I have tried Vraska, Relic Seeker in my Esper list, just need to add a few Aether Hubs. She is a solid walker. Usually, she will start a fight when they try to kill her. But she can end games by herself if they can't answer her. But personally, I prefer The Scarab God.
I agree with Kpal, Gideon of the Trials is the best walker we can run right now.
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Modern
Currently Playing UW UW Control/Miracles R Skred Red
I've definitely found that it's valuable to have non-approach haymakers to bait out counterspells. I'm running Jeskai and it seems as though Vraska would fill a similar role to what The Locust God does in my sideboard.
I've definitely found that it's valuable to have non-approach haymakers to bait out counterspells. I'm running Jeskai and it seems as though Vraska would fill a similar role to what The Locust God does in my sideboard.
Vraska is a good walker. And can be potential great in control. But where are you are you going to get B and G in Jeskai?
Yea I was definitely not talking about putting Vraska in any UW or American shells. Just waxing wishful that Jund or something else was viable with control.
Gideon's fine, I'm just not crazy about him. Perhaps it's the shadow of his previous self, perhaps it's just his abilities aren't more integratabtle to UW's current game plans.
Went 4-1 in the Store Championship (which is a great result for me) so thanks again for all the feedback! The two Torrential Gearhulks in the mainboard made an impact. I splashed in just enough black for two The Scarab God in the sideboard and that's a great option to have.
I don't have enough black for Fatal Push. I really don't like what this does to my mana base and I don't have a good way to trigger revolt for Push but I'm clearly missing something because traditional UW seems to be waning. . .
The reason is high efficiency and resilience of Energy and Ramred. The percentage win for control is low because you can easily lose inside t5 if you hiccup. Esper mana base is ok but the slight increase in mana inconsistency T1-T5 is just enough to increase losses.
Game 2/3 when Energy puts in counter magic also decreases your win ratio massively whether UW or Esper.
It's unfortunate but answers don't keep up with cards that give body/resource/card and have to be dealt with and the prevalence of answers that don't really deal with the threats.
I think at the store level if you still have people brewing and having fun control is quite viable but if you're running higher # games vs streamlined Energy and Ramred you'll find the losses stack up... provided they know how to play the decks
Good on ya for 4-1! My LGS standard doesn't even fire so I don't get to play, and that's multiple days a week!
What do you guys think so far of the spolied cards for rivals of Ixalan?
My initial reaction to Admiral's Order was that it will be easier for a Temur player to counter a Settle the Wreckage. Maybe the creatures would still be "attacking" at this point though (not sure). . .
Kinda waiting on the blue Dino. White one is pretty dirty but so expensive, casting it and protecting it feels crazy late though I guess 8 cmc isn't so far from 7 on Approach.
City's blessing appears to be mostly for creature decks or some sort of artifact thing.
What do you guys think so far of the spolied cards for rivals of Ixalan?
My initial reaction to Admiral's Order was that it will be easier for a Temur player to counter a Settle the Wreckage. Maybe the creatures would still be "attacking" at this point though (not sure). . .
Thats what I was thinking because they declare attacks and we stack settle the wreckage and I believe that raid has not be activated a that point.
Kinda waiting on the blue Dino. White one is pretty dirty but so expensive, casting it and protecting it feels crazy late though I guess 8 cmc isn't so far from 7 on Approach.
City's blessing appears to be mostly for creature decks or some sort of artifact thing.
UW waits.
Right now I think Sphinx's Decree and Silent Gravestone might be decent in the sideboard. But the rest looks meh. The counter is practically CMC 3 and we have Disallow which is better. Zetalpa, Primal Dawn is pretty beast but the mana is too expensive. Bishop of Binding is pretty good too but its too weak that it dies to lightning strike magma spray etc. and is goint to be battling with Cast Out, Ixalan Binding, Settle the Wreckage for the 4 mana spot and they are much better than Bishop of Binding.
As for blue cards right now, the 2 cards I want to test out are Induced Amnesia and Timestream Navigator. NAvigator seems fun in a control deck and Induced Amnesia might be good be how can we get in the graveyard?
Silent gravestone seems like a better option than Crook of Condemnation or Sentinel Totem vs Gift. I personally haven't experienced needing those cards, but if Gift is big in your meta then it's a consideration.
I'll have to wait until everything is spoiled before I can give my opinion on what cards can be included from the new set! No discussion of spoiled cards except in New Card Discussion until spoilers are complete. Thanks - hoser2
Nezahal is a control basher, so sure sideboard but not really a win con I think. Rather play the UW guy but even he sucks compared to Scarab God so blah. Control is still relegated.
The only highly efficient removal card is Moment of Craving
The card that I'm most interested in is Slaughter the Strong. It might be too janky vs energy but the prospect of taking out hazoret is appealing.
I'm on Jeskai, so I might play Blood Sun in the board for Ramunap since I generally board out Azcantas anyway against them. Tapping out t3 is rough though so I might only want it in the 'bigger red' decks with Sand Stranglers/etc.
I ve been running your deck from the day i saw your post last last months... (your first page version of approach of the second cat) and im always at the top of the standings here at at local gamestores here in Manila... But.... i adjusted your deck...
-2 pull from tomorrow
+1 search for azcanta
+1 thaumatic compass
Thats why i have 3 main azcanta and 3 main compass.
Thanks for your ideas.
Thanks, this is the latest version of deck which I posted on page 7 but I've posted it below, too.
So, I cut the 2 Kefnets because they did nothing for me at the last tourney so I replaced them with a 4th Sunscourge Champion and 1 Wakening's Sun's Avatar. A lot of people have Negates to try to counter my Fumigates and Settle the Wreckages so a creature board wipe should be good, I didn't get to test it yet since I didn't get to play since last month.
I have also changed the sideboard and put in 2 Sailor of means just to test it out, they are 1/4 so they can block a lot of creatures, they get me 1 extra mana when they come into play and the work well with Bishop of Rebirth since they are 3 to cast.
The Vizier of Deferment is a beast coming out from the sideboard to deal with tokens or remove one of our creatures so we can get the come into play effect again and also acts as a Flash 2/2 blocker that no one expects, it's a greatly underrated card.
The 2 Pull from Tomorow are needed main deck because the Champion of Wits doesn't get you card advantage but just lets you look through more cards and then choose what to discard, so by turn 4-5 I'm almost out of cards and need to cast a pull for tomorrow for 3-4 to refill my hand.
I'm glad you are enjoying playing the deck and it's winning games, I am 100% convinced that Thaumatic Compass simply makes this deck survive more often than it should, and also along with Search for Azcanta they work together as mana ramp, since on turn 6 you can flip search to get 7 lands and at the end of turn flip compass and get 8 lands. I wanted to fit in 3 Thaumatic Compass but I don't know what to take out yet for that.
This is the best U/W control deck that I have ever played or made in my long magic playing history (started back in 1996). The deck is a MASTERPIECE of control/combo. It is a combo deck but it's a ONE card combo, Approach of the second sun and everything else is in the deck to keep you ALIVE long enough to cast this sorcery twice to win the game. After sideboarding and adding in 7-8 creature this deck becomes an aggro/combo deck since I still keep 2 Approaches in the deck.
The reason that this version of the deck works well is because it's running a lot of cheap casting cost cards which are really powerful!!!
At 2 mana cost we are looking at:
4 Essence Scatter
2 Negates
2 Thaumatic Compass
2 Search for Azcanta TEN spells at 2 mana.
So you have a wide variety of choices of something to cast on turn two, or you can stay back and counter something that your opponent does.
At 3 mana casting cost you have:
4 Sunscourge Champion
3 Champion of Wits
2 Supreme Will
2 Disallow
That's ELEVEN spells at 3 mana casting cost.
You can choose to cast one of the creatures and I usualy try to cast the champion of wits first and try to dump other champions in the graveyard, against aggro decks you will want to cast the Sunscourge champion on turn 3 to get a blocker and gain some life. If not you can keep mana back and counter something your opponent will do.
At 4 Casting cost we have:
3 Cast Out
3 Settle the Wreckage
SIX spells at 4 casting cost, out of which 3 can be cycled for just one mana and the other 3 can remove one or more attackers at instant speed.
At 5 casting cost:
3 Fumigate
2 Pull from Tomorrow
I put the pulls here because usually I cast a pull for 3 or sometimes 4 only, I don't need to wait a long time but I want to refill my hand with cards on turn 5 or 6.
There are no 6 casting cost cards.
At 7 casting cost we have 3 Approach of the second sun!
At 8 casting cost we have 1 Wakening Sun's Avatar.
So, the deck runs very low to the ground with a lof of spells at 2 mana or 3 mana casting cost which allows us to cast multiple spells as soon as we reach 5-6 mana available which is really good for a control deck to be able to do.
I can't wait to play this week since I'll finally have time for FNM since 3 weeks ago. I can't wait to test the Wakening Sun's Avatar main deck and also the crazy changes in the sideboard.
@xaltair... what are your in/out in your sideboard againts the ff: (based on your latest version from page 7)
1 uw gpg
2 temur/sultai energy
3 ramunap red
4 mono black aggro
And other aggro midrange and control decks...
This deck lacks card draw. I'm not seeing how the low fast decks are not succeeding against it consistently.
The Bishop and the Sailor in the board are really inefficient options. You want to Eternalize those creatures not bring them back for low value. Regal Caracal or hell even Glint-net Crane would work with your board plan.
Early I can only see relying on Essence Scatter to get you through and fast Strats will hurt you. Land misses and low card selection will give percentage losses inside turn 5 to proper aggro.
Not sure what your meta is but are you testing this against top decks?
Yeah, I've found that against Ramunap and Energy you need to have a combination of 2-mana answers and wrath effects to really win. If you're relying on a fumigate or settle to keep you alive usually those decks can get under that or play around settle. I'm currently using a mix of essence scatter, harnessed lightning (I'm on Jeskai, I think that Aether Meltdownp would be just as effective) and Censor.
Yeah, I've found that against Ramunap and Energy you need to have a combination of 2-mana answers and wrath effects to really win. If you're relying on a fumigate or settle to keep you alive usually those decks can get under that or play around settle. I'm currently using a mix of essence scatter, harnessed lightning (I'm on Jeskai, I think that Aether Meltdownp would be just as effective) and Censor.
Those are solutions I can get behind!
Have you considered River's Rebuke? This card can be an absolute blowout but control needs a handful of cards to maintain supremacy after, not to mention the counter/counter game to get sweepers to stick. I've found Aether Meltdown is a very good solution and the little bit of energy can put you into Confiscation Coup and just use their own cards to kill them. Especially for indestructibles.
Yeah, I've found that against Ramunap and Energy you need to have a combination of 2-mana answers and wrath effects to really win. If you're relying on a fumigate or settle to keep you alive usually those decks can get under that or play around settle. I'm currently using a mix of essence scatter, harnessed lightning (I'm on Jeskai, I think that Aether Meltdownp would be just as effective) and Censor.
In addition to Harnessed Lightning, I also main board 2x Aether Meltdown and 2x Abrade. Post your list
I ve been running your deck from the day i saw your post last last months... (your first page version of approach of the second cat) and im always at the top of the standings here at at local gamestores here in Manila... But.... i adjusted your deck...
-2 pull from tomorrow
+1 search for azcanta
+1 thaumatic compass
Thats why i have 3 main azcanta and 3 main compass.
Thanks for your ideas.
Thanks, this is the latest version of deck which I posted on page 7 but I've posted it below, too.
So, I cut the 2 Kefnets because they did nothing for me at the last tourney so I replaced them with a 4th Sunscourge Champion and 1 Wakening's Sun's Avatar. A lot of people have Negates to try to counter my Fumigates and Settle the Wreckages so a creature board wipe should be good, I didn't get to test it yet since I didn't get to play since last month.
I have also changed the sideboard and put in 2 Sailor of means just to test it out, they are 1/4 so they can block a lot of creatures, they get me 1 extra mana when they come into play and the work well with Bishop of Rebirth since they are 3 to cast.
The Vizier of Deferment is a beast coming out from the sideboard to deal with tokens or remove one of our creatures so we can get the come into play effect again and also acts as a Flash 2/2 blocker that no one expects, it's a greatly underrated card.
The 2 Pull from Tomorow are needed main deck because the Champion of Wits doesn't get you card advantage but just lets you look through more cards and then choose what to discard, so by turn 4-5 I'm almost out of cards and need to cast a pull for tomorrow for 3-4 to refill my hand.
I'm glad you are enjoying playing the deck and it's winning games, I am 100% convinced that Thaumatic Compass simply makes this deck survive more often than it should, and also along with Search for Azcanta they work together as mana ramp, since on turn 6 you can flip search to get 7 lands and at the end of turn flip compass and get 8 lands. I wanted to fit in 3 Thaumatic Compass but I don't know what to take out yet for that.
This is the best U/W control deck that I have ever played or made in my long magic playing history (started back in 1996). The deck is a MASTERPIECE of control/combo. It is a combo deck but it's a ONE card combo, Approach of the second sun and everything else is in the deck to keep you ALIVE long enough to cast this sorcery twice to win the game. After sideboarding and adding in 7-8 creature this deck becomes an aggro/combo deck since I still keep 2 Approaches in the deck.
The reason that this version of the deck works well is because it's running a lot of cheap casting cost cards which are really powerful!!!
At 2 mana cost we are looking at:
4 Essence Scatter
2 Negates
2 Thaumatic Compass
2 Search for Azcanta TEN spells at 2 mana.
So you have a wide variety of choices of something to cast on turn two, or you can stay back and counter something that your opponent does.
At 3 mana casting cost you have:
4 Sunscourge Champion
3 Champion of Wits
2 Supreme Will
2 Disallow
That's ELEVEN spells at 3 mana casting cost.
You can choose to cast one of the creatures and I usualy try to cast the champion of wits first and try to dump other champions in the graveyard, against aggro decks you will want to cast the Sunscourge champion on turn 3 to get a blocker and gain some life. If not you can keep mana back and counter something your opponent will do.
At 4 Casting cost we have:
3 Cast Out
3 Settle the Wreckage
SIX spells at 4 casting cost, out of which 3 can be cycled for just one mana and the other 3 can remove one or more attackers at instant speed.
At 5 casting cost:
3 Fumigate
2 Pull from Tomorrow
I put the pulls here because usually I cast a pull for 3 or sometimes 4 only, I don't need to wait a long time but I want to refill my hand with cards on turn 5 or 6.
There are no 6 casting cost cards.
At 7 casting cost we have 3 Approach of the second sun!
At 8 casting cost we have 1 Wakening Sun's Avatar.
So, the deck runs very low to the ground with a lof of spells at 2 mana or 3 mana casting cost which allows us to cast multiple spells as soon as we reach 5-6 mana available which is really good for a control deck to be able to do.
I can't wait to play this week since I'll finally have time for FNM since 3 weeks ago. I can't wait to test the Wakening Sun's Avatar main deck and also the crazy changes in the sideboard.
@xaltair... what are your in/out in your sideboard againts the ff: (based on your latest version from page 7)
1 uw gpg
2 temur/sultai energy
3 ramunap red
4 mono black aggro
And other aggro midrange and control decks...
Tnx
I have changed the main deck after last week's tourney so it will look a bit different from the one you posted above. I'll post the new decklist including any Rivals of Ixalan cards that I choose to fit in there sometime this week. Both the maindeck and the sideboard will be changed a bit, by a few cards actually.
I believe the meta will change to a lot more aggro decks after Rivals is legal due to all the new fast creatures, and maybe GPG and other control deck will not do so well and we may not see too many of those.
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I agree with Kpal, Gideon of the Trials is the best walker we can run right now.
Modern
Currently Playing
UW UW Control/Miracles
R Skred Red
Retired
BU Faeries
RGW Naya Burn
BW B/W Tokens
C Long Live Eldrazi C
Gideon's fine, I'm just not crazy about him. Perhaps it's the shadow of his previous self, perhaps it's just his abilities aren't more integratabtle to UW's current game plans.
I don't know how much to read into this but for the first time that I can remember UW Approach isn't listed in the mtggoldfish Standard Metagame:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/standard/full#paper. Only four Esper.
I don't have enough black for Fatal Push. I really don't like what this does to my mana base and I don't have a good way to trigger revolt for Push but I'm clearly missing something because traditional UW seems to be waning. . .
Game 2/3 when Energy puts in counter magic also decreases your win ratio massively whether UW or Esper.
It's unfortunate but answers don't keep up with cards that give body/resource/card and have to be dealt with and the prevalence of answers that don't really deal with the threats.
I think at the store level if you still have people brewing and having fun control is quite viable but if you're running higher # games vs streamlined Energy and Ramred you'll find the losses stack up... provided they know how to play the decks
Good on ya for 4-1! My LGS standard doesn't even fire so I don't get to play, and that's multiple days a week!
My initial reaction to Admiral's Order was that it will be easier for a Temur player to counter a Settle the Wreckage. Maybe the creatures would still be "attacking" at this point though (not sure). . .
City's blessing appears to be mostly for creature decks or some sort of artifact thing.
UW waits.
Thats what I was thinking because they declare attacks and we stack settle the wreckage and I believe that raid has not be activated a that point.
Right now I think Sphinx's Decree and Silent Gravestone might be decent in the sideboard. But the rest looks meh. The counter is practically CMC 3 and we have Disallow which is better. Zetalpa, Primal Dawn is pretty beast but the mana is too expensive. Bishop of Binding is pretty good too but its too weak that it dies to lightning strike magma spray etc. and is goint to be battling with Cast Out, Ixalan Binding, Settle the Wreckage for the 4 mana spot and they are much better than Bishop of Binding.
As for blue cards right now, the 2 cards I want to test out are Induced Amnesia and Timestream Navigator. NAvigator seems fun in a control deck and Induced Amnesia might be good be how can we get in the graveyard?
Edit - nm I didn't realize you get nothing off the 3 cmc cast. Darn translation text block
No discussion of spoiled cards except in New Card Discussion until spoilers are complete. Thanks - hoser2
Check out my Youtube channel where I upload MTG content videos twice a week!
Mtg Lifestyle
C Long Live Eldrazi C
The only highly efficient removal card is Moment of Craving
I'm on Jeskai, so I might play Blood Sun in the board for Ramunap since I generally board out Azcantas anyway against them. Tapping out t3 is rough though so I might only want it in the 'bigger red' decks with Sand Stranglers/etc.
@xaltair... what are your in/out in your sideboard againts the ff: (based on your latest version from page 7)
1 uw gpg
2 temur/sultai energy
3 ramunap red
4 mono black aggro
And other aggro midrange and control decks...
Tnx
The Bishop and the Sailor in the board are really inefficient options. You want to Eternalize those creatures not bring them back for low value. Regal Caracal or hell even Glint-net Crane would work with your board plan.
Early I can only see relying on Essence Scatter to get you through and fast Strats will hurt you. Land misses and low card selection will give percentage losses inside turn 5 to proper aggro.
Not sure what your meta is but are you testing this against top decks?
Those are solutions I can get behind!
Have you considered River's Rebuke? This card can be an absolute blowout but control needs a handful of cards to maintain supremacy after, not to mention the counter/counter game to get sweepers to stick. I've found Aether Meltdown is a very good solution and the little bit of energy can put you into Confiscation Coup and just use their own cards to kill them. Especially for indestructibles.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
I have changed the main deck after last week's tourney so it will look a bit different from the one you posted above. I'll post the new decklist including any Rivals of Ixalan cards that I choose to fit in there sometime this week. Both the maindeck and the sideboard will be changed a bit, by a few cards actually.
I believe the meta will change to a lot more aggro decks after Rivals is legal due to all the new fast creatures, and maybe GPG and other control deck will not do so well and we may not see too many of those.
Check out my Youtube channel where I upload MTG content videos twice a week!
Mtg Lifestyle