I've been using Font of Fortune over Divination too at the suggestion of a friend. I was skeptical at first with it, but now I love it and had to order a playset.
Did font of vigor fill archangel's role better since it comes down earlier? And how many did you run in your sideboard/would you bring them in vs any matchups aside from burn?
That's a good question. When I played it, most of the time it was in late game, where I could have cast an angel anyway, but there was one game where I managed to drop it t2 just to have it erased. I think its a matter of its pros outweighing archangel's cons. Any time you draw archangel in your opening hand, its going to feel a little rough, and sometimes you need to stabilize without having all the mana/lands up, and that where I feel font really shines. Of course, it's not as much life, but running 8 permission spells post-board, means stabilizing at 9 or so life is likely to get you all the way home unless they rip 4 burn spells in a row. I boarded in two, but am considering another.
I prefer divination over font of fortunes but then again divination fits my playstyle better since on turn 2 I like holding up two mana for either last breath or nullify and then turn 3 cast divination depending on the game state. I could definitely see the appeal for running font of fortunes though but I am going to continue being on divination since I also like the card draw immediately so I can make my land drops on every turn. Of course, I am not implying that font of fortunes is not a good card because it is definitely a decent card. I also have tried it before as well.
I also haven't tried font of vigor before so I can't really comment on it. But due to my gut feeling and experience with resolute archangel, I think I rather have angel since it's also a 4/4 flyer that could close out games even if it costs more mana.
Edit: Lol, wow, there were two more players that went 4-0 and 3-1 in the same daily with the uw control deck I have built and they have been calling it UWtroll, I could get behind that name.
I played bant control all last season (basically U/W with a small green splash for Kiora and some sideboard cards) and am considering doing the same this season. I like the idea of having some mana ramp with Font of Fertility/Embodiment of Spring to get off the turn four wrath, and Kiora is excellent at encouraging people to overcommit to the board. She is unfortunately rather weak to haste creatures though, and there's a lot of Mantis Riders running around lately. It seems three power creatures are a real issue for the deck as they dodge most of the white removal in the format. That said, she provides a must-answer threat pretty early in the game when needed and really beats up on clumsy midrange strategies like all the junk decks we saw in PT KTK this weekend.
I'm thinking of running 2 Resolute Archangel, 2 Elspeth, 3 Kiora, 4 Embodiment of Spring. With this you could somewhat consistently get off the turn four wrath, and even occasionally surprise the slower decks with something like a turn four Elspeth. Even if your opponent removes the Embodiment before you can sac it still effectively bought you a turn (since they're using their mana/burn spell on it rather than you or another threat).
I have no idea if this is a good idea or not as I haven't played much KTK standard but it might be worth a try.
At this point in standard, I don't think it's the matter of whats good or whats not but rather which deck you enjoy playing and you can pretty much brew your own deck. There is a lot of ways you can brew with just one deck and pretty much anything is up for grabs at this point. There is a deck out there for any kind of player in this standard. As long as you know what your trying to accomplish with your deck and play according to that you'll do fine. I mean of course there are top decks like abzan midrange and jeskai but the power level gap between them and the rest of the format is pretty small imo. I mean it's not like either deck was like faeries or more recently caw-blade where you either play caw-blade that has an edge in the mirror or you play a deck that beats it there wasn't anything in between.
So if you want to try a bant deck then go for it. I am just going to stick to straight uw control. I love playing the archetype and it seems to been putting up results so I am sticking with it for now.
I have had great success with Brimaz, King of Oreskos. I usually side 3 copies every game two, and sometimes game three. I am usually able to ride him to the late game; Elspeth and Brimaz become my win conditions ( I also use Haunted Plate Mail in the MB.) On another note; Haunted Plate Mail is so good
One card I have always liked is Fated Retribution. I think if you have four Dig through Time you should play a single copy as it is very powerful against mid range.
Cards I wanted to test:
- Dawnbringer Charioteers - blocks mantis
- Warden of Beyond - big boy if we delve early.
- Medomai - seems really good, it's not a finisher but a utility card
I am a fan of that magic online uw control list that went 5-1 at a online ptq. Although, that's what I like about uw control you can adjust your deck the way you want it to defeat the standard metagame as it progresses.
It depends on the matchup, it could also depend on your opponents playstyle and what you also expect for them to sideboard against you as well and also what your maindeck contains. Without knowing those things that's a hard question to answer. But providing a decklist for those that play brimaz from the sideboard and posting a general sideboard guide against decks like abzan midrange and jeskai wins could generally help answer your question.
With that being said, it's definitely a good question to ask though. Especially since there is no detailed primer for uw control as of yet. I'd be happy to write one but I am usually pretty busy with college and more. So anyone else that has more free time on their hands then me should definitely feel free to do so.
Banishing light in my opinion-it is more flexible as a three drop, and i feel is the better option. We are not in the same environment as last season; Detention sphere vs Planar Cleansing, so I feel banishing light is an automatic 3-4 in every MB. Perilous Vault deals with permmaments that we can allready deal with with very effective tempo.
Don't forget we also have Fated Retribution to "Clean" the board-state as well.
On a side note. What counters are everyone finding to be more comfortable MB besides Dissolve?
I have 2 Disdainful strokes mainboard, and basically vs anything aside from aggro, theyre never a dead card. Even game 1 vs some rabble red lists, ive gotten value out of them by hosing a stoke the flames that would put me into burn range/kill me. I also plan on having 1 Nullify mainboard, but that's mostly because I enjoyed running 1 essence scatter mb last rotation and it seemed to do work, so we'll see how that goes.
We need a vault for the fleecemane lions that will be running around in the big bad Abzan Midrange decks that will be cropping up after pro tour. I would suggest a 1 of so you have an out.
I run 2x Nullify, 2x disdainful stroke, and 4x dissolve as counters. I am considering MBing negates to protect pearl lake, prognostic, or ram. I have not been dissapointed with Nullify so far, counters banishing light which can be relevant and also creatures. People do not see it coming (yet) so UU to them means, "we can resolve something here". People play around disdainful stroke but not nullify.
The key thing is I found other decks dead removal spells would turn into Time Walks for them. Tap my sphynx or bounce my pearl lake, they get another draw step and turn. Which is the reason I was discussing adding more negates MB possibly.
Against Ashiok? Its draw the B-light, attack him down somehow, start with some negates in the main. If you have answers to creatures and not PW, then counter the PW and kill the creatures later.
Last thing, I personally run 3-4 plate mails MB.. it really beats down if the other opponent hiccups on lands. Plus a 7/9 hexproof prognostic says "whatsup" to stormbreath, sarkhan, fleecemain, and etc. The platemails honestly can come down, dodge end hostilities, animate, and apply pressure to ashiok or opposing life total.
P.S. Pearl Lake is great in this deck. Floating radiant fountain mana then picking them up and the ancient, then using the floating mana and tapping 4 more lands to immediately play him again is strong and next turns you stabilize SO well. It is Psuedo vigilance, it is recurring life gain, and the biggest thing is it dodges removal
Counterspelling their Ashiok with Negate or Dissolve is by the far
the best way to deal with her, but the following cards also help
when playing UW Control:
Counterspelling their Ashiok with Negate or Dissolve is by the far
the best way to deal with her, but the following cards also help
when playing UW Control:
And I know Sultai Charm deals with the 3 cards I suggested, but you
should have enough counterspells to counter it if you've let Ashiok
hit the table. There is no perfect world after all...
Well, I saw at least two uw control decks made the top 8 at two different scg states tournaments from looking at the autumn states scg deck database. Pretty happy about that, considering it's refreshing to see people still play this deck even after seeing the results of the pro tour which shouldn't really matter to be honest since I think uw control is definitely still an pretty good deck currently and I believe it still can put up impressive results.
With that being said, I definitely would play uw control this weekend at scg boston if I was going which unfortunately I am not.
Edit: I haven't really tested Kiora out before so I can't really comment. Also I agree, I like negates to combat ashiok. I think it could be a good idea to play at least two of them in the main. In addition, it's been noted that a deck like abzan midrange can be more planeswalker heavy especially after board so negates and disdainful stroke is great there. Like Ari Lax's first place abzan midrange list from the pro tour ran two nissa worldwakers in the sideboard which gives the deck more late game power for attrition based strategies and/or game states.
I have not been dissapointed with Nullify so far, counters banishing light which can be relevant and also creatures. People do not see it coming (yet) so UU to them means, "we can resolve something here". People play around disdainful stroke but not nullify.
That's cool, I haven't decided if I am going to play at my local game day. I am definitely thinking about it though. So we'll see and it should be fun if I go.
Also, yeah I agree with nullify, it's definitely good.
Well, I saw at least two uw control decks made the top 8 at two different scg states tournaments from looking at the autumn states scg deck database. Pretty happy about that, considering it's refreshing to see people still play this deck even after seeing the results of the pro tour which shouldn't really matter to be honest since I think uw control is definitely still an pretty good deck currently and I believe it still can put up impressive results.
With that being said, I definitely would play uw control this weekend at scg boston if I was going which unfortunately I am not.
Edit: I haven't really tested Kiora out before so I can't really comment. Also I agree, I like negates to combat ashiok. I think it could be a good idea to play at least two of them in the main. In addition, it's been noted that a deck like abzan midrange can be more planeswalker heavy especially after board so negates and disdainful stroke is great there. Like Ari Lax's first place abzan midrange list from the pro tour ran two nissa worldwakers in the sideboard which gives the deck more late game power for attrition based strategies and/or game states.
After testing the deck, I was actually pretty surprised that U/B control had such a strong showing at the pro tour - I keep losing most of my games. Most of my matchups have been some version of green devotion/monsters or Abzan. It could be my playstyle, but the Jeskai control deck I was running before felt a lot more powerful, and the U/W and Esper lists seem better on paper as well. I would not expect U/B control to remain the defacto control deck for Standard for long, at least in its current form.
Negate is awesome against so many decks, I highly recommend 2-3 for any deck in the format playing blue. (edit - in the board, obviously).
That's a good question. When I played it, most of the time it was in late game, where I could have cast an angel anyway, but there was one game where I managed to drop it t2 just to have it erased. I think its a matter of its pros outweighing archangel's cons. Any time you draw archangel in your opening hand, its going to feel a little rough, and sometimes you need to stabilize without having all the mana/lands up, and that where I feel font really shines. Of course, it's not as much life, but running 8 permission spells post-board, means stabilizing at 9 or so life is likely to get you all the way home unless they rip 4 burn spells in a row. I boarded in two, but am considering another.
I also haven't tried font of vigor before so I can't really comment on it. But due to my gut feeling and experience with resolute archangel, I think I rather have angel since it's also a 4/4 flyer that could close out games even if it costs more mana.
Edit: Lol, wow, there were two more players that went 4-0 and 3-1 in the same daily with the uw control deck I have built and they have been calling it UWtroll, I could get behind that name.
I'm thinking of running 2 Resolute Archangel, 2 Elspeth, 3 Kiora, 4 Embodiment of Spring. With this you could somewhat consistently get off the turn four wrath, and even occasionally surprise the slower decks with something like a turn four Elspeth. Even if your opponent removes the Embodiment before you can sac it still effectively bought you a turn (since they're using their mana/burn spell on it rather than you or another threat).
I have no idea if this is a good idea or not as I haven't played much KTK standard but it might be worth a try.
'78 CB750F, '09 CBR600RR
So if you want to try a bant deck then go for it. I am just going to stick to straight uw control. I love playing the archetype and it seems to been putting up results so I am sticking with it for now.
Esper draw go Control!
Twitch stream: http://www.twitch.tv/pimpdonny
UW Control
Rabble R
Modern
Mono U Tron
BW Midrange
Cards I wanted to test:
- Dawnbringer Charioteers - blocks mantis
- Warden of Beyond - big boy if we delve early.
- Medomai - seems really good, it's not a finisher but a utility card
With that being said, it's definitely a good question to ask though. Especially since there is no detailed primer for uw control as of yet. I'd be happy to write one but I am usually pretty busy with college and more. So anyone else that has more free time on their hands then me should definitely feel free to do so.
Does anyone think a split of say 4 Hostilities/ 3 Vault is better than the 4 Hostilities/ 4 Banishing Light that most decks run?
Banishing Light is better as it comes down early but a lot more decks are running disenchant in the SB like erase now.
Don't forget we also have Fated Retribution to "Clean" the board-state as well.
On a side note. What counters are everyone finding to be more comfortable MB besides Dissolve?
UW Control
Rabble R
Modern
Mono U Tron
BW Midrange
I run 2x Nullify, 2x disdainful stroke, and 4x dissolve as counters. I am considering MBing negates to protect pearl lake, prognostic, or ram. I have not been dissapointed with Nullify so far, counters banishing light which can be relevant and also creatures. People do not see it coming (yet) so UU to them means, "we can resolve something here". People play around disdainful stroke but not nullify.
The key thing is I found other decks dead removal spells would turn into Time Walks for them. Tap my sphynx or bounce my pearl lake, they get another draw step and turn. Which is the reason I was discussing adding more negates MB possibly.
Against Ashiok? Its draw the B-light, attack him down somehow, start with some negates in the main. If you have answers to creatures and not PW, then counter the PW and kill the creatures later.
Last thing, I personally run 3-4 plate mails MB.. it really beats down if the other opponent hiccups on lands. Plus a 7/9 hexproof prognostic says "whatsup" to stormbreath, sarkhan, fleecemain, and etc. The platemails honestly can come down, dodge end hostilities, animate, and apply pressure to ashiok or opposing life total.
P.S. Pearl Lake is great in this deck. Floating radiant fountain mana then picking them up and the ancient, then using the floating mana and tapping 4 more lands to immediately play him again is strong and next turns you stabilize SO well. It is Psuedo vigilance, it is recurring life gain, and the biggest thing is it dodges removal
the best way to deal with her, but the following cards also help
when playing UW Control:
Banishing Light
Phyrexian Revoker
Aegis of the Gods
And I know Sultai Charm deals with the 3 cards I suggested, but you
should have enough counterspells to counter it if you've let Ashiok
hit the table. There is no perfect world after all...
Personally, I'll be testing her out shortly.
What's your opinion on her?
With that being said, I definitely would play uw control this weekend at scg boston if I was going which unfortunately I am not.
Edit: I haven't really tested Kiora out before so I can't really comment. Also I agree, I like negates to combat ashiok. I think it could be a good idea to play at least two of them in the main. In addition, it's been noted that a deck like abzan midrange can be more planeswalker heavy especially after board so negates and disdainful stroke is great there. Like Ari Lax's first place abzan midrange list from the pro tour ran two nissa worldwakers in the sideboard which gives the deck more late game power for attrition based strategies and/or game states.
How does nullify counter banishing light? Anyhow, I am a fan of running one in the MB.
Also, yeah I agree with nullify, it's definitely good.
After testing the deck, I was actually pretty surprised that U/B control had such a strong showing at the pro tour - I keep losing most of my games. Most of my matchups have been some version of green devotion/monsters or Abzan. It could be my playstyle, but the Jeskai control deck I was running before felt a lot more powerful, and the U/W and Esper lists seem better on paper as well. I would not expect U/B control to remain the defacto control deck for Standard for long, at least in its current form.
Negate is awesome against so many decks, I highly recommend 2-3 for any deck in the format playing blue. (edit - in the board, obviously).