Pro Tour >>> PTQ > GP/MODO > GPT >>>>>>>>>>>> SCG >> FNM
Where > indicates one magnitude of competitive difference.
This is the craziest thing I've ever heard. What kind of GPTs are you attending? I've never been to a GPT with more than 50 players, and I would put a GPT one > above an FNM, with an SCG being a couple of >>'s above a GPT, though still far lower than PTQs. GP's have a widely varying range of skill levels, so it's hard to say what the "average" is. This should be split into Day 1 and Day 2 for GPs. Day 2 competition likely higher than PTQ.
This deck is a lot of fun and plays much like the Delver decks of last season. However, we're missing a good creature OTHER than Geist. It doesn't need to be anything as insane as a Delver (which is now terrible because we have no way to set up the flip). Anybody have any suggestions for better creatures than just Geist? Unless you're facing only the most controlling decks, Snapcaster will never get to beat in, as he's simply outclassed by the midrange-creature meta we're in right now. Unsummon and situational counterspells aren't good unless you're providing pressure.
Pike is bad in this deck because you have so few spells (compared to previous Delver decks), you run more land and more creatures... and since you have so few spells, you end up flashing them back with snapcaster. Pike is rarely more than +2, which is still relevant for the first strike.
There has to be some better creature or equipment or spell we can play in this deck to make the games better when you don't have Geist. Pike gives you additional threats, but it's not good. Thought Scour is needed to make pike good, and Scour is much worse than before because you don't ever want to mill your geists or angels or dragons.
There other issue I have is the sideboarding against super aggressive decks. 4 Pillar is sometimes not enough if you don't have Geist to close the game out quickly, since you don't have a lot of life gain. How do you guys sideboard in these matchups, and do we have some better anti-aggro cards we can play?
How do you sideboard in the mirror? Now that this deck is becoming a known factor, there's going to be some mirror matches. Maybe Talrand is good?
I had a friend confuse/stump me with this question.
I cast Demonlord of Ashmouth. It resolves. When it enters the battlefield, it's first ability triggers. In response, with that trigger on the stack, I Go For The Throat (or Altar's Reap, but for the sake of Simplicity, just GftT) my own Demonlord. It dies. Undying triggers. It comes back into play with a +1/+1 counter, and it's first ability triggers again, with the "old" Sac A Dude ability still on the stack.
Do I have to sacrifice two creatures here otherwise exile Demonlord? My initial reaction was yes, because once activated (or triggered), abilities exist independent of each other.
However, after thinking about it, I'm ruling that the first ETB will no longer see the "original" demonlord as something which would need to be exiled. The triggered ability would still resolve, but if you choose NOT to sac a creature other than Demonlord, nothing would happen, since the original permanent that was linked to that first triggered ability is no longer in play (since the game sees a new Demonlord when it comes back from the grave).
I was just thinking about Tribute to Hunger earlier given the difficulties I had tonight against the new Esper Delver deck but I realized that it requires you target a creature. So if you want to sweep those spirits or Drogskol Captain you're SoL if they have the pair set up (and they typically should). Tribute can be good against some decks but I think Geth's verdict is still correct, I may be shifting it to the sideboard though in favour of a Tragic Slip and a Go for the Throat and then siding as appropriate.
Neither Tribute nor Verdict require you to target a creature, that's the reason they're in the deck.
I would go back and Copy Conley Woods' list. You are using Tribute over Verdict. Conlely Specifically broke down why Verdict was better and he has a point. If your're afraid of the Double Black cmc, drop that Ghost Quarter for a Swamp.
Also 4 Primeval Titan is a must, take Daybreak Ranger out for your 4th Primeval. It looks like your trying to do too much innovating with the deck. 2, 4, 6. That's the curve. Stay on track and your deck will be much more consistent.
Why is Verdict better than Tribute? It's not the BB mana cost thast I'm worried about. It's that the one point of life loss doesn't generally matter, since this deck either wins with poison, or with huge damage swings in one turn. I mostly preferred it because of the lifegain, giving you more time to stall/survive until you can drop fatties.
I cut the daybreak for the 4th primeval, as that suggestion was pretty common among feedback I received. I went down to 2 Green Zenith and up to 2 Huntmaster, since he does a lot of different things for the deck. However, I'm considering cutting him back down to 1, and putting another acidic slime.
I'm going to play Wolf Run Black for the Open this saturday. Normally I'd be fine with asking what deck to play, but I don' t want to audible last minute - I've been playing this deck for the past week or two, and feel pretty comfortable with it. That said, any tips for improving it?
I feel like it has pretty decent matchups against most decks. Ramping into T4 grave titan beats most of the random decks, and the black removal gives you an edge over normal ramp decks. It's possible I should be running 4 Primeval titans, a fourth inkmoth (cut it for basic forest since I was having to mulligan crappy hands that had a bunch of colorless & black mana), and a second acidic slime. I wanted to diversify the threats a little bit, and there's a few sweet bullets for Green Suns Zenith.
The sideboard is pretty all over the place - I could really use some help streamlining it. I've not been too impressed with Glissa, but she still seems useful as a 1-of GSZ target. Daybreak Ranger's been really good, and seems better with the rise of the Spirit deck. It's possible I need some more Anti-Ramp stuff in the sideboard.
My general SB plan is as follows, give me some feedback on it:
Delver:
-1 Birds
-2 Primeval Titan
-1 Grave Titan
+1 Black Sun's Zenith
+1 Huntmaster of the fells
+1 Ancient Grudge
+1 Curse of Death's Hold
Humans:
-1 Birds
-1 Primeval Titan
-1 Tribute to Hunger (unless they run Geist)
+1 Huntmaster of the Fells
+1 Naturalize
+1 Batterskull
RDW:
-1 Birds
-2 Primeval Titan
-1 Daybreak Ranger
+1 Viridian Corrupter
+1 Batterskull
+1 Huntmaster of the Fells
+1 Thrun, the Last Troll
Tempered Steel:
-1 Birds
-1 Primeval Titan
-1 Go for the Throat
-3 ?????
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Curse
+1 Naturalize
+1 Huntmaster
+1 Ratchet Bomb
Ramp:
-1 Daybreak Ranger
-1 Glissa
-1 Ratchet Bomb
-3 Black Sun's Zenith
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Sword of Feast & Famine
+1 Garruk
+1 Karn
+1 Naturalize
The sideboard is pretty all over the place - I could really use some help streamlining it. I've not been too impressed with Glissa, but she still seems useful as a 1-of GSZ target. Daybreak Ranger's been really good, and seems better with the rise of the Spirit deck. It's possible I need some more Anti-Ramp stuff in the sideboard.
My general SB plan is as follows, give me some feedback on it:
Delver:
-1 Birds
-2 Primeval Titan
-1 Grave Titan
+1 Black Sun's Zenith
+1 Huntmaster of the fells
+1 Ancient Grudge
+1 Curse of Death's Hold
Humans:
-1 Birds
-1 Primeval Titan
-1 Tribute to Hunger (unless they run Geist)
+1 Huntmaster of the Fells
+1 Naturalize
+1 Batterskull
RDW:
-1 Birds
-2 Primeval Titan
-1 Daybreak Ranger
+1 Viridian Corrupter
+1 Batterskull
+1 Huntmaster of the Fells
+1 Thrun, the Last Troll
Tempered Steel:
-1 Birds
-1 Primeval Titan
-1 Go for the Throat
-3 ?????
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Curse
+1 Naturalize
+1 Huntmaster
+1 Ratchet Bomb
Ramp:
-1 Daybreak Ranger
-1 Glissa
-1 Ratchet Bomb
-3 Black Sun's Zenith
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Sword of Feast & Famine
+1 Garruk
+1 Karn
+1 Naturalize
I'm going to play Wolf Run Black for the Open this saturday. Normally I'd be fine with asking what deck to play, but I don' t want to audible last minute - I've been playing this deck for the past week or two, and feel pretty comfortable with it. That said, any tips for improving it?
I feel like it has pretty decent matchups against most decks. Ramping into T4 grave titan beats most of the random decks, and the black removal gives you an edge over normal ramp decks. It's possible I should be running 4 Primeval titans, a fourth inkmoth (cut it for basic forest since I was having to mulligan crappy hands that had a bunch of colorless & black mana), and a second acidic slime. I wanted to diversify the threats a little bit, and there's a few sweet bullets for Green Suns Zenith.
The sideboard is pretty all over the place - I could really use some help streamlining it. I've not been too impressed with Glissa, but she still seems useful as a 1-of GSZ target. Daybreak Ranger's been really good, and seems better with the rise of the Spirit deck. It's possible I need some more Anti-Ramp stuff in the sideboard.
My general SB plan is as follows, give me some feedback on it:
Delver:
-1 Birds
-2 Primeval Titan
-1 Grave Titan
+1 Black Sun's Zenith
+1 Huntmaster of the fells
+1 Ancient Grudge
+1 Curse of Death's Hold
Humans:
-1 Birds
-1 Primeval Titan
-1 Tribute to Hunger (unless they run Geist)
+1 Huntmaster of the Fells
+1 Naturalize
+1 Batterskull
RDW:
-1 Birds
-2 Primeval Titan
-1 Daybreak Ranger
+1 Viridian Corrupter
+1 Batterskull
+1 Huntmaster of the Fells
+1 Thrun, the Last Troll
Tempered Steel:
-1 Birds
-1 Primeval Titan
-1 Go for the Throat
-3 ?????
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Curse
+1 Naturalize
+1 Huntmaster
+1 Ratchet Bomb
Ramp:
-1 Daybreak Ranger
-1 Glissa
-1 Ratchet Bomb
-3 Black Sun's Zenith
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Sword of Feast & Famine
+1 Garruk
+1 Karn
+1 Naturalize
Here's my UB Skeletons list I borrowed from a friend, we've both been running it to much success at local tournaments (FNMs, etc, nothing crazy competitive). I had my doubts about the deck at first - how does it win with a bunch of 1/1 creatures? What happens when you don't draw the swords? But after playing with it, it's actually an effective and fun deck.
It obviously excels against ramp and control decks that want to play 6 mana creatures. You can tap out for skeleton against control on turn 2, and just constantly ping them to death with a recursive threat, and never have to worry about tapping out or fighting counter wars for expensive titans. Jace and Drownyard are there for the slower matchups.
Your mainboard isn't awesome against aggro, but you have chump blockers, counters, and removal, and you run them out of threats and cards, then win with inkmoth nexus.
I keep messing with the numbers to include a maindeck Disperse or Tribute to hunger, as you're kind of cold to the opponent playing turn 2 shrine on the play. The current metagame (dungrove elders, mirran crusaders) are obviously tough for UB to beat in general.
Be warned that this deck cannot beat a Curse of Death's Hold. I haven't seen anyone play it, though.
Slightly different question - what happens at both regular and competitive REL when an opponent is shuffling your deck, and looks at the card (either intentionally, or spills the deck/card onto the table face up)? For competitive REL, is this Looking at Extra Card, and considered a warning?
Yep You can do all of that. Phryexian Metamorph is not doing anything that protection cares about so you make choose to copy the Mirran Crusader.
And as it remains an artifact and does not have protection from Blue it is a valid target for Tezzeret, agent of bolas.
Just note it won't have protection from Red, just Black and green.
This is incorrect. Metamorph, when a copy of Mirran Crusader, will have protection from black and green. Since Tezzeret is blue AND black, he cannot target metamorph.
I played UW Control at SC States and went 5-1-2, coming in 21st out of 167. Overall, I was happy with my list, but there could definitely be some tweaks:
My decklist and States tournament report, for reference:
Going into the tournament, I figured the deck's to beat were Solar Flare and Wolf Run Ramp, with less numbers of Mono Red and Tempered Steel, with random smatterings of birthing pod, grand architects, humans, etc.
My matchups:
Round 1: UW Control (2-0 me)
I have more mainboard counterspells than some control mirrors, and cat sun zenith just wins games.
Round 2: Solar Flare (2-0)
Control mirrors often come down to making your land drops, and having the right cards at the right time. Consecrated Sphinx is absolutely nuts, and so is Oblivion Ring. I play Solemns, Timely, and Elspeth for tokens so Liliana's edict never hurts.
Round 3: Solar Flare (1-1-1)
This matchup takes forever, and can completely change board states in the course of a turn. Counter their early Alchemys, since the game will go so late that mana leak will rarely matter. Save the dissipates for Unburial Rites and their fatties, and they don't really do much else. Unfortunately, it just takes a while, because everyone has to look through their graveyards every turn before they make plays.
Round 4: Solar Flare (1-1-1)
See above
Round 5: Solar Flare (2-0)
Consecrated Sphinx wins game 1. My misers inkmoth nexus gets in there for all 10 poison while he alchemys twice trying to find doom blade but doesn't.
Round 6: Wolf Run Ramp (2-1)
I get completely crushed, winning my only game because he kept a 1-land (mountain) hand on the draw and never hit his land drops. I had my single ghost quarter in one of the games, but it's useless against a good player, since they just swing in with 3 inkmoths at a time.
Round 7: UW Humans (2-0)
Game one he plays T1 Champion of the Parish, followed by T2 double champion, followed by T3 grand abolisher. I follow up with two back to back day of judgments, a gideon, and a Karn, which exiles his doomed traveler enchanted with angelic destiny. Game three he can't beat my 4 timely reinforcements (thanks Snapcaster!)
Round 8: Solar Flare (1-0-1)
More solar flare. After being 4-1-2 at this point, I needed a win to do anything decent (though outside of T8 contention). It was my 6th solar flare matchup of the night, and I knew the games took forever. And this guy was playing incredibly slowly. I called a judge to watch for slow play. I beat him game 1 after 40 minutes, and he took an incredible amount of time to sideboard, shuffle, and decide on his opening 7, so we obviously never got to really play game 2 and I won the match).
My thoughts on the deck: My views are biased after one tournament with the deck, and facing so many solar flare matchups. Ghost Quarter should be replaced with another inkmoth nexus. I want to mainboard the white sun zenith, as against control mirrors, I often ended up with 12+ land. I think I might swap the wurmcoil out in the SB for it's place. I might consider going with a route similar to PV's in his ChannelFireball article where he includes a light black splash for forbidden alchemy and making dismember hurt less. I liked everything else, and I played well, only really losing 1 round, and my only misplays (that I could tell) were missing some Sphinx triggers off the opponent using Think Twice.
Ghost Quarter is terrible. It's simply not an answer against a good Wolf Run Ramp player. They won't swing in with a single nexus, pump it, and have it get ghost quartered. They'll swing in with multiple nexuses, and not pump any of them. Then you just die to getting hit by 2-3 poison for a few turns.
Not to mention you're losing a land in a matchup against a ramp deck that plays more threats than control decks have answers. They can bait out counterspells pretty well when you're blowing up your own lands just to stop their inkmoth, and meanwhile Primevtal Titan is still crashing in at you.
SC States top 8 featured current national champion Ali Aintrazi. He was running Esper Snapcaster Control, known as "Ali Cats." There was a RDW deck. A solar flare. A wolf run ramp. Not sure what the rest were, or who won.
As for me, I played UW Planeswalker Control in SC States, and went 5-1-2, coming in 21st out of 167 players (8 swiss rounds). I faced 1 UW Control, 5 Solar Flare, 1 Wolf Run Ramp, and 1 UW Humans deck.
This is the craziest thing I've ever heard. What kind of GPTs are you attending? I've never been to a GPT with more than 50 players, and I would put a GPT one > above an FNM, with an SCG being a couple of >>'s above a GPT, though still far lower than PTQs. GP's have a widely varying range of skill levels, so it's hard to say what the "average" is. This should be split into Day 1 and Day 2 for GPs. Day 2 competition likely higher than PTQ.
Pike is bad in this deck because you have so few spells (compared to previous Delver decks), you run more land and more creatures... and since you have so few spells, you end up flashing them back with snapcaster. Pike is rarely more than +2, which is still relevant for the first strike.
There has to be some better creature or equipment or spell we can play in this deck to make the games better when you don't have Geist. Pike gives you additional threats, but it's not good. Thought Scour is needed to make pike good, and Scour is much worse than before because you don't ever want to mill your geists or angels or dragons.
There other issue I have is the sideboarding against super aggressive decks. 4 Pillar is sometimes not enough if you don't have Geist to close the game out quickly, since you don't have a lot of life gain. How do you guys sideboard in these matchups, and do we have some better anti-aggro cards we can play?
How do you sideboard in the mirror? Now that this deck is becoming a known factor, there's going to be some mirror matches. Maybe Talrand is good?
I cast Demonlord of Ashmouth. It resolves. When it enters the battlefield, it's first ability triggers. In response, with that trigger on the stack, I Go For The Throat (or Altar's Reap, but for the sake of Simplicity, just GftT) my own Demonlord. It dies. Undying triggers. It comes back into play with a +1/+1 counter, and it's first ability triggers again, with the "old" Sac A Dude ability still on the stack.
Do I have to sacrifice two creatures here otherwise exile Demonlord? My initial reaction was yes, because once activated (or triggered), abilities exist independent of each other.
However, after thinking about it, I'm ruling that the first ETB will no longer see the "original" demonlord as something which would need to be exiled. The triggered ability would still resolve, but if you choose NOT to sac a creature other than Demonlord, nothing would happen, since the original permanent that was linked to that first triggered ability is no longer in play (since the game sees a new Demonlord when it comes back from the grave).
Neither Tribute nor Verdict require you to target a creature, that's the reason they're in the deck.
Why is Verdict better than Tribute? It's not the BB mana cost thast I'm worried about. It's that the one point of life loss doesn't generally matter, since this deck either wins with poison, or with huge damage swings in one turn. I mostly preferred it because of the lifegain, giving you more time to stall/survive until you can drop fatties.
I cut the daybreak for the 4th primeval, as that suggestion was pretty common among feedback I received. I went down to 2 Green Zenith and up to 2 Huntmaster, since he does a lot of different things for the deck. However, I'm considering cutting him back down to 1, and putting another acidic slime.
I feel like it has pretty decent matchups against most decks. Ramping into T4 grave titan beats most of the random decks, and the black removal gives you an edge over normal ramp decks. It's possible I should be running 4 Primeval titans, a fourth inkmoth (cut it for basic forest since I was having to mulligan crappy hands that had a bunch of colorless & black mana), and a second acidic slime. I wanted to diversify the threats a little bit, and there's a few sweet bullets for Green Suns Zenith.
3 Primeval Titan
4 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Glissa, the Traitor
1 Daybreak Ranger
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Acidic Slime
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Rampant Growth
4 Sphere of the Suns
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Tribute to Hunger
2 Doom Blade
1 Go for the Throat
3 Black Sun's Zenith
2 Kessig Wolf Run
3 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Evolving Wilds
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Mountain
4 Swamp
7 Forest
The sideboard is pretty all over the place - I could really use some help streamlining it. I've not been too impressed with Glissa, but she still seems useful as a 1-of GSZ target. Daybreak Ranger's been really good, and seems better with the rise of the Spirit deck. It's possible I need some more Anti-Ramp stuff in the sideboard.
My general SB plan is as follows, give me some feedback on it:
Delver:
-1 Birds
-2 Primeval Titan
-1 Grave Titan
+1 Black Sun's Zenith
+1 Huntmaster of the fells
+1 Ancient Grudge
+1 Curse of Death's Hold
Humans:
-1 Birds
-1 Primeval Titan
-1 Tribute to Hunger (unless they run Geist)
+1 Huntmaster of the Fells
+1 Naturalize
+1 Batterskull
RDW:
-1 Birds
-2 Primeval Titan
-1 Daybreak Ranger
+1 Viridian Corrupter
+1 Batterskull
+1 Huntmaster of the Fells
+1 Thrun, the Last Troll
Tempered Steel:
-1 Birds
-1 Primeval Titan
-1 Go for the Throat
-3 ?????
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Curse
+1 Naturalize
+1 Huntmaster
+1 Ratchet Bomb
Ramp:
-1 Daybreak Ranger
-1 Glissa
-1 Ratchet Bomb
-3 Black Sun's Zenith
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Sword of Feast & Famine
+1 Garruk
+1 Karn
+1 Naturalize
Control:
-3 Black Sun's Zenith
-1 Daybreak Ranger
-1 Ratchet Bomb
-1 Doom Blade
-1 ????
+2 Thrun
+1 Sword
+1 Garruk
+1 Karn
+1 Huntmaster
+1 Spellbomb
3 Primeval Titan
4 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Glissa, the Traitor
1 Daybreak Ranger
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Acidic Slime
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Rampant Growth
4 Sphere of the Suns
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Tribute to Hunger
2 Doom Blade
1 Go for the Throat
3 Black Sun's Zenith
2 Kessig Wolf Run
3 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Evolving Wilds
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Mountain
4 Swamp
7 Forest
The sideboard is pretty all over the place - I could really use some help streamlining it. I've not been too impressed with Glissa, but she still seems useful as a 1-of GSZ target. Daybreak Ranger's been really good, and seems better with the rise of the Spirit deck. It's possible I need some more Anti-Ramp stuff in the sideboard.
My general SB plan is as follows, give me some feedback on it:
Delver:
-1 Birds
-2 Primeval Titan
-1 Grave Titan
+1 Black Sun's Zenith
+1 Huntmaster of the fells
+1 Ancient Grudge
+1 Curse of Death's Hold
Humans:
-1 Birds
-1 Primeval Titan
-1 Tribute to Hunger (unless they run Geist)
+1 Huntmaster of the Fells
+1 Naturalize
+1 Batterskull
RDW:
-1 Birds
-2 Primeval Titan
-1 Daybreak Ranger
+1 Viridian Corrupter
+1 Batterskull
+1 Huntmaster of the Fells
+1 Thrun, the Last Troll
Tempered Steel:
-1 Birds
-1 Primeval Titan
-1 Go for the Throat
-3 ?????
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Curse
+1 Naturalize
+1 Huntmaster
+1 Ratchet Bomb
Ramp:
-1 Daybreak Ranger
-1 Glissa
-1 Ratchet Bomb
-3 Black Sun's Zenith
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Sword of Feast & Famine
+1 Garruk
+1 Karn
+1 Naturalize
Control:
-3 Black Sun's Zenith
-1 Daybreak Ranger
-1 Ratchet Bomb
-1 Doom Blade
-1 ????
+2 Thrun
+1 Sword
+1 Garruk
+1 Karn
+1 Huntmaster
+1 Spellbomb
I feel like it has pretty decent matchups against most decks. Ramping into T4 grave titan beats most of the random decks, and the black removal gives you an edge over normal ramp decks. It's possible I should be running 4 Primeval titans, a fourth inkmoth (cut it for basic forest since I was having to mulligan crappy hands that had a bunch of colorless & black mana), and a second acidic slime. I wanted to diversify the threats a little bit, and there's a few sweet bullets for Green Suns Zenith.
3 Primeval Titan
4 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Glissa, the Traitor
1 Daybreak Ranger
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Acidic Slime
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Rampant Growth
4 Sphere of the Suns
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Tribute to Hunger
2 Doom Blade
1 Go for the Throat
3 Black Sun's Zenith
2 Kessig Wolf Run
3 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Evolving Wilds
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Mountain
4 Swamp
7 Forest
The sideboard is pretty all over the place - I could really use some help streamlining it. I've not been too impressed with Glissa, but she still seems useful as a 1-of GSZ target. Daybreak Ranger's been really good, and seems better with the rise of the Spirit deck. It's possible I need some more Anti-Ramp stuff in the sideboard.
My general SB plan is as follows, give me some feedback on it:
Delver:
-1 Birds
-2 Primeval Titan
-1 Grave Titan
+1 Black Sun's Zenith
+1 Huntmaster of the fells
+1 Ancient Grudge
+1 Curse of Death's Hold
Humans:
-1 Birds
-1 Primeval Titan
-1 Tribute to Hunger (unless they run Geist)
+1 Huntmaster of the Fells
+1 Naturalize
+1 Batterskull
RDW:
-1 Birds
-2 Primeval Titan
-1 Daybreak Ranger
+1 Viridian Corrupter
+1 Batterskull
+1 Huntmaster of the Fells
+1 Thrun, the Last Troll
Tempered Steel:
-1 Birds
-1 Primeval Titan
-1 Go for the Throat
-3 ?????
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Curse
+1 Naturalize
+1 Huntmaster
+1 Ratchet Bomb
Ramp:
-1 Daybreak Ranger
-1 Glissa
-1 Ratchet Bomb
-3 Black Sun's Zenith
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Sword of Feast & Famine
+1 Garruk
+1 Karn
+1 Naturalize
Control:
-3 Black Sun's Zenith
-1 Daybreak Ranger
-1 Ratchet Bomb
-1 Doom Blade
-1 ????
+2 Thrun
+1 Sword
+1 Garruk
+1 Karn
+1 Huntmaster
+1 Spellbomb
Glissa, the Traitor and Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer are 2 of the 8 multicolor cards legal in standard. But I agree with you, it would be nice to see more.
It obviously excels against ramp and control decks that want to play 6 mana creatures. You can tap out for skeleton against control on turn 2, and just constantly ping them to death with a recursive threat, and never have to worry about tapping out or fighting counter wars for expensive titans. Jace and Drownyard are there for the slower matchups.
Your mainboard isn't awesome against aggro, but you have chump blockers, counters, and removal, and you run them out of threats and cards, then win with inkmoth nexus.
I keep messing with the numbers to include a maindeck Disperse or Tribute to hunger, as you're kind of cold to the opponent playing turn 2 shrine on the play. The current metagame (dungrove elders, mirran crusaders) are obviously tough for UB to beat in general.
Be warned that this deck cannot beat a Curse of Death's Hold. I haven't seen anyone play it, though.
4 Reassembling Skeletons
4 Snapcaster Mage
Spells (25)
3 Dissipate
4 Mana Leak
3 Think Twice
3 Doom Blade
1 Go For the Throat
1 Victim of Night
3 Forbidden Alchemy
2 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Jace, Memory Adept
1 Batterskull
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Darkslick Shores
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Nephalia Drownyard
3 Inkmoth Nexus
7 Island
5 Swamp
2 Spellskite
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Jace, Memory Adept
1 Witchbane Orb
2 Tribute to Hunger
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Wring Flesh
1 Flashfreeze
This is incorrect. Metamorph, when a copy of Mirran Crusader, will have protection from black and green. Since Tezzeret is blue AND black, he cannot target metamorph.
My decklist and States tournament report, for reference:
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Glacial Fortress
1 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Ghost Quarter
9 Island
7 Plains
Spells (27)
4 Think Twice
4 Mana Leak
3 Dissipate
3 Day of Judgment
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Dismember
3 Oblivion Ring
1 Batterskull
2 Gideon Jura
2 Elspeth Tirel
1 Karn Liberated
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Azure Mage
1 Divine Offering
1 Revoke Existence
2 Celestial Purge
2 Flashfreeze
1 White Sun's Zenith
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Negate
2 ? Forgot what was here
Going into the tournament, I figured the deck's to beat were Solar Flare and Wolf Run Ramp, with less numbers of Mono Red and Tempered Steel, with random smatterings of birthing pod, grand architects, humans, etc.
My matchups:
Round 1: UW Control (2-0 me)
I have more mainboard counterspells than some control mirrors, and cat sun zenith just wins games.
Round 2: Solar Flare (2-0)
Control mirrors often come down to making your land drops, and having the right cards at the right time. Consecrated Sphinx is absolutely nuts, and so is Oblivion Ring. I play Solemns, Timely, and Elspeth for tokens so Liliana's edict never hurts.
Round 3: Solar Flare (1-1-1)
This matchup takes forever, and can completely change board states in the course of a turn. Counter their early Alchemys, since the game will go so late that mana leak will rarely matter. Save the dissipates for Unburial Rites and their fatties, and they don't really do much else. Unfortunately, it just takes a while, because everyone has to look through their graveyards every turn before they make plays.
Round 4: Solar Flare (1-1-1)
See above
Round 5: Solar Flare (2-0)
Consecrated Sphinx wins game 1. My misers inkmoth nexus gets in there for all 10 poison while he alchemys twice trying to find doom blade but doesn't.
Round 6: Wolf Run Ramp (2-1)
I get completely crushed, winning my only game because he kept a 1-land (mountain) hand on the draw and never hit his land drops. I had my single ghost quarter in one of the games, but it's useless against a good player, since they just swing in with 3 inkmoths at a time.
Round 7: UW Humans (2-0)
Game one he plays T1 Champion of the Parish, followed by T2 double champion, followed by T3 grand abolisher. I follow up with two back to back day of judgments, a gideon, and a Karn, which exiles his doomed traveler enchanted with angelic destiny. Game three he can't beat my 4 timely reinforcements (thanks Snapcaster!)
Round 8: Solar Flare (1-0-1)
More solar flare. After being 4-1-2 at this point, I needed a win to do anything decent (though outside of T8 contention). It was my 6th solar flare matchup of the night, and I knew the games took forever. And this guy was playing incredibly slowly. I called a judge to watch for slow play. I beat him game 1 after 40 minutes, and he took an incredible amount of time to sideboard, shuffle, and decide on his opening 7, so we obviously never got to really play game 2 and I won the match).
My thoughts on the deck: My views are biased after one tournament with the deck, and facing so many solar flare matchups. Ghost Quarter should be replaced with another inkmoth nexus. I want to mainboard the white sun zenith, as against control mirrors, I often ended up with 12+ land. I think I might swap the wurmcoil out in the SB for it's place. I might consider going with a route similar to PV's in his ChannelFireball article where he includes a light black splash for forbidden alchemy and making dismember hurt less. I liked everything else, and I played well, only really losing 1 round, and my only misplays (that I could tell) were missing some Sphinx triggers off the opponent using Think Twice.
Not to mention you're losing a land in a matchup against a ramp deck that plays more threats than control decks have answers. They can bait out counterspells pretty well when you're blowing up your own lands just to stop their inkmoth, and meanwhile Primevtal Titan is still crashing in at you.
http://the2011s.com/The2011s_Decklists.html will have the decklists on Monday.
As for me, I played UW Planeswalker Control in SC States, and went 5-1-2, coming in 21st out of 167 players (8 swiss rounds). I faced 1 UW Control, 5 Solar Flare, 1 Wolf Run Ramp, and 1 UW Humans deck.