MTG Salvation

Has anyone seen or tried out that Mono U Control list that Chapin posted in his SCG Taking Control article? I have been playing it the past couple of days and I've been thoroughly impressed. Given all the counter magic, control mirrors almost seem like a bye. Additionally, against aggressive strategies you just counter the things that matter and grind them out. The deck sort of plays out like the elixir control decks of old (obviously not as good) where you play a long game one and just try not to die before time runs out.

You mentioned "The cost to emerge is only UU instead of 2UU, which means you cannot sacrifice an additional Sanctum of Ugin." Am I missing something here? Sanctum says whenever you cast a colorless spell that has a cmc of 7 or greater you can sacrifice it. The cmc of Elder is still 8 regardless of if its cost was reduced with emerge.

I can never understand the opinion that Oath of Gideon is bad late game, or even more so it's bad against Atarka Red. I've been in many situations where I needed to be able to chump block or trade some little creatures and it has filled that role just fine. Also, the statement that it's bad versus red doesn't make sense to me. That match-up IMO is all about grinding them out of resources. Now, lines of play like, cast Oath of Gideon, get two guys and not block just so you can play a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar or Sorin, Solemn Visitor for an anthem effect and then get them killed on the back swing is pretty poor. By making guys and blocking right after you play Oath you're forcing them to use a pump spell, hopefully a premium one like Atarka's Command. I haven't lost to a red deck since I've started playing BW, and it's not because of luck or of playing subpar players (though, those are scattered around in there). It's because I value and don't board out road block cards like Oath. I cut the card in question sometimes though. And yes, it does get less effective when you board out some walkers. But realistically, when are you ever boarding out more than 1-3 Ob Nixilis, Reignited? Probably not that often other than against very aggressive decks. In that case I'd assume you'd want more blockers, coincidentally Oath does that. Additionally and off topic, this deck feels/is absolutely abysmal versus Bant Company and decks of that ilk. That's a match-up that makes Oath look silly. I play it and get a guy endstep tapped and the other bounced by RM on their turn. The cards in this archetype don't seem to match up well with theirs. It is especially disheartening that they almost play a full set of Stratus Dancers. I'm sure the list can be tuned to have a better match-up, I just haven't had the time to test some ideas out yet.

I've been playing BW for almost 3 weeks, losing only 2 matches in the 6 or so tournaments I've played in. I feel it's worth noting that I lost those matches while keeping a 2 land + Read the Bones hand on the draw and bricked on finding the third land. Anyway, I played Hoogland's original 60 -1 Ultimate Price & -1 Ruinous Path adding +2 Oath of Gideon, as well as his newest board tweaked a little. Oath of Gideon has been very good, creating a board presence after a turn 2 Seeker or Grasp is so much better than burning a Secure. It's a turn 3 sorcery speed Secure with an upside, and I recommend testing it at least. I have played against Jeskai Black, Abzan, Abzan Blue, Rally, UR Prowess, RB Warriors, Atarka Red, Esper Control, Jeskai Control, Mardu, Temur, as well as various other brews. Haven't got to play against RB Dragons or Ramp yet. I know the type of cards they play, but I still feel like they're favorable if you pilot the deck correctly.

The grixis delver matchup is a bye I feel. My opponent in the PPTQ said before the match started that there was no way he could win. I think Leyline of Sanctity is not good against that deck in particular. Also, Blood Moon is clearly the problematic card in that matchup. But you just have to be aware it's coming. Usually the grixis player will telegraph that they have moon by fetching basics. I won the match through a moon. I sided out a visions, bloom, prism, and a teachings for a pact of negation, verdict, truth, and a gigadrowse. I don't think I've ever sided out an SSG. I don't see how that's productive. By shaving a SSG, it makes the chances of you killing someone that doesn't think you have the resources even smaller. An example is when I played a the burn opponent in top 8. I played a Phyrexian Unlife on turn 3 with no other nonland permanents and passed. He had 3 mana after he played his land (mountainx2, Stomping Grounds). He played a 1 drop, tanked for a few seconds, and played an eidolon. I untapped and killed him. He had a Destructive Revelry in hand and said he didn't play it because I needed to have a SSG, untapped land, and an AN. The chances were pretty slim, and I agreed with him. Plays like those don't happen often when integral pieces of the deck are shaved. So maximizing your explosiveness is key.

The explanation for that land is exactly what you mentioned. It also gives you something to do with your mana every turn.

Anticipate is a card, that just like most who have put some time into this deck was skeptical about. The argument that it digs deeper to find the combo is a sound one. But in most cases, isn't always always relevant. I think that if you're playing the shuffle version the Peer/Anticipate numbers should be even, if not more in Peer's favor. I've had discussions with my buddy Jon Benson (guy who came in 2nd at Ohio Modern States with his 4 Anticipate shuffle version, the list that he also gave Bill Ragle who played it and got 13th at the Premier) about 4 Anticipates and how I was advocating that it was substantially worse than Peer. He said that he wasn't going to know until he tried it for himself. I even said why not play Telling Time, isn't that better than Anticipate? Throughout the tournament I checked up on him and asked how they were. He assured me that they were insane. I took it with a grain of salt since he has what is known in our magic circle as "Benson Luck." He did unfortunately lose to the tournament to the same deck/player that I played round 4 named Tom Judge. That Hatebears list is pretty miserable and it's very good against AN, especially post board. Also, I told Benson I was not sold on going all-in on Anticiptes and I told him about the 3-1 split, he promptly agreed.

The Holy Days were not casted that many times, but in theory/reality were/are very good. The reason being for ANs worst matchups. Again I was brainstorming with Benson and he told me that we would just have to deal with infect, hope for the best to dodge it all tournament long, and if we didn't, just chalk it up to an autoloss. I didn't think that needed to totally be the case. I said I wanted to play some number of Holy Days, he suggested Darkness also since it was "easier" to cast. I didn't play it for a couple of reasons, 1: my mana base is almost equal when it comes to W mana vs B mana sources. I don't think just because you play one card that turns all of your lands into swamps means you should play black fogs before white ones. And 2: it costs around $5ish, and though it is definitely a more cool card, it would be financially foolish of me to spend around $20 just for black fogs that I'll only use in this deck pretty much ever. A huge change is not having any Hurkyl's Recalls in the board, and I didn't miss them at all, even when I played against affinity. Why I loved the Holy Days so much was that they can be used in much more matchups that Recalls can. They are primarily for infect, because most infect players go all in on one attack and if you leave one white up, they can safely assume that in the best case scenario you have an Angel's Grace which would do nothing essentially since we'd die as soon as it's our turn again. Most infect players know to play around Slaughter Pact or at least be cognizant of it, so we can't always have that as an out. But casting a Holy Day when they have a protection spell after they go all in is pretty sweet. Holy Day is also good against affinity, they almost do the same thing. Recall (most of the time, for me at least) is cast so we don't die/have to use part of the combo in a non game winning way. And when you bounce almost everything back to their hand, I'm most cases they can just replay most of their hand again and you're back to square one. This is a pseudo recall that costs one less mana. It has applications in the aggro/burn department as well. I was able to save myself 8 damage one turn. It is better than recall in almost all scenarios. I would suggest you try them out.

This is the list I won the PPTQ with. 



I played against Abzan Midrange, Grixis Twin, JundShift, Mono W Hatebears, Affinity, Burn, Zoo, and UR Twin.

Took down a PPTQ with a pseudo shuffleless version this weekend. I was one of two AN decks there, we both made top 8.

So I played a pseudo no shuffle version of the deck last night and it did incredibly well. I went 4-0 beating Scapeshift, RG Tron, Junk, and Infect. I was obviously surprised I beat the infect player, but he did keep some questionable hands. I decided to play it because it's relatively cheap to build compared to some of the other most of the other competitive modern decks, and because of the surprise factor. What's cool about this archetype is that if people construct their sideboard in an effort to beat this deck, it simultaneously makes their deck worse against the rest of the field. Even though last night mostly everyone knew what the deck did, I only had to show the wincon one time. So I guess I really only killed 1 person throughout the whole night. I'll definately be playing this deck until I see a better reason not to. Later, I'll be posting a list that my friend swears by. I'd like to get some feedback on it.

Yes I've played against it. I've had a rider whipped into play in turn 4. The scoop phase happened right after. They only play 2-3 whips as far as I know. So just deal with them and you should be ok for the most part. And late in the game a whipped rider isn't nearly as backbreaking as one in the early turns of the game obviously. Other than an early rider, the only card I worry about being whipped back is rhino. The card is very good against UB IMO especially in the whip version of that archetype. UW seems to me like it might be better on the surface. But UW having banishing lights just makes their reclamation sages better for them. When I was playing against the Abzan reanimator player, he said that he actually can't beat vaults, which is true. UB rewards tight play, and I feel we have all the right answers to them pre and post board.

Exactly. I've been on the PLA version since the beginning. And like I said I tried Sullivan's list. I wasn't a huge fan. I hate to keep bringing it up. But in my first post on this thread I wrote a tournament report. I had to play against Mardu in the finals. The guy had a lot of dead cards and nothing going on game one. But when I did despise him he had 3 dooms in his hand. I still won through that. Luckily it was an untimed round. It did take a lot of draw-go, but it effectively meant that he could never do anything without having 6-9 mana up at all times. Heck, he even had to bolt himself with pain lands to cast one of them. If I was to play in another competitive REL tournament again, I wouldn't change a card in my 75. I understand that success sometimes comes because your match ups end up being in your favor. But I didn't exactly get to play against midrange all day. I think that it would have helped me for sure in those games, but I never felt at all that I needed Ashiok at any point. On turn 3 I'd preferably want to keep my mama open if at all possible, not saying that people that play Ashiok just jam it on 3. I just would always have the urge to.

If there's one thing that control decks have, it's inevitability. As control players, I'm sure you've all won a long game one and just had to not die game two. The same thing applies here. A big difference since the last rotation is that now we can dig. So finding 1-2 cards out of our 60 is very possible. Another huge reason I gravitated towards the PLA version was because I feel it does so much more work than Ashiok. If I have an Ashiok and no other cards in hand, this walker is dead to most things. Downfall off the top, or a little guy attacks plus stoke and you with no counter. Sure it seems like that's 5 damage that our friend just soaked up, and that's true. But when you're playing off the top And that's your only way to try to stabilize, that seems poor to me. With PLA he essentially is a hexproof blocker that gains you life and lets you scry occasionally. It's disheartening to an opponent that knows he can't even attack favorably.

Yes, vaults are very good in that matchup. And like it was previously meantioned, if you try to kill their creatures with drown and they play 2 spells just to keep their team alive, I think that's a win in my book. I don't play an Ashiok version, as I personally think it's subpar/not my playstyle for UB. I play a PLA list. I played against jeskai tokens 3 times in the PPTQ, and I brought in all the hate. They rarely had guys out for more than two turns in a row. I thought game one was kinda rough, but definitely winnable. Postboard games I felt I couldn't lose if I kept an opener with a drown or cure+blight. I didn't drop one game post board to any of the tokens decks. My list was a page back if you're curious.

An Ashiok version certainly isn't subpar.

If you read what I actually stated, you will see that in my opinion I personally think it is subpar. I love Ashiok. He/she is one of my Top 3 favorite walkers. But I never liked it in UB that much (did enjoy it in esper though). I played the Sullivan version, I hated it. Interpret the Signs is too cute for me. I do realize the two decks play a little differently. Also, Ashiok is mainly in there for the midrange matchups. Although, it is good against the mirror, it's god awful against the jeskai tokens which is gaining popularity. I too have seen the world cup results, and I'm not convinced that since 2 of the 3 UB lists had Ashiok in them mean it's better than a PLA build. I'd rather have more relevant spells against a matchup that is more difficult game one, than play Ashiok mainly against a strategy that we're already heavily favored in both pre and post board.

Yes, vaults are very good in that matchup. And like it was previously meantioned, if you try to kill their creatures with drown and they play 2 spells just to keep their team alive, I think that's a win in my book. I don't play an Ashiok version, as I personally think it's subpar/not my playstyle for UB. I play a PLA list. I played against jeskai tokens 3 times in the PPTQ, and I brought in all the hate. They rarely had guys out for more than two turns in a row. I thought game one was kinda rough, but definitely winnable. Postboard games I felt I couldn't lose if I kept an opener with a drown or cure+blight. I didn't drop one game post board to any of the tokens decks. My list was a page back if you're curious.