Love everything about this primer, very entertaining!
If you do somehow manage to score a Jace or two due to betting you can beat your mates T1 alpha Jace deck with your deck that is "Free" against T1 alpha Jace decks, the man from Rapid Hybridization (I call him Lorenzo) who met the unfortunate fate of turning into the gutter tier Bounding Krasis due to a failed izzet Epic Experiment (well, that's my theory anyway) does have cool synergy with Jaces loot ability.
And yes it's true! The salt is real and ohhhhhhh soooooooo good with late game mindswipe
Ugin is the biggest, meanest and baddest of asses.
drawgone gets repped for this quote. and cant argue with your points it seems like everyday im switching between narset and jace i like narset but that 2cmc cost is really hard to pass up for what you get.
coachrx Is there anything more fun than preventing a player from playing Reminds me of a quote a control player had a while back "I'm a control player because I reserve the right to say no"or something like that.
So is anyone else finding manlands hard to deal with as esper? Im finding im running exiling cards like utter end and silkwrap which cant touch them and even ruinous path. Considering replacing silkwrap with say swift reckoning but the exile clause of silkwrap and the fact it also hits mantis rider is putting me in a predicament. So far the best thing I can think of is to keep my versatile removal that WILL NOT hit manlands but WILL hit everything else, but try to mirror match their manlands with my own and also playing gideon as a 2-3 of to provide chump blockers. I had a bit of a problem against abzan Anaenza giving their manlands counters which left me in a bad spot
If you had to choose since Narset doesn't play too friendly with Jace himself and other creatures.
I've tried both and if I have a way to deal with other jaces with exile effects, I think Narset is better.
I think Jace allows you to play more 1s and 2s of with flashback but primarily Jace is a looter for me. Also turn 2 is really appealing over turn 4.
But Narset ult is infinitely better than Jaces abilities except the early game card draw and comes out 4 turns after with the third turn drawing all attention from your opponent. Her rebound plays so much better with counterspells than jaces flashback as a rebound sweeper is basically a timewarp. You make a deck with only non creaturese and lands, Narset gets the nod for me.
Ive personally been ignoring the "communities" thoughts on Narset since she first got released and have been playing her as a 4 of in every control build with blue and white with my finisher being elspeth and now gideon. Ive had more success with narset than i ever did with jace and now jace is even more in the spotlight and people are mainboarding poor cards like dispel to counter ojutais command and people are starting to catch on and play silkwrap/ exiling removal, im actually excited that Narset is even better positioned nowadays when she was always an all star pre rotation.
Coachrx i don;t know if you remember me (areallysexynoob) on mtgo I played your sidisi list in a friendly and i believe when i stuck narset she did alot of work drawing cards, i think ulted second game which is basically was basically it. You still playing that sidisi deck? That was the first original deck idea I played against that was ridiculously threatening with zombies flooding the field
Jace, I love ya, but i dont love ya but my vote gos to narset since we have a long intimate history together, but your still amazing, just not the man for me
[quote from="cfusionpm »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/640714-how-are-you-able-to-play-standard-right-now?comment=135"]
The problem here is horrible removal then, not Jace himself. Wizards decided that removal should either be really expensive (like Utter End) or oddly specific (like requirements on power/toughness) or easily disrupted/removed (like enchantments, which are still limited on requirements anyway).
So why is Jace the problem card? Is it because he's blue?
Jace is the problem because:
2 cmc, comes down under counters, requires removal spell next turn before you untap with him with counter backup
Draws 2 cards a turn as opposed to your opponents one card a turn as early as turn 3 so basically you're hitting all land drops AND finding answers, more threats, while your opponent who failed to find decent removal card on turn 2 for jace is drawing 50% less a turn up until turn 8.
Opponent finally draws an answer which just gets countered and punished severely or just ojutai command end of turn for infinite brokenness, then proceed to once again draw 2 cards a turn
Flips and flashbacks removal or card draw which got dumped earlier to hit your land drops on time, then profit. Otherwise nullifying creature attacks and his ult while slow, has inevitability due to ojutais command which is a win con itself.
Opponent CANNOT ignore jace for even 1 turn or they get too far behind, cannot play their own game, focused on stopping this overpowered monster while you are at your leisure to just sit back with a full hand deciding when to deploy your next threat or second or third jace or ojutais command for the jace currently in play. Couple that with interactive disruption spells... you get the picture
Removal is very poor and situational while jace outperforms in EVERY matchup. Hardly and quality exile effects that are good for most matchups.
Recursion via Ojutais command and Kolghans command allows for 12 JACES! a match. Add green for den protector makes me sick
Disgustingly expensive
like previously stated all this for only 2 mana can be sometimes near impossible to play against and by the time you have an out, you've already lost due to the law of probability and card advantage.
No other card comes near to this level of oppressiveness, not even the infamous siege rhino.
It's not blue, it's jace
Believe it or not, missing four straight land drops sets you behind on tempo.
That's why I lov... wait. firstly you make me sick. Jace, jace, jace, jace , jace. I hate it i hate it i hate it, i dont see my therapist until friday and im angry every time i see that damn prodigal son.
That's why I love dig through time. Miss 4 str8 land drops, delve for dig through time on turn 9. Concede shortly after...
And yess, I'd replace horribly awry with silkwrap myself. Too many times a turn 2 jace or hangarback lands when your on thee draw and horribly awry in hand. let the good times roll... for your opponent!
I actually despise using creatures and prevented myself from using the dragonlord himself for the entire khans - Bfz but only added him due to thoughtseize rotating (silumgars scorn is my pick for best disruption card power level is real) so needed him to turn counterspell on and the fact of 4 haven spirit dragon efffectively means you get to use 8 ojutais every match - inevitibility unmatched. Hes just too effective. Otherwis yuck! i hate thst card CREATURE EWWWWWW!!
UW control is a counter pick to Atarka red. Ojutais Command, silkwrap, syncopate. After winning game 1 post board surge of righteousness, arashin cleric, healing hands whatever floats your boat, Atarka red is free.
The only bad matchup UW control has is... UW control. ok ok i lied, i never did play against jeskai but imagined that a true agggro control deck will be the next best thing in standard and can definately make you play from behind and then its too kate. My picks for the best in standard are Temur aggro control or Jeskai aggro control.
Every time I won itwas sooooooooooo boring, literally grind them out with recurring Ojutai and Jace. I needed more fun so I replaced Jace with Narset and Ojutai wwith Gideon for a pure control non creature vvariant and then I quit playing magic and sold all my cards as everyone playing recurring jace, games are so boring, luck oriented and go on for a good 30 mins each match like wow i dont have the patience like Goliath Sphinx does.
Before I quit (yes im a quitter so there ha!) I came to the conclusion that a UW deck featuring 4 Jace, 3-4 Ojutai and 2-3 Gideon will be near impossible to beat. Secure the wastes is nice but I found the planeswalkers to be a tad more superior and consistent. (Ive played over 300 games on mtgo with UW control since khans was first released while keeping the shell of the deck near identical)
I really liked Narset too, if only jace/command wasnt so oppressive, i would have stuck with her.
I'm not playing standard right now just like I stopped playing standard when RTR rotatated out only to return when DKT got released. In fact I'm considering selling my cards and focusing on other areas of life. Its just NOT fun anymore, I used to be hooked and then when RTR rotated out and the power level of cards continued on a downward spiral, which gave birth to linear strategies and the SAME strategies and decks being played everywhere. Then i came back at DTK release and found it kinda fun again for a while then Origins release just ruined the fun for mefor the last time im not wasting my time anymore on inconsistent releases. Hangarback walkers and recurring jace iareeverywhere and the only real answer is to play those cards yourself due to lack of even mediocre removal cards which leads to winning or losing due to the cards your dealt, rarely player skill. That just kills the fun and creativeness for me. Not to mention the price of these cards are absolutely ridiculous just to put up a fairly competitive deck. Even RG landfall as noted in above posts is considered a budget deck and that sits at 400 big ones. I was hyped for Gideon too but gosh his price as well spiralling out of control and it never feels fun to play anymore. If literally bought playsets of jace, gideon, ojutai, narset and sold them and then bought them again, only to sell them again. I dont know theres just something not right anymore... Now ive just resigned to the fact standard is dull, weak and unappealing to me anymore and I think Ill just sell my collection and move on.
You're in the wrong thread. A lot of the card choices are the same but esper dragons is a different deck.
My bad, assumed it was UWx control judging by the differences in many lists. Also for the record ive been playing this exact shell with only changes from rotation for the whole of THE-ORI standard so you could say I was way ahead of the game months and months ago. Since you're all catching on just about now, the game has already changed and I don't think uwx is where i want to be at anymore.
If you do somehow manage to score a Jace or two due to betting you can beat your mates T1 alpha Jace deck with your deck that is "Free" against T1 alpha Jace decks, the man from Rapid Hybridization (I call him Lorenzo) who met the unfortunate fate of turning into the gutter tier Bounding Krasis due to a failed izzet Epic Experiment (well, that's my theory anyway) does have cool synergy with Jaces loot ability.
And yes it's true! The salt is real and ohhhhhhh soooooooo good with late game mindswipe
Ashiok is that you?
drawgone gets repped for this quote. and cant argue with your points it seems like everyday im switching between narset and jace i like narset but that 2cmc cost is really hard to pass up for what you get.
coachrx Is there anything more fun than preventing a player from playing
So is anyone else finding manlands hard to deal with as esper? Im finding im running exiling cards like utter end and silkwrap which cant touch them and even ruinous path. Considering replacing silkwrap with say swift reckoning but the exile clause of silkwrap and the fact it also hits mantis rider is putting me in a predicament. So far the best thing I can think of is to keep my versatile removal that WILL NOT hit manlands but WILL hit everything else, but try to mirror match their manlands with my own and also playing gideon as a 2-3 of to provide chump blockers. I had a bit of a problem against abzan Anaenza giving their manlands counters which left me in a bad spot
If you had to choose since Narset doesn't play too friendly with Jace himself and other creatures.
I've tried both and if I have a way to deal with other jaces with exile effects, I think Narset is better.
I think Jace allows you to play more 1s and 2s of with flashback but primarily Jace is a looter for me. Also turn 2 is really appealing over turn 4.
But Narset ult is infinitely better than Jaces abilities except the early game card draw and comes out 4 turns after with the third turn drawing all attention from your opponent. Her rebound plays so much better with counterspells than jaces flashback as a rebound sweeper is basically a timewarp. You make a deck with only non creaturese and lands, Narset gets the nod for me.
Ive personally been ignoring the "communities" thoughts on Narset since she first got released and have been playing her as a 4 of in every control build with blue and white with my finisher being elspeth and now gideon. Ive had more success with narset than i ever did with jace and now jace is even more in the spotlight and people are mainboarding poor cards like dispel to counter ojutais command and people are starting to catch on and play silkwrap/ exiling removal, im actually excited that Narset is even better positioned nowadays when she was always an all star pre rotation.
Coachrx i don;t know if you remember me (areallysexynoob) on mtgo I played your sidisi list in a friendly and i believe when i stuck narset she did alot of work drawing cards, i think ulted second game which is basically was basically it. You still playing that sidisi deck? That was the first original deck idea I played against that was ridiculously threatening with zombies flooding the field
Jace, I love ya, but i dont love ya but my vote gos to narset since we have a long intimate history together, but your still amazing, just not the man for me
Whats other thoughts
Jace vs Narset
the control players card engine of choice
Jace is the problem because:
2 cmc, comes down under counters, requires removal spell next turn before you untap with him with counter backup
Draws 2 cards a turn as opposed to your opponents one card a turn as early as turn 3 so basically you're hitting all land drops AND finding answers, more threats, while your opponent who failed to find decent removal card on turn 2 for jace is drawing 50% less a turn up until turn 8.
Opponent finally draws an answer which just gets countered and punished severely or just ojutai command end of turn for infinite brokenness, then proceed to once again draw 2 cards a turn
Flips and flashbacks removal or card draw which got dumped earlier to hit your land drops on time, then profit. Otherwise nullifying creature attacks and his ult while slow, has inevitability due to ojutais command which is a win con itself.
Opponent CANNOT ignore jace for even 1 turn or they get too far behind, cannot play their own game, focused on stopping this overpowered monster while you are at your leisure to just sit back with a full hand deciding when to deploy your next threat or second or third jace or ojutais command for the jace currently in play. Couple that with interactive disruption spells... you get the picture
Removal is very poor and situational while jace outperforms in EVERY matchup. Hardly and quality exile effects that are good for most matchups.
Recursion via Ojutais command and Kolghans command allows for 12 JACES! a match. Add green for den protector makes me sick
Disgustingly expensive
like previously stated all this for only 2 mana can be sometimes near impossible to play against and by the time you have an out, you've already lost due to the law of probability and card advantage.
No other card comes near to this level of oppressiveness, not even the infamous siege rhino.
It's not blue, it's jace
That's why I lov... wait. firstly you make me sick. Jace, jace, jace, jace , jace. I hate it i hate it i hate it, i dont see my therapist until friday and im angry every time i see that damn prodigal son.
That's why I love dig through time. Miss 4 str8 land drops, delve for dig through time on turn 9. Concede shortly after...
And yess, I'd replace horribly awry with silkwrap myself. Too many times a turn 2 jace or hangarback lands when your on thee draw and horribly awry in hand. let the good times roll... for your opponent!
The only bad matchup UW control has is... UW control. ok ok i lied, i never did play against jeskai but imagined that a true agggro control deck will be the next best thing in standard and can definately make you play from behind and then its too kate. My picks for the best in standard are Temur aggro control or Jeskai aggro control.
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4 Dragonlord Ojutai
Spells 24
4 Silumgars Scorn
3 Silkwrap
3 clash of wills
1 Negate
2 ojutai´s command
4 dig through time
4 End Hostilities
3 quarantine field
4 prairie stream
4 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
4 flooded strand
4 Tranquil Cove
6 plains
6 island
4 arashin cleric
3 Negate
4 Erase
4 surge of righteousness
Every time I won itwas sooooooooooo boring, literally grind them out with recurring Ojutai and Jace. I needed more fun so I replaced Jace with Narset and Ojutai wwith Gideon for a pure control non creature vvariant and then I quit playing magic and sold all my cards as everyone playing recurring jace, games are so boring, luck oriented and go on for a good 30 mins each match like wow i dont have the patience like Goliath Sphinx does.
Before I quit (yes im a quitter so there ha!) I came to the conclusion that a UW deck featuring 4 Jace, 3-4 Ojutai and 2-3 Gideon will be near impossible to beat. Secure the wastes is nice but I found the planeswalkers to be a tad more superior and consistent. (Ive played over 300 games on mtgo with UW control since khans was first released while keeping the shell of the deck near identical)
I really liked Narset too, if only jace/command wasnt so oppressive, i would have stuck with her.
4x Despise
4x Silkwrap
4x Horribly Awry
4x Infinite Obliteration
4x Ultimate Price
4x Clash of Wills
4x Hallowed Moonlight
4x Complete Disregard
4x Utter End
4x Prairie Stream
4x Sunken Hollow
4x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
4x Shambling Vent
4x Blighted Fen
Jace doesn't stand a chance...
My bad, assumed it was UWx control judging by the differences in many lists. Also for the record ive been playing this exact shell with only changes from rotation for the whole of THE-ORI standard so you could say I was way ahead of the game months and months ago. Since you're all catching on just about now, the game has already changed and I don't think uwx is where i want to be at anymore.
4x Narset Transcendent
3x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Spells 25
3x Clash of Wills
1x Negate
3x Silkwrap
4x Scatter to the Winds
2x Ojutai's Command
4x Quarantine Field
4x End Hostilities
4x Dig Through Time
4x Flooded Strand
4x Tranquil Cove
6x Island
6x Plains
4x Prairie Stream
4x Mage-Ring Network
4x Erase
3x Negate
4x Surge of Righteousness
4x Healing Hands