Hey Guys, I've been keeping my eye on these MTGO lists. I've built the Glory-Bound Initiate build and I just don't feel it. Usually always dies to push immediately. Any ideas?
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SirusX69/Kibbelz
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Fail Gaming www.FailGaming.com
Went 3-1 at FNM and 4-0 at Game Day. Beat Esper Control x3, BW Zombies (not optimized), GB Delirium, Mono-white Tokens, Mardu Vehicles/Planeswalkers (kind of halfway in between the two). Lost to GW tokens. Instead of running cards like Avacyn and Gideon as a midrange plan, I wanted to be a bit leaner and more interactive as an aggro-control deck, so my curve ends at Commit // Memory and Dusk // Dawn. Those cards also help me avoid flooding out, because I can just use them to refill my hand.
I also neglected to order my Irrigated Farmlands in time, so I had to run 3 Meandering Rivers in their place. I think I had a Port Town come in tapped once because of that, but it mostly didn't matter.
Another interesting take on this showed up on camera at GP Montreal. It looked a lot like the Esper aggro deck that popped up just before Smuggler's Copter was banned. Exemplar, Inspector, Glory-Bound Initiate, Scrapheap Scrounger, Heart of Kiran, Spell Queller, Gideon, Avacyn. It seemed quite effective at fighting Temur Aetherworks.
So I took a varient of this to Gameday today and it played exceptionally well, taking down a USA Approach and G/B +1/+1 Counters deck, however it fumbled to R/W Humans. R/W Humans was just crazy fast, I don't even think a fumigate would of solved the issue. How are you guys tackling faster decks?
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SirusX69/Kibbelz
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The basic idea is to put a bunch of power on the board on turns one and two and then play the tempo game. It plays a lot like Mardu Vehicles but with Spell Queller instead of Unlicensed Disintegration (and, I believe, more consistent mana). The god curve-out hand is absurd and hits much harder than the UW spirits curve out. Exemplar -> Heart -> Scrounger/Initiate/Exemplar compares very favorably to the Mausoleum Wanderer -> Rattlechains -> Bygone Bishop kind of plan. You lose some evasion and trickiness but I think the raw power makes up for it.
It's possible that the Thalias should just be more Glory-Bound Initiates and the Cast Outs should be a Stasis Snare and a Metallic Rebuke. Otherwise the deck feels pretty sweet. Gotta love Rebuking somebody off one island, the vigilant Heart, and a Clue token.
Gideon and Avacyn are three-ofs as part of the overall project of keeping the curve low to the ground. Gideon is such a house that it may be right to go with 4 Gideon and 2 Avacyn, though.
I think more discussion is in order on Commit // Memory vs Cast Out. They're very similar in that they are 4-mana splashable spells that take a nonland permanent off the battlefield without putting it into the graveyard. Neither is a permanent solution to a problem card, with Commit's card returning after 2 draws and Cast Out's returning on enchantment removal. Commit has the bonus of hitting things on the stack and when Cast Out's card comes back, it goes straight to the battlefield, so Commit is better against things with enter the battlefield triggers, but Cast Out is better against spells with cast triggers. Most of the time all that doesn't matter that much, though.
The thing I want to talk about is how these cards affect the way you should be building the rest of your deck, specifically with regards to mana.
Cast Out has cycling. Just as having cycling lands encourages you to play more lands, as you can mitigate flood by cycling unneeded lands, having cycling spells encourages you to run fewer lands, as you can mitigate screw by cycling spells.
Commit has the aftermath side of Memory. Memory costs a lot of mana, but lets you reset hand sizes if you've emptied your hand or fallen behind in the card advantage race. Thus, it's a way of mitigating flood. It costing a lot of mana also means that the result is likely to be you passing the turn with 6 lands tapped against an opponent who will be untapping, with you having 7 cards in hand and them having 8 after they draw. The only way this is going to work out for you is if you can cast your spells faster than your opponent can cast theirs with you being at a 6-mana disadvantage.
Cycling Cast Out and casting Memory should be considered fail states, because these are pretty subpar compared to using your mana in other ways. You cycle Cast Out when you are mana screwed or you cast Memory when you are mana flooded, so you should pick the spell that corrects the state where your deck is weakest, but adjust your deck so that the other fail state is less likely to happen. No deck operates well while mana screwed or flooded, but some decks are pretty fine when they are short a land and some decks have powerful top-ends or enough mana sinks that flooding isn't as bad.
The conclusion and TLDR of all of the above is that if you are running a deck with a low curve, you should add one more land than you would normally run and choose Commit // Memory over Cast Out. If your deck has a higher curve, you should run one less land than normal and choose Cast Out over Commit // Memory. Where that line lies isn't as obvious, but a good starting assumption would be that you should run Cast Out if you have Avacyn or the like in your deck, but Commit if it's the only 4-drop in your deck.
I made the changes I mentioned earlier and haven't looked back. I took this list to a 4-1 (four 2-0s and a 1-2) and 5-0 finish in modo friendly leagues:
The Selfless Spirits come in for the Glory-Bound Initiates against decks with sweepers. Otherwise you're usually trimming Avacyn/Rebuke/Snare to fit in more relevant cards.
If you run the numbers on the average CMC it comes out a smidge high for 24 lands. It would be just right if one of the Avacyns were a three drop (Aethersphere Harvester or something). Anecdotally I have ended a few games with uncastable Avacyns in hand. However, when Avacyn is good it can be such an unbelievable blowout that I think it's worth running three.
Other than Avacyn and Gideon you can go to war without very many lands at all. I won a game against mono-black zombies where I was stuck on two lands on the draw and he curved out pretty nicely:
Cryptbreaker
Relentless Dead
Diregraf Colossus
Lord of the Undead
Lord of the Undead
My turns were:
Port Town reveal plains, Exemplar
Plains, Heart of Kiran, attack for 3
Glory-Bound Initiate, attack for 7
Attack with exerted initiate and heart for 8, thraben inspector
Metallic Rebuke his second Lord of the Undead off the Port Town, clue, and Heart
He had let the initiate attack go through because the crackback would have been lethal if he kept all of his zombies around and stuck his second lord. Nobody plays around Metallic Rebuke.
In general the deck gouges out big chunks of life right out of the gate and plays a pretty nice long game with permission, Scrapheap, Gideon, Avacyn, and the Heart of Kiran. The Glory-Bound Initiates are removal magnets but they are cheap, they crew up the Heart, and they attack through just about anything.
If you've been playing any kind of UW Flash shell you probably have about 90% of the Esper Aggro cards. I'd recommend giving it a shot.
For what it's worth, I'm running with a UWG deck that's working quite well for me. It strongly resembles older Collected Company decks while having an element of the UW tempo game.
In UW I have Thraben, Selfless, Squeller, Fairgrounds Warden, Avacyn, then with green I have Narnam Renegade and an array of card-advantage creatures. And then I run As Foretold, a card which transforms the card advantages into board advantage and wouldn't be playable without the green cards getting me card advantage. You can see lists in the thread linked below.
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Current Awesome Deck: UWAll-In GiftsWU Consistent, Resiliant, and way overpowered, making multiple 4/4s per turn.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWUFree Stuff MidrangeUWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
I'm not quite as high on Eldrazi Skyspawner as he is but I did have one crazy thought when I saw his mana base. If you go up to the full playset of Aether Hub you have just about enough colorless sources to consistently cast Thought-Knot Seer on turn 4. That would be a heck of a sideboard card against Marvel.
Just picked up my first Competitive League 5-0 in a while with the Esper Aggro deck. Game record was 10-1 and the deck overall felt strong. Detailed match reports are below.
Game one: I was only beating in for four points a turn with the Heart of Kiran so he was able to survive long enough to land New Perspectives. He did not have Weirding Wood in play, which made things pretty tight mana-wise. He combo-ed off for a while and had three Viziers in the yard when he tapped out for Shadow of the Grave, which I hit with Spell Queller.
Game two: I got good early pressure going with the Heart and Exemplar. He went for a Radiant Flames which I Metallic Rebuked before slamming Gideon to close out the game.
This matchup feels like 90-10 in our favor. You really ought to win if you draw any permission spells at all.
Round 2: Temur Marvel (2-1)
Game one: I'm on the play and keep a slow-ish hand with four lands, Queller, Stasis Snare, and Rebuke. I draw nothing but lands and another Rebuke for a while, so I'm happy to see Marvel sitting across from me. I queller his turn 4 Whirler Virtuoso and swing in for a couple turns, leaving mana up for the Avacyn that I drew. He eventually goes to Harnessed Lightning the Queller during my turn, so I fire off Avacyn. This leaves him with three energy total and me tapped out. Fortunately all that he can do with the free pass is play a Virtuoso (putting him to six energy). I beat in through the air and Rebuke his Marvel and that's the game.
Game two: I mull to six and wind up with two land, Exemplar, Negate, Kefnet, Skysovereign, and scry an Inspector to the top. He plays a puzzle knot and three Rogue Refiner in a row. I finally tap out to play Kefnet. Again I'm lucky that all he does with the free pass is Glimmer. He lands a Tireless Tracker while I'm holding up seven cards so Kefnet can block, then forces the counter next turn with Marvel so he can beat in. He hits my queller with Harnessed Lightning for good measure and starts spinning the Marvel while I'm on 4 life. This game really highlighted the problem with Kefnet on defense against a deck with must-counter bombs.
Game three: I curve Exemplar into Heart into Glory-bound Initiate. The Exemplar gets one hit in before eating a Harnessed Lightning and the Glory-bound crews the Heart for a while. The opponent plays puzzleknots and eventually magma sprays the Initiate while they're at 7 (two puzzleknots in play). I had no permission for a long time but the opponent either had nothing or respected the open mana. I eventually draw a queller in time to queller his Marvel (fearing the Harnessed Lightning, I try to do the slick play of killing the queller with the trigger on the stack but wind up wasting a stasis snare as I forget it can't target your own creatures). I rip an Exemplar and beat in for 6. Opponent spends his turn cracking both puzzleknots and I rip Thraben Inspector to beat in for exactsies (inspector + queller crew, exemplar + heart beat in).
This match was mostly about how our permission package lets us beat mediocre Marvel draws by preventing them from just marvelling out of their problems. The opponent definitely could have drawn better but OTOH in the last game he did hit Harnessed Lightning, Magma Spray, and Marvel. Fortunately the early pressure forced him to use the Harnessed Lightning before the Queller hit the Marvel.
Round 3: UW Flash (2-0)
Game one: I'm on the draw and go inspector into exemplar into heart, playing around censor since the opponent goes out of their way to keep two mana up. The flashed in Rattlechains at the end of turn 2 tells me what's up. His turn 3 is just an inspector and leaving mana open. When I play the heart I leave an untapped island and clue, but the opponent passes turn 4 with all his mana up. His attempt to stasis snare gets rebuked--since he waited until after the attack to snare, I could leave three mana up (holding stasis snare, avacyn, and plains in hand). Turn five he continues to swing with Rattlechains and leave five mana up. Obvious Avacyn gets stasis snared, taking him down to 8. He sends Rattlechains again (!), taking me to 12 and him to 4. Finally he leaves Rattlechains back facing down a lethal attack (I have six mana up with Avacyn and two quellers in hand, he has four cards after cycling a bunch last turn and six mana up). He tries to flash in a Selfless Spirit to help block, I queller it, he quellers back, I queller back, gg.
Game two: After some early game moves I land kefnet with five cards in hand. She stymies his attacks for a while then starts outracing his entire team (Rattlechains, Thraben Inspector, eventually Selfless Spirit). Opponent tries to turn things around into my six open mana. His Selfless Spirit gets Spell Quellered and Gideon then eats Metallic Rebuke. I still have six more cards in hand (including Avacyn, Heart, Gideon, and Skysovereign) when he scoops.
I really like this matchup for Esper Aggro. Exemplar and Heart outclass the standard UW flash one and two drops, which means that UW has to run out its expensive cards into open mana to try to clean up the early mess, which means that Esper gets the chance to react and blow them out. It's certainly possible that you don't have the reactive cards and Gideon/Avacyn end up stabilizing but then you do have your own Gideons and Avacyns.
Also Kefnet is a bomb in the matchup.
Round 4: GB Snake Aggro (2-0)
Game one: He's on the play and runs out a Longtusk Cub with no energy. I'm not too worried and play out Initiate, happy to snap off the trade if offered. Opponent's turn 3: Winding Constrictor, Aether Hub, Attune with Aether, make Longtusk Cub a 6/6 (!) and attack. I take it and exert the initiate next turn to get 4 back. I play out Scrapheap Scrounger and Exemplar, take 10 down to 8, then Stasis Snare the cub. He has Fatal Push for the Scrounger so I can only swing for 1. He pushes the Initiate while he's at it, then on his turn fires up a Quagmire and sends the team to hit me down to 4. Gideon makes a knight, which gets grasped. Exemplar chumps the Quagmire while the snake hits me to 2. I have to make a knight, play Gideon and legend rule, then make another knight (feels bad). Opponent does not have removal, so one knight chumps the snake while the other trades with a Quagmire. He still has another Quagmire so I'm still in trouble (my hand: Rebuke + Scrounger). I rip the best possible card in Heart of Kiran and play it while making a knight. He goes for the big attack with one card in hand and tries to grasp the Heart after I crew it. I rebuke the grasp, eat the snake with the Heart, and trade with the Quagmire. Gideon + Heart beat in for 9 taking the opponent down to 6. Opponent bricks, and that's the game.
Game two: Turn two snake, turn three snake, turn four siphoner. My Glory-bound Initiate trades for a snake and I stasis snare the siphoner (two fumigate in hand but only three lands in play and none in hand). He beats in with the snake for a couple turns while I play Heart and keep mana up. He tries for a Ballista x=2 and gets Rebuked, then plays Ballista x=1. I'm still stuck on four lands and have to play a sacrificial Gideon. He has a fatal push for my Heart and Gideon dies, followed by another snake. Still no fifth land, so I stasis snare the ballista (hand is two Scrounger + 2 Fumigate... fourteen life means two snakes + ballista can end things real quick). Ballista shoots down the knight token on the way out and he plays Siphoner. I draw Thraben Inspector, crack the clue for another Inspector. He draws his extra card, beats me to 6, and plays a Quagmire. I finally rip a land and Fumigate to go back up to 11. He goes for Quagmire beats and Snake #4. I play Kefnet. I take the hit down to five and crack a clue, then pass the turn with mana up and 5 cards in hand. I start drawing cards with Kefnet, fumigate, keep drawing cards, and eventually take over the game.
This matchup featured two close games that were all about withstanding the early beatdown. It is kind of amazing how quickly Gideon + Heart can turn the corner once you stabilize. I also like the Kefnet out of the board here just because they have a really hard time interacting with it. She plays pretty good defense since they don't really run too many must counter spells (e.g. Marvel). Eventually the card advantage just snowballs and she hits for a ton once she can go on offense. It reminds me a little bit of Tireless Tracker.
Round 5: Marvel (2-0)
Game one: I'm on the draw and go Heart into Scrounger with no attack turn 3, leaving blue mana up. Opponent tries to slam Marvel and gets Rebuked. I then play Gideon and smash for 7, then 11 (Rogue Refiner trades with Scrounger and he Glimmers). Spell Queller gets his turn 6 Marvel and the opponent scoops.
This game was basically the perfect Marvel hand getting wrecked by a near-perfect Esper Aggro hand.
Game two: I have a full house, three Scroungers and two Spell Quellers to go with three lands. Opponent's turn 3 Manglehorn eats my Scrounger. When he attacks with it on turn 4 I go for the ambush Queller and snipe it. He has one energy and I have a stasis snare in hand so I don't expect anything too horrendous to happen. He lands a Tireless Tracker and gets a clue. I fail to draw a fourth land (or second white source) and just swing with Queller. I queller his Rogue Refiner, play another island, and play Heart of Kiran. Opponent cracks two clues but misses their sixth land drop. I hit a plains and play Scrounger to crew the Heart and beat him down to 6. Negating his Harnessed Lightning does leave me shields down. Opponent plays another Manglehorn, killing the Heart and leaving him with Aether Hub and Botanical Sanctum untapped, but no energy. I stasis snare the Manglehorn and send Scrounger and the quellers in for the win.
Game two was interesting because the marvel player never accumulated more than one energy at a time. I think he may have sided out the Marvels to go for the value beatdown play with Trackers and Rogue Refiners. In every Marvel match there comes a point where you have to decide whether you can beat them if they have a Marvel--if the answer is no then you have to figure out how you can win if they don't have the Marvel. Sensing when to switch those gears is the tough part of the matchup to me. Here I kind of figured once I saw the Manglehorn that he was off the early Marvel plan so I switched into a more aggressive gameplan (as opposed to the usual "stop marvel at all costs" plan).
Final Thoughts
Besides generally being happy with the deck one thing that I took away from this run is that Kefnet is quite good in more than just the UR matchups. She's poor on defense, especially if your opponent can force you to counter something (i.e. Marvel). However, she's great on offense and offers a card advantage engine that can really run away with the game. For an aggressive deck with blue in it she's sort of an off-brand Tireless Tracker. If you are at all the aggressor in a matchup I'd think hard about bringing her in.
If you're looking for a deck that applies early pressure and then has options to deal with the opponent's attempt to stabilize, I'd give this one a spin.
Looking through options for aggro-control, I've become increasingly interested in this deck lately. Does anyone know any good videos with actual gameplay post-banning? I want to check the deck in action, but on youtube there are mostly just deck techs or old UW Flash. I'm looking more for tribal type UW Spirits without vehicles or such.
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Standard: UR Like grixis midrange but worse
Modern: UR Bloo
Nice, my friend swears by esper aggro and he's been doing great with it lately, Zombies seems to be a problem matchup for him though.
The counterintuitive thing about zombies is that they have inevitability. I run an interaction heavy list and still only have three removal spells and seven counter effects to match up to their 10-12 lord effects, 4 cryptbreakers, and 4 diregraf colossus. Even just a turn one Cryptbreaker almost guarantees that a giant snowball of zombies will take over the board by turn five or so. Gideon and Avacyn are sweet but they aren't enough to turn the tide by themselves.
When I've beaten zombies it's because I have a good aggro hand. They generally don't want to block with their early plays and they can't block fliers at all. If you have Heart of Kiran and can keep it alive you can usually stave off the zombie horde for just long enough to finish the game. It also helps a lot when your opponent thinks you're settling in for a grindfest and draws cards with Cryptbreaker instead of racing.
Post board is basically the same except you have Fumigate available as a reset button. It's possible I've just gotten lucky--I've only faced zombies a few times--but the matchup felt fairly even to me.
I haven't played against many decks with this list so I am not sure how it will preform, but after goldfishing quite a few hands it seems powerful if you can curve out. Thraben into Censor into Queller is quite powerful. However, I am not sure if I should change this list to be more pure spirit aggro/tempo, with a full suite of Metallic Mimics and Always Watchings, or if I should focus more on disruption and go up and Avacyn. I am kinda limited on budget, so getting Gideons and Heart of Kirans is out of the question.
Here are my thoughts on a few cards.
Nebelgast Herald. I honestly don't think this is that strong a card, and maybe I am wrong, but for the most part we are attacking in the air, so we don't have to worry about air blockers, and I think flashing him in pre combat to tap down a creature is a tempo loss, when we could be playing countermagic or just Spell Quellering. Is there a better line I am not seeing here?
Bygone Bishop. I am thinking about replacing the Always Watchings with this guy. The clue advantage you can generate would be incredible if he sticks, and more clues mean more answers in a grindy game.
Westvale Abbey. This card has saved me several games now. Thinking about going up to 2. Thoughts?
Archangel Avacyn. Thinking about going up to 3, since she is so good. I think 4 would be a little overkill.
My sideboard is wide open. Thinking about some combination of these.
Brainstorming a deck that thumps Marvel, I came up with this concoction. 4 Disallow means an Ulamog is just disallowed, no big deal. On top there's 2 Negate and 4 Spell Queller for 10 "no marvels please", and from there we have 6 sources of card draw and aetherhubs (with Glimmer and Harvester support) can get the G for ongoing investigation, and there's plenty of energy to gain life should it be needed.
Then Dusk//Dawn will wreck zombies (or BG or humans or any aggro deck or any big-stuff deck) at the right moment.
The thing about Marvel is that you have to worry about getting Ulamogged out of nowhere but you also have to deal with the Rogue Refiner/Whirler Virtuoso/Tireless Tracker value plan. The Whirler is obnoxious against x/1 flying beaters. They also run enough card draw that you have to figure on facing one or two Harnessed Lightning per game. These can often induce an awkward tap out (i.e. zapping a Spell Queller during your turn). As an added bonus, if they drag the game on long enough they can even have a realistic shot at hard casting Ulamog.
Okay, so taking that into account, what's the optimal 60 cards to deal with them? I'm open to anything, but I don't want Gideon because tapping 4 mana on my turn doesn't fit the game plan.
Meanwhile, in North America, the top-8 is GB and Marvel, so you get a chance to play spirits without a target on your back.
I took a little inspiration from the above, but below is my list. The theory is Dusk/Dawn to take care of the big guys, Stasis Snare for indestructibles and vehicles, and blocking for any little guys who need blocking. Also, I virtually never tap down (only 2 Harvester and 2 Dusk) so I can counter whatever problem cards there are that the above plans don't deal with.
Deck was good. Despite having 6 mulligans caused by 0 and 1-land opening draws, I managed to win 3 of the 4 matches at the store.
2-1 vs Mardu. 0-2 vs BRG midrange. 2-1 vs Temur Marvel. 2-0 vs Temur midrange. Also of note, I played a marathon practice session with UR control and dominated that matchup.
Sideboard is okay, but I'm not confident in all the cards. Scatters were great. I ran with 1 Metallic Mimic over Sphinx, and I was really glad to have that in the Temur (Whirler) matchups. I think I'll cut a Wanderer to make room for another.
Never really felt a need for Blessed Alliance, maybe I want to cut that, though I could imagine a use for it.
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Current Awesome Deck: UWAll-In GiftsWU Consistent, Resiliant, and way overpowered, making multiple 4/4s per turn.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWUFree Stuff MidrangeUWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
Marvel wasn't holding Spirits back. It's actually the reason I played spirits. You simply needed to stop 2 cards to beat them: Marvel and Whirler Rogue. Very easy with counterspells.
But in the upcoming meta, I expect Dusk // Dawn will be really good. Kills zombies, BG beats, RG beats, control-deck finishers, virtually everything out there. Spirits is the perfect deck to play with such a card.
And anybody who sneaks past that card will feel the wrath of Avacyn flipping out. Add in Stasis Snare or Negate to deal with vehicles and Gideon. It seems an all-round powerful game plan at the moment.
Hey all, just checking in to see what everyone is crafting up. Going to be a little sad when this deck rotates, been having a lot of fun with it recently..no PPTQ results however topping local FNMs without much effort.
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4x Mausoleum Wanderer
4x Rattlechains
4x Selfless Spirit
4x Spell Queller
2x Bygone Bishop
2x Nebelgast Herald
Instants (11)
4x Censor
4x Commit // Memory
3x Negate
4x Declaration in Stone
2x Dusk // Dawn
Lands (23)
4x Irrigated Farmland
6x Island
3x Plains
4x Port Town
4x Prairie Stream
2x Westvale Abbey
4x Essence Scatter
1x Blessed Alliance
2x Bygone Bishop
3x Ceremonious Rejection
2x Dusk // Dawn
2x Nebelgast Herald
1x Negate
I also neglected to order my Irrigated Farmlands in time, so I had to run 3 Meandering Rivers in their place. I think I had a Port Town come in tapped once because of that, but it mostly didn't matter.
EDIT: Swapped 3x Always Watching and 1x Blessed Alliance for 4x Essence Scatter in the sideboard to help against midrange creatures.
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Fail Gaming
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6 Islands
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Port Town
2 Prairie Stream
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Toolcraft Exemplar
2 Glory-Bound Initiate
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
4 Spell Queller
3 Archangel Avacyn
3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Metallic Rebuke
2 Stasis Snare
2 Cast Out
3 Dispel
3 Fumigate
3 Selfless Spirit
2 Declaration in Stone
2 Negate
2 Walking Ballista
The basic idea is to put a bunch of power on the board on turns one and two and then play the tempo game. It plays a lot like Mardu Vehicles but with Spell Queller instead of Unlicensed Disintegration (and, I believe, more consistent mana). The god curve-out hand is absurd and hits much harder than the UW spirits curve out. Exemplar -> Heart -> Scrounger/Initiate/Exemplar compares very favorably to the Mausoleum Wanderer -> Rattlechains -> Bygone Bishop kind of plan. You lose some evasion and trickiness but I think the raw power makes up for it.
It's possible that the Thalias should just be more Glory-Bound Initiates and the Cast Outs should be a Stasis Snare and a Metallic Rebuke. Otherwise the deck feels pretty sweet. Gotta love Rebuking somebody off one island, the vigilant Heart, and a Clue token.
Gideon and Avacyn are three-ofs as part of the overall project of keeping the curve low to the ground. Gideon is such a house that it may be right to go with 4 Gideon and 2 Avacyn, though.
The thing I want to talk about is how these cards affect the way you should be building the rest of your deck, specifically with regards to mana.
Cast Out has cycling. Just as having cycling lands encourages you to play more lands, as you can mitigate flood by cycling unneeded lands, having cycling spells encourages you to run fewer lands, as you can mitigate screw by cycling spells.
Commit has the aftermath side of Memory. Memory costs a lot of mana, but lets you reset hand sizes if you've emptied your hand or fallen behind in the card advantage race. Thus, it's a way of mitigating flood. It costing a lot of mana also means that the result is likely to be you passing the turn with 6 lands tapped against an opponent who will be untapping, with you having 7 cards in hand and them having 8 after they draw. The only way this is going to work out for you is if you can cast your spells faster than your opponent can cast theirs with you being at a 6-mana disadvantage.
Cycling Cast Out and casting Memory should be considered fail states, because these are pretty subpar compared to using your mana in other ways. You cycle Cast Out when you are mana screwed or you cast Memory when you are mana flooded, so you should pick the spell that corrects the state where your deck is weakest, but adjust your deck so that the other fail state is less likely to happen. No deck operates well while mana screwed or flooded, but some decks are pretty fine when they are short a land and some decks have powerful top-ends or enough mana sinks that flooding isn't as bad.
The conclusion and TLDR of all of the above is that if you are running a deck with a low curve, you should add one more land than you would normally run and choose Commit // Memory over Cast Out. If your deck has a higher curve, you should run one less land than normal and choose Cast Out over Commit // Memory. Where that line lies isn't as obvious, but a good starting assumption would be that you should run Cast Out if you have Avacyn or the like in your deck, but Commit if it's the only 4-drop in your deck.
6 Islands
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Port Town
2 Prairie Stream
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Toolcraft Exemplar
4 Glory-Bound Initiate
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
4 Spell Queller
3 Archangel Avacyn
3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
3 Metallic Rebuke
3 Stasis Snare
4 Selfless Spirit
3 Fumigate
2 Declaration in Stone
2 Negate
2 Dispel
2 Kefnet the Mindful
The Selfless Spirits come in for the Glory-Bound Initiates against decks with sweepers. Otherwise you're usually trimming Avacyn/Rebuke/Snare to fit in more relevant cards.
If you run the numbers on the average CMC it comes out a smidge high for 24 lands. It would be just right if one of the Avacyns were a three drop (Aethersphere Harvester or something). Anecdotally I have ended a few games with uncastable Avacyns in hand. However, when Avacyn is good it can be such an unbelievable blowout that I think it's worth running three.
Other than Avacyn and Gideon you can go to war without very many lands at all. I won a game against mono-black zombies where I was stuck on two lands on the draw and he curved out pretty nicely:
In general the deck gouges out big chunks of life right out of the gate and plays a pretty nice long game with permission, Scrapheap, Gideon, Avacyn, and the Heart of Kiran. The Glory-Bound Initiates are removal magnets but they are cheap, they crew up the Heart, and they attack through just about anything.
If you've been playing any kind of UW Flash shell you probably have about 90% of the Esper Aggro cards. I'd recommend giving it a shot.
In UW I have Thraben, Selfless, Squeller, Fairgrounds Warden, Avacyn, then with green I have Narnam Renegade and an array of card-advantage creatures. And then I run As Foretold, a card which transforms the card advantages into board advantage and wouldn't be playable without the green cards getting me card advantage. You can see lists in the thread linked below.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
4 x Spire of Industry
2 x Aether Hub
4 x Port Town
2 x Irrigated Farmland
6 x Plains
2 x Island
4 x Thraben Inspector
4 x Glory-Bound Initiate
4 x Scrapheap Scrounger
4 x Toolcraft Exemplar
2 x Eldrazi Skyspawner
2 x Archangel Avacyn // Avacyn, the Purifier
4 x Heart of Kiran
4 x Spell Queller
4 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 x Cast Out
4 x Declaration in Stone
2 x Negate
1 x Irrigated Farmland
2 x Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
2 x Fumigate
1 x Sorin, Grim Nemesis
1 x Dusk // Dawn
2 x Stasis Snare
I'm not quite as high on Eldrazi Skyspawner as he is but I did have one crazy thought when I saw his mana base. If you go up to the full playset of Aether Hub you have just about enough colorless sources to consistently cast Thought-Knot Seer on turn 4. That would be a heck of a sideboard card against Marvel.
6 Islands
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Port Town
2 Prairie Stream
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Toolcraft Exemplar
4 Glory-Bound Initiate
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
4 Spell Queller
3 Archangel Avacyn
3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
3 Metallic Rebuke
3 Stasis Snare
3 Selfless Spirit
3 Fumigate
2 Declaration in Stone
2 Negate
2 Dispel
2 Kefnet the Mindful
1 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
Round 1: New Perspectives (2-0)
Game two: I got good early pressure going with the Heart and Exemplar. He went for a Radiant Flames which I Metallic Rebuked before slamming Gideon to close out the game.
This matchup feels like 90-10 in our favor. You really ought to win if you draw any permission spells at all.
Round 2: Temur Marvel (2-1)
Game two: I mull to six and wind up with two land, Exemplar, Negate, Kefnet, Skysovereign, and scry an Inspector to the top. He plays a puzzle knot and three Rogue Refiner in a row. I finally tap out to play Kefnet. Again I'm lucky that all he does with the free pass is Glimmer. He lands a Tireless Tracker while I'm holding up seven cards so Kefnet can block, then forces the counter next turn with Marvel so he can beat in. He hits my queller with Harnessed Lightning for good measure and starts spinning the Marvel while I'm on 4 life. This game really highlighted the problem with Kefnet on defense against a deck with must-counter bombs.
Game three: I curve Exemplar into Heart into Glory-bound Initiate. The Exemplar gets one hit in before eating a Harnessed Lightning and the Glory-bound crews the Heart for a while. The opponent plays puzzleknots and eventually magma sprays the Initiate while they're at 7 (two puzzleknots in play). I had no permission for a long time but the opponent either had nothing or respected the open mana. I eventually draw a queller in time to queller his Marvel (fearing the Harnessed Lightning, I try to do the slick play of killing the queller with the trigger on the stack but wind up wasting a stasis snare as I forget it can't target your own creatures). I rip an Exemplar and beat in for 6. Opponent spends his turn cracking both puzzleknots and I rip Thraben Inspector to beat in for exactsies (inspector + queller crew, exemplar + heart beat in).
This match was mostly about how our permission package lets us beat mediocre Marvel draws by preventing them from just marvelling out of their problems. The opponent definitely could have drawn better but OTOH in the last game he did hit Harnessed Lightning, Magma Spray, and Marvel. Fortunately the early pressure forced him to use the Harnessed Lightning before the Queller hit the Marvel.
Round 3: UW Flash (2-0)
Game two: After some early game moves I land kefnet with five cards in hand. She stymies his attacks for a while then starts outracing his entire team (Rattlechains, Thraben Inspector, eventually Selfless Spirit). Opponent tries to turn things around into my six open mana. His Selfless Spirit gets Spell Quellered and Gideon then eats Metallic Rebuke. I still have six more cards in hand (including Avacyn, Heart, Gideon, and Skysovereign) when he scoops.
I really like this matchup for Esper Aggro. Exemplar and Heart outclass the standard UW flash one and two drops, which means that UW has to run out its expensive cards into open mana to try to clean up the early mess, which means that Esper gets the chance to react and blow them out. It's certainly possible that you don't have the reactive cards and Gideon/Avacyn end up stabilizing but then you do have your own Gideons and Avacyns.
Also Kefnet is a bomb in the matchup.
Round 4: GB Snake Aggro (2-0)
Game two: Turn two snake, turn three snake, turn four siphoner. My Glory-bound Initiate trades for a snake and I stasis snare the siphoner (two fumigate in hand but only three lands in play and none in hand). He beats in with the snake for a couple turns while I play Heart and keep mana up. He tries for a Ballista x=2 and gets Rebuked, then plays Ballista x=1. I'm still stuck on four lands and have to play a sacrificial Gideon. He has a fatal push for my Heart and Gideon dies, followed by another snake. Still no fifth land, so I stasis snare the ballista (hand is two Scrounger + 2 Fumigate... fourteen life means two snakes + ballista can end things real quick). Ballista shoots down the knight token on the way out and he plays Siphoner. I draw Thraben Inspector, crack the clue for another Inspector. He draws his extra card, beats me to 6, and plays a Quagmire. I finally rip a land and Fumigate to go back up to 11. He goes for Quagmire beats and Snake #4. I play Kefnet. I take the hit down to five and crack a clue, then pass the turn with mana up and 5 cards in hand. I start drawing cards with Kefnet, fumigate, keep drawing cards, and eventually take over the game.
This matchup featured two close games that were all about withstanding the early beatdown. It is kind of amazing how quickly Gideon + Heart can turn the corner once you stabilize. I also like the Kefnet out of the board here just because they have a really hard time interacting with it. She plays pretty good defense since they don't really run too many must counter spells (e.g. Marvel). Eventually the card advantage just snowballs and she hits for a ton once she can go on offense. It reminds me a little bit of Tireless Tracker.
Round 5: Marvel (2-0)
This game was basically the perfect Marvel hand getting wrecked by a near-perfect Esper Aggro hand.
Game two: I have a full house, three Scroungers and two Spell Quellers to go with three lands. Opponent's turn 3 Manglehorn eats my Scrounger. When he attacks with it on turn 4 I go for the ambush Queller and snipe it. He has one energy and I have a stasis snare in hand so I don't expect anything too horrendous to happen. He lands a Tireless Tracker and gets a clue. I fail to draw a fourth land (or second white source) and just swing with Queller. I queller his Rogue Refiner, play another island, and play Heart of Kiran. Opponent cracks two clues but misses their sixth land drop. I hit a plains and play Scrounger to crew the Heart and beat him down to 6. Negating his Harnessed Lightning does leave me shields down. Opponent plays another Manglehorn, killing the Heart and leaving him with Aether Hub and Botanical Sanctum untapped, but no energy. I stasis snare the Manglehorn and send Scrounger and the quellers in for the win.
Game two was interesting because the marvel player never accumulated more than one energy at a time. I think he may have sided out the Marvels to go for the value beatdown play with Trackers and Rogue Refiners. In every Marvel match there comes a point where you have to decide whether you can beat them if they have a Marvel--if the answer is no then you have to figure out how you can win if they don't have the Marvel. Sensing when to switch those gears is the tough part of the matchup to me. Here I kind of figured once I saw the Manglehorn that he was off the early Marvel plan so I switched into a more aggressive gameplan (as opposed to the usual "stop marvel at all costs" plan).
Final Thoughts
Besides generally being happy with the deck one thing that I took away from this run is that Kefnet is quite good in more than just the UR matchups. She's poor on defense, especially if your opponent can force you to counter something (i.e. Marvel). However, she's great on offense and offers a card advantage engine that can really run away with the game. For an aggressive deck with blue in it she's sort of an off-brand Tireless Tracker. If you are at all the aggressor in a matchup I'd think hard about bringing her in.
If you're looking for a deck that applies early pressure and then has options to deal with the opponent's attempt to stabilize, I'd give this one a spin.
Modern: UW Spirits
Modern: UR Bloo
The counterintuitive thing about zombies is that they have inevitability. I run an interaction heavy list and still only have three removal spells and seven counter effects to match up to their 10-12 lord effects, 4 cryptbreakers, and 4 diregraf colossus. Even just a turn one Cryptbreaker almost guarantees that a giant snowball of zombies will take over the board by turn five or so. Gideon and Avacyn are sweet but they aren't enough to turn the tide by themselves.
When I've beaten zombies it's because I have a good aggro hand. They generally don't want to block with their early plays and they can't block fliers at all. If you have Heart of Kiran and can keep it alive you can usually stave off the zombie horde for just long enough to finish the game. It also helps a lot when your opponent thinks you're settling in for a grindfest and draws cards with Cryptbreaker instead of racing.
Post board is basically the same except you have Fumigate available as a reset button. It's possible I've just gotten lucky--I've only faced zombies a few times--but the matchup felt fairly even to me.
4x Mausoleum Wanderer
4x Thraben Inspector
4x Rattlechains
4x Selfless Spirit
4x Spell Queller
2x Archangel Avacyn
4x Censor
2x Commit // Memory
6 Removal
4x Declaration in Stone
2x Dusk // Dawn
2 Enchantments
2x Always Watching
6x Island
7x Plains
4x Prairie Stream
4x Port Town
2x Irrigated Farmland
1x Westvale Abbey
I haven't played against many decks with this list so I am not sure how it will preform, but after goldfishing quite a few hands it seems powerful if you can curve out. Thraben into Censor into Queller is quite powerful. However, I am not sure if I should change this list to be more pure spirit aggro/tempo, with a full suite of Metallic Mimics and Always Watchings, or if I should focus more on disruption and go up and Avacyn. I am kinda limited on budget, so getting Gideons and Heart of Kirans is out of the question.
Here are my thoughts on a few cards.
Nebelgast Herald. I honestly don't think this is that strong a card, and maybe I am wrong, but for the most part we are attacking in the air, so we don't have to worry about air blockers, and I think flashing him in pre combat to tap down a creature is a tempo loss, when we could be playing countermagic or just Spell Quellering. Is there a better line I am not seeing here?
Bygone Bishop. I am thinking about replacing the Always Watchings with this guy. The clue advantage you can generate would be incredible if he sticks, and more clues mean more answers in a grindy game.
Westvale Abbey. This card has saved me several games now. Thinking about going up to 2. Thoughts?
Archangel Avacyn. Thinking about going up to 3, since she is so good. I think 4 would be a little overkill.
My sideboard is wide open. Thinking about some combination of these.
1 Negate
1 Stasis Snare
1 Cast Out
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Fragmentize
1 Pull From Tomorrow
1 Jace, Unraveller of Secrets
1 Disallow
1 Immolating Glare
1 Essence Scatter
Then Dusk//Dawn will wreck zombies (or BG or humans or any aggro deck or any big-stuff deck) at the right moment.
2 Aethersphere Harvester
// 16 Creature
4 Spell Queller
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
// 5 Enchantment
2 Ongoing Investigation
1 Stasis Snare
2 Cast Out
4 Disallow
2 Negate
4 Glimmer of Genius
// 23 Land
4 Port Town
2 Plains
7 Island
4 Prairie Stream
2 Irrigated Farmland
4 Aether Hub
2 Declaration in Stone
2 Dusk // Dawn
Side
2 Cast Out
4 Essence Scatter
2 Negate
3 Fragmentize
2 Dusk // Dawn
2 Declaration in Stone
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
EDIT: also, what's the method to beating Mardu?
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpman17/top-8-decklists-2017-06-04
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpman17/9-0-decklists-2017-06-04
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpman17/9th-32nd-decklists-2017-06-04
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpams17/top-8-decklists-grand-prix-amsterdam-2017-06-04
Meanwhile, in North America, the top-8 is GB and Marvel, so you get a chance to play spirits without a target on your back.
I took a little inspiration from the above, but below is my list. The theory is Dusk/Dawn to take care of the big guys, Stasis Snare for indestructibles and vehicles, and blocking for any little guys who need blocking. Also, I virtually never tap down (only 2 Harvester and 2 Dusk) so I can counter whatever problem cards there are that the above plans don't deal with.
2 Aethersphere Harvester
// 21 Creature
4 Spell Queller
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
2 Archangel Avacyn
3 Mausoleum Wanderer
// 4 Enchantment
3 Stasis Snare
1 Cast Out
// 7 Instant
2 Disallow
3 Negate
2 Essence Flux
4 Port Town
5 Plains
6 Island
4 Prairie Stream
2 Irrigated Farmland
2 Aether Hub
1 Blighted Cataract
// 2 Sorcery
2 Dusk // Dawn
1 Sphinx of the Final Word
1 Cast Out
4 Essence Scatter
1 Negate
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Fragmentize
1 Dusk // Dawn
3 Declaration in Stone
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
2-1 vs Mardu. 0-2 vs BRG midrange. 2-1 vs Temur Marvel. 2-0 vs Temur midrange. Also of note, I played a marathon practice session with UR control and dominated that matchup.
Sideboard is okay, but I'm not confident in all the cards. Scatters were great. I ran with 1 Metallic Mimic over Sphinx, and I was really glad to have that in the Temur (Whirler) matchups. I think I'll cut a Wanderer to make room for another.
Never really felt a need for Blessed Alliance, maybe I want to cut that, though I could imagine a use for it.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
A 5-0 mtgo list: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/666658
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Metallic Mimic
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
2 Nebelgast Herald
4 Spell Queller
3 Archangel Avacyn
4 Censor
2 Stasis Snare
3 Cast Out
2 Irrigated Farmland
8 Island
5 Plains
4 Port Town
4 Prairie Stream
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Declaration in Stone
2 Dispel
4 Dusk // Dawn
1 Nebelgast Herald
2 Negate
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
But in the upcoming meta, I expect Dusk // Dawn will be really good. Kills zombies, BG beats, RG beats, control-deck finishers, virtually everything out there. Spirits is the perfect deck to play with such a card.
And anybody who sneaks past that card will feel the wrath of Avacyn flipping out. Add in Stasis Snare or Negate to deal with vehicles and Gideon. It seems an all-round powerful game plan at the moment.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
4 Rattlechains
4 Spell Queller
2 Torrential Gearhulk
4 Selfless Spirit
3 Archangel Avacyn
Enchantments
2 Stasis Snare
3 Cast Out
Instants
3 Hieroglyphic Illumination
3 Disallow
2 Void Shatter
2 Essence Scatter
1 Censor
3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Lands
4 Prairie Stream
4 Port Town
4 Irrigated Farmland
7 Plains
5 Island
2 Gisela, the Broken Blade
4 Horribly Awry
2 Dispel
3 Negate
2 Invasive Surgery
2 Dusk
Please don't talk about new cards outside of Standard New Card Discussion until the entire set is spoiled. Thanks! -- Lugger
Co-Owner / Systems Administrator
Fail Gaming
www.FailGaming.com
Skype: Kibbelznbitz69
4x Archangel Avacyn
4x Nimble Obstructionist
4x Selfless Spirit
4x Spell Queller
4x Thraben Inspector
Instant (8)
4x Censor
4x Supreme Will
4x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Land (24)
2x Irrigated Farmland
6x Island
8x Plains
4x Port Town
4x Prairie Stream
Sorcery (2)
2x Declaration in Stone
2x Cast Out
1x Authority of the Consuls
2x Aven Mindcensor
1x Cast Out
2x Crook of Condemnation
2x Forsake the Wordly
3x Fumigate
1x Gideon's Defeat
1x Jace's Defeat
2x Negate
Current Decks
Standard : WB Orzhov Vampires BW GUB Sultai Constrictor BUG
Brawl : GB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons BG
Modern : GB Golgari Elves BG GR Atarka Goblins RG
Pauper : W Heroic W GB Delve BG