The Esper Approach list that top 8'ed at the SCG Cincinnati was pretty spicy. 2 counters main and 10 draw spells. I guess it was trying to flip Search as fast as possible. I will have to jam a few games with it online to see, what can I say, I like spicy. And after Domanaria comes out in a few weeks, we get to add Isolated Chapel which will make the mana base pretty smooth.
That one caught my eye as well! I will be interested to hear how your testing goes. Essentially 0 counters because I'm sure Supreme Will is mainly there for impulse mode. Draw, Sweep, Rinse, Repeat. . .
I feel like Esper is really strong, but with Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and Seal Away coming, not sure if it is needed. And those are just the ones that I have noticed, sure there are more.
I've not looked at Dominaria much yet; those cards are fantastic! Baffling End still sees play on the top UW lists from time to time. . . Seal Away looks so much better.
Yea, with 4 mana open, what does the other guy do? Swing with everyone into Settle or just swing with one big dude into Seal Away? This is really the kind of deck I like to play, no matter what you do, I am going to punish you for it. If you just pass the turn, I am going to hit you with a Fumigate or now drop Teferi and still have 2 mana up for counters or Seal.
Seal Away and Settle the wreckage in the same deck is going to be fun. This is going to make the difference between Esper and UW very interesting. Can't wait to see how the meta shapes up.
FYI, wizards spoiled most of the Dominari set (by mistake), so I think we can talk about the new cards now. If not, if a mod will let me know, I will update my post and remove references to them.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern
Currently Playing UW UW Control/Miracles R Skred Red
I made a post about a new card that was spoiled today, but took it down because (1) I think it may have been early by forum rules and (2) the card doesn't do what I thought it did. Nevermind!
Standard Forum Rules and Regulations:
Discussion of spoiled cards must be confined to the Standard New Card Discussion subforum. New sets are okay to discuss in the rest of the Standard forum the moment Wizards has published the entire spoiler. Post-rotation discussion is also not permitted until the new block has been fully spoiled.
@the_codaddy: I played your list at my local FNM today and got first place (4-0). I think it was very good. Played against Ramunap Red, Jeskai Approach, UB midrange and B aggro. As you said, Slash of Talons is the truth. I missed the Censors a little bit though.
@the_codaddy: I played your list at my local FNM today and got first place (4-0). I think it was very good. Played against Ramunap Red, Jeskai Approach, UB midrange and B aggro. As you said, Slash of Talons is the truth. I missed the Censors a little bit though.
Hey, congratulations @Pankary! Glad the list worked well for you!
I've gone back and forth on Opt and Censor, but my feeling after practicing with both is that Opt + Essence Scatter has a slight edge over Censor, particularly in the late game. It does feel good to Censor something early, but the early game things you need to worry about are creatures, which Essence Scatter will take care of (and unconditionally vs. Censor requiring them to be tapped out). Censor just stinks in the late game, where Opt and Essence Scatter are both strictly better (hard countering a creature and letting you dig two deep for an answer (or an Approach)).
I've been tinkering with the list a bit lately online. My main focus has been testing whether we need Disallow (I know, I know, but stay with me here):
The deck's weaknesses are (1) resolved creatures [maybe more accurately, resolved resilient creatures--things that recur or are indestructible] and (2) hitting land drops [again, maybe more accurately, hitting the right land drops]. If the goal is to prevent resolved creatures, then Essence Scatter is strictly better than Disallow because it's 1U instead of 1UU. The deck also really (really) wants WW by turn 4 to either cast or threaten Settle the Wreckage. I run 6 colorless lands in my deck (4 field of ruin, 2 scavenger grounds) which can occasionally result in situations where I'm without double colors on turn 3/4, forcing me to field of ruin to get what I need. That really makes it tough to rely on Disallow in the early game to prevent creatures from resolving because if I don't happen to have two blue sources turn 3, the creature will resolve.
The deck's strength is game 1. We are ridiculously favored game 1 against just about every deck in the meta with the exception of heavy creature-based decks. If we want to make those matchups better G1, having 4x Essence Scatter makes sense. It's the cheapest way to prevent creatures from resolving. So that's what I've been testing, along with bumping up one Slash of Talons and one Farm // Market. There's not a bunch of cards you can cut, so Disallow was the likeliest candidate. I also went up one Glimmer of Genius and one Supreme Will because they can help you race the clock that those creature-based decks put you on (and Supreme Will usually counters something or other).
Losing three hard counters seems like a bad idea on paper because we play a control deck, but we don't get into counter wars in game 1. Other blue-based decks in the meta don't play Negate main deck. UB control usually has 3-4 Disallows (and maybe Supreme Wills) main, and decks like UB midrange, sultai climb, grixis energy, etc., just don't maindeck a ton of answers for Approach. They rely on their sideboard to shore up the matchup. Which is the same thought here--having 3 negates and a Jace's Defeat in the board against decks that you want them.
Through 3 leagues, I'm 10-5, with match losses to mono red x2 (land issues), mono black aggro x2 (this, I think, is the deck's absolute worst matchup), and mono green aggro. I think I mostly lost the mono-green matchup because I hadn't played against the deck before, but seems like a pretty good deck. Out of the sideboard they brought in Nissa, Vital Force (after emblem, which isn't too hard to get, Settle the Wreckage becomes legitimately terrible) and heroic intervention (which makes fumigate terrible). I don't know how mono-G fares against the rest of the meta, but I hope it doesn't do well so people don't play it because it has some great tools against us. I might have turned the corner in G3 if I'd had Gideon (I cut him in the list I was playing), but only maybe...
Mono B aggro is my nemesis deck at the moment. Slash of Talons is great against Siphoner, but only OK against Scrapheap Scrounger and Dread Wanderer, and that deck usually runs some number of Supernatural Stamina. Between those two resilient threats, night market lookout (annoying!), aethersphere harvester, and duress out of the SB (I would have won G3 in one of my matches if they hadn't timely duressed my settle the wreckage), it's a really tough matchup.
I think my next tweaks will test running either 26 lands or a 4th Opt, and potentially adding Crook of Condemnation main.
Sorry for the long post. I'm gearing up for GP Seattle so I'm really focusing on tuning this list!
Codaddy, great post with great points. I have to agree that I too do not care much for Disallow. Censor is also no longer in my list. Instead there are 4x Baffling End and 4x Essence Scatter. The Baffling End, while a soccery, does a lot of work to exile troublesome creatures that you dont want to see coming back. Eg Champion of Wits, Scrapheap Scrounger. My worst matchup is UB Midrange. It makes UW Approach look silly post board.
Codaddy, I think the changes you suggested are good. I will play your list again today at my local store, but have changed the three Disallows and the Spell Swindle for 1 Essence Scatter, 1 Farm, 1 Slash of Talons and 1 Glimmer of Genius. You said you added an extra Supreme Will, but I don't know what I would remove to have space for it.
Do you plan on keeping the Spell Swindle in the future? Personally, I think it might be a little heavy against aggro decks.
And what do you think about Baffling End? I'm not convinced about using it because I don't like it being a sorcery-speed spell.
Thank you in advance for your answers. Playing your list was refreshing for me. I have been playing this deck a long time but struggled with it recently, especially because of all the UB midrange decks that are played in my local meta.
Do you plan on keeping the Spell Swindle in the future? Personally, I think it might be a little heavy against aggro decks.
And what do you think about Baffling End? I'm not convinced about using it because I don't like it being a sorcery-speed spell.
I really like spell swindle against decks that can't interact with it (i.e., non-blue decks), and even like it a little against U decks when I'm on the play and can potentially hit a Glimmer or Gearhulk at their end step. It's gotten me out of a number of jams, and it's house against RG monsters. Against aggro, I'm looking to play my sweepers turns 4/5, so I see Swindle as more of a turn 6/7 (or later) play to get whatever they want to jam after I Settle, and it can really help with the double approach. But your mileage may vary. I did manage to swindle a Galta in a league the other day and double-approached the next turn (turn 6 or 7 I think) and it felt so good. It's the secret sauce and opponents don't really expect to see it, which can give an edge (and they even sometimes forget that Gearhulk can hit it).
I'm not a fan of Baffling end because it's sorcery speed. I think I'll be a much bigger fan of Seal Away when Dominaria hits and will test it as a 4-of to replace the farms and slashes. But others like it (and it shows up in 5-0 lists from time to time), so it clearly can do work, and I think it would help shore up the mono-B matchup that I've had trouble with.
Ran the Disallow-less list through two leagues yesterday and went 4-1 and 3-2. Losses were to mono-R (oh so close matches...MTGO wasn't giving me any of my sweepers which was pretty unusual), Sultai Climb (against an opponent who I've played before and defeated...again, sweepers were not to be found), and UB midrange (a reanimator variant with Liliana, Death's Majesty, multiple Gonti, Lord of Luxurys maindeck, and Walking Ballista).
I made a dumb play mistake in the UB matchup by not exiling a Champion of Wits from his graveyard on my end step with Crook and letting him eternalize. I chalk it up to not having played with Crook before--for some reason I thought I could activate Crook in response to the attempt to eternalize (a la Scarab God/GPG), but that is definitely wrong. That's why you practice.
Overall, I was very pleasantly surprised by the Crook. It's a pretty innocuous 2-drop that is unlikely to draw countermagic, and it does a ton of work in just about every matchup because just about every meta deck uses the yard for something. Most importantly, I didn't miss Disallow.
From memory, the list I'm currently running looks like this:
I didn't really miss the second SFA--there's a lot of card draw/selection with the deck, so I typically find one at some point. It used to be that whoever found SFA and flipped it first was highly favored, but I'm not finding that to be the case lately, especially with the 4 Field of Ruins. Blowing up their Azcanta on their end step usually prompts them to tap 4 lands to activate one last time, which can sometimes open the door to fire off an Approach.
Regarding Spell Swindle, the card just continues to do work, and having that 3-4 (or more) extra mana is really really helpful.
I do think that 3/1 Cast Out/Ixalan's Binding might be correct...that's the mix I played in a far earlier build. I find myself Casting Out main phase about half the time, usually when they resolve a Planeswalker that I wasn't able to counter, and binding would be better in those situations.
Just another data point for the theory that Approach decks are currently well-positioned because they are not expected. This deck has only 2 1/2 maindeck answers to Approach (1 Supreme Will, 1 Commit // Memory, and a Torrential Gearhulk to potentially flash one of those back), and only dedicates a couple SB slots for answers (2x Negate, an additional Commit // Memory, 2 Duress, 1 Doomfall).
Just another data point for the theory that Approach decks are currently well-positioned because they are not expected. This deck has only 2 1/2 maindeck answers to Approach (1 Supreme Will, 1 Commit // Memory, and a Torrential Gearhulk to potentially flash one of those back), and only dedicates a couple SB slots for answers (2x Negate, an additional Commit // Memory, 2 Duress, 1 Doomfall).
Hi codaddy;
You've made some great posts recently, thank you! Here are my thoughts . . . I'll have to say I am not nearly as optimistic as you . . .
I'm not sure how well UW Approach is positioned in this meta. I agree game 1 is often favorable but even that is changing with recent Sultai builds mainboarding 2 Negate and creature builds getting lower to the ground. I agree with Eric from CFB and kpal on this thread that post-board can be a nightmare. UW Approach is barely a part of the mtggoldfish metagame now, if it was in a great place it would be producing better results IMHO. The community will eventually figure out what works. Mono-White Approach wasn't a thing a month or so ago but now it is the best Approach deck in the meta (as defined by % in metagame). . .
I think because that deck has so many removal options. Yes, it is all sorcery speed but it's effective and consistent. And there really isn't a lot of enchantment removal in the game. What little there is will quickly get overloaded with 4 Baffling End, 4 Cast Out, 4Ixalan's Binding, and 2 Thopter Arrest plus 2-3 The Immortal Sun. Ironically, I think Mono-White Approach is the easiest deck in this meta for UW Approach.
I'm also going to GP Seattle so this has been on my mind lately. Reliance on counter-magic, while extremely mana-efficient, is also very narrow. I get that one opportunity, if I don't have the mana or Essence Scatter gets countered I'm out of luck. I have to wait to Settle the Wreckage. If Thopter Arrest gets countered the opportunity is there to follow-up with Cast Out next turn.
UB Control, has some reliance on counter-magic but has the best direct removal in the game with Fatal Push and Vraska's Contempt . Which they can cast again when the Torrential Gearhulks come to the party. . .
UW Approach has Cast Out I guess, but that often gets cycled and while you and pumpmonkey have enjoyed some success with it, I've heard no one say Farm // Market is really a great magic card.
I'm reluctant to make big changes to my deck so close to the GP but I may look at a uW option with minimal counters and heavy enchantment removal.
You've made some great posts recently, thank you! Here are my thoughts . . . I'll have to say I am not nearly as optimistic as you . . .
I'm not sure how well UW Approach is positioned in this meta. I agree game 1 is often favorable but even that is changing with recent Sultai builds mainboarding 2 Negate and creature builds getting lower to the ground. I agree with Eric from CFB and kpal on this thread that post-board can be a nightmare. UW Approach is barely a part of the mtggoldfish metagame now, if it was in a great place it would be producing better results IMHO. The community will eventually figure out what works. Mono-White Approach wasn't a thing a month or so ago but now it is the best Approach deck in the meta (as defined by % in metagame). . .
I think because that deck has so many removal options. Yes, it is all sorcery speed but it's effective and consistent. And there really isn't a lot of enchantment removal in the game. What little there is will quickly get overloaded with 4 Baffling End, 4 Cast Out, 4Ixalan's Binding, and 2 Thopter Arrest plus 2-3 The Immortal Sun. Ironically, I think Mono-White Approach is the easiest deck in this meta for UW Approach.
I'm also going to GP Seattle so this has been on my mind lately. Reliance on counter-magic, while extremely mana-efficient, is also very narrow. I get that one opportunity, if I don't have the mana or Essence Scatter gets countered I'm out of luck. I have to wait to Settle the Wreckage. If Thopter Arrest gets countered the opportunity is there to follow-up with Cast Out next turn.
UB Control, has some reliance on counter-magic but has the best direct removal in the game with Fatal Push and Vraska's Contempt . Which they can cast again when the Torrential Gearhulks come to the party. . .
UW Approach has Cast Out I guess, but that often gets cycled and while you and pumpmonkey have enjoyed some success with it, I've heard no one say Farm // Market is really a great magic card.
I'm reluctant to make big changes to my deck so close to the GP but I may look at a uW option with minimal counters and heavy enchantment removal.
Best wishes for a fun and successful GP!
Hey @Hobbits 73! I completely agree that post-board games are tricky, and they really always have been with the Approach deck. My hypothesis (which can never really be tested) is that the post-board matchups, and articles from EFro and others saying the deck isn't a great option because of the post-board matchups, turn people away from the deck, which leads to fewer people playing the deck, which leads to fewer tournament results primarily due to the small share of the meta. If so many people were turned off of UW Approach that 10 people out of 1500 play the deck at a GP, chances are it's not going to be represented in the Top 8 (or Top 32). If 50% of the players showed up with it, the story would be different.
I think the other flavors of Approach have found a bit of success because they are unexpected and opponents aren't sure how to attack them. I totally agree with you that W Approach (and BW Approach) is a cakewalk for UW Approach. They might sneak in G1, but they can't win 2 or 3 because Negate and Torrential Gearhulk. Forsake the Worldly does a ton of work in that matchup too. Go ahead and Binding my Caracal/Gearhulk...I'll just get rid of Binding on your end step and get a couple extra Cats/Flash back another spell. The Bant version can be tough for me G1 because I lack a ton of countermagic and they can ramp so dang fast, but G2 and G3 are usually favored for us too (if you can manage to counter their Hour of Promises).
The fact is that there's a ton of luck that goes into any tournament, regardless of what deck you play. I fully believe that if I'd faced RG Monsters/Red Aggro for the first 5 matches of my PPTQ, I wouldn't have made Top 8, let alone won. The thing I don't get about EFro's article is that at my PPTQ, my UW Approach was the deck that nobody in the Top 8 wanted to play against. If my deck is so bad post-board, why don't you want to play against it??
I'm curious what your current build looks like. I'm going to keep testing this week to fine tune what I register this weekend. Good luck to you as well!
You've made some great posts recently, thank you! Here are my thoughts . . . I'll have to say I am not nearly as optimistic as you . . .
I'm not sure how well UW Approach is positioned in this meta. I agree game 1 is often favorable but even that is changing with recent Sultai builds mainboarding 2 Negate and creature builds getting lower to the ground. I agree with Eric from CFB and kpal on this thread that post-board can be a nightmare. UW Approach is barely a part of the mtggoldfish metagame now, if it was in a great place it would be producing better results IMHO. The community will eventually figure out what works. Mono-White Approach wasn't a thing a month or so ago but now it is the best Approach deck in the meta (as defined by % in metagame). . .
I think because that deck has so many removal options. Yes, it is all sorcery speed but it's effective and consistent. And there really isn't a lot of enchantment removal in the game. What little there is will quickly get overloaded with 4 Baffling End, 4 Cast Out, 4Ixalan's Binding, and 2 Thopter Arrest plus 2-3 The Immortal Sun. Ironically, I think Mono-White Approach is the easiest deck in this meta for UW Approach.
I'm also going to GP Seattle so this has been on my mind lately. Reliance on counter-magic, while extremely mana-efficient, is also very narrow. I get that one opportunity, if I don't have the mana or Essence Scatter gets countered I'm out of luck. I have to wait to Settle the Wreckage. If Thopter Arrest gets countered the opportunity is there to follow-up with Cast Out next turn.
UB Control, has some reliance on counter-magic but has the best direct removal in the game with Fatal Push and Vraska's Contempt . Which they can cast again when the Torrential Gearhulks come to the party. . .
UW Approach has Cast Out I guess, but that often gets cycled and while you and pumpmonkey have enjoyed some success with it, I've heard no one say Farm // Market is really a great magic card.
I'm reluctant to make big changes to my deck so close to the GP but I may look at a uW option with minimal counters and heavy enchantment removal.
Best wishes for a fun and successful GP!
Hey @Hobbits 73! I completely agree that post-board games are tricky, and they really always have been with the Approach deck. My hypothesis (which can never really be tested) is that the post-board matchups, and articles from EFro and others saying the deck isn't a great option because of the post-board matchups, turn people away from the deck, which leads to fewer people playing the deck, which leads to fewer tournament results primarily due to the small share of the meta. If so many people were turned off of UW Approach that 10 people out of 1500 play the deck at a GP, chances are it's not going to be represented in the Top 8 (or Top 32). If 50% of the players showed up with it, the story would be different.
I think the other flavors of Approach have found a bit of success because they are unexpected and opponents aren't sure how to attack them. I totally agree with you that W Approach (and BW Approach) is a cakewalk for UW Approach. They might sneak in G1, but they can't win 2 or 3 because Negate and Torrential Gearhulk. Forsake the Worldly does a ton of work in that matchup too. Go ahead and Binding my Caracal/Gearhulk...I'll just get rid of Binding on your end step and get a couple extra Cats/Flash back another spell. The Bant version can be tough for me G1 because I lack a ton of countermagic and they can ramp so dang fast, but G2 and G3 are usually favored for us too (if you can manage to counter their Hour of Promises).
The fact is that there's a ton of luck that goes into any tournament, regardless of what deck you play. I fully believe that if I'd faced RG Monsters/Red Aggro for the first 5 matches of my PPTQ, I wouldn't have made Top 8, let alone won. The thing I don't get about EFro's article is that at my PPTQ, my UW Approach was the deck that nobody in the Top 8 wanted to play against. If my deck is so bad post-board, why don't you want to play against it??
I'm curious what your current build looks like. I'm going to keep testing this week to fine tune what I register this weekend. Good luck to you as well!
Wow...really interesting lists. I played the UW Drake deck for a while and found it to be really resilient against a lot of decks. This cycling Approach looks pretty sweet. I'd love to find out from the deckbuilders what their sideboard strategies were--with only creatures in the sideboard, it almost seems like they would just board the same for every matchup (remove X cards for 15 creatures and become a beatdown aggro deck).
Kinda want to build this on MTGO and take it out for a spin...
the U/B matchup doesn't look THAT bad. you can't possibly lose game 1 with them having more dead cards than you, and you can deal with Search(unflipped) and they can't
after boarding they're still stuck with 5+ removal spells at the minimum; every UBdeck is running 15 removal and 5 or more in the board
any combination of Gideon, Metallurgic SummoningsBaral, Chief of ComplianceNezahal, Primal Tide
lots of vanilla 'slip under the shields' card advantage engines, like Azor's GatewayTreasure MapSunset Pyramid could help ensure the # of duress/negates won't ultimately matter
the U/B matchup doesn't look THAT bad. you can't possibly lose game 1 with them having more dead cards than you, and you can deal with Search(unflipped) and they can't
after boarding they're still stuck with 5+ removal spells at the minimum; every UBdeck is running 15 removal and 5 or more in the board
any combination of Gideon, Metallurgic SummoningsBaral, Chief of ComplianceNezahal, Primal Tide
lots of vanilla 'slip under the shields' card advantage engines, like Azor's GatewayTreasure MapSunset Pyramid could help ensure the # of duress/negates won't ultimately matter
Sure we get them one game 1. But you are saying that match does not look that bad. Does that mean you have not played against it with UW Control? Unfortunately I do every Friday. UB Midrange is difficult because of their multiple angles of attack.
Just wanted to mention here my current build. It falls under the approach heading only after board BUT that is really my point.
I was wondering about how to get around the second game hate for Approach in game 2 but it really occurred to me..... "What if they don't know about approach UNTIL game 2?"
So I came up with this ideal. The game plan game 1 is to us a mixture of Azor's Gateway and Walking Ballista along with a generalized U/W shell to attempt a game 1 win. With enough counters and overall removal alongside the life gain returns from Fumigate a flipped Gateway can easily give a 15+ mana return in the late game. So, once flipped I go into dropping massive ballistas with negate protection against countermagic. If they then attempt to kill a ballista, I just smack them in the mouth with it. This approach works well against decks with not a lot of life gain (which people seem to not be running these days).
Game 2 my opponent will most likely side in enchantment hate and will even leave in creature removal to attempt to kill my ballistas. The problem with that type of boarding is I will instantly drop x3 Gateway and x4 Ballista in order to swap IN 4x opt and 3x Approach. This has really set my opponents off balance. As they have been thinking about how to kill my azor's/ballista combination I cast approach and essentially laugh.
I realize transitional sideboards aren't anything new but I'd love to hear opinions about this ideal. It seems to work well in my testing and using Azor's gateway is a blast.
being for most purposes a creature-less deck game 1 seems good for all the control matchups you'll see
consider Dynavolt Tower as a helper/value engine
4 Ballistae may be too many
wonder if a lucky Torment of Hailfire would do that job better
pity there is no Disrupting Scepter in standard
Hey gang! Just a quick update from GP Seattle. I ended the day 6-2 with UW Approach, so I'm pretty stoked to make my first day 2! My matches were against (in order):
Sultai Snek/GPG (it was gross...I took a suboptimal line in this one which I blame for my loss) (loss 1-2, 0-1 for the day)
Jeskai Approach (won 2-0, 1-1 for the day)
Sultai Snek (won 2-1 in turn 3 of extra turns...opponent misplayed a TSG activation that would have won him the game, so lucked out, 2-1 for the day)
BG Snek (won 2-1, 3-1 for the day)
UW Drake Haven (won 2-0...one of the wins being an Ipnu mill out, 4-1 for the day)
UB Midrange (lost 0-2...got steamrolled by an excellent player from Japan...4-2 for the day)
BW Vamps (won 2-0...I love paying this matchup, 5-2 for the day)
Sultai Snek (won 2-0, 6-2 for the day)
I'll do a more thorough writeup after I get back in case folks are interested. The metagame is pretty interesting up here, but there are more copies of winding constrictor than I'd like to see, personally. Just tons of BG and Sultai snake decks.
I'm hoping to see nothing but vampires tomorrow!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
That one caught my eye as well! I will be interested to hear how your testing goes. Essentially 0 counters because I'm sure Supreme Will is mainly there for impulse mode. Draw, Sweep, Rinse, Repeat. . .
I've not looked at Dominaria much yet; those cards are fantastic! Baffling End still sees play on the top UW lists from time to time. . . Seal Away looks so much better.
Seal Away and Settle the wreckage in the same deck is going to be fun. This is going to make the difference between Esper and UW very interesting. Can't wait to see how the meta shapes up.
FYI, wizards spoiled most of the Dominari set (by mistake), so I think we can talk about the new cards now. If not, if a mod will let me know, I will update my post and remove references to them.
Modern
Currently Playing
UW UW Control/Miracles
R Skred Red
Retired
BU Faeries
RGW Naya Burn
BW B/W Tokens
I made a post about a new card that was spoiled today, but took it down because (1) I think it may have been early by forum rules and (2) the card doesn't do what I thought it did. Nevermind!
Discussion of spoiled cards must be confined to the Standard New Card Discussion subforum. New sets are okay to discuss in the rest of the Standard forum the moment Wizards has published the entire spoiler. Post-rotation discussion is also not permitted until the new block has been fully spoiled.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
Hey, congratulations @Pankary! Glad the list worked well for you!
I've gone back and forth on Opt and Censor, but my feeling after practicing with both is that Opt + Essence Scatter has a slight edge over Censor, particularly in the late game. It does feel good to Censor something early, but the early game things you need to worry about are creatures, which Essence Scatter will take care of (and unconditionally vs. Censor requiring them to be tapped out). Censor just stinks in the late game, where Opt and Essence Scatter are both strictly better (hard countering a creature and letting you dig two deep for an answer (or an Approach)).
I've been tinkering with the list a bit lately online. My main focus has been testing whether we need Disallow (I know, I know, but stay with me here):
The deck's weaknesses are (1) resolved creatures [maybe more accurately, resolved resilient creatures--things that recur or are indestructible] and (2) hitting land drops [again, maybe more accurately, hitting the right land drops]. If the goal is to prevent resolved creatures, then Essence Scatter is strictly better than Disallow because it's 1U instead of 1UU. The deck also really (really) wants WW by turn 4 to either cast or threaten Settle the Wreckage. I run 6 colorless lands in my deck (4 field of ruin, 2 scavenger grounds) which can occasionally result in situations where I'm without double colors on turn 3/4, forcing me to field of ruin to get what I need. That really makes it tough to rely on Disallow in the early game to prevent creatures from resolving because if I don't happen to have two blue sources turn 3, the creature will resolve.
The deck's strength is game 1. We are ridiculously favored game 1 against just about every deck in the meta with the exception of heavy creature-based decks. If we want to make those matchups better G1, having 4x Essence Scatter makes sense. It's the cheapest way to prevent creatures from resolving. So that's what I've been testing, along with bumping up one Slash of Talons and one Farm // Market. There's not a bunch of cards you can cut, so Disallow was the likeliest candidate. I also went up one Glimmer of Genius and one Supreme Will because they can help you race the clock that those creature-based decks put you on (and Supreme Will usually counters something or other).
Losing three hard counters seems like a bad idea on paper because we play a control deck, but we don't get into counter wars in game 1. Other blue-based decks in the meta don't play Negate main deck. UB control usually has 3-4 Disallows (and maybe Supreme Wills) main, and decks like UB midrange, sultai climb, grixis energy, etc., just don't maindeck a ton of answers for Approach. They rely on their sideboard to shore up the matchup. Which is the same thought here--having 3 negates and a Jace's Defeat in the board against decks that you want them.
Through 3 leagues, I'm 10-5, with match losses to mono red x2 (land issues), mono black aggro x2 (this, I think, is the deck's absolute worst matchup), and mono green aggro. I think I mostly lost the mono-green matchup because I hadn't played against the deck before, but seems like a pretty good deck. Out of the sideboard they brought in Nissa, Vital Force (after emblem, which isn't too hard to get, Settle the Wreckage becomes legitimately terrible) and heroic intervention (which makes fumigate terrible). I don't know how mono-G fares against the rest of the meta, but I hope it doesn't do well so people don't play it because it has some great tools against us. I might have turned the corner in G3 if I'd had Gideon (I cut him in the list I was playing), but only maybe...
Mono B aggro is my nemesis deck at the moment. Slash of Talons is great against Siphoner, but only OK against Scrapheap Scrounger and Dread Wanderer, and that deck usually runs some number of Supernatural Stamina. Between those two resilient threats, night market lookout (annoying!), aethersphere harvester, and duress out of the SB (I would have won G3 in one of my matches if they hadn't timely duressed my settle the wreckage), it's a really tough matchup.
I think my next tweaks will test running either 26 lands or a 4th Opt, and potentially adding Crook of Condemnation main.
Sorry for the long post. I'm gearing up for GP Seattle so I'm really focusing on tuning this list!
C Long Live Eldrazi C
Do you plan on keeping the Spell Swindle in the future? Personally, I think it might be a little heavy against aggro decks.
And what do you think about Baffling End? I'm not convinced about using it because I don't like it being a sorcery-speed spell.
Thank you in advance for your answers. Playing your list was refreshing for me. I have been playing this deck a long time but struggled with it recently, especially because of all the UB midrange decks that are played in my local meta.
I really like spell swindle against decks that can't interact with it (i.e., non-blue decks), and even like it a little against U decks when I'm on the play and can potentially hit a Glimmer or Gearhulk at their end step. It's gotten me out of a number of jams, and it's house against RG monsters. Against aggro, I'm looking to play my sweepers turns 4/5, so I see Swindle as more of a turn 6/7 (or later) play to get whatever they want to jam after I Settle, and it can really help with the double approach. But your mileage may vary. I did manage to swindle a Galta in a league the other day and double-approached the next turn (turn 6 or 7 I think) and it felt so good. It's the secret sauce and opponents don't really expect to see it, which can give an edge (and they even sometimes forget that Gearhulk can hit it).
I'm not a fan of Baffling end because it's sorcery speed. I think I'll be a much bigger fan of Seal Away when Dominaria hits and will test it as a 4-of to replace the farms and slashes. But others like it (and it shows up in 5-0 lists from time to time), so it clearly can do work, and I think it would help shore up the mono-B matchup that I've had trouble with.
I made a dumb play mistake in the UB matchup by not exiling a Champion of Wits from his graveyard on my end step with Crook and letting him eternalize. I chalk it up to not having played with Crook before--for some reason I thought I could activate Crook in response to the attempt to eternalize (a la Scarab God/GPG), but that is definitely wrong. That's why you practice.
Overall, I was very pleasantly surprised by the Crook. It's a pretty innocuous 2-drop that is unlikely to draw countermagic, and it does a ton of work in just about every matchup because just about every meta deck uses the yard for something. Most importantly, I didn't miss Disallow.
From memory, the list I'm currently running looks like this:
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Irrigated Farmland
4 Ipnu Rivulet
4 Field of Ruin
1 Scavenger Grounds
3 Island
5 Plains
Enchantment (5)
1 Search for Azcanta
4 Cast Out
Instant (23)
2 Slash of Talons
4 Opt
4 Essence Scatter
4 Supreme Will
1 Farm // Market
4 Glimmer of Genius
3 Settle the Wreckage
1 Spell Swindle
3 Fumigate
3 Approach of the Second Sun
Artifact (1)
1 Crook of Condemnation
3 Negate
1 Jace's Defeat
3 Forsake the Worldly
1 Hour of Revelation
1 Nezahal, Primal Tide
3 Regal Caracal
3 Torrential Gearhulk
I didn't really miss the second SFA--there's a lot of card draw/selection with the deck, so I typically find one at some point. It used to be that whoever found SFA and flipped it first was highly favored, but I'm not finding that to be the case lately, especially with the 4 Field of Ruins. Blowing up their Azcanta on their end step usually prompts them to tap 4 lands to activate one last time, which can sometimes open the door to fire off an Approach.
Regarding Spell Swindle, the card just continues to do work, and having that 3-4 (or more) extra mana is really really helpful.
I do think that 3/1 Cast Out/Ixalan's Binding might be correct...that's the mix I played in a far earlier build. I find myself Casting Out main phase about half the time, usually when they resolve a Planeswalker that I wasn't able to counter, and binding would be better in those situations.
Just another data point for the theory that Approach decks are currently well-positioned because they are not expected. This deck has only 2 1/2 maindeck answers to Approach (1 Supreme Will, 1 Commit // Memory, and a Torrential Gearhulk to potentially flash one of those back), and only dedicates a couple SB slots for answers (2x Negate, an additional Commit // Memory, 2 Duress, 1 Doomfall).
Hi codaddy;
You've made some great posts recently, thank you! Here are my thoughts . . . I'll have to say I am not nearly as optimistic as you . . .
I'm not sure how well UW Approach is positioned in this meta. I agree game 1 is often favorable but even that is changing with recent Sultai builds mainboarding 2 Negate and creature builds getting lower to the ground. I agree with Eric from CFB and kpal on this thread that post-board can be a nightmare. UW Approach is barely a part of the mtggoldfish metagame now, if it was in a great place it would be producing better results IMHO. The community will eventually figure out what works. Mono-White Approach wasn't a thing a month or so ago but now it is the best Approach deck in the meta (as defined by % in metagame). . .
I think because that deck has so many removal options. Yes, it is all sorcery speed but it's effective and consistent. And there really isn't a lot of enchantment removal in the game. What little there is will quickly get overloaded with 4 Baffling End, 4 Cast Out, 4Ixalan's Binding, and 2 Thopter Arrest plus 2-3 The Immortal Sun. Ironically, I think Mono-White Approach is the easiest deck in this meta for UW Approach.
I'm also going to GP Seattle so this has been on my mind lately. Reliance on counter-magic, while extremely mana-efficient, is also very narrow. I get that one opportunity, if I don't have the mana or Essence Scatter gets countered I'm out of luck. I have to wait to Settle the Wreckage. If Thopter Arrest gets countered the opportunity is there to follow-up with Cast Out next turn.
UB Control, has some reliance on counter-magic but has the best direct removal in the game with Fatal Push and Vraska's Contempt . Which they can cast again when the Torrential Gearhulks come to the party. . .
UW Approach has Cast Out I guess, but that often gets cycled and while you and pumpmonkey have enjoyed some success with it, I've heard no one say Farm // Market is really a great magic card.
I'm reluctant to make big changes to my deck so close to the GP but I may look at a uW option with minimal counters and heavy enchantment removal.
Best wishes for a fun and successful GP!
Hey @Hobbits 73! I completely agree that post-board games are tricky, and they really always have been with the Approach deck. My hypothesis (which can never really be tested) is that the post-board matchups, and articles from EFro and others saying the deck isn't a great option because of the post-board matchups, turn people away from the deck, which leads to fewer people playing the deck, which leads to fewer tournament results primarily due to the small share of the meta. If so many people were turned off of UW Approach that 10 people out of 1500 play the deck at a GP, chances are it's not going to be represented in the Top 8 (or Top 32). If 50% of the players showed up with it, the story would be different.
I think the other flavors of Approach have found a bit of success because they are unexpected and opponents aren't sure how to attack them. I totally agree with you that W Approach (and BW Approach) is a cakewalk for UW Approach. They might sneak in G1, but they can't win 2 or 3 because Negate and Torrential Gearhulk. Forsake the Worldly does a ton of work in that matchup too. Go ahead and Binding my Caracal/Gearhulk...I'll just get rid of Binding on your end step and get a couple extra Cats/Flash back another spell. The Bant version can be tough for me G1 because I lack a ton of countermagic and they can ramp so dang fast, but G2 and G3 are usually favored for us too (if you can manage to counter their Hour of Promises).
The fact is that there's a ton of luck that goes into any tournament, regardless of what deck you play. I fully believe that if I'd faced RG Monsters/Red Aggro for the first 5 matches of my PPTQ, I wouldn't have made Top 8, let alone won. The thing I don't get about EFro's article is that at my PPTQ, my UW Approach was the deck that nobody in the Top 8 wanted to play against. If my deck is so bad post-board, why don't you want to play against it??
I'm curious what your current build looks like. I'm going to keep testing this week to fine tune what I register this weekend. Good luck to you as well!
C Long Live Eldrazi C
I'm not sure what I am going to run. Right now, I'm feeling a bit discouraged to be honest. Two recent trends I have noticed. The first is UW cycling has become Approach of the Second Sun rather than Drake Haven:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1011008#paper
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1017402#paper
I have also noticed that deck as well as Mono White Approach go all in on creatures post-board:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1017423#online
I think some players have decided that Approach is great G1 but G2 is better to go all-in on creatures. I'll think about this a bit more. . .
And Gonti, Lord of Luxury. That jerk looks at four of you cards and takes the very best one.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
Kinda want to build this on MTGO and take it out for a spin...
after boarding they're still stuck with 5+ removal spells at the minimum; every UBdeck is running 15 removal and 5 or more in the board
any combination of Gideon, Metallurgic Summonings Baral, Chief of Compliance Nezahal, Primal Tide
lots of vanilla 'slip under the shields' card advantage engines, like Azor's Gateway Treasure Map Sunset Pyramid could help ensure the # of duress/negates won't ultimately matter
C Long Live Eldrazi C
I was wondering about how to get around the second game hate for Approach in game 2 but it really occurred to me..... "What if they don't know about approach UNTIL game 2?"
So I came up with this ideal. The game plan game 1 is to us a mixture of Azor's Gateway and Walking Ballista along with a generalized U/W shell to attempt a game 1 win. With enough counters and overall removal alongside the life gain returns from Fumigate a flipped Gateway can easily give a 15+ mana return in the late game. So, once flipped I go into dropping massive ballistas with negate protection against countermagic. If they then attempt to kill a ballista, I just smack them in the mouth with it. This approach works well against decks with not a lot of life gain (which people seem to not be running these days).
Game 2 my opponent will most likely side in enchantment hate and will even leave in creature removal to attempt to kill my ballistas. The problem with that type of boarding is I will instantly drop x3 Gateway and x4 Ballista in order to swap IN 4x opt and 3x Approach. This has really set my opponents off balance. As they have been thinking about how to kill my azor's/ballista combination I cast approach and essentially laugh.
I realize transitional sideboards aren't anything new but I'd love to hear opinions about this ideal. It seems to work well in my testing and using Azor's gateway is a blast.
Here's my list:
4x Walking Ballista
Sorceries (4)
4x Fumigate
Instants (16)
3x Disallow
2x Farm // Market
3x Glimmer of Genius
3x Negate
1x Settle the Wreckage
4x Supreme Will
Artifacts (3)
3x Azor's Gateway
Enchantments (7)
4x Aether Meltdown
3x Cast Out
4x Glacial Fortress
4x Ipnu Rivulet
2x Irrigated Farmland
8x Island
8x Plains
Creatures (3)
2x Regal Caracal
1x Glyph Keeper
Sorceries (3)
3x Approach of the Second Sun
Instants (6)
3x Essence Scatter
3x Opt
3x Authority of the Consuls
being for most purposes a creature-less deck game 1 seems good for all the control matchups you'll see
consider Dynavolt Tower as a helper/value engine
4 Ballistae may be too many
wonder if a lucky Torment of Hailfire would do that job better
pity there is no Disrupting Scepter in standard
I'll do a more thorough writeup after I get back in case folks are interested. The metagame is pretty interesting up here, but there are more copies of winding constrictor than I'd like to see, personally. Just tons of BG and Sultai snake decks.
I'm hoping to see nothing but vampires tomorrow!