First, I am not at all understanding the lack of respect for Jeskai Charm in a control shell. Ultimately, we're pushing to the late game where our superior card quality/quantity can bury our opponents. Against many decks, Jeskai Charm may as well read RWU - Time Walk. In the late game, it presents a very real way to close out games as a simple 4 to the face. There's also the random Synergy that comes up with Anger of the Gods and Mantis Riders, which is uncommon, but pretty demoralizing for your opponent when it does.
Speaking of Mantis Rider, I can't get behind not running it. While it's certainly not what you would typically think of as far as a control "finisher" it actually performs the role incredibly well. The card is incredibly powerful for the cost, and it's combination of Evasion and Vigilance allow it to pressure opponents life/Planeswalkers, put pressure on early, or in the late game, provide a clock while leaving mana up to respond to their follow-up play. I wasn't initially sure how I felt about him in this shell, but I closed out the vast majority of games with a combination of Mantis strikes and burn while keeping the board controlled.
Steam Augury has felt perfect as a 2 of. I'm not overly concerned about casting it on 4, but if the opportunity presents itself, cool. Ultimately, it's instant speed card draw, which allows me to play the draw-go game with my opponent and gain card advantage at end-step. No, it's not Fact or Fiction. It's still good enough, though.
Dig Through Time - I'd hope by now everyone has got the memo. If I have to convince you why you should be playing this card, well... there's a lot of other things you need to learn first.
Nullify - Overperforming like crazy. Has targets against almost every deck in the format, whereas Disdainful Stroke was dead more often than I would have liked.
Jace - Currently testing. Interesting Synergy with Resolute Archangel, resetting back to 20 a 2nd time, obvious synergy with Dig.
Lands
No, I'm not running Life-Lands due to a lack of Temples. It's more to do w/ the aggressive nature of my meta. In more midrange metas, I could see shifting to 4x Temples.
SB Stuff:
Reprisal - Why are people not playing this card? It's "White Doom Blade" against a lot of decks.
Erase - Yeah, I have Ascendancy players to be mindful of, and against GB Enchantress/Devotion decks it's a powerhouse. 1 mana exile your Doomwake?
Fated Conflagration - 5 Damage answers basically every threat we're concerned about (except Pearl Lake Ancient). Namely, this comes in vs Abzan lists.
Things that missed the cut
Narset, Enlightened Master - The whole reason I went down the path of this deck to begin with. Unfortunately, she didn't make the final cut. While there were times it was explosive, there were other flips that felt pretty awkward. Also works poorly with Counter Magic. In a more Tap-out control list, she'd have a home.
Chandra, Pyromaster - Axed along side Narset for much of the same reason. Decent card, but not nearly as good when you are flipping over Counterspells.
Keranos, God of Storms - This card was in and out of the list a dozen times or more. Ultimately, he's just not powerful enough. Most games I drew him, I had other things that were more important to cast and he would just rot. Tapping out for a card that doesn't defend you or really impact the board right away feels bad.
Disdainful Stroke - Another in again, out again card. As the meta shifts, this will likely reappear in the 75, but in my current meta, it's just dead too often. Negate in my board is currently holding up what would normally have been it's two slots. I don't think the card is bad by any means. It's just a meta call.
Random Stuff
One of the biggest things I have found with this deck is just how quickly it can turn the corner while still maintaining board control. This has a LOT to do with Mantis Rider, as it is a cheap, powerful threat that can be... ridden, to victory while being protected, a'la Delver of Secrets days. The fact that the removal can then be re-purposed to aim at your opponent's face can help shut the door very quickly.
Another thing that Mantis Rider does, is put your opponent in an awkward spot. Turn 2 Strike into T3 Mantis Rider will often cause them to play you as if you were Jeskai Tempo and often times play more defensively because of it. Obviously, this works out well for a deck looking to set up the late game.
The OTHER fun thing that Mantis Rider does, is really strain your opponent's ability to Sideboard correctly. Do the take out their Bile Blights and Lightning Strikes? Do they keep them in? Do you take Mantis Rider out? Can they risk taking their removal out and not being able to answer MR?
Elspeth has fallen to a 1/1 Split, mostly due to her ineffectiveness against some of the key cards in the format right now (Mantis Rider, Siege Rhino, Phoenix, Wingmate Roc, etc). That said, she still has plenty of use as an additional conditional board wipe, and she WILL end the game if you stabilize the board.
A lot of attention has been paid to Course of Kruphix, and I don't understand why. The card isn't beating us. Yes, it allows our opponent to hit a land drop and get another card deeper in their deck. In the Midrange Mirros, that means something. Against Aggro, the lifegain is real. Against us, it's a 2/4 that, frankly, isn't that important, and if anything, gives us perfect information. You know what's fun to do? Let them resolve it. See what their next card is. Then Charm it back to the top of their deck, especially if that next card is something weak, effectively setting them back 2 turns. Better yet, when they check the top card and don't like it and decide to crack their fetch... poof. Bye Bye Courser.
Speaking of Charm. You know what else is fun? Responding to Eidolon of Blossoms draw trigger with the Charm. How about you re-draw that Elvish Mystic? Value? Yes, value. Ok... that one may not usually be the best play, but sometimes you just have it all and get to play w/ your opponent some.
Sarkhan - Basically comes out every time against Abzan. They have too many answers, and not enough targets for his -3 ability to be worth the 5 mana. Against Mardu, he's basically a removal spell that will eat a removal spell. I would almost never run him out and NOT be looking to -3 immediately. Obvious situation of empty handed opponent aside, you have to expect him to die either to burn, Butcher, Crackling Doom, or Utter End. Because he can answer Butcher, I still like him in the matchup, but he's not exactly a house.
I'm notably running 4x tormenting voice and it's just insanely good at filling the yard and smoothing mulligans and cycling dead cards. There are a lot of other little meta tweaks, but the tormenting voices have been the big breakthrough. The deck is still running blue as a splash, and I'm running even less countermagic now. Just 2 disdainful strokes and a playset of negates in the side for burn decks and control mirrors. Still loving the 2/3 split of treasure cruise and dig through time.
I've dropped clever impersonator altogether and brought a stormbreath dragon into the main and I've been so happy with it. It comes up shockingly often that I have both sarkhan and a stormbreath on the board. All the filtering and draw makes the deck very toolboxy in the way it plays.
Disdainful Strike is only better than Dissipate (or even Cancel) at hitting its targets under 4 situations:
1. You're on the draw against an accelerated 4+ drop, in which case you can counter it on your opponent's third turn with DStroke but not a Cancel variant.
2. You miss your third land drop/cannot get to 1UU fast enough to counter something when necessary (which is more often than not deckbuilding or pilot error).
3. You're on the draw and you have to play a tapland on turn 3 instead of an untapped source. Not really an issue if your deck is 3 color wedge with only 7 to maybe 10 taplands.
4. You need your spells to be cheaper so you can interact in a clutch situation, such as DStroking a delve spell in a counter-war.
In every other situation, not only would I rather have Dissipate than Disdainful Stroke, but I would rather have Cancel than have Disdainful Stroke. At least the Cancel can hit random topdecked 1-drops against Boss Sligh or a crucial JCharm from Jeskai Tempo. And when you're on the play, it hits all the 3-drops. DStroke doesn't do that, and it's pretty dead in a number of match-ups. Honestly, most of the time you cast DStroke early against a midrange deck (which is exactly when and where you want that counter), you could probably have just casted a Cancel to do the exact same job on the exact same turn.
People are scared to play 6-7 Cancels in a deck because they think it's bad for their curve, but as long as your curve respects the early plays with other cards you can play a whole bunch of 3-drop counters and be happy. And Dissipate randomly gets to be relevant at shafting someone's Delve fuel in the midgame, or hitting a Soul of Innistrad against Whip.dec. What does Disdainful Stroke do? It randomly is an irrelevant card in faster match-ups.
Tl;dr: If you want more counters in your deck, just man up and play more copies of dissolve in your deck. It's perfectly acceptible.
SOurce of your choice (page one of this thread, last comment) I think for deflecting palm you can select the opponent as source and nothing he controls can deal damage to you.
So I'm just getting back into standard since rotation. Ive traded away all my standard stuff for modern stuff but managed to borrow the cards i needed for a deck for FNM tommorow. Right now Here is my list.
Last FNM was the first time i played standard since good ol mono black. I played R/W midrange which i found the best part of the deck was the sideboarded control elements. So far this list has been extremely consistent in testing but I'm not sure about all the numbers. For so many weird numbers its proven to play the exact same way in all my matches because of dig. Blue black control has prove no be an awful matchup though.. Would love any advice.
Any advice and / or criticism would be appreciated, thanks in advance.
4 Flooded Strand
4 Temple of Epiphany
3 Temple of Enlightenment
3 Temple of Triumph
4 Mountain
3 Island
2 Plains
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
1 Keranos, God of Storms
4 Dissolve
3 Anger of the Gods
3 Banishing Light
3 Lightning Strike
3 Treasure Cruise
2 End Hostilities
2 Devouring Light
2 Last Breath
2 Fated Conflagration
1 Fated Retribution
1 Dig Through Time
2 Magma Jet
4 Lightning Strike
4 Jeskai Charm
Draw
2 Steam Augury
3 Dig Through Time
Sweepers
3 Anger of the Gods
3 End Hostilities
Counters
3 Dissipate
2 Nullify
Creatures
4 Mantis Rider
1 Resolute Archangel
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Jace, the Living Guildpact
Land
2 Island
2 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
4 Mystic Monastery
3 Temple of Epiphany
2 Swiftwater Cliffs
2 Shivan Reef
3 Wind-Scarred Crag
3 Battlefield Forge
2 Magma Spray
1 Anger of the Gods
1 End Hostilities
2 Reprisal
2 Arc Trail
2 Erase
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
2 Fated Conflagration
2 Negate
Maindeck
First, I am not at all understanding the lack of respect for Jeskai Charm in a control shell. Ultimately, we're pushing to the late game where our superior card quality/quantity can bury our opponents. Against many decks, Jeskai Charm may as well read RWU - Time Walk. In the late game, it presents a very real way to close out games as a simple 4 to the face. There's also the random Synergy that comes up with Anger of the Gods and Mantis Riders, which is uncommon, but pretty demoralizing for your opponent when it does.
Speaking of Mantis Rider, I can't get behind not running it. While it's certainly not what you would typically think of as far as a control "finisher" it actually performs the role incredibly well. The card is incredibly powerful for the cost, and it's combination of Evasion and Vigilance allow it to pressure opponents life/Planeswalkers, put pressure on early, or in the late game, provide a clock while leaving mana up to respond to their follow-up play. I wasn't initially sure how I felt about him in this shell, but I closed out the vast majority of games with a combination of Mantis strikes and burn while keeping the board controlled.
Steam Augury has felt perfect as a 2 of. I'm not overly concerned about casting it on 4, but if the opportunity presents itself, cool. Ultimately, it's instant speed card draw, which allows me to play the draw-go game with my opponent and gain card advantage at end-step. No, it's not Fact or Fiction. It's still good enough, though.
Dig Through Time - I'd hope by now everyone has got the memo. If I have to convince you why you should be playing this card, well... there's a lot of other things you need to learn first.
Nullify - Overperforming like crazy. Has targets against almost every deck in the format, whereas Disdainful Stroke was dead more often than I would have liked.
Jace - Currently testing. Interesting Synergy with Resolute Archangel, resetting back to 20 a 2nd time, obvious synergy with Dig.
Lands
No, I'm not running Life-Lands due to a lack of Temples. It's more to do w/ the aggressive nature of my meta. In more midrange metas, I could see shifting to 4x Temples.
SB Stuff:
Reprisal - Why are people not playing this card? It's "White Doom Blade" against a lot of decks.
Erase - Yeah, I have Ascendancy players to be mindful of, and against GB Enchantress/Devotion decks it's a powerhouse. 1 mana exile your Doomwake?
Fated Conflagration - 5 Damage answers basically every threat we're concerned about (except Pearl Lake Ancient). Namely, this comes in vs Abzan lists.
Things that missed the cut
Narset, Enlightened Master - The whole reason I went down the path of this deck to begin with. Unfortunately, she didn't make the final cut. While there were times it was explosive, there were other flips that felt pretty awkward. Also works poorly with Counter Magic. In a more Tap-out control list, she'd have a home.
Chandra, Pyromaster - Axed along side Narset for much of the same reason. Decent card, but not nearly as good when you are flipping over Counterspells.
Keranos, God of Storms - This card was in and out of the list a dozen times or more. Ultimately, he's just not powerful enough. Most games I drew him, I had other things that were more important to cast and he would just rot. Tapping out for a card that doesn't defend you or really impact the board right away feels bad.
Disdainful Stroke - Another in again, out again card. As the meta shifts, this will likely reappear in the 75, but in my current meta, it's just dead too often. Negate in my board is currently holding up what would normally have been it's two slots. I don't think the card is bad by any means. It's just a meta call.
Random Stuff
One of the biggest things I have found with this deck is just how quickly it can turn the corner while still maintaining board control. This has a LOT to do with Mantis Rider, as it is a cheap, powerful threat that can be... ridden, to victory while being protected, a'la Delver of Secrets days. The fact that the removal can then be re-purposed to aim at your opponent's face can help shut the door very quickly.
Another thing that Mantis Rider does, is put your opponent in an awkward spot. Turn 2 Strike into T3 Mantis Rider will often cause them to play you as if you were Jeskai Tempo and often times play more defensively because of it. Obviously, this works out well for a deck looking to set up the late game.
The OTHER fun thing that Mantis Rider does, is really strain your opponent's ability to Sideboard correctly. Do the take out their Bile Blights and Lightning Strikes? Do they keep them in? Do you take Mantis Rider out? Can they risk taking their removal out and not being able to answer MR?
Elspeth has fallen to a 1/1 Split, mostly due to her ineffectiveness against some of the key cards in the format right now (Mantis Rider, Siege Rhino, Phoenix, Wingmate Roc, etc). That said, she still has plenty of use as an additional conditional board wipe, and she WILL end the game if you stabilize the board.
A lot of attention has been paid to Course of Kruphix, and I don't understand why. The card isn't beating us. Yes, it allows our opponent to hit a land drop and get another card deeper in their deck. In the Midrange Mirros, that means something. Against Aggro, the lifegain is real. Against us, it's a 2/4 that, frankly, isn't that important, and if anything, gives us perfect information. You know what's fun to do? Let them resolve it. See what their next card is. Then Charm it back to the top of their deck, especially if that next card is something weak, effectively setting them back 2 turns. Better yet, when they check the top card and don't like it and decide to crack their fetch... poof. Bye Bye Courser.
Speaking of Charm. You know what else is fun? Responding to Eidolon of Blossoms draw trigger with the Charm. How about you re-draw that Elvish Mystic? Value? Yes, value. Ok... that one may not usually be the best play, but sometimes you just have it all and get to play w/ your opponent some.
Sarkhan - Basically comes out every time against Abzan. They have too many answers, and not enough targets for his -3 ability to be worth the 5 mana. Against Mardu, he's basically a removal spell that will eat a removal spell. I would almost never run him out and NOT be looking to -3 immediately. Obvious situation of empty handed opponent aside, you have to expect him to die either to burn, Butcher, Crackling Doom, or Utter End. Because he can answer Butcher, I still like him in the matchup, but he's not exactly a house.
3x Banishing Light
4x Chained to the Rocks
2x Lightning Strike
2x magma jet
2x Disdainful Stroke
2x Anger of the Gods
2x End Hostilities
4x Tormenting Voice
3x Dig Through Time
2x Treasure Cruise
CREATURES
1x Stormbreath dragon
1x Keranos, God of Storms
1x Mantis Rider
1x Resolute Archangel
2x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
2x Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
LAND
4x Flooded Strand
2x Island
8x Mountain
4x Mystic Monastery
2x Plains
4x Temple of Enlightenment
1x Temple of Epiphany
1x Temple of Triumph
2x Anger of the Gods
1x Banishing Light
2x End Hostilities
3x Erase
1x stormbreath dragon
1x resolute archangel
4x Negate
1x mantis rider
I'm notably running 4x tormenting voice and it's just insanely good at filling the yard and smoothing mulligans and cycling dead cards. There are a lot of other little meta tweaks, but the tormenting voices have been the big breakthrough. The deck is still running blue as a splash, and I'm running even less countermagic now. Just 2 disdainful strokes and a playset of negates in the side for burn decks and control mirrors. Still loving the 2/3 split of treasure cruise and dig through time.
I've dropped clever impersonator altogether and brought a stormbreath dragon into the main and I've been so happy with it. It comes up shockingly often that I have both sarkhan and a stormbreath on the board. All the filtering and draw makes the deck very toolboxy in the way it plays.
1 Resolute Archangel
2 Prognostic Sphinx
2 Nullify
4 Dissolve
2 Lightning Strike
4 Dig through time
2 Riddle of Lightning
2 jace's ingenuity
4 End hostilities
3 Divination
2 Sarkhan, the dragonspeaker
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
4 flooded strand
4 mystic monastery
4 Temple of Enlightenment
2 Temple of ephiany
2 Temple of triumph
2 Battlefield forge
3 shivan reef
3 islands
2 plains
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Magma spray
3 disdainful stroke
3 Nyx-Fleece ram
2 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2 negate
1. You're on the draw against an accelerated 4+ drop, in which case you can counter it on your opponent's third turn with DStroke but not a Cancel variant.
2. You miss your third land drop/cannot get to 1UU fast enough to counter something when necessary (which is more often than not deckbuilding or pilot error).
3. You're on the draw and you have to play a tapland on turn 3 instead of an untapped source. Not really an issue if your deck is 3 color wedge with only 7 to maybe 10 taplands.
4. You need your spells to be cheaper so you can interact in a clutch situation, such as DStroking a delve spell in a counter-war.
In every other situation, not only would I rather have Dissipate than Disdainful Stroke, but I would rather have Cancel than have Disdainful Stroke. At least the Cancel can hit random topdecked 1-drops against Boss Sligh or a crucial JCharm from Jeskai Tempo. And when you're on the play, it hits all the 3-drops. DStroke doesn't do that, and it's pretty dead in a number of match-ups. Honestly, most of the time you cast DStroke early against a midrange deck (which is exactly when and where you want that counter), you could probably have just casted a Cancel to do the exact same job on the exact same turn.
People are scared to play 6-7 Cancels in a deck because they think it's bad for their curve, but as long as your curve respects the early plays with other cards you can play a whole bunch of 3-drop counters and be happy. And Dissipate randomly gets to be relevant at shafting someone's Delve fuel in the midgame, or hitting a Soul of Innistrad against Whip.dec. What does Disdainful Stroke do? It randomly is an irrelevant card in faster match-ups.
Tl;dr: If you want more counters in your deck, just man up and play more copies of dissolve in your deck. It's perfectly acceptible.
4 Mantis Rider
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
1 Elspeth Sun’s Champion
2 Island
2 Mountain
2 Plains
2 Battlefield Forge
4 Flooded Strand
4 Mystic Monastery
3 Shivan Reef
3 Temple of Epiphany
3 Temple of Triumph
4 Banishing Light
3 Dig Through Time
4 Jeskai Charm
3 Lightning Strike
3 Magma Jet
4 Stoke the Flames
2 Glare of Heresy
2 Suspension Field
2 Disdainful Stroke
3 Negate
1 Keranos, God of Storms
3 Anger of the Gods
2 End Hostilities
Last FNM was the first time i played standard since good ol mono black. I played R/W midrange which i found the best part of the deck was the sideboarded control elements. So far this list has been extremely consistent in testing but I'm not sure about all the numbers. For so many weird numbers its proven to play the exact same way in all my matches because of dig. Blue black control has prove no be an awful matchup though.. Would love any advice.
Modern: U/R Twin
Legacy: U/B Reanimator