I hadn't seen a Jace driven UWR list so I thought I'd include it for discussion. Not saying this list is optimal, and it's kind of soft to Twin right now. I've really enjoyed the Jace half of Vryn Prodigy, and will probably be trying out 4 copies along with Logic Knot.
Monastery Mentor is insane good btw. Usually you disrupt early game, play him mid game, and kill next turn with burn prowess triggers.
Oust plus Jace is really nice, it's really great against Tasigur, Finks, and Voice as well too. It gets around Dispel as well too.
I would add that in the instances you are talking about to play around this card, normal permission would not have stopped it any point so I dont think those should be used to detract from this card.
I think the fellow who compared this to Remand hit this right on the head.
Yes, this card doesn't solve a lot of things permanently - like Remand - but against a lot of things it will generate value and provides interactivity where there was none before.
It can stop a turn of Vengevines.
It can stop Twin for one turn so you can Verdict.
Then there are situations where it does DO something; lingering souls, collected company etc.
This is not a bomb by any means, but it is a great tool for control that smooths the gears until we can deploy our stage three.
In the matchups where it does nothing, it can cycle to draw you a card.
Problem with Ojutai's command is that it can't directly impact the board. Obviously cryptic command is a high measuring stick and anything stronger would probably be absurdly overpowered in today's standard though.
The first ability is pretty impactful. Imagine against burn.
Turn 2 - seeker of the way (gets burned)
Turn 4 - command to gain 4 and ambush a rablemaster
That's a lot of life.
Against mid range this is exclude
Against burn this is negate + draw
In control matchups it cycles at the very least
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
One piece of tech I've discovered is Disowned Ancestor. It comes out, blocks everything - including to my surprise Mogi's Marauder - survives a lot of removal, and can get bigger. It is also very cheap... tempo positive on the exchange.
Also:
It is good to know that you can't just simply play a bunch of delve cards and call it a day.
It is helpful to know that a good U/B should play this many delve/non-delve card drawers.
The latter is more important, and hard to discern unless we experiment with extremities.
I also think that Jace is very important as he is relatively expedient, high loyalty, and provides a universal answer when all of our answers are very situational.
If you re-read his loyalty ability as: "+1 to your mana pool, Scry 1.5" I think he seems more attractive.
Here's where my decklist is at right now:
I'm trying Debilitating Injury as an answer to Prowess creatures. A smart opponent can play around toughness based removal by timing their pumps... not so with Injury.
I've been playing a lot of UB control this morning on MTGO, as it's my deck of choice for an upcoming SCG.
- Hand disruption is better than counter magic right now because it's proactive, feeds delve, and is * most importantly * cheaper.
- You need to have at least one copy of Empty the Pits. Red is very powerful right now, and even if you have the board stabilized, you can lose randomly from some top decked burn. As such, it's important to have.
- On that note Dismal Backwater/Radiant Fountain is money. Your opponent plays a Magma Jet and you counter it with your land drop... feels good man : )
- Ashiok is definitely a four of. It is simply THE reason to play the deck.
- I've been pretty happy with the times I've drawn Liliana, and she's probably crucial to facilitate a timely Empty the Pits so you can close the game.
- Jace is very good as well too. If you have some change burning in your pocket, I would take a short term position on him for the PT. His +1 has been much better than I expected, while his -2 much worse, due to the prevalence of haste.
- I think you want 40-60% of your draw spells to be Delve powered and the rest of them not to be. Especially given that Empty the Pits is so good... I'm going to test 4 Ingenuities, 4 Dig, 1 Treasure Hunt and see how it works.
- Bounce is terrible right now given the prevalence of haste.
- Pharika's Cure needs to be in the deck as Goblin Rabblerouser is EVERYWHERE.
I don't have a good list right now, as I'm still in the refinement phase - I basically have a one-of of everything. There are still a few cards I haven't tested yet - Murderous Cut, Diviniation etc.
I think your list is a pretty good start. There are some things that could probably be changed... but who knows?
I don't think Ulcerate is worth it at all. You don't have anyway to leverage the tempo, and the vast majority of situations where you would want this, Vicious Hunger would probably just be better. I also that you have way too many BBs and UUs.
I think the only counter Magic you need is Disdainful Stroke to be quite honest.
Is it because you have to pay UU for Dig?
Its effect seems better in most cases.
Let me posit this.
Dig through time is better when the value of your cards have significantly different values contextually.
For example, empty the pits is not very good on turn for but is very crucial to close the game on turn 20.
Treasure Cruise is much better when your cards are close together in power level and you just need to have more Raw card advantage to capitalize upon.
The interesting thing however, is that legacy we already have a near critical mass of good filter effects such as ponder brainstorm and preordain.
As such the deeper dig effect of dig through time is often rendered irrelevant because you're just gonna draw into more search filter effects.
Consider using treasure cruise to draw three cards of which one is a brainstorm;
You will have seen the top six cards for library and kept the best three.
Whereas with dig through time you would see one more card but also keep one less.
Finally it is not irrelevant that the premier card of all these high velocity blue decks is force of will a card which incentivizes you to have more cards in hand.
I think using Delver as a baseline for this card is off. Delver is only playable in aggro decks, whereas this is playable in pretty much any Eternal deck that touches it's library repeatedly.
My doubt is, if in order to build this deck, can I just mimic Wafo-Tapa spells and look for the black replacement of the white cards (basically changing Lightning Helix and Path to Exile for black spot removal, Supreme Verdict for Damnation and so on), or the fact that Cruel Control game plan for the late game is different from that of UWR also affects to the choices regarding the early game (like playing Remand over Mana Leak, discard spells, artifact acceleration or any other I could have missed)?
That's how I started too.
Of note: UWR has better mana then Grixis due to two on-color fetches and a better man land.
If you're just swapping white cards for black cards... why not play UWR instead? The white cards are significantly better.
2x Snapcaster Mage
1x Keranos, God of Storms
4x Path to Exile
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Spell Snare
1x Oust
4x Lightning Helix
2x Remand
1x Shadow of Doubt
3x Electrolyze
3x Cryptic Command
2x Supreme Verdict
1x Ajani Vengeant
2x Sphinx's Revelation
4x Celestial Colonnade
3x Steam Vents
3x Scalding Tarn
2x Arid Mesa
2x Hallowed Fountain
2x Ghost Quarter
1x Sacred Foundry
2x Islands
1x Mountain
1x Plains
3x Molten Rain
2x Monastery Mentor
2x Timely Reinforcements
1x Spellskite
1x Celestial Purge
1x Wear/Tear
1x Supreme Verdict
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Ghostly Prison
1x Stony Silence
1x Engineered Explosives
I hadn't seen a Jace driven UWR list so I thought I'd include it for discussion. Not saying this list is optimal, and it's kind of soft to Twin right now. I've really enjoyed the Jace half of Vryn Prodigy, and will probably be trying out 4 copies along with Logic Knot.
Monastery Mentor is insane good btw. Usually you disrupt early game, play him mid game, and kill next turn with burn prowess triggers.
Oust plus Jace is really nice, it's really great against Tasigur, Finks, and Voice as well too. It gets around Dispel as well too.
Yes, this card doesn't solve a lot of things permanently - like Remand - but against a lot of things it will generate value and provides interactivity where there was none before.
It can stop a turn of Vengevines.
It can stop Twin for one turn so you can Verdict.
Then there are situations where it does DO something; lingering souls, collected company etc.
This is not a bomb by any means, but it is a great tool for control that smooths the gears until we can deploy our stage three.
In the matchups where it does nothing, it can cycle to draw you a card.
Turn 4 Damnable Pact
Turn 5 Greater Harvester
The first ability is pretty impactful. Imagine against burn.
Turn 2 - seeker of the way (gets burned)
Turn 4 - command to gain 4 and ambush a rablemaster
That's a lot of life.
Against mid range this is exclude
Against burn this is negate + draw
In control matchups it cycles at the very least
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
Also:
It is good to know that you can't just simply play a bunch of delve cards and call it a day.
It is helpful to know that a good U/B should play this many delve/non-delve card drawers.
The latter is more important, and hard to discern unless we experiment with extremities.
I also think that Jace is very important as he is relatively expedient, high loyalty, and provides a universal answer when all of our answers are very situational.
If you re-read his loyalty ability as: "+1 to your mana pool, Scry 1.5" I think he seems more attractive.
Here's where my decklist is at right now:
I'm trying Debilitating Injury as an answer to Prowess creatures. A smart opponent can play around toughness based removal by timing their pumps... not so with Injury.
- Hand disruption is better than counter magic right now because it's proactive, feeds delve, and is * most importantly * cheaper.
- You need to have at least one copy of Empty the Pits. Red is very powerful right now, and even if you have the board stabilized, you can lose randomly from some top decked burn. As such, it's important to have.
- On that note Dismal Backwater/Radiant Fountain is money. Your opponent plays a Magma Jet and you counter it with your land drop... feels good man : )
- Ashiok is definitely a four of. It is simply THE reason to play the deck.
- I've been pretty happy with the times I've drawn Liliana, and she's probably crucial to facilitate a timely Empty the Pits so you can close the game.
- Jace is very good as well too. If you have some change burning in your pocket, I would take a short term position on him for the PT. His +1 has been much better than I expected, while his -2 much worse, due to the prevalence of haste.
- I think you want 40-60% of your draw spells to be Delve powered and the rest of them not to be. Especially given that Empty the Pits is so good... I'm going to test 4 Ingenuities, 4 Dig, 1 Treasure Hunt and see how it works.
- Bounce is terrible right now given the prevalence of haste.
- Pharika's Cure needs to be in the deck as Goblin Rabblerouser is EVERYWHERE.
I don't have a good list right now, as I'm still in the refinement phase - I basically have a one-of of everything. There are still a few cards I haven't tested yet - Murderous Cut, Diviniation etc.
I don't think Ulcerate is worth it at all. You don't have anyway to leverage the tempo, and the vast majority of situations where you would want this, Vicious Hunger would probably just be better. I also that you have way too many BBs and UUs.
I think the only counter Magic you need is Disdainful Stroke to be quite honest.
Let me posit this.
Dig through time is better when the value of your cards have significantly different values contextually.
For example, empty the pits is not very good on turn for but is very crucial to close the game on turn 20.
Treasure Cruise is much better when your cards are close together in power level and you just need to have more Raw card advantage to capitalize upon.
The interesting thing however, is that legacy we already have a near critical mass of good filter effects such as ponder brainstorm and preordain.
As such the deeper dig effect of dig through time is often rendered irrelevant because you're just gonna draw into more search filter effects.
Consider using treasure cruise to draw three cards of which one is a brainstorm;
You will have seen the top six cards for library and kept the best three.
Whereas with dig through time you would see one more card but also keep one less.
Finally it is not irrelevant that the premier card of all these high velocity blue decks is force of will a card which incentivizes you to have more cards in hand.
In terms of win con, I'm thinking something like 4 Ashiok and 1 Empty the Pits.
Some cards that I want to try - keep in mind this is Brainstorming:
Jace, the Living Guildpact: I think he is a great answer to mid-range, and I think his + 1 is a bit underrated.
Jorubai Murk Lurker: If you can get the Swamp, he does a very good Vampire Nighthawk impression.
Akroan Horse: The anti goblin rabble rouser?
Champion of Stray Souls: Resilient win condition?
Colossus of Akros: Most resilient win condition?
Wall of Frost: Blocks a lot.
So right now, the cards I think I'm interested in playing are
- 4 Ashiok
- 4 Hero's Downfall
- 4 Perilous Vault
- 1 Empty the Pits
- 4 Drown in Sorrow
- 4 Pharika's Cure
- 3-4 Thoughtseize
- 3-4 Despise
That's how I started too.
Of note: UWR has better mana then Grixis due to two on-color fetches and a better man land.
If you're just swapping white cards for black cards... why not play UWR instead? The white cards are significantly better.