Just got back from FNM, this deck is a legit contender. Went 2-1-1 tonight, lost to white weenies which is plainly unwinnable, but thrashed an aristocrats and vampire deck and misplayed horribly against dark past to a draw. If your meta doesn't have tons of aggro strategies this deck could perform very well.
My deck is slanted against a controlling Meta with lots of esper, dark past, and U/R.
Match 1 Dark Past
This guy was in salty tears after game 1, his pro tour deck could do nothing against this strategy. The deck takes forever to threaten which is deadly against Brains on the Shore. Easily setup Rise from the Tides into Double Part the Waterveil, he had no chance game 1. Game 2 was fraught with misplays on my part. Missing triggers on Trail of Evidence not countering crucial spells, missing an attack opportunity. I misplayed horribly and he mauled my hand with at least 8 discard spells and he still barely got there. My strategy going forward against this deck will be to bring in 4 Invasive Surgery and Sphinx of the Final Word as another win con. Dark Past does not win easily and should be considered highly unfavorable in the matchup.
Match 2 White Weenie
Sadly I do not think there is a reasonable way to fight this deck, it's too easy to redeploy 1 drops, their cards have tons of ETB effects, and there's too many attackers to put to sleep. Could try a very early Rise from the Tides but it's very difficult to drag the game into deep waters. I'm open to suggestions here. Prism Ring I bring in. Displacement Wave, Dampening Pulse and Horribly Awry are serious considerations, if these decks are popular in your area I would not recommend this strategy, I just happened to run into literally the only person playing it.
Match 3 Aristocrats
Wooo! This was a tight game. Game 1 he simply could not threaten me, army of 1/1's? BOUNCE! Do not be afraid to bounce Elvish Visionary This deck durdles so hard despite its excellent mana, he was discarding constantly to hand size and I just inched closer and closer to my zombie uprising. I didn't even see jar the entire match and I still beat him. Again I will be running Invasive Surgery in the future to fight their sideboard cards.
Match 4 R/B Aggro
This match was very easy. He was just going too big, leaning on cards like Sin Prodder and Goblin Dark-Dwellers which are just too slow to threaten this deck. Don't be afraid to eat some burn, you really want to Negate cards like K Command. But Brain in a Jar is not your infant child! You don't need it to win, it just makes winning much, much easier.
So thoughts on the deck.
I don't know how many sideboard cards I want to dedicate to battling white weenie. I don't feel we'll ever get to 30/70, let alone 40/60. It's the perfect foil to our deck, all it's avenues line up perfectly against our board control.
This is a Combo-Control deck through and through. We're just taming the board until we can kill in one turn or a series of turns behind a water veil.
This deck is obnoxious because it blanks virtually all removal except Virulent Plague. You really want to just cast Rise off of Jar and kill them before they're allowed to react. Do not freak out if they resolve plague, Compelling Deterrence can give you that 1 turn you need to win, and all this deck needs is 1 turn.
Going forward I want to try Disciple of the Ring as another win con, most definitely sideboard. It's possible Sphinx is just better, You're certainly not dropping Disciple turn 5 and she works against your strategy. Sphinx is Obnoxious and only dies to Foul Tongue Invocation and To the Slaughter which I seriously doubt anyone would leave in against you. Heck it might be correct to just always bring in Sphinx after sideboard.
Transgress the Mind is a menace but can also just be garbage. It can't touch jar and if they brick on your win con you win by trading 1 for 1.
YOU DO NOT need jar to win. Jar games are much, much easier to win but I went 3 games against Aristocrats and never saw it. It's an extremely powerful card but it is NOT your win con.
Pieces of the Puzzle and Engulf the Shore are your best cards. You should be playing 4 of each, I won't even discuss the merits of less. They are just so freaking good and are the glue of the deck.
I'm not sold on Part the Waterveil. I have died with this card in my hand. I'll cut 1, I won't cut it totally, it's a back door win con and makes rise from the tides much more likely to end the game.
Trail of Evidence is bonkers against slow decks. Cracked at least 8 clues against Dark Past. I think I want it in the sideboard, another negate and I'm not sure what else in main.
I'm cutting Epiphany at the Drownyard nothing like your opponent giving you the pile that doesn't contain you win con.
Few tips.
You can discard Nagging Thoughts to Pore over the Pages Grip of the Roil's surge cost comes up a lot, especially with Pore over the Pages
You don't have to take anything with Pieces of the Puzzle if you're trying to setup a fat Rise
You can remove counters from jar
White weenie is definitely an issue, since most we can do is try to Engulf it or Displacement Wave if you are willing to sacrifice your Jar to it. My own strategy is to try and use Thing in the Ice to battle them a bit, get rid of their creatures and have an alt win condition on the board myself, along with that it can still do work in other creature based match up if needed as well. Not to mention that countering their removal fills our yard and potentially helps getting the card to flip.
Personally I have mixed feelings when it comes to Trail of Evidence, sure it will get out several clue tokens and lets us dig for win-cons but card advantage aside, why spent mana popping clues when you can cast spells to dig for cards instead? Then again I haven't been impressed with the tokens from the start, but that is me.
Epiphany feels bad to me too when you aren't running a playset of Tide, since we aren't running any other win-cons in the first game.
I don't have much exp. with this deck as I just built it after seeing the budget magic video about it. I was hoping to get some feedback on the changes I've made
I only got a few games in but I noticed that the deck basically died if they dealt with tides (duress/counter). So I put in a single learn from the past to get it back even if it meant starting over. And brought in 3 tutelage as an alt win and to take some heat off of the jar. I split the roil with send to sleep as they're both good and sometimes you need to lock down more than 1 creature. My sideboard is going more transform to control/combo with sphinx and counters.
I've been tweaking an esper version, which can be found in another thread. It's been good for the FNM level, but not much beyond that. I only bring this up because I have three concerns about these (mostly) mono-blue builds. NOw, I'm "theory-crafting" my critiques, because i don't own all the cards to test thes elists, but I wonder if you guys experienced any of these things:
[1] an interesting part of Brain is the color fixing: I lost count of how many times I cast a void shatter for W, or cast languish without a single black source on the board. I feel mono-blue versions loose that aspect of the brain.
[2] How do these lists fare vs hyper-aggro (say, white weeny?) Seems like it would have a very hard to win match.
[3] Without the instant-speed, mana saving powers of the brain, it seems that this is a (much) worse version of a control deck. How do you guys fare in game where your brain is removed/shows up late/gets countered?
I don't think Learn from the Past does well in the deck either as it probably will set you back too far to be able to pull off a win with Tide. Tutelage makes up for it a bit but it's an enchantment which can hurt the deck maybe a bit, I doubt I'd run more than two just to ensure that I can keep fueling the yard.
And while Virulent Plague is a blow out to the deck, dedicating too many cards to counter it will be bad as well. Bouncing things is nice but you want to keep that card advantage going as bouncing alone isn't going to win you matches. So going up to eight counters for plague feels real bad to me, I'd prefer maybe four at most despite the threat plague can be to the deck.
As far as going multi color, I think sticking to mono-U is just fine, you don't have to worry about mana fixing and it keeps the price of the deck down quite a bit as well. Sure Brain in the Jar can help fixing, but by being mono color you can rely on your regular manabase and just tick up Brain towards our win con instead of going for answers.
Hyper aggro is an issue for the deck for sure, most of these match up do tend to beat the deck but with some lucky draws you can manage against it here and there. It would be the only reason to go multi color since you'd have better answers to it, but as it is, best you can do is trying to dash for the Tide win and hope you pull Engulf.
And if Jar gets countered, well its a spell not countering Tide, the deck can manage without relying on Brain in the Jar so it's no total loss. Unless you have alt win-cons then the biggest worry will always be Tide getting countered, especially when not running a full playset of them.
So last night I went 2-2. Most times the learn from the past was a dead card that was discard fodder for pour. The one game it came in handy was against control. Reset my deck with 14 mana and proceeded to tear through my deck again and hard casted rise from the tide and waterviel about 3 turns later. Game 2 managed to win the counter war (rise resolves he goes to languish- scatter-dispel-dispel-scorn-scatter- gg from opponent)
If aggro is pervasive in your area I wouldn't even recommend playing this strategy. I like the idea of non-blue spells in the sideboard, but doing things like languishing off the jar to fight aggro is silly. The earliest you could do it is turn 6 and you need jar on turn 3 to do this and tame the board while leaving a mana up. None of the colors really make the match up favorable, what you make up for with hard removal you lose in a slower mana base. This is a combo control deck, it's not suppose to be good against aggro, you have to learn to accept that decks like these will always have bad matchups and if you shore its weakness to fight these aggro decks you're going to start losing to other decks.
Out of sheer interest I did some playtesting with Sphinx's Tutelage in the deck and while having another win-con in the main, I wasn't impressed by it at all. Drawing it late game does little and even if you get it out early, you are almost racing yourself in whether you want to Mill or go for Tide. You're not likely to use the ability of Tutelage, as you are better off casting your own spells instead and because of that you probably want just another draw or more reactive card in your hand. If you worry about Tide not being enough, the best option will be running more so you're less screwed when it gets countered/milled. Sphinx of the Final Word feels much better than Tutelage, it prevents Tide from being countered and you can actively swing in. And if you happen to run Invasive Surgery it getting removed brings you a step closer to delerium, where the Sphinx is more likely to end up in the yard than Tutelage.
Both Quicken and Tunnel Vision aren't legal in Standard.
And there will always be bad match ups, fast aggro being one of those that pair up not so well with this deck. And Brain generally speeds things up, but isn't necessary to pull off a win with this deck.
There were four rounds before cut to top four.
Round 1 I lost 1-2 against blue/white aggro
Round 2 I won 2-0 against Abzan Aristocrats.
Round 3 I won 2-0 against Abzan Seasons Past.
Round 4 I won 2-1 against Bant Coco.
Top 4 standings were as follows:
1- Green/White Humans
2- Blue Brains (me)
3- Abzan Seasons Past
4- Bant Coco
Green/white humans beat Bant Coco 2-0.
Blue Brains beat Abzan Seasons Past 2-1.
Then Green/White humans beat me 2-0 for the championship.
So, the first iteration of this deck I ran had only 23 lands total- 4 of which were Blighted Cataract. I never really liked them because I preferred seeing islands for Engulf the Shore. I also noticed that hitting our land drops is pretty vital (especially if we don't see an early brain), so I cut one Pieces of the Puzzle (it doesn't allow us to get lands off of it) for another land (I chose Mirrorpool). I like Mirrorpool at one because we don't require to have it to win, but copying an extra turn practically gives us the game.
I liked the one Clash of Wills over the fourth Pieces of the Puzzle, but that could just be preference. The reason I'm running clash over dispel or negate is because dispel and negate don't do much against aggro- which is our hardest matchup. A game one clash is useful in any matchup. During Gameday I was able to clash away an Archangel of Tithes round one game one, and a Seasons Past round 3 game one. I saw it against Aristocrats thanks to Anticipate, but I chose not to get it then. I think we only have one flexible slot for a counterspell. All in all, I think Calculated Dismissal might be even better, because we can cast it off of a brain.
Let's talk about sideboard. I realized I need more stuff against aggro. Staying monoblue, I think we have to try 2 or 3 Prism Ring in sideboard. 4 Rise from the Tides mainboard seemed excessive. Cutting it to three, with one in sideboard, is something to think about. The Mirrorpool, pieces of the puzzle, and sphinx were supposed to be against Esper control, but I never faced it. Mirrorpool in sideboard seems pointless. I had it in there to begin with in case somebody tried milling us with Sphinx's Tutelage, but I don't think we have to worry about it that much. People would much rather side in negate or Virulent Plague to deal with us.
Had to drop out of last night's game day due to family stuff, but managed to get in two rounds before I had to leave.
R/G Werewolves (2-0)
First game was simply a paced race, having to make sure that I kept my opponent from flipping his wolves and keeping Arlinn off the board. Sided in 2x Void Shatter and an extra Compelling Deterrence, taking out two Grips and a Nagging Thoughts to hold off the pump and Arlinn. Werewolves just doesn't seem fast enough to deal with us, though a Prism Ring could make the race easier for us.
W/G Humans (1-1) *had to leave before we got to do game three
Lost first game, just not being lucky enough on my draws to hold off the onslaught of humans. Brought in 2x Thing in the Ice, 1x Sphinx of the Final Word and 2x Void Shatter while dropping three Grips and two Nagging Thoughts. Thing did decent work, though it risks flipping too soon with our game plan, when timed right its great though but definitely will have to see it in more games to give it a good verdict. Can't complain about Sphinx, since it took care of two Avacyn's.
Will say that the human match up involved quite a bit of luck, since I knew it was a weak match up, I ended up deciding pitching two Rises to try the aggro strategy. Opponent sided out his removal so that helped as well but the second game could have gone either way nonetheless.
So far I am going to say that three Rises is probably the sweet spot, where two just left me feeling awkward once one of them ended up in the yard. I have been enjoying Adverse Conditions since it stalls the aggro builds a bit and chucks out a Eldrazi Scion that gives us a little bit more mana. I haven't tried Mirrorpool yet, initially not too sure about hitting the colorless for it, but with Adverse that might be worth trying out.
Sideboard wise I'm still tinkering around as well, have two Sphinx of the Final Word in it but not sure if I really want to dedicate two slots to it, so might still take one out, probably to add in a third Void Shatter. Mostly been running 2-of's in the side to keep some versatility. I am throwing in a Prism Ring but like with the Sphinxes I don't want to dedicate too many slots to it.
Anyways, it has me currently considering to bring this version to my next gameday:
I personally don't see the need to run Orb of Warding, mainly since we can rely on countering burn and put instant/sorceries into our graveyard. Damage prevention could be interesting, but I'd probably prefer running Prism Ring over it for that effect, just because it's lower on the curve.
bought it on mtgo and love it. just ordered the cards and i want to make this competitive. life goals lol. i really think we need some counters main deck though, control matchups are popping up more frequently in my meta.
I have this deck together and I will be playing it until dragons/origins rotates.
Some things I'm going to try that hasn't been discussed here yet.
My colorless land replacement for blighted cataract is drownyard temple. Nagging thoughts, Pieces, and Pour all dump lands into our gy and temple can pseudo-ramp which is exactly what we're trying to do.
Warping Wail and Spatial Contortion might be overlooked because they're not blue and may be good sideboard material in some meta's.
Hydrolash also could be good against some agro mathcups. It's often overlooked because shrink effects are usually weak but the draw a card might make it playable
I might try Hydrolash now, will save more life than prism ring, have to get ring turn 1 or 2 to be meaningful, and it cantrips. The sideboard advice for U/W aggro was meaningless, 3 mana counterspells wont stop 2/1's for 1, and I already mainboard the other suggestions and it's still an impossible matchup.
Geistblast: 2 damage for 3 is not good, but at least it kills of baby Jace, and it can hold down ulties from planeswalkers, which the deck struggle with. The 2U copy, on the other hand, is huge for this deck. Barring a blank Brain in a Jar, which happens a lot, the combo-kill is decreased from 12 mana to 9 mana (copying Part the Waterveil gives two extra turns). Not having a Geistblast in the graveyard is next to impossible, with 12 discard spells. This is a cheaper Mirrorpool with utility that don't mess up the mana, and one that will be available in the graveyard at no cost. It is also great in counterspell wars postboard and with Pore Over the Pages (untapping 4 lands).
An interesting take, though I disagree with the not messing up the mana part. Looking at your build, it runs four Evolving Wilds which pretty much equals to a tapland, so it slows the deck down in that regard. Obviously, it will help filtering out the lands for later draws but we can still churn to the deck fairly quickly with the draw spells that the deck runs. So in that regard its just a matter of deciding what you want more, personally I feel that keeping the pace is fairly important to the deck.
Since I do run Mirrorpool, having some extra colorless sources might not hurt that much so that makes Shivan Reef an option in the deck for a splash, I wouldn't run Evolving Wilds though nor do I think I'd put in Kozilek's Return but that's more a decision based on budget for me. However, I might see about how to make some use of Geistblast since you want to go off quickly with the combo. Maybe do even some tests with just splashing the card with the intend of discarding it, seeing I'm low on Shivan Reefs at the moment.
It won't set you back turn one, but it has the potential of doing so on later turns, I don't want to draw into a tapped land if I need one more land to go off with the combo. Sure, our spells will do a fair bit of filtering but when aiming for efficiency I feel skipping on Evolving Wilds might be worth it, where Reef's only drawback is taking a minor hit to our life total but can get us mana when we need it.
And despite TKS and Smasher being solid creatures, you always need to keep in mind how much siding those in will disrupt our main gameplan. Siding in four creatures means having four less instants in our yard to use to our advantage. It's why I prefer Sphinx of the Final Word, sure it doesn't have trample but it has protection, allows us to cast our win-con without issues and just as importantly it can take down an Archangel Avacyn/Avacyn, the Purifier. And yeah, it is more expensive to cast, but it does more for the deck in general... it even keeps people from blowing out Geistblast since they can't counter the spell you are copying, so just far more synergistic in the deck.
I run two at most, as more of them just tend to affect the instant/sorcery count too much in my opinion, since the main plan is still trying to go off with Rise. Also, I do run two Thing in the Ice as an alternative sweeper, but not too sold on it yet since it can be tricky to time when it should flip, so not sure yet if I want to keep it in or not.
And I do get that people will go for more taplands, out of a personal standpoint I'm just trying to go for consistency and put my mana to use as much as we can to tick up Jar/Network and to fill the graveyard so to get a decent amount of zombies out. This especially since against more aggro styled decks every turn longer can make a difference in being able to combo off in time or not.
If you plan on running Kozilek's Return as well as Geistblast, then you probably need the extra colored sources. With Geistblast alone I think just Reefs is doable, as you either discard it through spells or manage to get in the extra two damage through casting it. And in a way that two damage can be rather relevant, as you are exiling Geistblast from your graveyard, so it means getting one Zombie less meaning the two damage makes up for the loss of a 2/2.
4 Brain in a Jar
Enchantments 2
2 Trail of Evidence
Spells 31
4 Nagging Thoughts
4 Anticipate
2 Negate
2 Compelling Deterrence
2 Send to Sleep
4 Pieces of the Puzzle
1 Grip of the Roil
4 Engulf the Shore
3 Pore over the Pages
2 Rise from the Tides
3 Part the Waterveil
21 Island
2 Mage-Ring Network
2 Prism Ring
1 Adverse Conditions
1 Orbs of Warding
2 Sweep Away
1 Rise from the Tides
1 Displacement Wave
1 Epiphany at the Drownyard
2 Dispel
1 Negate
2 Sphinx of the Final Word
1 Grip of the Roil
My deck is slanted against a controlling Meta with lots of esper, dark past, and U/R.
Match 1 Dark Past
This guy was in salty tears after game 1, his pro tour deck could do nothing against this strategy. The deck takes forever to threaten which is deadly against Brains on the Shore. Easily setup Rise from the Tides into Double Part the Waterveil, he had no chance game 1. Game 2 was fraught with misplays on my part. Missing triggers on Trail of Evidence not countering crucial spells, missing an attack opportunity. I misplayed horribly and he mauled my hand with at least 8 discard spells and he still barely got there. My strategy going forward against this deck will be to bring in 4 Invasive Surgery and Sphinx of the Final Word as another win con. Dark Past does not win easily and should be considered highly unfavorable in the matchup.
Match 2 White Weenie
Sadly I do not think there is a reasonable way to fight this deck, it's too easy to redeploy 1 drops, their cards have tons of ETB effects, and there's too many attackers to put to sleep. Could try a very early Rise from the Tides but it's very difficult to drag the game into deep waters. I'm open to suggestions here. Prism Ring I bring in. Displacement Wave, Dampening Pulse and Horribly Awry are serious considerations, if these decks are popular in your area I would not recommend this strategy, I just happened to run into literally the only person playing it.
Match 3 Aristocrats
Wooo! This was a tight game. Game 1 he simply could not threaten me, army of 1/1's? BOUNCE! Do not be afraid to bounce Elvish Visionary This deck durdles so hard despite its excellent mana, he was discarding constantly to hand size and I just inched closer and closer to my zombie uprising. I didn't even see jar the entire match and I still beat him. Again I will be running Invasive Surgery in the future to fight their sideboard cards.
Match 4 R/B Aggro
This match was very easy. He was just going too big, leaning on cards like Sin Prodder and Goblin Dark-Dwellers which are just too slow to threaten this deck. Don't be afraid to eat some burn, you really want to Negate cards like K Command. But Brain in a Jar is not your infant child! You don't need it to win, it just makes winning much, much easier.
So thoughts on the deck.
I don't know how many sideboard cards I want to dedicate to battling white weenie. I don't feel we'll ever get to 30/70, let alone 40/60. It's the perfect foil to our deck, all it's avenues line up perfectly against our board control.
This is a Combo-Control deck through and through. We're just taming the board until we can kill in one turn or a series of turns behind a water veil.
This deck is obnoxious because it blanks virtually all removal except Virulent Plague. You really want to just cast Rise off of Jar and kill them before they're allowed to react. Do not freak out if they resolve plague, Compelling Deterrence can give you that 1 turn you need to win, and all this deck needs is 1 turn.
Going forward I want to try Disciple of the Ring as another win con, most definitely sideboard. It's possible Sphinx is just better, You're certainly not dropping Disciple turn 5 and she works against your strategy. Sphinx is Obnoxious and only dies to Foul Tongue Invocation and To the Slaughter which I seriously doubt anyone would leave in against you. Heck it might be correct to just always bring in Sphinx after sideboard.
Transgress the Mind is a menace but can also just be garbage. It can't touch jar and if they brick on your win con you win by trading 1 for 1.
YOU DO NOT need jar to win. Jar games are much, much easier to win but I went 3 games against Aristocrats and never saw it. It's an extremely powerful card but it is NOT your win con.
Pieces of the Puzzle and Engulf the Shore are your best cards. You should be playing 4 of each, I won't even discuss the merits of less. They are just so freaking good and are the glue of the deck.
I'm not sold on Part the Waterveil. I have died with this card in my hand. I'll cut 1, I won't cut it totally, it's a back door win con and makes rise from the tides much more likely to end the game.
Trail of Evidence is bonkers against slow decks. Cracked at least 8 clues against Dark Past. I think I want it in the sideboard, another negate and I'm not sure what else in main.
I'm cutting Epiphany at the Drownyard nothing like your opponent giving you the pile that doesn't contain you win con.
Few tips.
You can discard Nagging Thoughts to Pore over the Pages
Grip of the Roil's surge cost comes up a lot, especially with Pore over the Pages
You don't have to take anything with Pieces of the Puzzle if you're trying to setup a fat Rise
You can remove counters from jar
Personally I have mixed feelings when it comes to Trail of Evidence, sure it will get out several clue tokens and lets us dig for win-cons but card advantage aside, why spent mana popping clues when you can cast spells to dig for cards instead? Then again I haven't been impressed with the tokens from the start, but that is me.
Epiphany feels bad to me too when you aren't running a playset of Tide, since we aren't running any other win-cons in the first game.
4x Anticipate
2x Disperse
4x Engulf the Shore
2x Grip of the Roil
1x Learn from the Past
2x Send to Sleep
Enchantment (3)
3x Sphinx's Tutelage
Sorcery (17)
2x Nagging Thoughts
4x Part the Waterveil
4x Pieces of the Puzzle
4x Pore Over the Pages
3x Rise from the Tides
16x Island
4x Mage-Ring Network
Artifact (3)
3x Brain in a Jar
2x Dispel
4x Negate
1x Rise from the Tides
2x Send to Sleep
2x Sphinx of the Final Word
4x Void Shatter
I only got a few games in but I noticed that the deck basically died if they dealt with tides (duress/counter). So I put in a single learn from the past to get it back even if it meant starting over. And brought in 3 tutelage as an alt win and to take some heat off of the jar. I split the roil with send to sleep as they're both good and sometimes you need to lock down more than 1 creature. My sideboard is going more transform to control/combo with sphinx and counters.
4c Gifts Deck Stats: https://bit.ly/2XMPrlY
https://pucatrade.com/invite/gift/120495
[1] an interesting part of Brain is the color fixing: I lost count of how many times I cast a void shatter for W, or cast languish without a single black source on the board. I feel mono-blue versions loose that aspect of the brain.
[2] How do these lists fare vs hyper-aggro (say, white weeny?) Seems like it would have a very hard to win match.
[3] Without the instant-speed, mana saving powers of the brain, it seems that this is a (much) worse version of a control deck. How do you guys fare in game where your brain is removed/shows up late/gets countered?
Cheers!
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And while Virulent Plague is a blow out to the deck, dedicating too many cards to counter it will be bad as well. Bouncing things is nice but you want to keep that card advantage going as bouncing alone isn't going to win you matches. So going up to eight counters for plague feels real bad to me, I'd prefer maybe four at most despite the threat plague can be to the deck.
As far as going multi color, I think sticking to mono-U is just fine, you don't have to worry about mana fixing and it keeps the price of the deck down quite a bit as well. Sure Brain in the Jar can help fixing, but by being mono color you can rely on your regular manabase and just tick up Brain towards our win con instead of going for answers.
Hyper aggro is an issue for the deck for sure, most of these match up do tend to beat the deck but with some lucky draws you can manage against it here and there. It would be the only reason to go multi color since you'd have better answers to it, but as it is, best you can do is trying to dash for the Tide win and hope you pull Engulf.
And if Jar gets countered, well its a spell not countering Tide, the deck can manage without relying on Brain in the Jar so it's no total loss. Unless you have alt win-cons then the biggest worry will always be Tide getting countered, especially when not running a full playset of them.
4c Gifts Deck Stats: https://bit.ly/2XMPrlY
https://pucatrade.com/invite/gift/120495
And there will always be bad match ups, fast aggro being one of those that pair up not so well with this deck. And Brain generally speeds things up, but isn't necessary to pull off a win with this deck.
4x Brain in a Jar
Instant (13)
4x Engulf the Shore
4x Anticipate
4x Grip of the Roil
1x Clash of Wills
Sorcery (19)
4x Pore over the Pages
4x Nagging Thoughts
4x Part the Waterveil
4x Rise from the Tides
3x Pieces of the Puzzle
19x Island
4x Mage-Ring Network
1x Mirrorpool
3x Send to Sleep
3x Void Shatter
2x Dispel
2x Negate
2x Disperse
1x Mirrorpool
1x Pieces of the Puzzle
1x Sphinx of the Final Word
There were four rounds before cut to top four.
Round 1 I lost 1-2 against blue/white aggro
Round 2 I won 2-0 against Abzan Aristocrats.
Round 3 I won 2-0 against Abzan Seasons Past.
Round 4 I won 2-1 against Bant Coco.
Top 4 standings were as follows:
1- Green/White Humans
2- Blue Brains (me)
3- Abzan Seasons Past
4- Bant Coco
Green/white humans beat Bant Coco 2-0.
Blue Brains beat Abzan Seasons Past 2-1.
Then Green/White humans beat me 2-0 for the championship.
I liked the one Clash of Wills over the fourth Pieces of the Puzzle, but that could just be preference. The reason I'm running clash over dispel or negate is because dispel and negate don't do much against aggro- which is our hardest matchup. A game one clash is useful in any matchup. During Gameday I was able to clash away an Archangel of Tithes round one game one, and a Seasons Past round 3 game one. I saw it against Aristocrats thanks to Anticipate, but I chose not to get it then. I think we only have one flexible slot for a counterspell. All in all, I think Calculated Dismissal might be even better, because we can cast it off of a brain.
Let's talk about sideboard. I realized I need more stuff against aggro. Staying monoblue, I think we have to try 2 or 3 Prism Ring in sideboard. 4 Rise from the Tides mainboard seemed excessive. Cutting it to three, with one in sideboard, is something to think about. The Mirrorpool, pieces of the puzzle, and sphinx were supposed to be against Esper control, but I never faced it. Mirrorpool in sideboard seems pointless. I had it in there to begin with in case somebody tried milling us with Sphinx's Tutelage, but I don't think we have to worry about it that much. People would much rather side in negate or Virulent Plague to deal with us.
Against blue/white aggro:
-2 Nagging Thoughts
-1 Rise from the Tides
-1 Pieces of the Puzzle
-1 Clash of Wills
+3 Send to Sleep
+2 Disperse
+2 Void Shatter
Against Aristocrats:
-1 Pore over the Pages
-1 Nagging Thoughts
-2 Grip of the Roil
+2 Disperse
+3 Void Shatter
Against Seasons Past:
-4 Grip of the Roil
+3 Void Shatter
+2 Negate
+2 Disperse
+1 Pieces of the Puzzle
Against Bant Coco:
-2 Pore over the Pages
-2 Nagging Thoughts
+1 Void Shatter
+2 Dispel
+2 Negate
Against G/W Humans:
Same as against U/W aggro. Am I sideboarding wrong, or is it just that I need more sideboard hate?
I hope all of this helps! Thoughts?
R/G Werewolves (2-0)
First game was simply a paced race, having to make sure that I kept my opponent from flipping his wolves and keeping Arlinn off the board. Sided in 2x Void Shatter and an extra Compelling Deterrence, taking out two Grips and a Nagging Thoughts to hold off the pump and Arlinn. Werewolves just doesn't seem fast enough to deal with us, though a Prism Ring could make the race easier for us.
W/G Humans (1-1) *had to leave before we got to do game three
Lost first game, just not being lucky enough on my draws to hold off the onslaught of humans. Brought in 2x Thing in the Ice, 1x Sphinx of the Final Word and 2x Void Shatter while dropping three Grips and two Nagging Thoughts. Thing did decent work, though it risks flipping too soon with our game plan, when timed right its great though but definitely will have to see it in more games to give it a good verdict. Can't complain about Sphinx, since it took care of two Avacyn's.
Will say that the human match up involved quite a bit of luck, since I knew it was a weak match up, I ended up deciding pitching two Rises to try the aggro strategy. Opponent sided out his removal so that helped as well but the second game could have gone either way nonetheless.
So far I am going to say that three Rises is probably the sweet spot, where two just left me feeling awkward once one of them ended up in the yard. I have been enjoying Adverse Conditions since it stalls the aggro builds a bit and chucks out a Eldrazi Scion that gives us a little bit more mana. I haven't tried Mirrorpool yet, initially not too sure about hitting the colorless for it, but with Adverse that might be worth trying out.
Sideboard wise I'm still tinkering around as well, have two Sphinx of the Final Word in it but not sure if I really want to dedicate two slots to it, so might still take one out, probably to add in a third Void Shatter. Mostly been running 2-of's in the side to keep some versatility. I am throwing in a Prism Ring but like with the Sphinxes I don't want to dedicate too many slots to it.
Anyways, it has me currently considering to bring this version to my next gameday:
4x Nagging Thoughts
4x Part the Waterveil
3x Pieces of the Puzzle
3x Pore Over the Pages
3x Rise from the Tides
Instants (15)
3x Adverse Conditions
4x Anticipate
1x Calculated Dismissal
4x Engulf the Shore
3x Grip of the Roil
4x Brain in a Jar
Land (24)
19x Island
4x Mage-Ring Network
1x Mirrorpool
2x Compelling Deterrence
2x Dispel
2x Negate
1x Prism Ring
2x Send to Sleep
1x Sphinx of the Final Word
2x Thing in the Ice
3x Void Shatter
Some things I'm going to try that hasn't been discussed here yet.
My colorless land replacement for blighted cataract is drownyard temple. Nagging thoughts, Pieces, and Pour all dump lands into our gy and temple can pseudo-ramp which is exactly what we're trying to do.
Warping Wail and Spatial Contortion might be overlooked because they're not blue and may be good sideboard material in some meta's.
Hydrolash also could be good against some agro mathcups. It's often overlooked because shrink effects are usually weak but the draw a card might make it playable
An interesting take, though I disagree with the not messing up the mana part. Looking at your build, it runs four Evolving Wilds which pretty much equals to a tapland, so it slows the deck down in that regard. Obviously, it will help filtering out the lands for later draws but we can still churn to the deck fairly quickly with the draw spells that the deck runs. So in that regard its just a matter of deciding what you want more, personally I feel that keeping the pace is fairly important to the deck.
Since I do run Mirrorpool, having some extra colorless sources might not hurt that much so that makes Shivan Reef an option in the deck for a splash, I wouldn't run Evolving Wilds though nor do I think I'd put in Kozilek's Return but that's more a decision based on budget for me. However, I might see about how to make some use of Geistblast since you want to go off quickly with the combo. Maybe do even some tests with just splashing the card with the intend of discarding it, seeing I'm low on Shivan Reefs at the moment.
And despite TKS and Smasher being solid creatures, you always need to keep in mind how much siding those in will disrupt our main gameplan. Siding in four creatures means having four less instants in our yard to use to our advantage. It's why I prefer Sphinx of the Final Word, sure it doesn't have trample but it has protection, allows us to cast our win-con without issues and just as importantly it can take down an Archangel Avacyn/Avacyn, the Purifier. And yeah, it is more expensive to cast, but it does more for the deck in general... it even keeps people from blowing out Geistblast since they can't counter the spell you are copying, so just far more synergistic in the deck.
And I do get that people will go for more taplands, out of a personal standpoint I'm just trying to go for consistency and put my mana to use as much as we can to tick up Jar/Network and to fill the graveyard so to get a decent amount of zombies out. This especially since against more aggro styled decks every turn longer can make a difference in being able to combo off in time or not.
If you plan on running Kozilek's Return as well as Geistblast, then you probably need the extra colored sources. With Geistblast alone I think just Reefs is doable, as you either discard it through spells or manage to get in the extra two damage through casting it. And in a way that two damage can be rather relevant, as you are exiling Geistblast from your graveyard, so it means getting one Zombie less meaning the two damage makes up for the loss of a 2/2.
White can give us Declaration in Stone, that can be great against white winnies (our worst matchup). It can give us Encircling Fissure a fog effect. The possible mana for a splash can be something like the one in the article "Rejected Brews from #PTSOI Testing: BW, Jar Fog, and Seasons Past Jar By Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa".
Modern: Grixis DS ; UR Phoenix ; Storm ; Burn
Standard: MonoRed ; Ral Spells ; UR Phoenix ; Izzet Drakes
Commander: Locust God
No. Only because our opponent cannot interact with us because we don't play creatures. Their kill/board wipes are rendered useless in game 1.