I think every color has cards that are just so strong/efficient on their own that you do yourself a disservice if you don't consider them every time you're building in that color. And then you must also ask yourself, is bolt better or worse than any other card i could potentially play in place of it? pretty frequently I think you'll find that powerful, efficient cards like become ubiquitous because the answer to the previous question is nearly always "no there is no card that's better than bolt". Exceptions being some of those mentioned - like storm, where your deck needs to be so finely tuned that bolt, while good, actually takes away from the efficiency of your deck achieving its goal.
Only downfall of this if that it's really easy to have pet cards, and if you favor them too much it can warp and limit your deck building. My biggest offender is Smallpox for example. I love the efficiency that it offers, and I love that I can build my deck to take advantage of the 'drawbacks'. By doing this though, I begin limiting my potential pool of cards that I might add to my black deck to 'cards that play well with smallpox' and suddenly every deck I make I'm building myself into a corner by adding BloodghastFlagstones of TrokairLingering Souls and eventually Liliana of the Veil. Then I figure well I may as well splash green for Abrupt Decay and Life from the Loam and suddenly I'm staring at my 28214720th iteration of BWg Loam Pox.
Bolt has much broader application than pox however, so it's going to be harder to find cards that truly are better for your deck. Similarly, if you were in blue and could play ancestral recall - how do you ever say no to that? How many cards out there let you do something better than drawing 3 cards at instant speed for a single mana? I think that's the type of rigor you have to apply when questioning whether certain staples belong in your deck or not.
Ignoring for a moment difficulty to cast, I'd like to hear from folks that have piloted this deck for awhile: in the W/B version you wouldn't ever WANT LotV would you?
So if we decide on one for Affinity and one for Infect and count the Urza Lands as one, that leaves us with 8 pillars for the biggest decks in modern.
Think this is the post I agree with most i this thread.
you could even add in a few others that are small representations of the metagame.. Ad Nauseam, Goryo's Vengeance.
What about Aether Vial? Used in both Death and Taxes and Merfolk, right? They certainly use different tools, but attempt to be disruptive while swinging.
Elves and Goblins are obvious targets, yes, but in Eldrazi deck for example Plague would take out the Mimic, Obligator, Skyspan, and all of their tokens. It would certainly put the hurt on faeries, tokens, and with effective spot removal could also be useful against Merfolk, though admitedly less so. Other great options that people often forget because they're not often though of as a 'tribe' is Humans, Wizards, and Shamans. It's not a single card answer against any deck, but it can definitely do work. I mean if you name 'Human' against U/G infect you have effectively taken half of their creatures out of the game.
So, I've been building/sculpting my own version of UB Tezzeret for the last couple weeks now. And through some lengthy play-testing this is what I've come up with:
So here's a general question: why can't control decks win in modern?
It's because they lack multiple win-cons, which this deck has.
This version allows the pilot to attack aggressively with 5/5s, sit back under the bridge and wait for Tezz to Ult, or ping the opponent for a couple each turn with The Rack via Liliana and discard.
In the end, though, this deck seems to be incredibly versatile with each card serving multiple purposes depending upon the board state.
As for the side board, I still haven't quite nailed it down but it's a combination of counterspells and removal.
I'd love to hear some feedback for you guys. Thanks!
tried something like this once with mixed results, but this is along the lines of what i want to try out again. Liliana + Bridge + Rack is a very formidable problem... and a slow painful death for opponents. i swear with this sort of win-con you win more games simply by frustrating your opponent and causing them to make mistakes
Well one of my pet decks from awhile back was various smallpox variants, featuring Liliana of the Veil and Ensnaring Bridge. And i picked up a set of chalices a long time ago for about $4 apiece. Still Missing Opal and Damnation, but in bridge decks i've usually been able to get by using Mutilate. I think the biggest expenditure for me might be mana base actually.... i have a lot in black and green, but considerably less so in blue.
i've been out of the game awhile (again), and I keep hearing that chalice is really strong right now - can anyone explain why? I've always loved the card, but it seems if any deck could ever maindeck it it's this one, and if it's really good right now it might be the push I need to really commit to this deck
i wouldn't go out of your way to force flagstones - it's nice if you're in those colors, and my deck is pretty squarely in mardu colors, as I tend to focus more on value cards than straight LD. I enjoy the Smallpox / Liliana of the Veil / Lingering Souls interaction far too much to not include. I think my direction is probably closer to tempo than a true prison style, though I do love a good prison deck... have since Turbostasis was a thing
might be making a oomeback to the game, and I was tinkering with a similar idea last time i played regularly... namely I wanted to abuse crack the earth and smallpox. One of the best successes I've had personally with crack the earth is Young Pyromancer. Especially if you're able to get this online early in the game, every time you cast crack the earth, pyro provides a very conveniently timed permanent for you destroy, effectively leaving your board unchanged while your opponent suffers a tempo loss. He's a little less effective with smallpox, but there are a few cool plays you can make. for example with pyro, bloodghast, and flagstones of trokair on the board you're creating a token, fetching a replacement land, and resurrecting your ghast. just my 2 cents, but pyro seems like a better option than the blizzard-herder... as you could theoretically advance your board while destroying your opponents'.
i've also seen vampiric rites mentioned which i think is some cool tech when you're playing with token generators. also boom//bust is really cool tech - one of the reasons i've always loved pox in legacy is the power of sinkhole, and i imagine this is about as close as it gets in modern.
I'm typically a smallpox players but skipped out on the game for roughly a year. I'm comfortable with this acrhtype but don't really know the meta right now. I'll be joining a friend at his local FNM next week and it sounds likes its a U/W / control heavy meta. What do i need to know about those matchups while piloting this deck?
Going to go with a friend to FNM next week in an unfamiliar meta - he tells me U/W control types are prevalent, as well as several gifts/GY manipulation type decks, and a bit of infect. I usually prefer G/B smallpox variants, but have the ability to build passable Junk/Jund list, or I can also play a solid zoo list. I'm also tinkering with a smallpox variant that seeks to 'win' by slowly removing all of my opponents options from the game with Surgical Extraction / Extirpate type effects with seems like it would be good against the GY decks, but i'm less sure how it would fare against the control decks. Also been reading a bit about Knightfall, and wondering how well that's positioned right now, because i can build most of that.
GGT doesn't really enable anything new, he just enables the same things marginally better. If dredge becomes I thing I think it will be due to the facelift the format has recently gotten, and not because GGT is busted. I like GGT and I'd be really happy to see him in something cool but I just don't see it happening.
As has been mentioned, I'm more excited about Waste Not and Dark Deal which *can* win you the game on their own- but if I were to try GGT shenanigans I might try him alongside Sidisi or something that might be a somewhat stronger engine than stockpile.
Only downfall of this if that it's really easy to have pet cards, and if you favor them too much it can warp and limit your deck building. My biggest offender is Smallpox for example. I love the efficiency that it offers, and I love that I can build my deck to take advantage of the 'drawbacks'. By doing this though, I begin limiting my potential pool of cards that I might add to my black deck to 'cards that play well with smallpox' and suddenly every deck I make I'm building myself into a corner by adding Bloodghast Flagstones of Trokair Lingering Souls and eventually Liliana of the Veil. Then I figure well I may as well splash green for Abrupt Decay and Life from the Loam and suddenly I'm staring at my 28214720th iteration of BWg Loam Pox.
Bolt has much broader application than pox however, so it's going to be harder to find cards that truly are better for your deck. Similarly, if you were in blue and could play ancestral recall - how do you ever say no to that? How many cards out there let you do something better than drawing 3 cards at instant speed for a single mana? I think that's the type of rigor you have to apply when questioning whether certain staples belong in your deck or not.
Think this is the post I agree with most i this thread.
you could even add in a few others that are small representations of the metagame.. Ad Nauseam, Goryo's Vengeance.
What about Aether Vial? Used in both Death and Taxes and Merfolk, right? They certainly use different tools, but attempt to be disruptive while swinging.
tried something like this once with mixed results, but this is along the lines of what i want to try out again. Liliana + Bridge + Rack is a very formidable problem... and a slow painful death for opponents. i swear with this sort of win-con you win more games simply by frustrating your opponent and causing them to make mistakes
i've also seen vampiric rites mentioned which i think is some cool tech when you're playing with token generators. also boom//bust is really cool tech - one of the reasons i've always loved pox in legacy is the power of sinkhole, and i imagine this is about as close as it gets in modern.
I'm typically a smallpox players but skipped out on the game for roughly a year. I'm comfortable with this acrhtype but don't really know the meta right now. I'll be joining a friend at his local FNM next week and it sounds likes its a U/W / control heavy meta. What do i need to know about those matchups while piloting this deck?
As has been mentioned, I'm more excited about Waste Not and Dark Deal which *can* win you the game on their own- but if I were to try GGT shenanigans I might try him alongside Sidisi or something that might be a somewhat stronger engine than stockpile.