Why are you guys even posting lists without draw spells in the Permission forum? Does anybody here actually understand how card advantage works?
its ok i'm back lol. I have a suggestion since we are running permission wouldn't jace b be a better card at least against caw just to get the jace jump. Hell against caw you can easily win just with tar pits as long as you control the board.
Here is a list that I've been working on. Red has some apeal, but I think if you play tight UB is better.
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No. Playing control w/o cards like preordain is a bad idea. Go play a tourney w/ UR and ingenuity and then tell me is rolls like a UB w/ preordain...
Uhhh...you wouldn't play both? It worked kinda well for me.
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My name is Matt Bartmus, and I am the 2010 California State Champion. I don't have to pay for PTQs for a year because I countered a couple hundred spells and drew several hundred cards last weekend. With some help from my good friend Charly, I designed, tested, and tuned the following list myself:
Thank you! Lol. These forums have been driving me nuts, lately.
I have a suggestion since we are running permission wouldn't jace b be a better card at least against caw just to get the jace jump. Hell against caw you can easily win just with tar pits as long as you control the board.
I think the main thing is that you need to have a lot of raw card advantage against that deck. You can expect them to be ahead a card or two early on from their 2-drops, and you have to play a couple of draw spells in order to actually resolve one through their first couple of counterspells. The nice thing, though, is that their deck becomes weaker and weaker as a game goes on. Squadron Hawk is limited to only being 4 copies in a deck, so when your opponent is out of hawks, it's useless. The equipment gives later creatures value as well, but not if their creatures are all destroyed and countered. And their counterspells are mostly soft, so when manabases start growing large you can resolve basically anything you want against that deck.
I don't really think JTMS is good against that deck, which makes sense because that entire deck is designed to make opposing Jaces weaker. Beleren is very good against them. You can really get away with plusing it and protecting it against that deck.
Here is a list that I've been working on. Red has some apeal, but I think if you play tight UB is better.
I look through the deck and try to think of things that are missing or things which I would like to see included, but then I find them in the sideboard. Well done. I still would like to see another Jwar Isle in there, but one is probably fine for what you seem to be trying to do.
I wouldn't bother with Probes if you're running 4+ Duress effects in the deck anyways.
I feel like Permission beats everything in the metagame except for Caw-Blade and Vengevine decks. It seems possible to have a full-on ~13 counterspell permission deck for everything else in the metagame, and have a plan for Caw-Blade and a plan for Vengevine decks. You could put the Caw-Blade plan main (with Surgical Extractions etc) and put like 5+ counters etc in the board to transform into full-on permission mode for other decks. And then 3-4 spaces could be solutions for Vengevine decks...although Surgical Extraction might just solve that outright, these days.
All I know is that I'll be slinging Ingenuities for PTQs.
All I know is that I'll be slinging Ingenuities for PTQs.
I try not to let anything slip while playing a match, however I do grin everytime I resolve my first ingenunity. Nothing like grabbing three off the top, starting my turn, draw a card, playing a land and pass the turn. Feeling good knowing you just won that game, lol.
Here is the list I've been playing with lately. Now that exams/projects/graduation are over with, I've had a lot of time to test. It's been working out very nicely, though my familiarity with it has helped out a lot.
I don't recommend trying it out if you don't enjoy long games. Once the game starts going long, it's very hard to lose, though. Elixir recurring your entire deck as you keep drawing through it with Ingenuities and Zenith (which gets pretty huge), which is why Red removal works best in the deck. That way I didn't hae to waste extra slots on finishers; every card is a control tool.
Library manipulation is key here - using Depths and Jace to set up the deck, and Elixir/Trinket/Fetches to shuffle. DON'T waste Preordains either.
Mana Leak is too good to ignore, but terrible in the late-late game, which you'll often go to, so 3 is fine. Rebuttal is at least 3/4 of. The miser Mindbreak Trap is useful, as well, though it often gets SB'd out.
There are no games that are too auto-pilot either, unfortunately. Every game is going to be a bit demanding, but once you get the hang of it, it's a blast.
I've been playing several hours a day these recent days, and the best SB plans/strategy I've had for each matchup:
This matchup can go either way, but if you play tight, you should be able to take it. After a few turns, their soft counters lose all value, so you're free to rebutt and deprive as you see fit.
On the draw, always lead with mountain to remove their mystic, if you can. Since we don't have mass removal, Hawks can be ignored for a bit, unless you see them becoming a real hassle G1. If they have hawks down disrupt sword until you can clean up with Inferno Titan, or just Jace them out if you have the removal/counters enough for the hawks.
That's how I usually do it since those are the two spells most prone to getting hit by Leak/Pierce and are terrible to see in my opener. Ratchet Bomb is fantastic here. I they play 1-2 birds, let them be. If they overextend, crack it. If not, just leave them with 1 bird. Relevant against Jace/Gid/Equipment, as well.
The key is surviving the early game (of course.) Don't be afraid to take hits in order to get max information out of a turn.
INS's article talks about how to deal with Valakut as a permission deck, I think. If not, there are a few posts around here.
This is another matchup that requires very tight play. The aggro build is a bit more annoying to deal with, since we have to keep some spot removal in.
More hard counters and Extraction to get rid of a Titan/Valakut/Trap forever.
The Eldrazi Green matchup is somewhat similar Eldrazi creatures are infinitely harder to deal with. Recurring the singleton mindbreak trap and Elixir are your only real outs G1.
Among them, RDW with Shrine of Burning Rage is the toughest. It is amazing against us, though Ratchet Bomb and a well-placed Roil/Counter can help.
SB: +2 Trinket Mage, +X Mental Misstep (Depending on build and play/draw), +2 Ratchet Bomb, +4 Pyroclasm, +2 Flashfreeze
-1 Hex Parasite, -1 Blue Sun's Zenith, -1 Mindbreak Trap, -2 Stoic Rebuttal, -1 Deprive, -2 Negate, -X Other Cards (Match-up dependent; against Boros you want a bit more counters due to potential Koth/Gideon)
Unless you have a clear opportunity to land one of your sorcery-speed spells, don't make the first move. You have instant-speed draw and hard counters; long game is better for you.
Just don't rush when playing the deck. It's built for the long, long game.
One possible change I'd like to make is getting a Ratchet Bomb main. Most likely for Mindbreak Trap; switching their SB and MD roles.
The deck often gets confused with ExarchTwin, which is a plus as it make some decks think playing Draw-Go with you is a good idea. Which makes me think that using a couple slots for the actual combo might be beneficial, but then, I might as well be playing the combo deck.
I think the main thing is that you need to have a lot of raw card advantage against that deck. You can expect them to be ahead a card or two early on from their 2-drops, and you have to play a couple of draw spells in order to actually resolve one through their first couple of counterspells. The nice thing, though, is that their deck becomes weaker and weaker as a game goes on. Squadron Hawk is limited to only being 4 copies in a deck, so when your opponent is out of hawks, it's useless. The equipment gives later creatures value as well, but not if their creatures are all destroyed and countered. And their counterspells are mostly soft, so when manabases start growing large you can resolve basically anything you want against that deck.
Are you saying that you would cast multiple ingenuities, knowing one may get countered? I guess the advantage is they have to use the counterspell during their endstep so it's one less counter they have for your turn... but wouldn't it be better if you could just resolve all your draw spells? Yes... resolving ingenuity is great... but doing (almost) nothing on your turn and caw blades turn, EOT ingen, see caw blades spell pierce? Would it help to run Spell Pierce to fight against caw blades counterspells rather than let your 5cmc get countered by 1cmc spell? I guess if you play 4 ingen it's not a terrible loss if its countered, and it gives you a turn to do stuff with less counters in the way.
I don't really think JTMS is good against that deck, which makes sense because that entire deck is designed to make opposing Jaces weaker. Beleren is very good against them. You can really get away with plusing it and protecting it against that deck.
You want to see zero JTMS vs. caw blade? If your anticipating caw blade in the meta, but you want the full number of JTMS vs other decks, do you board JTMS? I was thinking 3 JB, 2 JTMS maindeck with 1 JTMS board. Obviously these numbers all depend on the deck. Plus if you have ingenuities that kind of makes up for the lack of JTMS.
While were on the topic of drawing cards vs. caw blade, what about consecrated sphinx? They have no instant speed answer to it, with beleren in play you will see six more cards total before your next main phase. Another spell that can't be spell pierced. They can DoJ your Titan, but if sphinx is in play for just a short while you get all these cards. Still probably better off with ingenuity, but just a thought.
Question - Does 4 Ingenuity seem a little "top heavy"? There have been games that I played with this archetype running 4 of them where I would sit with 2 ingenuities in my hand. Vs. goblins, it can be inconvenient to have 2 cards in hand that don't do anything about getting dudes off the table (if they are on the play, you probably don't have time for drawing cards), vs. control, its auto win. Even if it takes forever, you have insane card advantage over your opponent. How do you feel about this? Obviously there is some luck involved, and I wouldnt keep a hand with 1-2 ingenuity and no way to cast them anytime soon. Is everflowing chalice worth including in the deck to cast ingen/titan a turn sooner?
I feel like Permission beats everything in the metagame except for Caw-Blade and Vengevine decks. It seems possible to have a full-on ~13 counterspell permission deck for everything else in the metagame, and have a plan for Caw-Blade and a plan for Vengevine decks. You could put the Caw-Blade plan main (with Surgical Extractions etc) and put like 5+ counters etc in the board to transform into full-on permission mode for other decks. And then 3-4 spaces could be solutions for Vengevine decks...although Surgical Extraction might just solve that outright, these days.
All I know is that I'll be slinging Ingenuities for PTQs.
Do you really need a cheaper, more narrow Cranial Extraction vs. the top deck in the format which has so many ways of winning the game? Granted I would love to do a on the draw turn 1 disfigure/extraction their hawks, or guarantee I will never see gideon again, but is 2 for 1ing yourself worth it? Not saying it is a bad card, there are times I will draw it and its a powerhouse, but I think it has the potential to be completely dead more often than not.Precursor Golem seems like a good card to have vs. cawblade and vengevine, especially if your deck has 7-8 inq/duress effects to combat removal like condemn (if that is even still played). I've only lost one game to vengevines where I resolved the tri golem and it was due to Eldrazi Monument.
Also, permission 13~ counterspells is probably fine vs. RUG, valakut, and most random decks, are the only aggro decks your concerned about consist of just vengevines, and anything else you just board in BSZ/Disfigure?
On another note, so how good is Consume the Meek now? Instant speed kill everything but gideon vs. caw blade, kills things with a feast and famine on it, a little expensive vs. hyper aggro but it sounds like UB is more concerned with beating caw blade than goblins and elves.
Are you saying that you would cast multiple ingenuities, knowing one may get countered? I guess the advantage is they have to use the counterspell during their endstep so it's one less counter they have for your turn... but wouldn't it be better if you could just resolve all your draw spells? Yes... resolving ingenuity is great... but doing (almost) nothing on your turn and caw blades turn, EOT ingen, see caw blades spell pierce? Would it help to run Spell Pierce to fight against caw blades counterspells rather than let your 5cmc get countered by 1cmc spell? I guess if you play 4 ingen it's not a terrible loss if its countered, and it gives you a turn to do stuff with less counters in the way.
You can't win every battle against that deck, so you have to prepare for war. Yes, I would cast 2 Ingenuities if that meant one is countered and the next one slips through. As soon as you resolve an Ingenuity, if you can solve the immediate board position, you have won the game. But you have to have a sufficient amount of card advantage in your deck so that you can chain draw spells, or else Ingenuity is pointless. That's why you play 4 of them, you play Preordains to find more of them, and you play supplemental draw spells. I used to play Mind Sculptors as my supplemental draw spells...right now I like the Pyromancer Ascension engine in that space.
You want to see zero JTMS vs. caw blade? If your anticipating caw blade in the meta, but you want the full number of JTMS vs other decks, do you board JTMS? I was thinking 3 JB, 2 JTMS maindeck with 1 JTMS board. Obviously these numbers all depend on the deck. Plus if you have ingenuities that kind of makes up for the lack of JTMS.
I don't want to engage in a Jace pissing contest with that deck. They are better equipped to win that war. I would rather seek other forms of card advantage, and use counterspells or other answers to deal with Jace. I don't think that playing Jaces has ever been necessary for playing control decks, considering that control decks have existed for over a decade and Jace Beleren was printed only a couple of years ago.
While were on the topic of drawing cards vs. caw blade, what about consecrated sphinx? They have no instant speed answer to it, with beleren in play you will see six more cards total before your next main phase. Another spell that can't be spell pierced. They can DoJ your Titan, but if sphinx is in play for just a short while you get all these cards. Still probably better off with ingenuity, but just a thought.
It's really good because you get the cards right in their draw step. That makes it effective against all the sorcery-speed removal in the format and insane against Tumble Magnet. I still think Jwar Isle is better as a permission finisher, but Consecrated Sphinx has some serious advantages. If you're looking to play more than just a pair of bombs because you want to deal with convoluted board positions, I think Consecrated Sphinx is good alongside Grave Titan in a 2/2 split. I like those 2 together because one gives you literal raw card advantage and is a great anti-control threat, and one gives you nutty board clutter as an anti-aggro device. That would be for a build with some way of being able to cast 6-drops without getting raped by resolved spells on the other side of the table...so probably Everflowing Chalice or Explore would be involved.
Question - Does 4 Ingenuity seem a little "top heavy"? There have been games that I played with this archetype running 4 of them where I would sit with 2 ingenuities in my hand. Vs. goblins, it can be inconvenient to have 2 cards in hand that don't do anything about getting dudes off the table (if they are on the play, you probably don't have time for drawing cards), vs. control, its auto win. Even if it takes forever, you have insane card advantage over your opponent. How do you feel about this? Obviously there is some luck involved, and I wouldnt keep a hand with 1-2 ingenuity and no way to cast them anytime soon. Is everflowing chalice worth including in the deck to cast ingen/titan a turn sooner?
If you're not playing 4 Ingenuities, don't even bother putting a permission deck together. This type of deck won't work unless you play a critical mass of draw spells. The whole point is that you resolve an Ingenuity, then that draws you another one, which draws you another one. The first Ingenuity seems like it's just a 3-for-1, but in reality it's more like a 9-for-1 because you know you're going to find more of them and resolve them. The floodgate is already open, and card advantage is streaming in.
With that in mind, I agree that the card is a bit slow. Before this format became crackhead-fast with a bunch of stupid 2-drop creatures, it was realistically easy to play with a 5-mana draw spell. Now? I like acceleration a lot more than patiently playing lands. Personally, I'm using Explore and thinking about a pair of Chalices.
Something important to note about accel is that it allows you to get away with more Into the Roils in the deck than usual. You can kick it on turn 3, and that's really good. Also, you can kick it and counter a spell in the same turn, a little earlier than usual. I think Into the Roil is the best spot removal spell in the format right now, and playing 4 of them is really sweet.
Do you really need a cheaper, more narrow Cranial Extraction vs. the top deck in the format which has so many ways of winning the game? Granted I would love to do a on the draw turn 1 disfigure/extraction their hawks, or guarantee I will never see gideon again, but is 2 for 1ing yourself worth it? Not saying it is a bad card, there are times I will draw it and its a powerhouse, but I think it has the potential to be completely dead more often than not.Precursor Golem seems like a good card to have vs. cawblade and vengevine, especially if your deck has 7-8 inq/duress effects to combat removal like condemn (if that is even still played). I've only lost one game to vengevines where I resolved the tri golem and it was due to Eldrazi Monument.
Cranial Extraction is only going to 1-for-1 if your opponent has the right card in his hand and somehow hasn't casted it yet. Extirpate will deal with dead/countered/discarded Vengevines and Bloodghasts IMMEDIATELY, and for 2 life or one mana. Yes, you're down a card, but it's worth it for some threats. I don't agree with the idea of removing Jaces or Gideons from your opponent's deck; the plan is to hit a card like Squadron Hawk or Vengevine because you can't really fight that engine with countermagic and removal. You should really have a specific target in mind when you cast Extirpate. Granted, sometimes being opportunistic is correct--if you counter a Gideon and see 2 more in your opponent's hand, then go ahead and Extirpate for a 2-for-1. Even just 1-for-1ing is fine, but only if you don't need Extirpate for some other job. Remember why you're playing the card in the first place.
Yes, I think Surgical Extraction is much better than Memoricide. The main reason is that I can actually resolve a Surgical Extraction...while it's not Split Second, it is practically free and it is an instant. Good luck Memoriciding into Mana Leaks and leaving yourself exposed because you spent your main phase casting a 4-drop that didn't affect the board position.
Also, permission 13~ counterspells is probably fine vs. RUG, valakut, and most random decks, are the only aggro decks your concerned about consist of just vengevines, and anything else you just board in BSZ/Disfigure?
On another note, so how good is Consume the Meek now? Instant speed kill everything but gideon vs. caw blade, kills things with a feast and famine on it, a little expensive vs. hyper aggro but it sounds like UB is more concerned with beating caw blade than goblins and elves.
CtM only became bad because of Spell Pierce. I think that Mental Misstep/discard spells could solve this problem pretty easily.
So what exactly ARE you running as a permission build now? I read you like pyro ascension over Jace and you're using explore to ramp. Black too? I'm a bit lost. What is your list?
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The only reason Jace costs 2UU is because he said so. Even Jace is holding himself back from breaking MAGIC.
You can't win every battle against that deck, so you have to prepare for war. Yes, I would cast 2 Ingenuities if that meant one is countered and the next one slips through. As soon as you resolve an Ingenuity, if you can solve the immediate board position, you have won the game. But you have to have a sufficient amount of card advantage in your deck so that you can chain draw spells, or else Ingenuity is pointless. That's why you play 4 of them, you play Preordains to find more of them, and you play supplemental draw spells. I used to play Mind Sculptors as my supplemental draw spells...right now I like the Pyromancer Ascension engine in that space.
I don't want to engage in a Jace pissing contest with that deck. They are better equipped to win that war. I would rather seek other forms of card advantage, and use counterspells or other answers to deal with Jace. I don't think that playing Jaces has ever been necessary for playing control decks, considering that control decks have existed for over a decade and Jace Beleren was printed only a couple of years ago.
So 4 Preordain 4 Jace's Ingenuity 3 Jace Beleren MD with JB as the supplemental card draw for UB with decks like caw blade in mind seems okay to you? I understand your reasoning for not wanting to use JTMS in a permission deck and why you don't want it vs. cawblade, you don't want it at all? Against decks where winning the jace war can be important but isn't extremely difficult, I would think you would want JTMS over JB very much so. I'd like your opinion but I will test it out some myself and try to get a feel for it.
It's really good because you get the cards right in their draw step. That makes it effective against all the sorcery-speed removal in the format and insane against Tumble Magnet. I still think Jwar Isle is better as a permission finisher, but Consecrated Sphinx has some serious advantages. If you're looking to play more than just a pair of bombs because you want to deal with convoluted board positions, I think Consecrated Sphinx is good alongside Grave Titan in a 2/2 split. I like those 2 together because one gives you literal raw card advantage and is a great anti-control threat, and one gives you nutty board clutter as an anti-aggro device. That would be for a build with some way of being able to cast 6-drops without getting raped by resolved spells on the other side of the table...so probably Everflowing Chalice or Explore would be involved.
If you're not playing 4 Ingenuities, don't even bother putting a permission deck together. This type of deck won't work unless you play a critical mass of draw spells. The whole point is that you resolve an Ingenuity, then that draws you another one, which draws you another one. The first Ingenuity seems like it's just a 3-for-1, but in reality it's more like a 9-for-1 because you know you're going to find more of them and resolve them. The floodgate is already open, and card advantage is streaming in.
With that in mind, I agree that the card is a bit slow. Before this format became crackhead-fast with a bunch of stupid 2-drop creatures, it was realistically easy to play with a 5-mana draw spell. Now? I like acceleration a lot more than patiently playing lands. Personally, I'm using Explore and thinking about a pair of Chalices.
So if you have
4 Preordain
4 Ingenuity
3 Jace Beleren
4 Everflowing Chalice
2 Grave Titan
2 Consecrated Sphinx
+ 26 Lands
= 45 cards
From the info I'm gathering it seems like this would be an ideal shell for a UB permission control. Lots of card draw, and 15 spots for removal/discard/counters. Everything seems good vs. caw blade. Depending on my hand and if I'm on the play or the draw, I would probably play a chalice for 1 on turn 4 with 2 mana open. If they counter it, then that's one less counter for an ingenuity. If not, then I get ahead on mana, their pierces become less useful. Is four chalice too many?
Something important to note about accel is that it allows you to get away with more Into the Roils in the deck than usual. You can kick it on turn 3, and that's really good. Also, you can kick it and counter a spell in the same turn, a little earlier than usual. I think Into the Roil is the best spot removal spell in the format right now, and playing 4 of them is really sweet.
It sounds like your talking about a RUG colored permission deck using pyromancers, so since you lack doom blade/gftt 4 ItR seems really good but is that too many for UB, even with all the chalices? I was thinking about 2 or 3.
Cranial Extraction is only going to 1-for-1 if your opponent has the right card in his hand and somehow hasn't casted it yet. Extirpate will deal with dead/countered/discarded Vengevines and Bloodghasts IMMEDIATELY, and for 2 life or one mana. Yes, you're down a card, but it's worth it for some threats. I don't agree with the idea of removing Jaces or Gideons from your opponent's deck; the plan is to hit a card like Squadron Hawk or Vengevine because you can't really fight that engine with countermagic and removal. You should really have a specific target in mind when you cast Extirpate. Granted, sometimes being opportunistic is correct--if you counter a Gideon and see 2 more in your opponent's hand, then go ahead and Extirpate for a 2-for-1. Even just 1-for-1ing is fine, but only if you don't need Extirpate for some other job. Remember why you're playing the card in the first place.
Yes, I think Surgical Extraction is much better than Memoricide. The main reason is that I can actually resolve a Surgical Extraction...while it's not Split Second, it is practically free and it is an instant. Good luck Memoriciding into Mana Leaks and leaving yourself exposed because you spent your main phase casting a 4-drop that didn't affect the board position.
CtM only became bad because of Spell Pierce. I think that Mental Misstep/discard spells could solve this problem pretty easily.
Vs. Valakut, I would think you'd rather have Memoricide to deal with Titan... if you have extraction you need to answer the first titan before removing them all. Also, if you play Memoricide vs. Valakut, remove their titans, it doesn't even matter that much if they aren't holding titans because the main threat in the deck is gone.
Vs. Cawblade, it seems like the only thing it's really good for is the hawks. If I could have turn 1 despise your hawk and extraction the rest of them, every game, yeah it's awesome, it just seems like I have the worst luck with cards like these and always draw them at the worst times. I'm considering playing just one extraction either main or side and seeing how it works when I draw it randomly, but that's probably not a great idea.
Even if CtM is less good now, it seems like every blue black deck wants to have some kind of sweeper, and usually it's Black Sun Zenith. That card seems pretty bad vs. caw blade, you can get lucky and kill a bunch of unequipped hawks at sorcery speed, once something is equipped your paying just as much as CtM but slower. Vs. Hyper aggro decks, something like BSZ X=1 on turn 3 may be the best play but CtM isn't terrible in that matchup, especially when you can cast it turn 4 with chalice on turn 3.
So what exactly ARE you running as a permission build now? I read you like pyro ascension over Jace and you're using explore to ramp. Black too? I'm a bit lost. What is your list?
It's not a permission deck pre-board because the top decks in the metagame are fairly hostile towards traditional permission. In the board, I bring out the hard counters and Jwar Isles, and sometimes I even just take out most or all of the Ascension package and transform completely into draw-go. In any case, this deck is based upon the ideas that I've gathered while tuning a lot of control decks for Standard and Extended in the last 8 months. Ingenuity, Preordain, Roil, and Leak area all amazing cards in this format, with the right support. I think that 2-mana enchantments are much more stable than either breed of Jace right now, and it's not like I'm unhappy about playing 12 cantrips to help aid the engine. This way, you don't have to babysit a planeswalker in order to produce some decent card advantage while somehow handling the board position at the same time...it's much easier when your bomb is 2 mana.
Before anyone asks, Demolish is my current plan for Primeval Titan decks. You activate an Ascension and start blowing up 2-3 key lands at a time, and their deck starts falling apart. It's still an experiment, so I'm not sure if it will stay. The point is that there has to be something in there to deal with those decks...I need to test against people who are not retarded random MWS opponents in order to get a grasp on whether this is a good plan or not.
So 4 Preordain 4 Jace's Ingenuity 3 Jace Beleren MD with JB as the supplemental card draw for UB with decks like caw blade in mind seems okay to you? I understand your reasoning for not wanting to use JTMS in a permission deck and why you don't want it vs. cawblade, you don't want it at all? Against decks where winning the jace war can be important but isn't extremely difficult, I would think you would want JTMS over JB very much so. I'd like your opinion but I will test it out some myself and try to get a feel for it.
I don't think it's terrible to play a very powerful 4-mana planeswalker. The problem is that decks have evolved (rightfully so) to deal with JTMS. A LOT of decks play 4-6 Jaces of their own, making it a pain in the neck to actually keep your Jace on the table for a while. And the 2 major Jace decks are both playing 2-drop creatures, and one of those decks is even playing Bolts and Inferno Titans. It's a bad day to be expecting anything other than an activation or 2 from a Jace because people are playing the answers. So if you can find other ways of playing additional card advantage on top of the Ingenuities, that's ideal. I'm doing it with Pyromancer Ascension. If I could find something better at a reasonable mana cost, I would probably use it instead. Maybe I'm overlooking something in Ux, but hey--that's one of the reasons why I engage in forum discussions.
So if you have
4 Preordain
4 Ingenuity
3 Jace Beleren
4 Everflowing Chalice
2 Grave Titan
2 Consecrated Sphinx
+ 26 Lands
= 45 cards
From the info I'm gathering it seems like this would be an ideal shell for a UB permission control. Lots of card draw, and 15 spots for removal/discard/counters. Everything seems good vs. caw blade. Depending on my hand and if I'm on the play or the draw, I would probably play a chalice for 1 on turn 4 with 2 mana open. If they counter it, then that's one less counter for an ingenuity. If not, then I get ahead on mana, their pierces become less useful. Is four chalice too many?
I wouldn't think so. In mid- to late-game situations, you start multi-kicking Chalices, and that makes them a form of card advantage. I think 4 is correct. The real question is how many lands to run alongside that. I think you could probably run 25 lands, have a stable color base, and still have 4 Tectonic Edges. You don't really need 26 with 4 Chalices and 4 Preordains in the deck, though going up or down a land is something you really have to just try out and get a feel for. This is why I like to mark some of my cards in testing--for example, if I play 7 Islands and I'm trying out an 8th Island, I'll use a different-looking Island for that 8th one to see how often it comes up and what my impressions of the land are. Normally I use all Tornado full-art lands from Zendikar, so I'll put in some crappy Lorwyn Island and keep track of whether it's good, terrible, or irrelevant. The same can be done by putting a proxy in of a card like Mana Leak and just writing '#4' on it to check the numbers.
But to get back to the point, I think you want 4 Chalices. Everflowing Chalice is a great way of fighting tempo counters like Spell Pierce and Mana Leak--which is one of the major reasons that well-constructed Tezzeret Machine-style decks beat the brains out of Caw-Blade.
It sounds like your talking about a RUG colored permission deck using pyromancers, so since you lack doom blade/gftt 4 ItR seems really good but is that too many for UB, even with all the chalices? I was thinking about 2 or 3.
3 is probably right...but if you can make 4 work, it's absolutely ridiculous. Because it's so non-specific, it can just solve anything.
I wish Dispatch was more easily supportable. Heck, I wish it just didn't have a downside. Creatures need to go away.
Vs. Valakut, I would think you'd rather have Memoricide to deal with Titan... if you have extraction you need to answer the first titan before removing them all. Also, if you play Memoricide vs. Valakut, remove their titans, it doesn't even matter that much if they aren't holding titans because the main threat in the deck is gone.
Well, Extraction can remove their Valakuts, too. So you can Edge one and then get rid of the other 3 Volcanoes, and suddenly their Titans are only good at thinning out lands and fighting Mana Leaks before they die to Doom Blade.
Also, Extraction works just fine on Titans. For example, you counter a Titan. You sit on the Extraction and see if your opponent either has a Trap or not. If he plays a Trap, you extract Titans in response. If he doesn't play one, you go to your turn and Extract them after drawing for turn and examining all the information. And if he has 2 Traps, well...Extraction is like a Mindbreak Trap in this situation, since you can hold 2 counters and an Extraction to match his 3 bombs with 3 answers for only 4 mana.
Vs. Cawblade, it seems like the only thing it's really good for is the hawks. If I could have turn 1 despise your hawk and extraction the rest of them, every game, yeah it's awesome, it just seems like I have the worst luck with cards like these and always draw them at the worst times. I'm considering playing just one extraction either main or side and seeing how it works when I draw it randomly, but that's probably not a great idea.
1 maindeck Extraction won't usually hurt. The worst thing that happens is you play against RDW and it's a 0-for-1, but you can hardcast it to remove a burn spell. Then you see your opponent's build, you see his hand, and you know exactly what you should play around and what you shouldn't acknowledge. I think that Extraction is more of a board card in a countermagic-based deck, but I like 1-2 main in this metagame.
Even if CtM is less good now, it seems like every blue black deck wants to have some kind of sweeper, and usually it's Black Sun Zenith. That card seems pretty bad vs. caw blade, you can get lucky and kill a bunch of unequipped hawks at sorcery speed, once something is equipped your paying just as much as CtM but slower. Vs. Hyper aggro decks, something like BSZ X=1 on turn 3 may be the best play but CtM isn't terrible in that matchup, especially when you can cast it turn 4 with chalice on turn 3.
BSZ is really good against Caw-Blade if you're playing a board control deck that has Tumble Magnets and other such stuff, since that's when your opponent has to start running more creatures out on the table. But in a permission deck, I wouldn't have it as a part of my anti-Caw Blade package. I don't know if CtM is right for that job either, though. Personally, I like Coralhelm Commander. If you want to lock down a board position full of random white 2-drops, a 4/4 blue flier is the way to go. He's not very hard to protect against a deck with only sorcery-speed removal and Tumble Magnets, so long as you're not attacking into Condemns.
CtM is still awesome vs swarm decks, so I would be inclined to play 2 in my board. I think my plan against Elves and Vampires both would be to bring in the Extractions, however many Mental Missteps I was running, and a bunch of sweepers and just wipe the floor with their tears.
I look through the deck and try to think of things that are missing or things which I would like to see included, but then I find them in the sideboard. Well done. I still would like to see another Jwar Isle in there, but one is probably fine for what you seem to be trying to do.
I still need to tweak the sideboard, but I did want another jwar isle, I just could not figure out what to cut.
I wouldn't bother with Probes if you're running 4+ Duress effects in the deck anyways.
the probes are basically place holders. I wasn't sure If I wanted more counters or removal, so I threw in a card that essentially wasn't a card. I think these are going to become chalices, as I want to try another UB build I had a long time ago that used BSZ and USZ.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
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Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
I don't think Permission in its purest form can really exist right now, as the format revolves around too many cheap threats for Permission to legitimately expect to counter them all.
I don't think Permission in its purest form can really exist right now, as the format revolves around too many cheap threats for Permission to legitimately expect to counter them all.
Yes. We have come to that conclusion as well. If I understand correctly, we are now discussing a mb that can handle Caw-Blade and Vengevine decks, the two most consistent threats to permission, while developing a sb that allows the deck to become permission vs the rest of the field, which permission is relatively strong against. If we find that we need sorcery-speed spells to beat the meta, then that is what we will do. However, we will also explore just how strong permission is against the top decks, and adjust accordingly.
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You are a nerd if you see Gitaxian Probe and think the flavor text should be: "Prisoner Zero has escaped! Prisoner Zero has escaped!!"
Personal Laws:
1. Maintain the favorable state.
2. Try harder.
3. Rules exist for a reason. If by breaking or ignoring a rule you fulfill the purpose of said rule at least as well as if you had followed it, then said rule should be duly broken or ignored.
I don't think Permission in its purest form can really exist right now, as the format revolves around too many cheap threats for Permission to legitimately expect to counter them all.
well look at the tools that we have right now. We don't have a 2cmc hard counter or any cheap ways to get card advantage. we must run several removal spells to deal with creatures however a counter heavy (10+) deck can still win as long as you have removal to take out the cheaper threats.
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Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
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Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
There is that new UU counter Target creature spell it controller loses a life. On the play it can stop mystic or hawks. On the draw obviously you'll need spot kill and quickly if you wanna get past spellskite. Is that new counter viable. Every deck out right now relies on creatures.
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Nobody has good ideas anymore, they only mind sculpt.
The only reason Jace costs 2UU is because he said so. Even Jace is holding himself back from breaking MAGIC.
I've read somewhere that he NPH devs thought "countermagic" as one of the most unfun mech in the game, so I think they basically made heavy permission build unplayable intentionally with cheap threats and terribad countermagics.
ironically they are trying to make mono-black work, which i actually find more unfun than the traditional UB control
I've read somewhere that he NPH devs thought "countermagic" as one of the most unfun mech in the game, so I think they basically made heavy permission build unplayable intentionally with cheap threats and terribad countermagics.
ironically they are trying to make mono-black work, which i actually find more unfun than the traditional UB control
I think that Mental Misstep is the exact opposite of terribad. And at least they printed a set with 3 counterspells in it, all of which are playable in constructed because they cost 0-2 mana. I may not understand why the heck a counterspell needs to do one damage to the opponent, but I'm sure happy to have some kind of Remove Soul in the format again.
The most dangerous cheap threats are not the ones from NPH. They are 2-drops which produce very powerful card advantage immediately upon resolution, fundamentally breaking the balance of threats vs answers in all sense of what threats and answers are.
We might need to wait for Zendikar and M11 to rotate, and pray we are given some decent counterspells and instant speed draw again. There just is not an efficient way to handle the birds and mystics that they don't have an easy answer to.
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You are a nerd if you see Gitaxian Probe and think the flavor text should be: "Prisoner Zero has escaped! Prisoner Zero has escaped!!"
Personal Laws:
1. Maintain the favorable state.
2. Try harder.
3. Rules exist for a reason. If by breaking or ignoring a rule you fulfill the purpose of said rule at least as well as if you had followed it, then said rule should be duly broken or ignored.
We might need to wait for Zendikar and M11 to rotate, and pray we are given some decent counterspells and instant speed draw again. There just is not an efficient way to handle the birds and mystics that they don't have an easy answer to.
Black SUn Zenith works fairly well for me /shrug
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Is it an instant? No. So it works less well here. Can it be spell pierced? Yes. Does Caw-Blade run at least 3 spell pierce? Yes. Therefore, Black Sun is a sorcery-speed answer that can be easily handled by Caw-Blade.
If you find an answer that efficiently handles the birds, and is more difficult to handle than a sorcery-speed wipe that costs a more than ideal amount, please let us know.
If you find a method to match the advantage afforded by birds and mystics, for a cost that is close enough to theirs that you won't simply be left in the dust, please let me know.
Answers and advantage make permission, and right now the top decks of the format have the jump on both of those over us. Which is the problem.
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You are a nerd if you see Gitaxian Probe and think the flavor text should be: "Prisoner Zero has escaped! Prisoner Zero has escaped!!"
Personal Laws:
1. Maintain the favorable state.
2. Try harder.
3. Rules exist for a reason. If by breaking or ignoring a rule you fulfill the purpose of said rule at least as well as if you had followed it, then said rule should be duly broken or ignored.
Torpor orb and then no CA from birds, or just extract them.
I'm not a math genius and I don't claim to be, but it seems that if we run 4 extractions in the 75, with our discard spells we should be able to do that fairly quickly and ofter, even if we have to mana leak or disfigure a bird. Most of you will probably hate this idea, but so what. It works well enough for me that caw-blade is not my hardest deck to beat.
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its ok i'm back lol. I have a suggestion since we are running permission wouldn't jace b be a better card at least against caw just to get the jace jump. Hell against caw you can easily win just with tar pits as long as you control the board.
Here is a list that I've been working on. Red has some apeal, but I think if you play tight UB is better.
[33 other spells]
4 preordain
4 IoK
4 mana leak
4 jace beleren
2 gitaxian probe
2 go for the throat
2 into the roil
2 stoic rebuttal
2 jace's ingenuity
2 disfigure
1 doom blade
1 black sun's zenith
1 cancel
1 blue sun's zenith
1 negate
4 darkslick shores
4 drowned catacomb
4 creeping tar pit
4 tectonic edge
5 island
4 swamp
3 surgical extraction
2 disfigure
2 despise
1 black sun's zenith
1 doom blade
1 go for the throat
1 sphinx of jwar isle
1 grave titan
1 into the roil
1 derive
1 negate
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
Uhhh...you wouldn't play both? It worked kinda well for me.
Do you want to READ the rest of my 5,000 word tournament report from October?
Thank you! Lol. These forums have been driving me nuts, lately.
I think the main thing is that you need to have a lot of raw card advantage against that deck. You can expect them to be ahead a card or two early on from their 2-drops, and you have to play a couple of draw spells in order to actually resolve one through their first couple of counterspells. The nice thing, though, is that their deck becomes weaker and weaker as a game goes on. Squadron Hawk is limited to only being 4 copies in a deck, so when your opponent is out of hawks, it's useless. The equipment gives later creatures value as well, but not if their creatures are all destroyed and countered. And their counterspells are mostly soft, so when manabases start growing large you can resolve basically anything you want against that deck.
I don't really think JTMS is good against that deck, which makes sense because that entire deck is designed to make opposing Jaces weaker. Beleren is very good against them. You can really get away with plusing it and protecting it against that deck.
I look through the deck and try to think of things that are missing or things which I would like to see included, but then I find them in the sideboard. Well done. I still would like to see another Jwar Isle in there, but one is probably fine for what you seem to be trying to do.
I wouldn't bother with Probes if you're running 4+ Duress effects in the deck anyways.
I feel like Permission beats everything in the metagame except for Caw-Blade and Vengevine decks. It seems possible to have a full-on ~13 counterspell permission deck for everything else in the metagame, and have a plan for Caw-Blade and a plan for Vengevine decks. You could put the Caw-Blade plan main (with Surgical Extractions etc) and put like 5+ counters etc in the board to transform into full-on permission mode for other decks. And then 3-4 spaces could be solutions for Vengevine decks...although Surgical Extraction might just solve that outright, these days.
All I know is that I'll be slinging Ingenuities for PTQs.
That's because you know how to actually play magic haha
I try not to let anything slip while playing a match, however I do grin everytime I resolve my first ingenunity. Nothing like grabbing three off the top, starting my turn, draw a card, playing a land and pass the turn. Feeling good knowing you just won that game, lol.
8 Island
6 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Evolving Wilds
4 Tectonic Edge
3 Halimar Depths
Creatures
1 Inferno Titan
1 Trinket Mage
Trinkets
1 Brittle Effigy
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Hex Parasite
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Jace's Ingenuity
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
4 Preordain
Counters
4 Stoic Rebuttal
3 Mana Leak
2 Deprive
1 Mindbreak Trap
2 Negate
Removal
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Burst Lightning
2 Into the Roil
2 Trinket Mage
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Flashfreeze
4 Pyroclasm
3 Mental Misstep
2 Ratchet Bomb
I don't recommend trying it out if you don't enjoy long games. Once the game starts going long, it's very hard to lose, though. Elixir recurring your entire deck as you keep drawing through it with Ingenuities and Zenith (which gets pretty huge), which is why Red removal works best in the deck. That way I didn't hae to waste extra slots on finishers; every card is a control tool.
Library manipulation is key here - using Depths and Jace to set up the deck, and Elixir/Trinket/Fetches to shuffle. DON'T waste Preordains either.
Mana Leak is too good to ignore, but terrible in the late-late game, which you'll often go to, so 3 is fine. Rebuttal is at least 3/4 of. The miser Mindbreak Trap is useful, as well, though it often gets SB'd out.
There are no games that are too auto-pilot either, unfortunately. Every game is going to be a bit demanding, but once you get the hang of it, it's a blast.
I've been playing several hours a day these recent days, and the best SB plans/strategy I've had for each matchup:
This matchup can go either way, but if you play tight, you should be able to take it. After a few turns, their soft counters lose all value, so you're free to rebutt and deprive as you see fit.
On the draw, always lead with mountain to remove their mystic, if you can. Since we don't have mass removal, Hawks can be ignored for a bit, unless you see them becoming a real hassle G1. If they have hawks down disrupt sword until you can clean up with Inferno Titan, or just Jace them out if you have the removal/counters enough for the hawks.
SB: -1 Mindbreak Trap, -1 Blue Sun's Zenith, +2 Ratchet Bomb.
That's how I usually do it since those are the two spells most prone to getting hit by Leak/Pierce and are terrible to see in my opener. Ratchet Bomb is fantastic here. I they play 1-2 birds, let them be. If they overextend, crack it. If not, just leave them with 1 bird. Relevant against Jace/Gid/Equipment, as well.
The key is surviving the early game (of course.) Don't be afraid to take hits in order to get max information out of a turn.
INS's article talks about how to deal with Valakut as a permission deck, I think. If not, there are a few posts around here.
This is another matchup that requires very tight play. The aggro build is a bit more annoying to deal with, since we have to keep some spot removal in.
SB: +2 Flashfreeze, +1 Surgical Extraction
-1 Hex Parasite, -1 Burst Lightning, -1 Lightning Bolt
More hard counters and Extraction to get rid of a Titan/Valakut/Trap forever.
The Eldrazi Green matchup is somewhat similar Eldrazi creatures are infinitely harder to deal with. Recurring the singleton mindbreak trap and Elixir are your only real outs G1.
SB: -1 Burst Lightning, -2 Lightning Bolt, -1 Hex Parasite
+2 Flashfreeze, +2 Surgical Extraction
Among them, RDW with Shrine of Burning Rage is the toughest. It is amazing against us, though Ratchet Bomb and a well-placed Roil/Counter can help.
SB: +2 Trinket Mage, +X Mental Misstep (Depending on build and play/draw), +2 Ratchet Bomb, +4 Pyroclasm, +2 Flashfreeze
-1 Hex Parasite, -1 Blue Sun's Zenith, -1 Mindbreak Trap, -2 Stoic Rebuttal, -1 Deprive, -2 Negate, -X Other Cards (Match-up dependent; against Boros you want a bit more counters due to potential Koth/Gideon)
ExarchTwin (with Discard)
SB: -4 Lightning Bolt, -1 Burst Lightning, (-1 Hex Parasite)
(+3 Mental Misstep), +2 Ratchet Bomb, +2 Surgical Extraction
Pyromancer
SB: +2 Flashfreeze, +2 Ratchet Bomb, +1 Surgical Extraction
-4 Lightning Bolt, -1 Burst Lightning
Unless you have a clear opportunity to land one of your sorcery-speed spells, don't make the first move. You have instant-speed draw and hard counters; long game is better for you.
SB: +2 Mental Misstep, +2 Ratchet Bomb
-1 Burst Lightning, -3 Lightning Bolt
Just don't rush when playing the deck. It's built for the long, long game.
One possible change I'd like to make is getting a Ratchet Bomb main. Most likely for Mindbreak Trap; switching their SB and MD roles.
The deck often gets confused with ExarchTwin, which is a plus as it make some decks think playing Draw-Go with you is a good idea. Which makes me think that using a couple slots for the actual combo might be beneficial, but then, I might as well be playing the combo deck.
Are you saying that you would cast multiple ingenuities, knowing one may get countered? I guess the advantage is they have to use the counterspell during their endstep so it's one less counter they have for your turn... but wouldn't it be better if you could just resolve all your draw spells? Yes... resolving ingenuity is great... but doing (almost) nothing on your turn and caw blades turn, EOT ingen, see caw blades spell pierce? Would it help to run Spell Pierce to fight against caw blades counterspells rather than let your 5cmc get countered by 1cmc spell? I guess if you play 4 ingen it's not a terrible loss if its countered, and it gives you a turn to do stuff with less counters in the way.
You want to see zero JTMS vs. caw blade? If your anticipating caw blade in the meta, but you want the full number of JTMS vs other decks, do you board JTMS? I was thinking 3 JB, 2 JTMS maindeck with 1 JTMS board. Obviously these numbers all depend on the deck. Plus if you have ingenuities that kind of makes up for the lack of JTMS.
While were on the topic of drawing cards vs. caw blade, what about consecrated sphinx? They have no instant speed answer to it, with beleren in play you will see six more cards total before your next main phase. Another spell that can't be spell pierced. They can DoJ your Titan, but if sphinx is in play for just a short while you get all these cards. Still probably better off with ingenuity, but just a thought.
Question - Does 4 Ingenuity seem a little "top heavy"? There have been games that I played with this archetype running 4 of them where I would sit with 2 ingenuities in my hand. Vs. goblins, it can be inconvenient to have 2 cards in hand that don't do anything about getting dudes off the table (if they are on the play, you probably don't have time for drawing cards), vs. control, its auto win. Even if it takes forever, you have insane card advantage over your opponent. How do you feel about this? Obviously there is some luck involved, and I wouldnt keep a hand with 1-2 ingenuity and no way to cast them anytime soon. Is everflowing chalice worth including in the deck to cast ingen/titan a turn sooner?
Do you really need a cheaper, more narrow Cranial Extraction vs. the top deck in the format which has so many ways of winning the game? Granted I would love to do a on the draw turn 1 disfigure/extraction their hawks, or guarantee I will never see gideon again, but is 2 for 1ing yourself worth it? Not saying it is a bad card, there are times I will draw it and its a powerhouse, but I think it has the potential to be completely dead more often than not.Precursor Golem seems like a good card to have vs. cawblade and vengevine, especially if your deck has 7-8 inq/duress effects to combat removal like condemn (if that is even still played). I've only lost one game to vengevines where I resolved the tri golem and it was due to Eldrazi Monument.
Also, permission 13~ counterspells is probably fine vs. RUG, valakut, and most random decks, are the only aggro decks your concerned about consist of just vengevines, and anything else you just board in BSZ/Disfigure?
On another note, so how good is Consume the Meek now? Instant speed kill everything but gideon vs. caw blade, kills things with a feast and famine on it, a little expensive vs. hyper aggro but it sounds like UB is more concerned with beating caw blade than goblins and elves.
You can't win every battle against that deck, so you have to prepare for war. Yes, I would cast 2 Ingenuities if that meant one is countered and the next one slips through. As soon as you resolve an Ingenuity, if you can solve the immediate board position, you have won the game. But you have to have a sufficient amount of card advantage in your deck so that you can chain draw spells, or else Ingenuity is pointless. That's why you play 4 of them, you play Preordains to find more of them, and you play supplemental draw spells. I used to play Mind Sculptors as my supplemental draw spells...right now I like the Pyromancer Ascension engine in that space.
I don't want to engage in a Jace pissing contest with that deck. They are better equipped to win that war. I would rather seek other forms of card advantage, and use counterspells or other answers to deal with Jace. I don't think that playing Jaces has ever been necessary for playing control decks, considering that control decks have existed for over a decade and Jace Beleren was printed only a couple of years ago.
It's really good because you get the cards right in their draw step. That makes it effective against all the sorcery-speed removal in the format and insane against Tumble Magnet. I still think Jwar Isle is better as a permission finisher, but Consecrated Sphinx has some serious advantages. If you're looking to play more than just a pair of bombs because you want to deal with convoluted board positions, I think Consecrated Sphinx is good alongside Grave Titan in a 2/2 split. I like those 2 together because one gives you literal raw card advantage and is a great anti-control threat, and one gives you nutty board clutter as an anti-aggro device. That would be for a build with some way of being able to cast 6-drops without getting raped by resolved spells on the other side of the table...so probably Everflowing Chalice or Explore would be involved.
If you're not playing 4 Ingenuities, don't even bother putting a permission deck together. This type of deck won't work unless you play a critical mass of draw spells. The whole point is that you resolve an Ingenuity, then that draws you another one, which draws you another one. The first Ingenuity seems like it's just a 3-for-1, but in reality it's more like a 9-for-1 because you know you're going to find more of them and resolve them. The floodgate is already open, and card advantage is streaming in.
With that in mind, I agree that the card is a bit slow. Before this format became crackhead-fast with a bunch of stupid 2-drop creatures, it was realistically easy to play with a 5-mana draw spell. Now? I like acceleration a lot more than patiently playing lands. Personally, I'm using Explore and thinking about a pair of Chalices.
Something important to note about accel is that it allows you to get away with more Into the Roils in the deck than usual. You can kick it on turn 3, and that's really good. Also, you can kick it and counter a spell in the same turn, a little earlier than usual. I think Into the Roil is the best spot removal spell in the format right now, and playing 4 of them is really sweet.
Cranial Extraction is only going to 1-for-1 if your opponent has the right card in his hand and somehow hasn't casted it yet. Extirpate will deal with dead/countered/discarded Vengevines and Bloodghasts IMMEDIATELY, and for 2 life or one mana. Yes, you're down a card, but it's worth it for some threats. I don't agree with the idea of removing Jaces or Gideons from your opponent's deck; the plan is to hit a card like Squadron Hawk or Vengevine because you can't really fight that engine with countermagic and removal. You should really have a specific target in mind when you cast Extirpate. Granted, sometimes being opportunistic is correct--if you counter a Gideon and see 2 more in your opponent's hand, then go ahead and Extirpate for a 2-for-1. Even just 1-for-1ing is fine, but only if you don't need Extirpate for some other job. Remember why you're playing the card in the first place.
Yes, I think Surgical Extraction is much better than Memoricide. The main reason is that I can actually resolve a Surgical Extraction...while it's not Split Second, it is practically free and it is an instant. Good luck Memoriciding into Mana Leaks and leaving yourself exposed because you spent your main phase casting a 4-drop that didn't affect the board position.
CtM only became bad because of Spell Pierce. I think that Mental Misstep/discard spells could solve this problem pretty easily.
Nobody has good ideas anymore, they only mind sculpt.
The only reason Jace costs 2UU is because he said so. Even Jace is holding himself back from breaking MAGIC.
So 4 Preordain 4 Jace's Ingenuity 3 Jace Beleren MD with JB as the supplemental card draw for UB with decks like caw blade in mind seems okay to you? I understand your reasoning for not wanting to use JTMS in a permission deck and why you don't want it vs. cawblade, you don't want it at all? Against decks where winning the jace war can be important but isn't extremely difficult, I would think you would want JTMS over JB very much so. I'd like your opinion but I will test it out some myself and try to get a feel for it.
So if you have
4 Preordain
4 Ingenuity
3 Jace Beleren
4 Everflowing Chalice
2 Grave Titan
2 Consecrated Sphinx
+ 26 Lands
= 45 cards
From the info I'm gathering it seems like this would be an ideal shell for a UB permission control. Lots of card draw, and 15 spots for removal/discard/counters. Everything seems good vs. caw blade. Depending on my hand and if I'm on the play or the draw, I would probably play a chalice for 1 on turn 4 with 2 mana open. If they counter it, then that's one less counter for an ingenuity. If not, then I get ahead on mana, their pierces become less useful. Is four chalice too many?
It sounds like your talking about a RUG colored permission deck using pyromancers, so since you lack doom blade/gftt 4 ItR seems really good but is that too many for UB, even with all the chalices? I was thinking about 2 or 3.
Vs. Valakut, I would think you'd rather have Memoricide to deal with Titan... if you have extraction you need to answer the first titan before removing them all. Also, if you play Memoricide vs. Valakut, remove their titans, it doesn't even matter that much if they aren't holding titans because the main threat in the deck is gone.
Vs. Cawblade, it seems like the only thing it's really good for is the hawks. If I could have turn 1 despise your hawk and extraction the rest of them, every game, yeah it's awesome, it just seems like I have the worst luck with cards like these and always draw them at the worst times. I'm considering playing just one extraction either main or side and seeing how it works when I draw it randomly, but that's probably not a great idea.
Even if CtM is less good now, it seems like every blue black deck wants to have some kind of sweeper, and usually it's Black Sun Zenith. That card seems pretty bad vs. caw blade, you can get lucky and kill a bunch of unequipped hawks at sorcery speed, once something is equipped your paying just as much as CtM but slower. Vs. Hyper aggro decks, something like BSZ X=1 on turn 3 may be the best play but CtM isn't terrible in that matchup, especially when you can cast it turn 4 with chalice on turn 3.
For reference, this is my Pyromancer list:
3 Evolving Wilds
4 Rootbound Crag
9 Island
3 Mountain
2 Forest
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mana Leak
2 Pyroclasm
4 Into the Roil
4 Preordain
4 Explore
2 Call to Mind
4 Pyromancer's Ascension
4 Jace's Ingenuity
2 Pyroclasm
2 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
4 Mental Misstep
4 Deprive
3 Demolish
It's not a permission deck pre-board because the top decks in the metagame are fairly hostile towards traditional permission. In the board, I bring out the hard counters and Jwar Isles, and sometimes I even just take out most or all of the Ascension package and transform completely into draw-go. In any case, this deck is based upon the ideas that I've gathered while tuning a lot of control decks for Standard and Extended in the last 8 months. Ingenuity, Preordain, Roil, and Leak area all amazing cards in this format, with the right support. I think that 2-mana enchantments are much more stable than either breed of Jace right now, and it's not like I'm unhappy about playing 12 cantrips to help aid the engine. This way, you don't have to babysit a planeswalker in order to produce some decent card advantage while somehow handling the board position at the same time...it's much easier when your bomb is 2 mana.
Before anyone asks, Demolish is my current plan for Primeval Titan decks. You activate an Ascension and start blowing up 2-3 key lands at a time, and their deck starts falling apart. It's still an experiment, so I'm not sure if it will stay. The point is that there has to be something in there to deal with those decks...I need to test against people who are not retarded random MWS opponents in order to get a grasp on whether this is a good plan or not.
I don't think it's terrible to play a very powerful 4-mana planeswalker. The problem is that decks have evolved (rightfully so) to deal with JTMS. A LOT of decks play 4-6 Jaces of their own, making it a pain in the neck to actually keep your Jace on the table for a while. And the 2 major Jace decks are both playing 2-drop creatures, and one of those decks is even playing Bolts and Inferno Titans. It's a bad day to be expecting anything other than an activation or 2 from a Jace because people are playing the answers. So if you can find other ways of playing additional card advantage on top of the Ingenuities, that's ideal. I'm doing it with Pyromancer Ascension. If I could find something better at a reasonable mana cost, I would probably use it instead. Maybe I'm overlooking something in Ux, but hey--that's one of the reasons why I engage in forum discussions.
I wouldn't think so. In mid- to late-game situations, you start multi-kicking Chalices, and that makes them a form of card advantage. I think 4 is correct. The real question is how many lands to run alongside that. I think you could probably run 25 lands, have a stable color base, and still have 4 Tectonic Edges. You don't really need 26 with 4 Chalices and 4 Preordains in the deck, though going up or down a land is something you really have to just try out and get a feel for. This is why I like to mark some of my cards in testing--for example, if I play 7 Islands and I'm trying out an 8th Island, I'll use a different-looking Island for that 8th one to see how often it comes up and what my impressions of the land are. Normally I use all Tornado full-art lands from Zendikar, so I'll put in some crappy Lorwyn Island and keep track of whether it's good, terrible, or irrelevant. The same can be done by putting a proxy in of a card like Mana Leak and just writing '#4' on it to check the numbers.
But to get back to the point, I think you want 4 Chalices. Everflowing Chalice is a great way of fighting tempo counters like Spell Pierce and Mana Leak--which is one of the major reasons that well-constructed Tezzeret Machine-style decks beat the brains out of Caw-Blade.
3 is probably right...but if you can make 4 work, it's absolutely ridiculous. Because it's so non-specific, it can just solve anything.
I wish Dispatch was more easily supportable. Heck, I wish it just didn't have a downside. Creatures need to go away.
Well, Extraction can remove their Valakuts, too. So you can Edge one and then get rid of the other 3 Volcanoes, and suddenly their Titans are only good at thinning out lands and fighting Mana Leaks before they die to Doom Blade.
Also, Extraction works just fine on Titans. For example, you counter a Titan. You sit on the Extraction and see if your opponent either has a Trap or not. If he plays a Trap, you extract Titans in response. If he doesn't play one, you go to your turn and Extract them after drawing for turn and examining all the information. And if he has 2 Traps, well...Extraction is like a Mindbreak Trap in this situation, since you can hold 2 counters and an Extraction to match his 3 bombs with 3 answers for only 4 mana.
1 maindeck Extraction won't usually hurt. The worst thing that happens is you play against RDW and it's a 0-for-1, but you can hardcast it to remove a burn spell. Then you see your opponent's build, you see his hand, and you know exactly what you should play around and what you shouldn't acknowledge. I think that Extraction is more of a board card in a countermagic-based deck, but I like 1-2 main in this metagame.
BSZ is really good against Caw-Blade if you're playing a board control deck that has Tumble Magnets and other such stuff, since that's when your opponent has to start running more creatures out on the table. But in a permission deck, I wouldn't have it as a part of my anti-Caw Blade package. I don't know if CtM is right for that job either, though. Personally, I like Coralhelm Commander. If you want to lock down a board position full of random white 2-drops, a 4/4 blue flier is the way to go. He's not very hard to protect against a deck with only sorcery-speed removal and Tumble Magnets, so long as you're not attacking into Condemns.
CtM is still awesome vs swarm decks, so I would be inclined to play 2 in my board. I think my plan against Elves and Vampires both would be to bring in the Extractions, however many Mental Missteps I was running, and a bunch of sweepers and just wipe the floor with their tears.
---
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
2 Wurmcoil Engine
[33 other spells]
4 Mana Leak
4 Preordain
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Everflowing Chalice
3 Jace Beleren
2 Disfigure
2 Go for the Throat
2 Into the Roil
2 Jace's Ingenuity
2 Stoic Rebuttal
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Cancel
1 Negate
1 Geth's Verdict
4 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
5 Island
4 Swamp
4 Tectonic Edge
2 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
1 Black Sun's Zenith
2 Disfigure
2 Duress
1 Geth's Verdict
1 Into the Roil
1 Negate
1 Spell Pierce
1 Stoic Rebuttal
3 Surgical Extraction
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
Yes. We have come to that conclusion as well. If I understand correctly, we are now discussing a mb that can handle Caw-Blade and Vengevine decks, the two most consistent threats to permission, while developing a sb that allows the deck to become permission vs the rest of the field, which permission is relatively strong against. If we find that we need sorcery-speed spells to beat the meta, then that is what we will do. However, we will also explore just how strong permission is against the top decks, and adjust accordingly.
Personal Laws:
1. Maintain the favorable state.
2. Try harder.
3. Rules exist for a reason. If by breaking or ignoring a rule you fulfill the purpose of said rule at least as well as if you had followed it, then said rule should be duly broken or ignored.
well look at the tools that we have right now. We don't have a 2cmc hard counter or any cheap ways to get card advantage. we must run several removal spells to deal with creatures however a counter heavy (10+) deck can still win as long as you have removal to take out the cheaper threats.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
Nobody has good ideas anymore, they only mind sculpt.
The only reason Jace costs 2UU is because he said so. Even Jace is holding himself back from breaking MAGIC.
Yeah, they've made playing permission pretty terrible. It's why I wanna switch over to Legacy where you can play it successfully.
ironically they are trying to make mono-black work, which i actually find more unfun than the traditional UB control
I think that Mental Misstep is the exact opposite of terribad. And at least they printed a set with 3 counterspells in it, all of which are playable in constructed because they cost 0-2 mana. I may not understand why the heck a counterspell needs to do one damage to the opponent, but I'm sure happy to have some kind of Remove Soul in the format again.
The most dangerous cheap threats are not the ones from NPH. They are 2-drops which produce very powerful card advantage immediately upon resolution, fundamentally breaking the balance of threats vs answers in all sense of what threats and answers are.
Personal Laws:
1. Maintain the favorable state.
2. Try harder.
3. Rules exist for a reason. If by breaking or ignoring a rule you fulfill the purpose of said rule at least as well as if you had followed it, then said rule should be duly broken or ignored.
Black SUn Zenith works fairly well for me /shrug
Is it an instant? No. So it works less well here. Can it be spell pierced? Yes. Does Caw-Blade run at least 3 spell pierce? Yes. Therefore, Black Sun is a sorcery-speed answer that can be easily handled by Caw-Blade.
If you find an answer that efficiently handles the birds, and is more difficult to handle than a sorcery-speed wipe that costs a more than ideal amount, please let us know.
If you find a method to match the advantage afforded by birds and mystics, for a cost that is close enough to theirs that you won't simply be left in the dust, please let me know.
Answers and advantage make permission, and right now the top decks of the format have the jump on both of those over us. Which is the problem.
Personal Laws:
1. Maintain the favorable state.
2. Try harder.
3. Rules exist for a reason. If by breaking or ignoring a rule you fulfill the purpose of said rule at least as well as if you had followed it, then said rule should be duly broken or ignored.
I'm not a math genius and I don't claim to be, but it seems that if we run 4 extractions in the 75, with our discard spells we should be able to do that fairly quickly and ofter, even if we have to mana leak or disfigure a bird. Most of you will probably hate this idea, but so what. It works well enough for me that caw-blade is not my hardest deck to beat.