Spell pierce and thoughtseize are good if you live to play your first land. Disrupting shoal is the best answer so you can not lose on turn 0. The griselform deck can still win through path, I won a game through a turn 1 dispel cause I had 2 pact's in hand. Bolt does nothing.
Played against Griselution 3 times over the weekend and it seemed very good. Was pretty close to playing the standard Goryo's version a bunch of times, but never bought it. All 3 times I played it it was still using Borb, but I also got killed by Seismic assault once. I won at least one of the matches by just pathing Grisel on T2 after my opponent had Pacted for something. They couldn't kill me that turn through the path and couldn't pay for the pact next turn. I'm playing Martyr and the other win was just from having way too much life and removal for them to win. The version I played against looked like this, except this SB isn't complete. Not relying on GY seems pretty good especially with how much GY hate is around.
Played against a deck in comp league the other day who's main wincon seemed to be Karn, the Great Creator and Mycosynth Lattice. It was also running Ugin, the ineffable and seemed very focused on being faster. The only creatures I remember seeing were Wurmcoil and I THINK Ballista. It was nasty and I was not happy, but it seemed pretty powerful, maybe too powerful. It also played 1 Blast Zone but other than that it was typical U Tron stuff. Didn't seem like it was running Angel, Titan, Mindslaver or mages, but I could have just never seen them. I might want to give it a try and looking for a good list or if anyone has played around with it much yet?
Is this the right deck for the Karn, The Great CreatorMycosynth Lattice combo? After getting completely hosed in salt by U Tron who's main plan was this combo, I want to try it myself. I'm currently playing Martyr and the amount of chalice decks online lately has been insane. My new toy God-Eternal Oketra has won a number of games through chalices, but Karn/Mycosynth is obviously endgame. I both like and hate these prison decks at the same time and I'm trying to think if it makes more sense in Rw prison or U tron or if it could even have a place in G tron? I think this deck is the most appealing of the options though for me.
I actually just picked up that 7/2 list from the modern premiere, but have zero experience playing the deck. I've played against it and always thought it was pretty cool. It shares some / a lot of the cards from UW which is my most played deck. Can't seem to find much of a sideboard guide anywhere, but guess I will have to just figure it out as I go. I'm not really sure what slots are "flex slots" and if entreat the angels is good against anything other than control and BGx. Would love some general advice or a link to some more good info about the deck in the current meta.
Could use some tips on the all in prismatic omen/hour of promise/wood elves (no interaction win ASAP) builds. I'm doing very well with it online but find sideboarding way harder than the typical version with the bolts/flame slashes, angers and relics / coursers. I can't figure out which cards are the weakest or "slowest" My SB is a couple Flame Slashes and Angers, 3 relics, a few artifact / enchantment hate cards, Baloths, Beast within, Ruric Thar. Thinking of adding Chalice. I've been cutting 1 or 2 titans, hour of promise, scapeshift, khalni, explore and wood elves or something like that, but i'm just kind of doing it very randomly.
The maindeck relic of progenitus' seem to be the new tech online. Pretty sure I still like the 2 snaps and 1 clique in the main along with 3 or 4 relics. It's a crappy cantrip that makes snap worse, logic knot and Azcanta not worth playing, but it can really wreck a lot of the other decks that you usually lose game 1's to. UW is moving up on the list of % of the meta pretty fast lately.
Never used the blue Gearhulk but seems way too slow, I like V Clique in its place. Cut 1 Stony and 1 Rip or Dispel from the SB and it's GTG. I went down to 24 lands and cut the GQ. I have noticed some Relics showing up in the mainboard, which is probably a pretty good idea right now. 3 Terminus, 1 Settle and 1 Verdict might be better than 4/2.
So I got turn 3'd 3 matches in a row last night, even when I was able to remove or counter a thing. Was able to beat the Vengevine deck in games 2-3, but yeah... This is why I was doing so well with running 4x Disrupting Shoal and about 25 other 1-2 drop blue cards to counter anything my opponent did on turns 1 and 2. When it's not a T1 looting or goblin guide it's usually a Thoughtseize or Inquisition, all of which I'm happy to counter by removing 2 cards from my hand. Looting is basically a draw 4 for GY decks, stirrings doesn't really bother me much honestly, but I still don't think banning them is the best answer. It does seem pretty wrong for red decks to be better at drawing / "setting up" than blue decks, which is why Modern just keeps pushing me towards Legacy every time I play. So many games come down to my desperation opt or serum visions and instead of playing "control" I am playing "luck". I tried Dredge, I was winning, but I hated it, and I was also running into an insane amount of main deck GY hate. This is all based on the online meta which seems to be extremely unforgiving, faster evolving and more extreme compared to paper.
Edit: I still usually manage to go at least 3-2, but sometimes I just go 0-3 and drop.
UW is the best control deck right now pretty much, but it's still easy to get overrun by all the combo and aggro. I would Check Mtggoldfish for ideas. Looks like there's a nice uptick in lists this past week, but a lot of them have fairly different things going on. The latest one running no creatures and 3 relics in the main is strange. The more standard build has 2-3 snaps, 3 Jace, and 2 Teferi. Nobody can seem to decide what the best sweeper, cantrip or counterspell package is, so it's not like Tron or Dredge where every deck is 59-60 exactly the same cards. Makes it more interesting, but also very hard to decide exactly what to play.
The 9th place list from SCG Philly looked pretty good to me. It's got a bit lower curve, only 1 Teferi and 3 snaps. This is similar to what I was having the most luck with. Bummer he was 1 spot shy of top 8 I would have probably had both D-spheres in the main and only 1 Azcanta. I also like 1 Ceremonious Rejection and 1 Disdainful Stroke over 1 of the Ancestral Visions and the D-Sphere. Seems to be heading in the right direction, I think we need better answers for turn 1-3, spell pierce might be good right now. Also consider white Leylines because there are a TON of thoughtseize decks, plus it's always great against burn, ad naus and lots of other stuff. Edit: I bet those 2 Timely in the main did a lot of work over the weekend.
How is this deck preforming lately? I have a bunch of the cards from playing UR Breach and Dredge, but never tried this deck. I ran into it again last night, one of the top MTGO guys who plays it. I usually end up losing, and it's a scary deck to play against, but it makes for some fun games. I like how the deck doesn't completely rely on the GY. I had a Leyline of the Void, but that only helped for a few turns.
Disrupting Shoal was working amazingly for me, but I gave up and I'm playing Dredge for now. As OP as all the faithless looting decks may be, I think the answer is not to ban it, but make some better control cards for a change. Of course anything really good that get's printed/unbanned will probably go straight into the Phoenix decks too. Been watching some Legacy miracles players stream and THAT is the UW/r deck I want to be playing. Instead of waiting for answers and hoping your opponent has some bad luck, you really get to decide how the game goes most of the time.
So after some digging through Reddit, I found a link to the top MTGO guy's Dredge sideboard guide. Of course right after I found it I played against 4 decks in a row that aren't on it...
I cannot find a good current sideboard guide for the creeping chill version and the Phoenix meta. Anyone got a good link to something? There's some matches where I want to bring in 3 lightning axe and 3-4 nature's claim and abrupt decay, but I don't see how it's possible to take out so many cards. I just end up trimming 1 of most of the 4-ofs and I end up stalling out a lot of times. Thanks!
Edit: I still usually manage to go at least 3-2, but sometimes I just go 0-3 and drop.
Sodeq Sideboard Guide