So, as of late, it seems as though there has essentially established a mix between the different types of Azorius Control lists: Those who splash red for Assemble the Legion, Counterflux, and Wear and those who do not, using more untapped lands to their advantage, and also running Mutavault.
What I am wondering, as I am considering using this archetype to pilot, what will be more successful in my meta? It has a good mix between what each list is better suited against: UWr being better against lists such as Mono Black Devotion and UW being better against an aggressive meta. Which list is essentially better overall?
UW is just better overall. Your manabase is more stable and you have a lot of card draw which will help you recover from thoughtseize/duress. People don't realize the value of having untapped mana every turn until they play 3 colors and die to their manabase.
UW is just better overall. Your manabase is more stable and you have a lot of card draw which will help you recover from thoughtseize/duress. People don't realize the value of having untapped mana every turn until they play 3 colors and die to their manabase.
Nah. UWR is infinitely better than UW against MBD as it has access to the same card draw effects as well as assemble out of the board. Esper and UWr also trump UW in the mirror due to Thoughtseize and Counterflux respectively. UW is obviously better in a lot of matchups due to it's mana, but that is heavily meta dependent. Calling it strictly better is wrong.
I could agree on uwr vs mono black, but I would not say that Esper trumps UW in the mirror. Esper has a stronger focus on spot removal, which is almost always dead against g1 against UW. UW's manabase also allows you to run mutavaults, which are great against control. Strictly better may be wrong, but I still stand by the fact that UW is currently a much better "catch all" in a diverse meta, which is what the OP is implying their meta is.
I think UW splash red is kind of narrow. Yes, assemble is good against monoblack. But most UW control lists are already really good against mono black. They simply have more card advantage than thoughtseize can ever rip. Splashing red in your mana base just so you can play a couple of win cons post board that are hard for black to interact with is not good. You could just put in Aetherling since it will actually win you the game faster and they also have no good ways to interact with it.
Counterflux for the UW control mirror is similarly narrow. ESPECIALLY post board they will know what you're up to, and board in as many threats as possible. Additionally, in practice, you will find that while you may wish to save your counterflux for their elixir/win cons, what will you ACTUALLY do when they rev for 9 and you only have counterflux in hand? Not use it because you want to save it to counter elixir? News flash: Even if they can't win the game, you can't win the game either if they get really far ahead. So this whole supposed "edge" in the control mirror is likely to result in lots of draws rather than straight up wins. I'm sorry but a deck whose game plan results in draws is not competitive.
Additionally I think this plan is bad because in the UW control mirror neither of you have any way other than detention sphere to interact with Jace4 when he's ticking up (okay, mutavault, but if you both have one then the defender with Jace4 wins). So Jace4 is also effectively a win con which means your plan to counter all his threats is not good.
The red splash just makes you even weaker in the Esper matchup because Esper doesn't care about counterflux, especially post board. They are just going to thoughtseize it before you can counter their threats, and then your mana base is as bad as theirs and you have nothing to show for it. Esper lists also traditionally runs tons of threats, but I've been looking at Esper lists a lot lately and there are many, many shades of Esper, whereas there are only 1-2 different styles of UW(r) control decks.
I actually think ATL is a really weak threat and is almost always worse than just dropping elspeth and making tokens or hitting the murder button. ATL takes eons to win, so if you are already losing it is not likely to stabilize you fast enough, especially in a format where evasion and protection creatures are all played in spades.
I could agree on uwr vs mono black, but I would not say that Esper trumps UW in the mirror. Esper has a stronger focus on spot removal, which is almost always dead against g1 against UW. UW's manabase also allows you to run mutavaults, which are great against control. Strictly better may be wrong, but I still stand by the fact that UW is currently a much better "catch all" in a diverse meta, which is what the OP is implying their meta is.
Agreed, it really depends on the makeup of the Esper deck. Are they running Elixir (do they do that nowadays)? How many Downfall's vs. dead removal spells are they running? And yeah, in an open meta, UW is probably the best (not to mention cheapest) call.
I think UW splash red is kind of narrow. Yes, assemble is good against monoblack. But most UW control lists are already really good against mono black. They simply have more card advantage than thoughtseize can ever rip. Splashing red in your mana base just so you can play a couple of win cons post board that are hard for black to interact with is not good. You could just put in Aetherling since it will actually win you the game faster and they also have no good ways to interact with it.
Counterflux for the UW control mirror is similarly narrow. ESPECIALLY post board they will know what you're up to, and board in as many threats as possible. Additionally, in practice, you will find that while you may wish to save your counterflux for their elixir/win cons, what will you ACTUALLY do when they rev for 9 and you only have counterflux in hand? Not use it because you want to save it to counter elixir? News flash: Even if they can't win the game, you can't win the game either if they get really far ahead. So this whole supposed "edge" in the control mirror is likely to result in lots of draws rather than straight up wins. I'm sorry but a deck whose game plan results in draws is not competitive.
Additionally I think this plan is bad because in the UW control mirror neither of you have any way other than detention sphere to interact with Jace4 when he's ticking up (okay, mutavault, but if you both have one then the defender with Jace4 wins). So Jace4 is also effectively a win con which means your plan to counter all his threats is not good.
The red splash just makes you even weaker in the Esper matchup because Esper doesn't care about counterflux, especially post board. They are just going to thoughtseize it before you can counter their threats, and then your mana base is as bad as theirs and you have nothing to show for it. Esper lists also traditionally runs tons of threats, but I've been looking at Esper lists a lot lately and there are many, many shades of Esper, whereas there are only 1-2 different styles of UW(r) control decks.
I actually think ATL is a really weak threat and is almost always worse than just dropping elspeth and making tokens or hitting the murder button. ATL takes eons to win, so if you are already losing it is not likely to stabilize you fast enough, especially in a format where evasion and protection creatures are all played in spades.
You've never resolved an Assemble against MBD. They can race Aetherling. They straight up can't race Assemble after a T4 wrath. They have one creature that Assemble doesn't completely negate in Spectre. Aetherling does nearly nothing to stabilize where as they could have active Connections and Erebos going and still never catch up to Assemble. Demon does not interact with Assemble favorably if they choose to leave some in.
Against esper, yes, the value of Counterflux is greatly diminished, but against UW, what threats could they possibly bring in? They run 5-6 ways to win the game in the main (if you count Jaces) and 0 in board.
UWR is not infinitely better against Black Devotion due to a difference of a few Assemble the Legion, that's just absurd.
Mutavaults are great against control, and then you say that Esper has many dead spot removal G1.. Mutavaults are only a threat G2-3 when most spot-removal has been sided out, but Esper gains more strength post-board than Azorius does due to, as you said, removing many of it's dead cards but also having access to more powerful spells to bring in.
Many Azorius lists don't have more card-advantage than Mono Black can rip, not all run 3+ Divination.
Aetherling does not win the game faster, because it takes many more turns to get it onto the battlefield.
How many more threats can they seriously board in? What are they going to do, side out some lands/counterspells in order to bring in Fiendslayer Paladin?
When they rev for 9 and one has counterflux in hand, one simply lets them draw their 9 cards. Congrationlations, they now have 9 less card-life and you have counterflux to stop any threat you can't otherwise deal with. If they can't win the game, then they lose.... You do realise that people can deck themselves, right? All it takes is to save one's Counterflux to take out their Elixir, then don't rev for as much or resolves one's own Elixir, and then deal with their other threats, Counterflux helps for this, and gg. In this match-up, it's not about winning, it's about surviving and letting one's opponent kill themselves. Mutavalt becomes a removal spell, Elspeth becomes a counter-bait/stall card, everything else is secondary to countering their win-cons and being on top of deck-card-life. Getting a draw is a problem, however, the UWr has a decent sized advantage G1 that I don't think this is much of a problem, although I could be wrong about that.
Jace, AoT was the card that killed me the most when testing UWr, ironically enough.
So Esper is using their special Thoughtseize to disrupt American's special Counterflux, so the special cards are trading and this is bad, why? Esper still has Dissolves in the list, but American has a greater capacity to run more counterspells in general. It clearly depends on the Esper list, if they're running many threats with a bunch of Thoughtseizes and counterspells, American is a big dog, but there's also many set-ups where the American deck can have the edge, although I think on average Esper is the favourite. Regardless, if we're just talking control vs. control, American has the edge against the most commonly played control deck, Azorius.
Clearly running shocks doesn't have any siginicant impact in the control vs. control game.
On average how likely are you going to draw the card in a situation where Aetherling is not just as good i.e how often do you draw it before you have 9 mana? Unless you run quite a few, I find it hard to believe that it could have such a profound impact, especially when they run disruption.
On average how likely are you going to draw the card in a situation where Aetherling is not just as good i.e how often do you draw it before you have 9 mana? Unless you run quite a few, I find it hard to believe that it could have such a profound impact, especially when they run disruption.
2 out of the board. Aetherling does nothing to stabilize while Assemble literally brick walls them until you win. You get to draw cards after they Thoughtseize you. The deck happens to draw a lot of cards.
The difference is that you need to already be winning for Aetherling to be good, where Assemble can turn a creatureless board and active connections into an auto win (while also being 2-3 less mana).
If I ran Aetherling out of the board, I honestly don't know if I side it in. If I've gotten to that point in the game in that matchup, I'm already winning.
I really doubt that two cards will make a huge difference in the win-rate against a deck. Not saying that it's not incredibly strong against them, but I think people in here are over-stating the impact of how those two cards impacts a match-up.
I really doubt that two cards will make a huge difference in the win-rate against a deck. Not saying that it's not incredibly strong against them, but I think people in here are over-stating the impact of how those two cards impacts a match-up.
This ^. Assemble can wreck mono black, and Aetherling can close out a control mirror, but you have to resolve them first :p.
Assemble is only a trump to a couple of cards in monoblack. It beats desecration demon and pack rat. Eventually. You get 0 benefit from ATL the turn it comes down. It can start beating demon the turn AFTER, and it can start beating pack rat after 2-3 turns when you've caught up to their number of pack rats. But if you're already losing the game, ATL isn't going to save you.
Even if you manage to just slam it on turn 5 stabilized with 12 health, it still doesn't beat their devotion --> grey merchant plan. So it's not like assemble puts MBD completely out of the game. Also, post board, they put in lifebane zombies and tons of disruption against you. So post board assemble is a worse stabilizer and they also have a decent chance to discard assemble. Because of the LBZs and Erebos, MBD becomes a lot more aggressive post board, so a threat that takes 2-3 turns to stabilize sometimes isn't enough.
U/W/(r) control is just good against MBD because we play more non-interactive card advantage than any other deck in the format, and this matchup is defined by card advantage. It has very little to do with assemble the legion. Having lands come into play tapped could even be a significant disadvantage because you can't resolve your card draw spells on curve, and that's what these decks do --> convert mana into more cards.
Assemble is only a trump to a couple of cards in monoblack
It's not an answer to a specific threat. It's a wincon that MBD can never interact with short of Thoughtseize or Duress. Elspeth can be Downfalled and AEtherling can be Needled but a resolved Assemble gives them a clock. Eventually they'll be overwhelmed and inevitability is what UWx is all about.
As far as which is the best version of UWx, I'd agree with those that say it's straight UW. Last Breath deals with so many of early game threats in the current standard that messing with your manabase doesn't provide enough of an improvement to card quality to be worth it. Hero's Downfall is nice against GR Monsters. Turn // Burn is a better answer to Obzedat or Blood Baron than anything straight UW has. So if one of the problem cards is running rampant, one of the variants is probably better. Otherwise, I'd say straight UW is the most reliable, has the best MUD matchup and isn't really weak against anything.
I find it funny that that guy is touting Assemble as an answer to Mono-Black, when you should just be rolling them automatically because you're playing control and most of their cards are bad. The only things you need to worry about are Whip and Connections, everything else gets picked up in sweepers. They auto-lose to a decent sized revelation, and our deck is best suited to keep the board clear to make Gray Merchant a blank.
Oh, I thought he was talking about playing a spell that is countering a spell with counters on it as it comes into play, but I see you guys were just discussing whether he was flashing a creature with flash in order to flash a flashback or just flashing a creature with flash but not needing flash in order to flashback a spell without flash.
-regarding Snapcaster Mage.
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What I am wondering, as I am considering using this archetype to pilot, what will be more successful in my meta? It has a good mix between what each list is better suited against: UWr being better against lists such as Mono Black Devotion and UW being better against an aggressive meta. Which list is essentially better overall?
Nah. UWR is infinitely better than UW against MBD as it has access to the same card draw effects as well as assemble out of the board. Esper and UWr also trump UW in the mirror due to Thoughtseize and Counterflux respectively. UW is obviously better in a lot of matchups due to it's mana, but that is heavily meta dependent. Calling it strictly better is wrong.
Counterflux for the UW control mirror is similarly narrow. ESPECIALLY post board they will know what you're up to, and board in as many threats as possible. Additionally, in practice, you will find that while you may wish to save your counterflux for their elixir/win cons, what will you ACTUALLY do when they rev for 9 and you only have counterflux in hand? Not use it because you want to save it to counter elixir? News flash: Even if they can't win the game, you can't win the game either if they get really far ahead. So this whole supposed "edge" in the control mirror is likely to result in lots of draws rather than straight up wins. I'm sorry but a deck whose game plan results in draws is not competitive.
Additionally I think this plan is bad because in the UW control mirror neither of you have any way other than detention sphere to interact with Jace4 when he's ticking up (okay, mutavault, but if you both have one then the defender with Jace4 wins). So Jace4 is also effectively a win con which means your plan to counter all his threats is not good.
The red splash just makes you even weaker in the Esper matchup because Esper doesn't care about counterflux, especially post board. They are just going to thoughtseize it before you can counter their threats, and then your mana base is as bad as theirs and you have nothing to show for it. Esper lists also traditionally runs tons of threats, but I've been looking at Esper lists a lot lately and there are many, many shades of Esper, whereas there are only 1-2 different styles of UW(r) control decks.
I actually think ATL is a really weak threat and is almost always worse than just dropping elspeth and making tokens or hitting the murder button. ATL takes eons to win, so if you are already losing it is not likely to stabilize you fast enough, especially in a format where evasion and protection creatures are all played in spades.
Agreed, it really depends on the makeup of the Esper deck. Are they running Elixir (do they do that nowadays)? How many Downfall's vs. dead removal spells are they running? And yeah, in an open meta, UW is probably the best (not to mention cheapest) call.
You've never resolved an Assemble against MBD. They can race Aetherling. They straight up can't race Assemble after a T4 wrath. They have one creature that Assemble doesn't completely negate in Spectre. Aetherling does nearly nothing to stabilize where as they could have active Connections and Erebos going and still never catch up to Assemble. Demon does not interact with Assemble favorably if they choose to leave some in.
Against esper, yes, the value of Counterflux is greatly diminished, but against UW, what threats could they possibly bring in? They run 5-6 ways to win the game in the main (if you count Jaces) and 0 in board.
Mutavaults are great against control, and then you say that Esper has many dead spot removal G1.. Mutavaults are only a threat G2-3 when most spot-removal has been sided out, but Esper gains more strength post-board than Azorius does due to, as you said, removing many of it's dead cards but also having access to more powerful spells to bring in.
Many Azorius lists don't have more card-advantage than Mono Black can rip, not all run 3+ Divination.
Aetherling does not win the game faster, because it takes many more turns to get it onto the battlefield.
How many more threats can they seriously board in? What are they going to do, side out some lands/counterspells in order to bring in Fiendslayer Paladin?
When they rev for 9 and one has counterflux in hand, one simply lets them draw their 9 cards. Congrationlations, they now have 9 less card-life and you have counterflux to stop any threat you can't otherwise deal with. If they can't win the game, then they lose.... You do realise that people can deck themselves, right? All it takes is to save one's Counterflux to take out their Elixir, then don't rev for as much or resolves one's own Elixir, and then deal with their other threats, Counterflux helps for this, and gg. In this match-up, it's not about winning, it's about surviving and letting one's opponent kill themselves. Mutavalt becomes a removal spell, Elspeth becomes a counter-bait/stall card, everything else is secondary to countering their win-cons and being on top of deck-card-life. Getting a draw is a problem, however, the UWr has a decent sized advantage G1 that I don't think this is much of a problem, although I could be wrong about that.
Jace, AoT was the card that killed me the most when testing UWr, ironically enough.
So Esper is using their special Thoughtseize to disrupt American's special Counterflux, so the special cards are trading and this is bad, why? Esper still has Dissolves in the list, but American has a greater capacity to run more counterspells in general. It clearly depends on the Esper list, if they're running many threats with a bunch of Thoughtseizes and counterspells, American is a big dog, but there's also many set-ups where the American deck can have the edge, although I think on average Esper is the favourite. Regardless, if we're just talking control vs. control, American has the edge against the most commonly played control deck, Azorius.
Clearly running shocks doesn't have any siginicant impact in the control vs. control game.
I'm 7-0 in matches and 14-2 in games in the matchup. It's probably the best card in the format against the deck. It's better.
2 out of the board. Aetherling does nothing to stabilize while Assemble literally brick walls them until you win. You get to draw cards after they Thoughtseize you. The deck happens to draw a lot of cards.
The difference is that you need to already be winning for Aetherling to be good, where Assemble can turn a creatureless board and active connections into an auto win (while also being 2-3 less mana).
If I ran Aetherling out of the board, I honestly don't know if I side it in. If I've gotten to that point in the game in that matchup, I'm already winning.
This ^. Assemble can wreck mono black, and Aetherling can close out a control mirror, but you have to resolve them first :p.
Even if you manage to just slam it on turn 5 stabilized with 12 health, it still doesn't beat their devotion --> grey merchant plan. So it's not like assemble puts MBD completely out of the game. Also, post board, they put in lifebane zombies and tons of disruption against you. So post board assemble is a worse stabilizer and they also have a decent chance to discard assemble. Because of the LBZs and Erebos, MBD becomes a lot more aggressive post board, so a threat that takes 2-3 turns to stabilize sometimes isn't enough.
U/W/(r) control is just good against MBD because we play more non-interactive card advantage than any other deck in the format, and this matchup is defined by card advantage. It has very little to do with assemble the legion. Having lands come into play tapped could even be a significant disadvantage because you can't resolve your card draw spells on curve, and that's what these decks do --> convert mana into more cards.
It's not an answer to a specific threat. It's a wincon that MBD can never interact with short of Thoughtseize or Duress. Elspeth can be Downfalled and AEtherling can be Needled but a resolved Assemble gives them a clock. Eventually they'll be overwhelmed and inevitability is what UWx is all about.
As far as which is the best version of UWx, I'd agree with those that say it's straight UW. Last Breath deals with so many of early game threats in the current standard that messing with your manabase doesn't provide enough of an improvement to card quality to be worth it. Hero's Downfall is nice against GR Monsters. Turn // Burn is a better answer to Obzedat or Blood Baron than anything straight UW has. So if one of the problem cards is running rampant, one of the variants is probably better. Otherwise, I'd say straight UW is the most reliable, has the best MUD matchup and isn't really weak against anything.
-regarding Snapcaster Mage.