The spell pierce is very timely with the super fast deck.
They explode and one spell pierce rocks control. The lists that run 2 spell pierce are correct if there's a control presence in LGS.
Also Blossom hexproof kills it too.
I guess we need a turn one answer like fatal push or magma spray for the initial attackers.
Dude, relax! What initial attackers? If you need to deal 2 damage then just run slash of talons main deck.
This deck is meant to deal with creatures by killing them en mass using spells like Settle the wreckage or Fumigate. The first couple of turns the deck holds on by using counterspells like Essence Scatter, Disallow or Supreme Will.
If you want to kill creatures one for one then you can run 1 casting cost Slash of Talons, 2 casting cost Baffling End or 3 casting cost Farm.
You have to choose which spells you want to run depending on your local metagame, any of these options are good. You can also run more creatures like I used to run in my previous version of this deck and I had 4 sunscourge champion main deck and that way you can actually gain life and have a blocker down to fight the opp's creatures.
You DO NOT NEED to run a 3rd color like red for Magma Spray or black for Fatal Push, that will not make your deck better, it will make the mana worse and overall your deck will lose more games than if you just run answers to creatures using white which has an amazing array of cards available now.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"May he who is without mana cast the first spell!"
Check out my Youtube channel where I upload MTG content videos twice a week!
I guess we need a turn one answer like fatal push or magma spray for the initial attackers.
You DO NOT NEED to run a 3rd color like red for Magma Spray or black for Fatal Push, that will not make your deck better, it will make the mana worse and overall your deck will lose more games than if you just run answers to creatures using white which has an amazing array of cards available now.
This is total nonsense. Have you played a three color Approach? If you had you would know that a 3rd color is easy to add and gives extra options. The deck is NOT worse. Where do you get this from?
I guess we need a turn one answer like fatal push or magma spray for the initial attackers.
You DO NOT NEED to run a 3rd color like red for Magma Spray or black for Fatal Push, that will not make your deck better, it will make the mana worse and overall your deck will lose more games than if you just run answers to creatures using white which has an amazing array of cards available now.
This is total nonsense. Have you played a three color Approach? If you had you would know that a 3rd color is easy to add and gives extra options. The deck is NOT worse. Where do you get this from?
Did you actually read what I said in the first sentence, you should because you quoted it.
Running a third color just to add a one-mana removal spell in that color is total nonsense. Such as splashing red just for magma spray or shock, or splashing black just for fatal push or another removal spell.
If you want to splash a third color for a finisher type card such as The Scarab God (splash black) or The Locust God (splash red) then maybe it is doable, but not for 1 or 2 mana spells.
Also any deck that is running 3 colors instead of 2 colors is inherently more prone to mana issues and a control deck cannot afford to miss a land drop or have the wrong mana in the first 4-5 turns when it needs to stabilize the board with a wrath type effect, therefore it is not advisable to play a 3 color control deck if you can play just a 2 color control deck just fine.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"May he who is without mana cast the first spell!"
Check out my Youtube channel where I upload MTG content videos twice a week!
I guess we need a turn one answer like fatal push or magma spray for the initial attackers.
You DO NOT NEED to run a 3rd color like red for Magma Spray or black for Fatal Push, that will not make your deck better, it will make the mana worse and overall your deck will lose more games than if you just run answers to creatures using white which has an amazing array of cards available now.
This is total nonsense. Have you played a three color Approach? If you had you would know that a 3rd color is easy to add and gives extra options. The deck is NOT worse. Where do you get this from?
Did you actually read what I said in the first sentence, you should because you quoted it.
Running a third color just to add a one-mana removal spell in that color is total nonsense. Such as splashing red just for magma spray or shock, or splashing black just for fatal push or another removal spell.
If you want to splash a third color for a finisher type card such as The Scarab God (splash black) or The Locust God (splash red) then maybe it is doable, but not for 1 or 2 mana spells.
Also any deck that is running 3 colors instead of 2 colors is inherently more prone to mana issues and a control deck cannot afford to miss a land drop or have the wrong mana in the first 4-5 turns when it needs to stabilize the board with a wrath type effect, therefore it is not advisable to play a 3 color control deck if you can play just a 2 color control deck just fine.
That's not entirely true. Fatal push is arguably the best early-game removal spell in standard. Moreover adding black does give you SB options such as Scarab God and exile spells.
Although you are correct fatal push isn't good enough by itself to warrant the splash (which is debatable in itself depending on meta) it's just the icing on the cake.
Mana consistency is less relevant unless you are trying to fit in colorless sources. Three color decks are very much doable. The weakness of occasional color screw shouldn't be enough to deter you.
UW has a lot of answers that will get you outside T5 already, I believe more in Aether Meltdown and Baffling End. A lot of creatures get larger than 2 with anthems, tokens, and lords really quickly these days. having a 2 pt solution to nothing in hand is really feel bad so I'm not high on red at all.
Esper isn't bad and provides win conditions and Fatal Push but is really a play style choice for the 1st reason I stated. While mana is always riskier with 3 colors, I'm finding black might be more helpful to warrant the risk.
Melt and Baffling them works great though. I actually like Melt a LOT better because its better late on almost any target whereas Baffle (and other wee spells) can get stuck in hand. Use the energy to Confiscation Coup is also a nice bonus. BUT if you're splashing for Scarab God, it doesn't hurt to have access to a lot of what black offers and once you're past T4 usually you're just fine with colors... if you can take some lands coming in tapped the rest of the game.
Again, Spell Pierce is your worst enemy for that first sweeper which unfortunately is a MUST have against almost all the new tribes if you haven't picked them apart already.
I guess we need a turn one answer like fatal push or magma spray for the initial attackers.
You DO NOT NEED to run a 3rd color like red for Magma Spray or black for Fatal Push, that will not make your deck better, it will make the mana worse and overall your deck will lose more games than if you just run answers to creatures using white which has an amazing array of cards available now.
xaltair: Thank you for posting this. I am sure there are benefits to three-color Approach decks but I have really struggled to pilot them correctly I guess. Having a land come in tapped at the wrong time (like T4 or T5) has lost me some games. Anyway, last night I decided to go back to UW so your comment is timely from my perspective. I am envious of the three-color sideboard options but, at least for me, UW feels a lot more natural.
UW has a lot of answers that will get you outside T5 already, I believe more in Aether Meltdown and Baffling End. A lot of creatures get larger than 2 with anthems, tokens, and lords really quickly these days. having a 2 pt solution to nothing in hand is really feel bad so I'm not high on red at all.
Esper isn't bad and provides win conditions and Fatal Push but is really a play style choice for the 1st reason I stated. While mana is always riskier with 3 colors, I'm finding black might be more helpful to warrant the risk.
Melt and Baffling them works great though. I actually like Melt a LOT better because its better late on almost any target whereas Baffle (and other wee spells) can get stuck in hand. Use the energy to Confiscation Coup is also a nice bonus. BUT if you're splashing for Scarab God, it doesn't hurt to have access to a lot of what black offers and once you're past T4 usually you're just fine with colors... if you can take some lands coming in tapped the rest of the game.
Again, Spell Pierce is your worst enemy for that first sweeper which unfortunately is a MUST have against almost all the new tribes if you haven't picked them apart already.
I really like Aether Meltdown. At least in my world, I'm seeing more vehicles now and it's nice to be able to Flash in a -4 on them. It brings me joy. For merfolk I'm going to test one or two Thopter Arrest as a less expensive replacement to Cast Out. Often times the critical creature isn't attacking so I can't Farm them.
I guess we need a turn one answer like fatal push or magma spray for the initial attackers.
You DO NOT NEED to run a 3rd color like red for Magma Spray or black for Fatal Push, that will not make your deck better, it will make the mana worse and overall your deck will lose more games than if you just run answers to creatures using white which has an amazing array of cards available now.
This is total nonsense. Have you played a three color Approach? If you had you would know that a 3rd color is easy to add and gives extra options. The deck is NOT worse. Where do you get this from?
Did you actually read what I said in the first sentence, you should because you quoted it.
Running a third color just to add a one-mana removal spell in that color is total nonsense. Such as splashing red just for magma spray or shock, or splashing black just for fatal push or another removal spell.
If you want to splash a third color for a finisher type card such as The Scarab God (splash black) or The Locust God (splash red) then maybe it is doable, but not for 1 or 2 mana spells.
Also any deck that is running 3 colors instead of 2 colors is inherently more prone to mana issues and a control deck cannot afford to miss a land drop or have the wrong mana in the first 4-5 turns when it needs to stabilize the board with a wrath type effect, therefore it is not advisable to play a 3 color control deck if you can play just a 2 color control deck just fine.
Have you ever heard of Esper Dragons? One of the best control decks recently. And there are multiple Approach decks in Esper and Jesaki. You shouldn't be advising people that three color decks are worse. When this is clearly not the case. Just because you can not run a three color control deck successfully against the scrubs at your local LGS does not make the deck bad.
Ixalan's Binding might be a good answer to Merfolk in game 1. Nail the lord or Tyrant and stop shenanigans. They have each hate in the board so another solution might be needed.
I guess we need a turn one answer like fatal push or magma spray for the initial attackers.
You DO NOT NEED to run a 3rd color like red for Magma Spray or black for Fatal Push, that will not make your deck better, it will make the mana worse and overall your deck will lose more games than if you just run answers to creatures using white which has an amazing array of cards available now.
This is total nonsense. Have you played a three color Approach? If you had you would know that a 3rd color is easy to add and gives extra options. The deck is NOT worse. Where do you get this from?
Did you actually read what I said in the first sentence, you should because you quoted it.
Running a third color just to add a one-mana removal spell in that color is total nonsense. Such as splashing red just for magma spray or shock, or splashing black just for fatal push or another removal spell.
If you want to splash a third color for a finisher type card such as The Scarab God (splash black) or The Locust God (splash red) then maybe it is doable, but not for 1 or 2 mana spells.
Also any deck that is running 3 colors instead of 2 colors is inherently more prone to mana issues and a control deck cannot afford to miss a land drop or have the wrong mana in the first 4-5 turns when it needs to stabilize the board with a wrath type effect, therefore it is not advisable to play a 3 color control deck if you can play just a 2 color control deck just fine.
Have you ever heard of Esper Dragons? One of the best control decks recently. And there are multiple Approach decks in Esper and Jesaki. You shouldn't be advising people that three color decks are worse. When this is clearly not the case. Just because you can not run a three color control deck successfully against the scrubs at your local LGS does not make the deck bad.
Esper dragons is a different deck from a different era, that comparison isn't valid. As for splashing a third color I am solidly against it. I was playing Jeskai before UW and I found that the added power of Magma Spray, Harnessed Lightning, and The Locust God just didn't make up for the inconsistencies that I had with the mana. The fact that the only enemy color lands in standard right now are the fast lands is just really rough. Approach is a deck that really wants it's 5th, 6th, and 7th lands to be coming into play untapped and the fast lands make that difficult some times. While Esper does look much better than Jeskai it still doesn't change the fact that you'll need to run more tap lands to accommodate that third color.
Unfortunately every try hard from Sacramento to Shanghai preaches from the top of their 27 lands + Mana Reflection that Tooth and Nail and Time Stretch are fine to play in the same turn but Armageddon is unfair.
You DO NOT NEED to run a 3rd color like red for Magma Spray or black for Fatal Push, that will not make your deck better, it will make the mana worse and overall your deck will lose more games than if you just run answers to creatures using white which has an amazing array of cards available now.
This is total nonsense. Have you played a three color Approach? If you had you would know that a 3rd color is easy to add and gives extra options. The deck is NOT worse. Where do you get this from?
Did you actually read what I said in the first sentence, you should because you quoted it.
Running a third color just to add a one-mana removal spell in that color is total nonsense. Such as splashing red just for magma spray or shock, or splashing black just for fatal push or another removal spell.
If you want to splash a third color for a finisher type card such as The Scarab God (splash black) or The Locust God (splash red) then maybe it is doable, but not for 1 or 2 mana spells.
Also any deck that is running 3 colors instead of 2 colors is inherently more prone to mana issues and a control deck cannot afford to miss a land drop or have the wrong mana in the first 4-5 turns when it needs to stabilize the board with a wrath type effect, therefore it is not advisable to play a 3 color control deck if you can play just a 2 color control deck just fine.
Have you ever heard of Esper Dragons? One of the best control decks recently. And there are multiple Approach decks in Esper and Jesaki. You shouldn't be advising people that three color decks are worse. When this is clearly not the case. Just because you can not run a three color control deck successfully against the scrubs at your local LGS does not make the deck bad.
Esper dragons is a different deck from a different era, that comparison isn't valid. As for splashing a third color I am solidly against it. I was playing Jeskai before UW and I found that the added power of Magma Spray, Harnessed Lightning, and The Locust God just didn't make up for the inconsistencies that I had with the mana. The fact that the only enemy color lands in standard right now are the fast lands is just really rough. Approach is a deck that really wants it's 5th, 6th, and 7th lands to be coming into play untapped and the fast lands make that difficult some times. While Esper does look much better than Jeskai it still doesn't change the fact that you'll need to run more tap lands to accommodate that third color.
I agree that the lands we have access to are sub-par to be forcing the 3rd color. Also, this is not a creature deck, it is a U/W control combo deck where you have to survive until you get 7 mana and cast your spell twice. If you don't run approach and you want to win with creatures then it's fine to try to play 3 colors since you probably will have blockers out so you don't need to counter early threats or wipe the board clean turn 5 with Fumigate or even turn 6 at the latest.
However this deck doesn't run many creatures because it needs the draw spells to get approach and cast it twice within a couple of turns, also as I mentioned above a TRUE control deck runs board wipes and doesn't run many 1 for 1 answers to threats except for counterspells.
It's clear to see that KPAL doesn't have enough experience playing control decks and just thinks that because something worked before it'll work now, I also believe that he probably plays the net decks online card for card because he wouldn't know how to change anything to improve the deck.
I, on the other hand, have been making decks to respond to the metagame since about 1999-2000 season and I have been playing control decks for most of that time, whether they are U/W or U/B or even U/R sometimes. I can see that we don't need a 3rd color in this version to truly beat the other decks in the metagame because we have enough answers in U/W already.
The way to deal with opposing counterspells such as Spell Pierce is easy, just run your own Spell Pierces in the deck, the opp will have 1 mana open to cast it and you can have 1 mana open when you cast your spell so when he tries to counter it you can counter his. That is my plan from now on and I'll be changing the 2 Negates main deck to 2 Spell pierces instead.
I believe this format right now has the most tools for white and blue to make a great control deck that I've seen in my life, usually we struggle to get 1 playable wrath card and now we have 3 playable ones, the counters in the format are also not bad at all and we actually get a choice of what to run and of course the card draw is fantastic as is the win condition of Approach.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"May he who is without mana cast the first spell!"
Check out my Youtube channel where I upload MTG content videos twice a week!
Oksy guys, I've put in some serious testing with approach and will continue to do so. First thing first, we are arguing about 3 decks, esper, jeskai, and azoriuous currently. i understand your frustrations with the jeskai mana base, and that is understandable. The lands we currently have just aren't equipped to handle it, with most of the lands coming into play tapped. however the mana base for esper is much smoother due to the ally lands and cycle lands working so well together. I've never lost because my mana base was awkward, but in my testing of currently 137 games into the new format, in two games i had an issue where the first 2 lands came into play tapped when i would have preferred the second one didn't but still won. and i've had 4 games where i didn't have double black by turn 5 for vraska's contempt, but still won. Now with these stats i'm not trying to say anything about my win rate with the deck, however what I am say is that I'm currently 137 games into the new format (since the bans on monday) and that my esper mana base has not cost me a game. Could it cost me a game? sure it could. but the frequency of it happening is a very slim margin compared to what i'm getting in return.
on a second note, Nezahal is a house in the midrange and mirror. it's possible he might be better than gearhulk.
Oksy guys, I've put in some serious testing with approach and will continue to do so. First thing first, we are arguing about 3 decks, esper, jeskai, and azoriuous currently. i understand your frustrations with the jeskai mana base, and that is understandable. The lands we currently have just aren't equipped to handle it, with most of the lands coming into play tapped. however the mana base for esper is much smoother due to the ally lands and cycle lands working so well together. I've never lost because my mana base was awkward, but in my testing of currently 137 games into the new format, in two games i had an issue where the first 2 lands came into play tapped when i would have preferred the second one didn't but still won. and i've had 4 games where i didn't have double black by turn 5 for vraska's contempt, but still won. Now with these stats i'm not trying to say anything about my win rate with the deck, however what I am say is that I'm currently 137 games into the new format (since the bans on monday) and that my esper mana base has not cost me a game. Could it cost me a game? sure it could. but the frequency of it happening is a very slim margin compared to what i'm getting in return.
on a second note, Nezahal is a house in the midrange and mirror. it's possible he might be better than gearhulk.
I know about Nezahal, I will be testing one main deck and if that goes well I may up it to 2 main deck as alternate win conditions, I've already ordered my playset from Ebay and waiting for them to come in. If they kill him then you'll draw a card anyway, and if he stays in play more than a couple of turns your opp will freak out and try everything to kill him as if he's a planeswalker, can't wait to play with him.
As for lost legacy, I had it played against me a couple of times and the opp did take Approach and then I beat him down with my creatures so it didn't matter that he took the Approaches, that's why I usually sideboard creatures in for the 2nd and third games.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"May he who is without mana cast the first spell!"
Check out my Youtube channel where I upload MTG content videos twice a week!
Oksy guys, I've put in some serious testing with approach and will continue to do so. First thing first, we are arguing about 3 decks, esper, jeskai, and azoriuous currently. i understand your frustrations with the jeskai mana base, and that is understandable. The lands we currently have just aren't equipped to handle it, with most of the lands coming into play tapped. however the mana base for esper is much smoother due to the ally lands and cycle lands working so well together. I've never lost because my mana base was awkward, but in my testing of currently 137 games into the new format, in two games i had an issue where the first 2 lands came into play tapped when i would have preferred the second one didn't but still won. and i've had 4 games where i didn't have double black by turn 5 for vraska's contempt, but still won. Now with these stats i'm not trying to say anything about my win rate with the deck, however what I am say is that I'm currently 137 games into the new format (since the bans on monday) and that my esper mana base has not cost me a game. Could it cost me a game? sure it could. but the frequency of it happening is a very slim margin compared to what i'm getting in return.
on a second note, Nezahal is a house in the midrange and mirror. it's possible he might be better than gearhulk.
when you play this deck you're rarely ever going to have fatal push on one, you're usually in the market in order to be casting it on turns 2 and 3. the ideal turn one play is cycle land/basic/evolving wilds (oh, also theres a bunch of ways to build this manabase, so far i'm preferring the 5 basic build) white and blue are the easiest colors to have so far which is great for cast out and settle. varaska's attempt can be a little tricky with the double black cost, however you really want to have the mana for it on turn 5 which gives you an extra turn. turn 5 due to the best threats it takes out is bringer, scarab, planeswalkers. which cast out also does, but i prefer the permanency of it as well as the life gain
currently i'm splashing black for vraska's contempt, moment of craving, and fatal push. i do have the scarab god in the board, but nezahal is blowing me away in testing, while moment of craving has made it's way into the main as a 1 to 2 of, however with the amount of merfolk and red i expect for the local tournament series, i'm playing a full 4 of it in the board. i'll post a more solid list later, however i'm about to have another test session and my labtop is going to die, until then have fun casting approach!!!!
If you push inside T4 most of the time you don't need WW for a sweep. Not to mention right now vs... well everyone but vampires, you'll be looking out to have the 2 extra mana to go over pierce.
I think it's natural for this thread to encompass jess/esper/UW as the ban and new set roll through.
I don't have near the reps Kangha does but I'm feeling better with Esper games than UW so far.
Meltdown kinda sucks vs Merfolk as they just tap to token/draw/unblockable while they sit there. G2 they get ench hate out of the board. I really think the streamlined (and good players) on Merfolk are going to be the challenge. Counter or bounce, high draw triggers, and board saturation are quite the sweet spot.
definitely not trying to shut anyone down with my original post as well guys, just trying to state what greyimp stated better is that everyone should be able to discuss all the variants! The first major tournament of the year for me is a 2k next saturday, followed by a modern 2k the next day (the sunday event is modern) the information available to us will be 1 classic, 1 team tournament, and mtgo decklists released throughout the week. I'm going to be trying my hardest to craft the best deck for the field and sharing my information with you. i'm not currently scared of merfolk, however i want to get more testing done against gift decks because i believe them to be public enemy number one. my dream however would be to face grixis midrange energy every round! or some makeshift temur decks
Have to say, that my experience backs up most of what Xaltair says about Jeskai. After playing straight U/W for a couple of months, I played it for about 5 weeks and the first few went fine with lots and lots of wins -- but over time the wheels came off. In my local meta, you really do need some early interaction though (and I'm not a huge fan of Meltdown and Farm is little better) so I went Esper. So far it's been okay, but not amazing. We'll see what happens in the mew meta.
I have to say I disagree that running our own Spell Pierce is an easy answer to our oppo's running it in something like UG merfolk. It may be the best answer available, but against that deck you often HAVE to Settle on T4 or lose. It's also not uncommon to fail to play a land on each of your first 5 turns. I won't lie, watching the MOL 5-0 lists for the first few days of the new season this week was seriously discomfiting. It was all UG all the time and I was very worried that I was going to have to go back to Red and try to make the stupid cycling RR1 pyroclasm work. Over the last few days though, the Grixis control decks have been beating them senseless as have the GPG decks. Thank goodness. Guess we'll just have to keep watching to see how things evolve.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Some people like to win MtG matches in the Red Zone. I prefer to win the way God intended: on the stack.
They explode and one spell pierce rocks control. The lists that run 2 spell pierce are correct if there's a control presence in LGS.
Also Blossom hexproof kills it too.
Dude, relax! What initial attackers? If you need to deal 2 damage then just run slash of talons main deck.
This deck is meant to deal with creatures by killing them en mass using spells like Settle the wreckage or Fumigate. The first couple of turns the deck holds on by using counterspells like Essence Scatter, Disallow or Supreme Will.
If you want to kill creatures one for one then you can run 1 casting cost Slash of Talons, 2 casting cost Baffling End or 3 casting cost Farm.
You have to choose which spells you want to run depending on your local metagame, any of these options are good. You can also run more creatures like I used to run in my previous version of this deck and I had 4 sunscourge champion main deck and that way you can actually gain life and have a blocker down to fight the opp's creatures.
You DO NOT NEED to run a 3rd color like red for Magma Spray or black for Fatal Push, that will not make your deck better, it will make the mana worse and overall your deck will lose more games than if you just run answers to creatures using white which has an amazing array of cards available now.
Check out my Youtube channel where I upload MTG content videos twice a week!
Mtg Lifestyle
C Long Live Eldrazi C
Did you actually read what I said in the first sentence, you should because you quoted it.
Running a third color just to add a one-mana removal spell in that color is total nonsense. Such as splashing red just for magma spray or shock, or splashing black just for fatal push or another removal spell.
If you want to splash a third color for a finisher type card such as The Scarab God (splash black) or The Locust God (splash red) then maybe it is doable, but not for 1 or 2 mana spells.
Also any deck that is running 3 colors instead of 2 colors is inherently more prone to mana issues and a control deck cannot afford to miss a land drop or have the wrong mana in the first 4-5 turns when it needs to stabilize the board with a wrath type effect, therefore it is not advisable to play a 3 color control deck if you can play just a 2 color control deck just fine.
Check out my Youtube channel where I upload MTG content videos twice a week!
Mtg Lifestyle
That's not entirely true. Fatal push is arguably the best early-game removal spell in standard. Moreover adding black does give you SB options such as Scarab God and exile spells.
Although you are correct fatal push isn't good enough by itself to warrant the splash (which is debatable in itself depending on meta) it's just the icing on the cake.
Mana consistency is less relevant unless you are trying to fit in colorless sources. Three color decks are very much doable. The weakness of occasional color screw shouldn't be enough to deter you.
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
Esper isn't bad and provides win conditions and Fatal Push but is really a play style choice for the 1st reason I stated. While mana is always riskier with 3 colors, I'm finding black might be more helpful to warrant the risk.
Melt and Baffling them works great though. I actually like Melt a LOT better because its better late on almost any target whereas Baffle (and other wee spells) can get stuck in hand. Use the energy to Confiscation Coup is also a nice bonus. BUT if you're splashing for Scarab God, it doesn't hurt to have access to a lot of what black offers and once you're past T4 usually you're just fine with colors... if you can take some lands coming in tapped the rest of the game.
Again, Spell Pierce is your worst enemy for that first sweeper which unfortunately is a MUST have against almost all the new tribes if you haven't picked them apart already.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=11439737#post11439737
Reality is only what man allows it to be. Few shape it so that many may accept it.
xaltair: Thank you for posting this. I am sure there are benefits to three-color Approach decks but I have really struggled to pilot them correctly I guess. Having a land come in tapped at the wrong time (like T4 or T5) has lost me some games. Anyway, last night I decided to go back to UW so your comment is timely from my perspective. I am envious of the three-color sideboard options but, at least for me, UW feels a lot more natural.
I really like Aether Meltdown. At least in my world, I'm seeing more vehicles now and it's nice to be able to Flash in a -4 on them. It brings me joy. For merfolk I'm going to test one or two Thopter Arrest as a less expensive replacement to Cast Out. Often times the critical creature isn't attacking so I can't Farm them.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=11439737#post11439737
Reality is only what man allows it to be. Few shape it so that many may accept it.
Esper dragons is a different deck from a different era, that comparison isn't valid. As for splashing a third color I am solidly against it. I was playing Jeskai before UW and I found that the added power of Magma Spray, Harnessed Lightning, and The Locust God just didn't make up for the inconsistencies that I had with the mana. The fact that the only enemy color lands in standard right now are the fast lands is just really rough. Approach is a deck that really wants it's 5th, 6th, and 7th lands to be coming into play untapped and the fast lands make that difficult some times. While Esper does look much better than Jeskai it still doesn't change the fact that you'll need to run more tap lands to accommodate that third color.
I agree that the lands we have access to are sub-par to be forcing the 3rd color. Also, this is not a creature deck, it is a U/W control combo deck where you have to survive until you get 7 mana and cast your spell twice. If you don't run approach and you want to win with creatures then it's fine to try to play 3 colors since you probably will have blockers out so you don't need to counter early threats or wipe the board clean turn 5 with Fumigate or even turn 6 at the latest.
However this deck doesn't run many creatures because it needs the draw spells to get approach and cast it twice within a couple of turns, also as I mentioned above a TRUE control deck runs board wipes and doesn't run many 1 for 1 answers to threats except for counterspells.
It's clear to see that KPAL doesn't have enough experience playing control decks and just thinks that because something worked before it'll work now, I also believe that he probably plays the net decks online card for card because he wouldn't know how to change anything to improve the deck.
I, on the other hand, have been making decks to respond to the metagame since about 1999-2000 season and I have been playing control decks for most of that time, whether they are U/W or U/B or even U/R sometimes. I can see that we don't need a 3rd color in this version to truly beat the other decks in the metagame because we have enough answers in U/W already.
The way to deal with opposing counterspells such as Spell Pierce is easy, just run your own Spell Pierces in the deck, the opp will have 1 mana open to cast it and you can have 1 mana open when you cast your spell so when he tries to counter it you can counter his. That is my plan from now on and I'll be changing the 2 Negates main deck to 2 Spell pierces instead.
I believe this format right now has the most tools for white and blue to make a great control deck that I've seen in my life, usually we struggle to get 1 playable wrath card and now we have 3 playable ones, the counters in the format are also not bad at all and we actually get a choice of what to run and of course the card draw is fantastic as is the win condition of Approach.
Check out my Youtube channel where I upload MTG content videos twice a week!
Mtg Lifestyle
on a second note, Nezahal is a house in the midrange and mirror. it's possible he might be better than gearhulk.
Edit: forgot to qoute the person that stated people brought them in and named gearhulk
I know about Nezahal, I will be testing one main deck and if that goes well I may up it to 2 main deck as alternate win conditions, I've already ordered my playset from Ebay and waiting for them to come in. If they kill him then you'll draw a card anyway, and if he stays in play more than a couple of turns your opp will freak out and try everything to kill him as if he's a planeswalker, can't wait to play with him.
As for lost legacy, I had it played against me a couple of times and the opp did take Approach and then I beat him down with my creatures so it didn't matter that he took the Approaches, that's why I usually sideboard creatures in for the 2nd and third games.
Check out my Youtube channel where I upload MTG content videos twice a week!
Mtg Lifestyle
Wow, another great post. Thank you! The clarification on the land draw between the three versions was really helpful. I assume the benefits of Esper you refer to are Fatal Push & The Scarab God? If it isn't too much trouble a decklist would be welcome if your lands deviate substantially from https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/standard-esper-approach-43899#paper.
I need to get my head around whether this is realistic (at least if I'm at the helm):
T1: B
T2: U (untapped)
T4: WW (untapped)
That seems like, well, magic.
currently i'm splashing black for vraska's contempt, moment of craving, and fatal push. i do have the scarab god in the board, but nezahal is blowing me away in testing, while moment of craving has made it's way into the main as a 1 to 2 of, however with the amount of merfolk and red i expect for the local tournament series, i'm playing a full 4 of it in the board. i'll post a more solid list later, however i'm about to have another test session and my labtop is going to die, until then have fun casting approach!!!!
I think it's natural for this thread to encompass jess/esper/UW as the ban and new set roll through.
I don't have near the reps Kangha does but I'm feeling better with Esper games than UW so far.
Meltdown kinda sucks vs Merfolk as they just tap to token/draw/unblockable while they sit there. G2 they get ench hate out of the board. I really think the streamlined (and good players) on Merfolk are going to be the challenge. Counter or bounce, high draw triggers, and board saturation are quite the sweet spot.
Thanks,
Lugger
I have to say I disagree that running our own Spell Pierce is an easy answer to our oppo's running it in something like UG merfolk. It may be the best answer available, but against that deck you often HAVE to Settle on T4 or lose. It's also not uncommon to fail to play a land on each of your first 5 turns. I won't lie, watching the MOL 5-0 lists for the first few days of the new season this week was seriously discomfiting. It was all UG all the time and I was very worried that I was going to have to go back to Red and try to make the stupid cycling RR1 pyroclasm work. Over the last few days though, the Grixis control decks have been beating them senseless as have the GPG decks. Thank goodness. Guess we'll just have to keep watching to see how things evolve.