He gets me in game two but game three his start is again slow and I'm able to ride Censor into Glimmer into Fumigate into Gideon to lock things up.
Zombies (2-0): Too many sweepers.
WG Ramp (2-0): Game one in this matchup is kind of funny. Their only way of interacting with you is by attacking your lands. Meanwhile you're avoiding blessed alliance every time a World Breaker attacks. Opponent has a nice play where he casts Immolating Glare on his own World Breaker so he can rebuy it, but I cast the approach before he even started world breaking and I get back to seven lands before he can finish me off. Gideon does a nice job of keeping the world breaker attacks in check. Game two I just have too much permission. Summary Dismissal into Gearhulk on Summary Dismissal feels good.
UB Control (2-1): He gets me game one. Just exhausts my ability to cast approaches and finishes the game with a scarab god push. Very well played by my opponent. Games two and three I have access to gearhulks and hard counters and I'm able to get home with approach. Westvale Abbey was a quiet mvp in putting pressure on the opponent to create opportunities to approach.
Zombies (2-1): Game one he buries me under zombies before I can do anything. Game two sweepers into approach take it down. Game three has an interesting situation--I fend him off early with blessed alliance on relentless dead (just to buy time), supreme will for the lord, and cast outs for the other relentless dead and the second appearance of the first one. Opponent resolves a Lost Legacy on approach. He's at 20, I'm at 6. His board is a Liliana's Mastery, Dread Wanderer, and Zombie token. Mine is a Gearhulk. Opponent has six lands and one card in hand. I have seven lands (including abbey) and in hand prairie stream, blessed alliance, supreme will, gideon.
After the lost legacy:
- First turn I draw fumigate, play gideon, plus on the token, attack him to 15.
- He attacks with the dread wanderer, I blessed alliance two modes, he plays liliana's mastery
- I draw Descend Upon the Sinful (instants only in gy); play fumigate, 0 and attack with Gideon (life total now 14-11 in my favor; I have delirium but he has scavenger grounds)
- Opponent draws and plays liliana's mastery (tapping all but two lands)
- I draw land, play Descend Upon the Sinful, attack with Gideon
- Opponent draws Dread Wanderer and concedes.
This is why I like Gideon and don't like Regal Caracal as an alternate wincon. We don't run that much targeted removal but we sure have a ton of sweepers.
Modern
Currently Playing
UW UW Control/Miracles
R Skred Red
Retired
BU Faeries
RGW Naya Burn
BW B/W Tokens
I think we do benefit from not having a completely standard 75. In my match against UB he discarded Yahenni's Expertise to hand size in post board games. I assume he felt compelled to have it in as a hedge against Regal Caracal.
But the side boards are all over. A lot of that depends on your meta and your play style. I run 2 Invasive Surgery SB because sometimes half the guys at FNM are running Bx with a ton of hand disruption in their sideboard. Works for me but would not recommend it to most players because others cards are better.
Modern
Currently Playing
UW UW Control/Miracles
R Skred Red
Retired
BU Faeries
RGW Naya Burn
BW B/W Tokens
thank you
3x Approach of the Second Sun
Draw
2x Pull from Tomorrow
2x Glimmer of Genius
2x Anticipate
1x Hieroglyphic Illumination
Counter
4x Supreme Will
4x Censor
Removal
4x Blessed Alliance
3x Stasis Snare
3x Cast Out
4x Fumigate
2x Authority of the Consuls
2x Gideon of the Trials
Land
4x Irrigated Farmland
6x Island
7x Plains
4x Port Town
4x Prairie Stream
2x Authority of the Consuls
3x Dispel
2x Descend Upon the Sinful
2x Linvala, the Preserver
3x Negate
2x Sphinx of the Final Word
Here is my current list (yes I know I run a different draw package) and this is my sideboard cheat sheet that has worked well for me so far. If there is a ? next to the card, then it depends on what version of the deck if I will bring it in or not.
Mono Red
+3 Regal Caracal
+2 Authority of the Consuls
+1 Linvala, the Preserver
+1 Descend Upon the Sinful
+2 Negates ?
-------------------------------------
-2 Cast Out
-4 Censor
-1 Gimmer of Genius
-2 Gideon ?
Control
+3 Regal Caracal
+3 Negate
+2 Invasive Surgery ?
+2 Sphinx of the Final Word
--------------------------------------
-4 Blessed Alliance ?
-2 Stasis Snare
-2 Authority of the Consuls ?
-2 Fumigate
Temur Energy
+2 Descend Upon the Sinful
+3 Negate
-------------------------------------
-2 Censor
-1 Fumigate
-2 Blessed Alliance
Bx Constrictor/Zombie
+2 Descend Upon the Sinful
+1 Linvala, the Preserver
+2 Invasive Surgery
------------------------------------
-2 Gideon
-2 Snare
-1 Fumigate
Modern
Currently Playing
UW UW Control/Miracles
R Skred Red
Retired
BU Faeries
RGW Naya Burn
BW B/W Tokens
I went 3-1 today in my LGS's Sunday Showdown. I felt pretty good considering it was my first time to play with the deck. I beat Mono Black RD1, lost to Temur Energy RD2, beat Mono Red RD2, and beat GW Humans RD4. The deck is a blast to play.
My loss to Temur Energy in Roud 2 was interesting. I lost 0-2. Game 1, I was colored screwed. I had 4x Island and 1x Plains, and I died with 2x Stasis Snare and 2x Fumigate stuck in my hand. Game 2, I was just really foolish and got all my important spells countered. He drew 3 of his 4 SB Negates. My opponent hung out with me after the round, and we played some more. I was able to win both practice games.
13x Island
13x Plains
White Cards (18 total)
3x Blessed Alliance
4x Stasis Snare
4x Cast Out
4x Fumigate
3x Approach of the Second Sun
1x Anticipate
4x Censor
4x Supreme Will
3x Hieroglyphic Illumination
4x Glimmer of Genius
3x Unsummon
4x Dispel
4x Essence Scatter
4x Negate
Modern
RUBW Affinity
BGR Midrange
UWR Control
RG Titan Shift
RW Burn
GW Bogles
G Tron
Summary Dismissal and Torrential Gearhulk come in. Blessed Alliance goes out. I will usually swap out two Fumigate for two Descend upon the Sinful.
Then some number of Negate (and Dispel if they have access to blue) for some number of Censor, according to taste. You can go down another Fumigate and one or two Stasis Snare if you want to bump your overall permission package.
Be aware that they will often sideboard into a more beatdown package with Thought-Knot Seer and whatnot, so you don't want to go too crazy preparing for the giant Eldrazi and open yourself up to getting blitzed out. I've also started seeing big Nissa out of them. In general their five mana stuff is where you really want to start keeping up permission.
Also be aware of Warping Wail. You can't always play around it but if they're going out of their way to leave it up and you can beat it then you might as well. OTOH if the game is at all close I'd just assume they don't have it and jam. You're most likely to see Warping Wail out of the mono white deck, sometimes you see it out of mono red, and fairly rare to see it out of ramp (if they want permission they can usually splash blue).
I've changed my main deck to include two Aether Hub instead of two Port Town. The come into play tapped lost me a couple of games and I think we have enough energy to get by.
Also vs Energy they seem to be decent vs turn three Rogue Refiner or Whirler Virtuoso but I really need the other spells in my deck more (there aren't any bad cards in the main deck vs energy but you can't hope to resolve your Fumigates and Approaches with their Negates flying around so you need your own counters to have a chance).
Jacobk - my local meta is mostly aggro, red or black, so I run 2 Authority of the Consuls in place of the commonly run Unsummon. They really seem to help game 1. Even against other decks, the extra life is nice. Combine that with a Gideon on board, it really slows them down. Often times, game 1 just comes down to both of us waiting on me to cast Approach the second time so we can go to game 2.
Modern
Currently Playing
UW UW Control/Miracles
R Skred Red
Retired
BU Faeries
RGW Naya Burn
BW B/W Tokens
I almost never remove Censors. They're very good against aggro decks, especially when you're on the play, and even on the worst case scenario they get your Approach 1 turn earlier (Play Approach - Draw a card next turn - cycle 1 - Use supreme will or Ipnu Rivulet - Draw Approach again).
Only scenario where I tend to remove them are against Control, and even then I usually leave at least 2 for the Cycling (card draw that can't be countered).
It also allows some mindgames, like cycling a Censor on a specific turn, inducing your opponent to commit to an on-curve play, only to punish him with another Censor. I've won a few games ut of this.
I almost always cut some or all the Censors on the Draw against creature decks and leave a max of two in on the play. I leave in almost all of the removal spells (4 Blessed Alliance, 4 Immolating Glare, 4 Cast Out). The only way to lose those matchups, imo, is to get run over. It happens much more frequently when you have dead Censors that you have to take time cycling.
I'm much more likely to leave them in against Control. You just have so many bad cards in control matchups that Censor is often "good enough" to stay in over Glares, Blessed Alliance, etc.
Optionality is the fancy word for having options. One of the perks of playing at instant speed is that you can wait until the last possible second before you commit to a course of action. You can decide whether you want to play a removal spell, a counter spell or a draw spell after your opponent commits to their big move for the turn. Ideally you make sure that your opponent's decision is always wrong.
The problem is that we can't always do that. We have this mix of true instant speed spells, sorcery speed spells, and restricted instant speed spells. For example, if your opponent attacks on turn two, you have to either kill the creature during the attack or give up on the option of killing it altogether. You can't wait to see what they cast and then kill the creature.
We also get kind of locked into plays. Like how Glimmer is much better than most things we can do on turn four, so we try to cast it unless we're really desperate for something else. Or how Fumigate is usually better than everything else on turn five, and if we wait to see if a counterspell is more important then we miss out on the chance to sweep the board.
I think the post-Ixalan version of this deck will come together a lot better. I won't go into the new cards since it's forbidden, but I think even just switching to Aether Meltdown over Blessed Alliance (with the power level of aggro falling so meltdown is good enough) will be good for smoothing out the deck. We also look to have some actual four mana options over Glimmer, and a few other things that will help us out. Even though my recent results with the deck haven't been great I think the future is bright.
As for fake options? Well that's not an issue with the deck itself. Take UB for instance, they have the same issue with whether to cast a grasp of darkness on a two drop or hold mana to censor something potentially worse. That's a matter of learning matchups and knowing whether its okay to let the longtusk cub live in a given situation. It makes control decks often tougher to play, but its been like that for virtually all of the New Era of R&D with answers being more linear.
Aether Meltdown is good, I like Ipnu Rivulet + Unquenchable Thirst version too.
But lets see how it goes, special against control dekcs
Modern
Currently Playing
UW UW Control/Miracles
R Skred Red
Retired
BU Faeries
RGW Naya Burn
BW B/W Tokens
That bounce scry 2 looks neat