Ended up going -1 Opt +1 Architects and -1 Dissolve for +1 Think Twice. Our Modern Monday's are 40 min rounds. I ended up going 1-0-2 lol.
2-0 Boros Burn
1-1 Bant Knightfall splash for Kessig
1-1-1 E. Tron
I didn't have Hostage Taker yet, but it would have been very good against Knightfall and E. Tron. I also didn't have the Field of Ruin (LGS sold out and my JP ones not here yet), so I played an Island instead. It kind of hurt against E. Tron. In the limited amount of games Azcanta wasn't terrible, but it did whiff once with 3 lands + Snap, but I think the deck wants 1 more removal spell. I know Osman Ozguney has been playing a 1-of Ob Nixilis online and he's been doing well and UW tends to play 1 Gideon Jura. I'm thinking of going -1 TT +1 Ob Nix as it is a draw engine and removal spell. There are certainly MU's it's really bad like Combo + Burn, but that's also mostly true for Jura as well, but it is still good.
The Downfall wasn't the worst, but I think you want cheaper removal that you can grab off Azcanta so a 1 of Dismember is probably better. I also think -1 Flooded Strand +1 Drowned Catacombs is better too (81% in opening 7 to be untapped and 90% by the 9th card). I want another UB dual, but don't want it to be tapped (so no Tar pit / Fetid Pools) and those %'s are good enough imho. The other option is River of Tears, and honestly, that might be better. Ok, I sorta convinced myself just now on the River of Tears. I'll give that a try. Tears is better in SB games with Brutality / Thoughtseizes.
The 1-of Spellbomb actually wasn't bad, providing revolt/delirium and shutting down Knight. It's pretty low-cost to play. Need more games to get in, but that's the preliminary outlook. Scour was good. Need to play more with Azcanta to get a better picture.
So I was thinking that it might be possible to go heavier on enchantments rather than architects of will, the fact that architects works great with Scour is nice and all, but I think the card is pretty poor otherwise. My thought was perhaps going heavier on Azcanta and adding Spreading Seas. Spreading Seas obviously protects Azcanta very well, and works well in conjunction with LD lands. The LD lands could in some corner cases be used to blow up lands that have Spreading seas already on them to put an enchantment in the graveyard if need be to help with Scour. In any case, Spreading Seas and LD lands have a proven track record, so I don't think you could go too wrong to try to use them!
My other thought was running Serum Vision over Opt mostly because of it being a Sorcery to help with the card type count. I also briefly considered Chart A Course because it could discard excess Azcantas, or Spreading Seas and being a Sorcery again helps with the card type count. For the same reason, I also like the addition of Liliana of the veil. It's a fine card on it's own, extra walkers help with type count, being able to discard an enchantment from hand seems good.
I think the biggest difference between our lists, besides Spreading Seas over Architects of Will, is Leak over Logic Knot. I don't want to get bogged down on arguing over that choice difference, because I think ultimately it's a preference thing there; I will cede that Logic Knot looks better in a list like this due to Search, and Liliana Veil if you take that route, over other control decks. Not sure if that makes up for further relying on the GY but for the sake of moving on to productive conversation about the rest of the deck, Lets just call those slots 2cmc counters and discuss elswhere.
The 2 Chart a Course a just placeholders for now, I'm not sold on them.
I have no experience playing with Scour, so how do you think my list differs fundamentally from yours? What do you like, what do you hate?
I think your list is trying to do 2 things that play awkwardly together - you're playing 6 counters, but then also a ton of sorcery speed cards. Many times you're going to end up wasting mana because you have to hold up interaction and can't play your sorcery speed cards. UW can do this because they're mostly tap-out deck. UB plays much better with a Draw-Go shell than UW because UB has better removal which allows you to do this. In UW you're heavily reliant on Supreme Verdict and Path plays poorly with counters as well. I don't think the deck needs to imitate UW to do well.
As for Architects vs. the enchantments. Architects is a very flexible card. It is the best enabler for Scour, and since it cycles it has minimal downside (and plays better with your instant-interaction). When you get your opponent close to hell-bent/hell-bent which is the goal of any Azcanta deck as you want to 1:1 them with the Impulse effect, playing an Architects essentially seals the game buying you on average 1.5-2 turns. It also gives relevant information and can index yourself which is underrated imho. I've had others play with a Scour/Will list before and they've always been impressed by the card. It's innocuous, but what it does is very important for the deck imho.
The LoTV is interesting. I've never played with her in a control-shell, but I can see how she synergizes with some of what the deck is doing, plus she is just powerful on her own. I could go either way here. I'm also not sold on Chart a Course. If you're going to play a card like that, that poor mans Accumulated Knowledge (Take Inventory) plays MUCH better in the deck and with Azcanta. With Chart, you're almost never going to just draw 2. Granted, Take Inventory wants you to play with 4, but you could also replace with something like Think Twice that also has some synergy with LoTV and Azcanta instead.
Serum Visions in your list is just much better than Opt because your list is mostly tap-out. Opt plays better when you're holding up Snaps, Counter, card draw, impulse land, etc. I'm not saying that draw-go in a vacuum is better than tap-out, it's just that I think that the card pool for UB is more suited to draw-go than tap-out imho. White has powerful cards like D. Sphere, Gideons, and Wall of Omens that UB doesn't. LoTV really wants you to have a board advantage since that is when she is at her best.
I would be interested to hear how your list plays out, but I think you vastly underestimate how good Architects is.
I agree that the deck needs to be reconfigured a bit for Azcanta, but not to the point of changing the fundamental strategy of the deck. I don't think it's necessary to become a prison style deck, as you mentioned. Not really too sure why you think that actually, seems like you stated it without expanding on the reason you arrived at that conclusion. I don't think planes walkers and enchantments like counterbalance/halo are anymore necessary than ever.
Adding a single card engine to the deck doesn't play out any differently than, in my experience, than playing with a card like Rev. As I've said, it seems to me that the only real difference in deck design is that rev can be replaced and that it's possible we may need assurances for the inevitable situations where GQ style lands take out our azcanta. This can be accomplished by playing more copies or maybe through other means (spreading seas for example, though I don't think that particular route is optimal for this deck, but there are certainly options out there).
My main point is azcanta seems to be a fine engine for draw go strategies, look at the world championship for example. Obviously standard is a different beast but azcanta is nearly singlehandedly carrying multiple drawgo style control archetypes through the tournament.
I thought I spelled it out pretty well, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to repeat.
Azcanta rewards positional advantage permanents. Casting Impulse each turn opens up the possibility of soft-locks, similar to what we saw with Dragonloard Ojutai in Standard. Once you untap with a planeswalkers on turn 5 and this thing flips, it becomes less likely with every passing turn that your opponent will draw out of it before the planeswalker ultimates. Same could apply to Crucible of Worlds locks. The search helps setup and protect these board states, which will shift any (successful) list over time towards this end of the spectrum. People do things like cut sweepers for Tasigur in their Draw-Go decks, so there's no saying you have to build your decks a certain way, but when there's an obvious path of least resistance a successful archetype will tend to evolve in that direction. That's assuming the deck has exposure and there are articles and tournament results available.
Azcanta disincentivises low-impact, one-for-one disruption and/or Divination effects. This isn't as intuitive, but Azcanta is highly mana-inefficient in terms of material (card) advantage. Phyrexian Arena effect exists that will give you a card for less mana each turn, and they're hardly playable cards. Similar to the way that Mystical Tutor gives you the option of a 5-mana Path to Exile, a 6-mana counterspell, or a 7-mana Divination, when you're burning 3 mana each turn on a dig effect you need the answers you're finding to have huge impacts on the board. You'll feel it when you're staring down lethal in 2 turns and you begin wondering exactly you could get off an activation that would justify sinking half your available mana each turn into.
UW doesn't technically only run 4 removal spells right? They're typically on some number of Detention Sphere as well if I remember correctly.
I said spot removal, by which I meant cards which only kill creatures and are dead in most all of the spell-based matchups.
On the contrary, I think Azcanta incentivizes cheap interaction. If you can impulse + interact each turn the chances of your opponent winning the game is dramatically lowered. Cards like Path, Push, Logic Knot, etc. go up in value, not down. High-impact spells tend to be expensive. Sweepers can recoup tempo, but a lock piece like Chalice cannot. I don't think Azcanta is going to push the decks it is in towards prison (they'll never be as good as Lantern or Chalice decks and as such, they'll be little reason to do this), but it is going to push the control decks it is in to play more cheap interaction. You're also still going to need some other CA spell whether that is Esper Charm, Glimmer, Scour the Lab, etc. as Azcanta gets worse in multiples and is vulnerable to LD where the instant-speed CA isn't (plus you just need a critical number of cards that +CA). In other words, it's going to replace cards like Sphinx's Rev, and more decks will be playing more 1 and 2 mana interaction. I wouldn't ever play 4 wraths MB in an Azcanta deck, but I could definitely see these decks cut one for another path or push or blessed alliance, etc. Even a card like Deprive goes up in value because Azcanta is essentially rampant growth so it's actually tempo-neutral in conjunction and does the thing for 2 mana.
There's also the flipside that GY-hate is going to be better against your decks that are packing Snaps, Azcanta, Think Twice, etc., but I think it's worth it.
Better than GQ at everything other than being able to cut basics if you run crucible.
It's a little worse than Tec Edge in conjunction with Mana Leak, but much better in every other regard including how well it plays with Cryptic Command, Supreme Verdict and Sphinx's Rev. As well as being able to strip Tron lands earlier.
A I've said, I think the only time you should be playing either GQ or Tec now is if you're running crucible main or relying on it as a sideboard strategy.
Tec Edge is nice to color screw people in conjunction with Spreading Seas. It's much harder to do that with Field. I wouldn't cut all the edges, imho.
Preliminary list without too much testing. I could see going -1 Opt +1 Architect, -1 Dissolve +1 Think Twice, -1 Victim of Night +1 Dismember (for DS decks - Angler can be an issue), and try and fit a Kalitas somewhere in the SB.
The deck is a bit GY-centric which is an issue, but Scour the Lab. is just by far the best CA draw spell in the colors. The idea is similar to Esper Draw-Go with Azcanta as your engine. Being able to have better mana and some utility in the mana is a huge bonus. Azcanta also works well with Scour the Laboratory.
Hostage Taker is in the board for creature-centric matches and artifacts. It's in theory quite good against E-Tron, Lantern, CoCo decks, Affinity, etc. It might turn out to be a dud, in which Kalitas is the better card. UB historically has done poorly interacting with artifacts, so I wanted 2 in the 75 (EE + Hostage Taker), but I could be mistaken.
Deck mostly beats up on Combo decks and creature-centric decks.
Obstructionist only costs 1 more than Squelch, can't be countered, can be cycled empty (I assume that to mean without a target) and is infinitely more flexible than squelch.
Damnation is a fine card against everything except Shadow decks, and push only hits half their creatures. I guess that's only one match though. I didn't consider the other removal options in black for the Drazi match fairly I suppose, but Path is so good there, they run like 2 basics and it also deals with Reshaper cleanly. I guess Hero's downfall makes up for some of the slack though since it can also hit a random Karn. Hmm, UB could be interesting. Still not too sure about trying to get fancy with Scour the Laboratory mainly because I don't want to run Architects of Will. I suppose running 3-4 Azcanta makes it much more likely to have card type Enchantment in the graveyard. I think this is getting a little off topic, Aegraen if you want to start a thread for UB Scour/Azcanta i'd love to have more discussion about this. I have some ideas, and I think we could develop the deck a bit, at least to the point where I think I'd be willing to give it a spin on MTGO.
Sure. I've been playing Will/Scour Esper build for months now and it's performed very well. It's an easy transition to UB. The deck might need 1 more source of CA so possibly -1 Dissolve +1 TT or something. I definitely need to find time to playtest.
@Aegean- I wouldn't mind seeing a blue black list either. I think you lose your best answers to 2 of 3 best decks without white (verdict for shadow and path for Eldrazi) but being a better azcanta deck overall could just be better, who knows.
@Badmcfadden - I agree in the sense that it can't be your only source of card advantage, but it being your only engine is fine. Your going to win a lot of games that you can't deal with a ghost quarter simply by being able to bin 6-12 useless cards over the course of the game. I tested a version with 4 Think Twice and 4 Esper charm, between that kind of draw and searches redundancy I was able to win a few games where I couldn't flip azcanta.
I also think we aren't used to having to protect our lands, so there could be a card out there that just does exactly what we are looking for. Spreading Seas is great in that regard for example. Or how about the stifle bird nimble obstructionist ? Sun Titan? Obviously some of these aren't great for draw go, but the point is they exist so there are probably other options we haven't thought about in a long time. I also think it's perfectly reasonably to exchange an azcanta + an activation for a GQ if we have 2-3 more copies of azcanta we can find or have 1 in our hand already.
I put a Spellbomb in the main over an architect to be able to run Hostage Taker in the SB. Still not sure if I want a Kalitas in the SB...I probably do? The mana may need some work - likely want -1 fetch another UB dual? (I was thinking Fetid Pools or another Tarpit, but that then becomes more tapped lands than I'd like) I could also see replacing 1 Opt instead of 1 Architects for the Spellbomb in the main. Little tweaks that need playtesting to iron out.
@jayjay As for answers to Eldrazi, I think UB is probably more diversified there - yes, Path is more efficient, but it also gets hit by Chalice. Victim of Night/GftT hit everything path does (sans Ballista) without getting hit by Chalice on 1 and not ramping them. My main worry with this deck is that we're a little too dependent on the GY, but Scour is just by far the best raw draw spell to be played that that concession has to be made. I wish Fact or Fiction was legal :/
I think people are looking at it wrong, trying to slot it into their decks. This card is an engine all by itself, and you probably will have to reconfigure the deck to utilize this engine consistently.
I would think that you cut at least 1 Revelation, along with 2-3 Think Twice to run 3-4 copies of this card. If this is the gameplan going long, you're far less likely to loop Revelations and draw your entire deck, which makes you shift from Draw-Go towards Prison on the Control spectrum. All of a sudden cards that work well with locking up positional advantage without actually burying your opponent in a sudden avalanche of cards become much better. UW Control is already setup to do this with Crucible and Planeswalkers (v. creature decks), but there's no Counterbalance-style card to lock-out combo decks. Well, Runed Halo does a good impression but has so many holes in it.
One net positive of running more positional advantage permanents is that you can cut down on spot removal. I always thought 6 spells was excessive and would be glad to go back to 4 with replacements for the other 2 copies turning into something that is better in non-creature machups. Even UW Control went back down to 4, something i tried to replicate recently by using first Gideon of the Trials and then Runed Halo.
I agree that the deck needs to be reconfigured a bit for Azcanta, but not to the point of changing the fundamental strategy of the deck. I don't think it's necessary to become a prison style deck, as you mentioned. Not really too sure why you think that actually, seems like you stated it without expanding on the reason you arrived at that conclusion. I don't think planes walkers and enchantments like counterbalance/halo are anymore necessary than ever.
Adding a single card engine to the deck doesn't play out any differently than, in my experience, than playing with a card like Rev. As I've said, it seems to me that the only real difference in deck design is that rev can be replaced and that it's possible we may need assurances for the inevitable situations where GQ style lands take out our azcanta. This can be accomplished by playing more copies or maybe through other means (spreading seas for example, though I don't think that particular route is optimal for this deck, but there are certainly options out there).
My main point is azcanta seems to be a fine engine for draw go strategies, look at the world championship for example. Obviously standard is a different beast but azcanta is nearly singlehandedly carrying multiple drawgo style control archetypes through the tournament.
If you're going to play Azcanta, UB is a much better shell than Esper imho. You get to play Field of Ruin/Tec Edge, better mana so your aggressive MU's are better (which negates some of the downside of Azcanta), and you can fill the GY faster (and white matters less if you're going to replace the "engine" card of the deck). (Plus, you still get to play Architects + Scour the Lab and Azcanta actually helps that plan as well)
UW is the tap-out shell and UB is the draw-go shell. I'm sleeving up UB this monday to see how it goes. Just on the off-chance has anyone tested Hostage Taker if you've tested UB shells out? (Answering artifact out of UB is quite nice (I was thinking 1 EE + 1 Hostage Taker))
Brainstorm 2.0 U
Instant
Draw two cards then put a card from your hand on top of your library.
I think discard should have some counter-play to it and Brainstorm is the best effect. OG brainstorm is too good for Modern, but a "fixed" version would be nice. Might enable Terminus a little as well which would be nice.
Has anyone tried Hostage Taker in a UB deck. I've just finished a UB control deck and feel like it'd be pretty good as a flexible 1 of in the SB as UB is notoriously poor at interacting with artifacts (I'd be playing 1 EE, and 1 Hostage Taker).
I like it out of the board when people board out their removal I'm really salty that this card ballooned up in price because I literally forgot to preorder it
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Out of a UB control SB it should almost never die and it deals with pesky stuff that UB can usually never deal with. Gonna try it next week if I can.
Has anyone tried Hostage Taker in a UB deck. I've just finished a UB control deck and feel like it'd be pretty good as a flexible 1 of in the SB as UB is notoriously poor at interacting with artifacts (I'd be playing 1 EE, and 1 Hostage Taker).
I don't think they'll print FoF while Gearhulk is in standard, but come on WoTC. You keep trying to print "fixed" FoF's that never see play - just print the real thing.
Tas is worse than WSZ because you're forced to commit to him on your turn. He's rarely going to be B for us, and when he is that means we've either eaten a lot of fetches or we've removed snap targets - both of which removes Logic Knot fuel.
Is playing mana leak stronger than logic Knot? Maybe, but not in a deck that aims to hit turn 6 pretty reliably.
Like I said, Tas changes the fundamental design of the deck to a faster deck with protection rather than disruption.
You keep saying it, but it's just not true. Yes, to optimize him it means changing some cards around, but it doesn't change the draw-go nature of the deck. A card like Opt is imminently playable for the deck. Between Opt/Fetches a Thought Scour or two (which actually does synergize pretty well with the deck), etc. and voiola - it's actually not changing your disruption count (you can play a little less "disruption" and still find as many or more with increased selection - Miracles never had too much trouble finding answers, and the deck played A TON less than any Modern control deck for instance). You can shave some lands because of increased selection/cantrips. WSZ and Tas each have their pros and cons - it's not a sin to admit that Tas is better against combo decks, because he is. WSZ is better against attrition and other control decks (assuming you can ever get it to resolve).
This is not a fair assessment - There are so few decks that deal less than 5 damage to themselves, and if you can manage even one or two chipshots with Snapcaster it's more like a 3-4 turn clock. Putting pressure on the opponent is "doing something" regardless of whether or not the source of pressure has an ETB effect - Pressure will force your opponent to play a reactive game when they might have wanted to play a proactive game, in either case it will cause them to change up their game plan a little.
My point was that a 3-4 turn clock dropped on turn 3 gives you a turn 6-7 kill. A combo deck that can't go off by then (through disruption, even) must have drawn terribly. You basically have to stop your opponent with [i]other[i] draws and then instead of locking them out by drawing more disruption than they can draw answers (with Revelation), you're expecting to kill your opponent before they can draw into their combo again.
The fact that you automatically pointed to damage from Snapcaster helping shorten the clock should be evidence in support of what we're all saying about "being a bad midrange list". Every successful tempo/midrange deck is running between 12-15 creatures/planeswalkers for a reason. If you're going to go below that number you gotta only play ETB value creatures like Snapcaster/Vendilion Clique.
And finally, in what world is Tasigur's draw ability worse than drawing a card by any other means possible? Its a guaranteed non-land card! That's better than generic "draw a card" by a lot.
Tasigur costs 4 mana to activate, which puts it in Azure Mage territory. His card draw is of the Browbeat style, similar to Steam Augury. You jsut give your opponent a card that can't interact, another copy of Tasigur, or a cantrip. Free is always good, but if you've got a Think Twice or Esper Charm in hand you're probably better off casting those.
I'd much rather have Tasigur in my deck than WSZ against combo decks. The deck all ready plays 1 win-condition. Playing another is actually going to add to your combo win %, not detract. If you're saying that because you play 2 Tas instead of 1 WSZ that you drawing that Tas is going to mean you lose because you don't have enough disruption in the deck, I don't have much more to say on the subject because statistical analysis is not even in the conversation and you're tied to presupposition.
hey guys, some info you may find usefull
Wafo Tapa told me he is playing 4 opt now. he was already playing anticipate instead of serum visions
With Opt, Fatal Push, Path, and cheap counters from the SB, I feel like any list not playing 4 Snaps is wrong, but generalizations tend to bite people in the ass. More often than not though, 4 Snaps will be the way to go.
2-0 Boros Burn
1-1 Bant Knightfall splash for Kessig
1-1-1 E. Tron
I didn't have Hostage Taker yet, but it would have been very good against Knightfall and E. Tron. I also didn't have the Field of Ruin (LGS sold out and my JP ones not here yet), so I played an Island instead. It kind of hurt against E. Tron. In the limited amount of games Azcanta wasn't terrible, but it did whiff once with 3 lands + Snap, but I think the deck wants 1 more removal spell. I know Osman Ozguney has been playing a 1-of Ob Nixilis online and he's been doing well and UW tends to play 1 Gideon Jura. I'm thinking of going -1 TT +1 Ob Nix as it is a draw engine and removal spell. There are certainly MU's it's really bad like Combo + Burn, but that's also mostly true for Jura as well, but it is still good.
The Downfall wasn't the worst, but I think you want cheaper removal that you can grab off Azcanta so a 1 of Dismember is probably better. I also think -1 Flooded Strand +1 Drowned Catacombs is better too (81% in opening 7 to be untapped and 90% by the 9th card). I want another UB dual, but don't want it to be tapped (so no Tar pit / Fetid Pools) and those %'s are good enough imho. The other option is River of Tears, and honestly, that might be better. Ok, I sorta convinced myself just now on the River of Tears. I'll give that a try. Tears is better in SB games with Brutality / Thoughtseizes.
The 1-of Spellbomb actually wasn't bad, providing revolt/delirium and shutting down Knight. It's pretty low-cost to play. Need more games to get in, but that's the preliminary outlook. Scour was good. Need to play more with Azcanta to get a better picture.
I think your list is trying to do 2 things that play awkwardly together - you're playing 6 counters, but then also a ton of sorcery speed cards. Many times you're going to end up wasting mana because you have to hold up interaction and can't play your sorcery speed cards. UW can do this because they're mostly tap-out deck. UB plays much better with a Draw-Go shell than UW because UB has better removal which allows you to do this. In UW you're heavily reliant on Supreme Verdict and Path plays poorly with counters as well. I don't think the deck needs to imitate UW to do well.
As for Architects vs. the enchantments. Architects is a very flexible card. It is the best enabler for Scour, and since it cycles it has minimal downside (and plays better with your instant-interaction). When you get your opponent close to hell-bent/hell-bent which is the goal of any Azcanta deck as you want to 1:1 them with the Impulse effect, playing an Architects essentially seals the game buying you on average 1.5-2 turns. It also gives relevant information and can index yourself which is underrated imho. I've had others play with a Scour/Will list before and they've always been impressed by the card. It's innocuous, but what it does is very important for the deck imho.
The LoTV is interesting. I've never played with her in a control-shell, but I can see how she synergizes with some of what the deck is doing, plus she is just powerful on her own. I could go either way here. I'm also not sold on Chart a Course. If you're going to play a card like that, that poor mans Accumulated Knowledge (Take Inventory) plays MUCH better in the deck and with Azcanta. With Chart, you're almost never going to just draw 2. Granted, Take Inventory wants you to play with 4, but you could also replace with something like Think Twice that also has some synergy with LoTV and Azcanta instead.
Serum Visions in your list is just much better than Opt because your list is mostly tap-out. Opt plays better when you're holding up Snaps, Counter, card draw, impulse land, etc. I'm not saying that draw-go in a vacuum is better than tap-out, it's just that I think that the card pool for UB is more suited to draw-go than tap-out imho. White has powerful cards like D. Sphere, Gideons, and Wall of Omens that UB doesn't. LoTV really wants you to have a board advantage since that is when she is at her best.
I would be interested to hear how your list plays out, but I think you vastly underestimate how good Architects is.
On the contrary, I think Azcanta incentivizes cheap interaction. If you can impulse + interact each turn the chances of your opponent winning the game is dramatically lowered. Cards like Path, Push, Logic Knot, etc. go up in value, not down. High-impact spells tend to be expensive. Sweepers can recoup tempo, but a lock piece like Chalice cannot. I don't think Azcanta is going to push the decks it is in towards prison (they'll never be as good as Lantern or Chalice decks and as such, they'll be little reason to do this), but it is going to push the control decks it is in to play more cheap interaction. You're also still going to need some other CA spell whether that is Esper Charm, Glimmer, Scour the Lab, etc. as Azcanta gets worse in multiples and is vulnerable to LD where the instant-speed CA isn't (plus you just need a critical number of cards that +CA). In other words, it's going to replace cards like Sphinx's Rev, and more decks will be playing more 1 and 2 mana interaction. I wouldn't ever play 4 wraths MB in an Azcanta deck, but I could definitely see these decks cut one for another path or push or blessed alliance, etc. Even a card like Deprive goes up in value because Azcanta is essentially rampant growth so it's actually tempo-neutral in conjunction and does the thing for 2 mana.
There's also the flipside that GY-hate is going to be better against your decks that are packing Snaps, Azcanta, Think Twice, etc., but I think it's worth it.
Tec Edge is nice to color screw people in conjunction with Spreading Seas. It's much harder to do that with Field. I wouldn't cut all the edges, imho.
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Watery Grave
1 Drowned Catacomb
2 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Field of Ruin
3 Island
2 Swamp
Removal:
4 Fatal Push
2 Victim of Night
1 Go for the Throat
1 Hero's Downfall
2 Damnation
1 Negate
3 Logic Knot
1 Dissolve
3 Cryptic Command
PW:
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
Card Draw:
1 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Opt
3 Scour the Laboratory
3 Architects of Will
Engine:
2 Search for Azcanta
Value:
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Hostage Taker
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
3 Collective Brutality
2 Thoughtseize
2 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Flashfreeze
1 Dispel
Preliminary list without too much testing. I could see going -1 Opt +1 Architect, -1 Dissolve +1 Think Twice, -1 Victim of Night +1 Dismember (for DS decks - Angler can be an issue), and try and fit a Kalitas somewhere in the SB.
The deck is a bit GY-centric which is an issue, but Scour the Lab. is just by far the best CA draw spell in the colors. The idea is similar to Esper Draw-Go with Azcanta as your engine. Being able to have better mana and some utility in the mana is a huge bonus. Azcanta also works well with Scour the Laboratory.
Hostage Taker is in the board for creature-centric matches and artifacts. It's in theory quite good against E-Tron, Lantern, CoCo decks, Affinity, etc. It might turn out to be a dud, in which Kalitas is the better card. UB historically has done poorly interacting with artifacts, so I wanted 2 in the 75 (EE + Hostage Taker), but I could be mistaken.
Deck mostly beats up on Combo decks and creature-centric decks.
Sure. I've been playing Will/Scour Esper build for months now and it's performed very well. It's an easy transition to UB. The deck might need 1 more source of CA so possibly -1 Dissolve +1 TT or something. I definitely need to find time to playtest.
Edit: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/784298-ub-azcanta-laboratory-draw-go
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Watery Grave
1 Drowned Catacomb
2 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Field of Ruin
3 Island
2 Swamp
Removal:
4 Fatal Push
2 Victim of Night
1 Go for the Throat
1 Hero's Downfall
2 Damnation
1 Negate
3 Logic Knot
1 Dissolve
3 Cryptic Command
PW:
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
Card Draw:
1 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Opt
3 Scour the Laboratory
3 Architects of Will
Engine:
2 Search for Azcanta
Value:
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Hostage Taker
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
3 Collective Brutality
2 Thoughtseize
2 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Flashfreeze
1 Dispel
I put a Spellbomb in the main over an architect to be able to run Hostage Taker in the SB. Still not sure if I want a Kalitas in the SB...I probably do? The mana may need some work - likely want -1 fetch another UB dual? (I was thinking Fetid Pools or another Tarpit, but that then becomes more tapped lands than I'd like) I could also see replacing 1 Opt instead of 1 Architects for the Spellbomb in the main. Little tweaks that need playtesting to iron out.
@jayjay As for answers to Eldrazi, I think UB is probably more diversified there - yes, Path is more efficient, but it also gets hit by Chalice. Victim of Night/GftT hit everything path does (sans Ballista) without getting hit by Chalice on 1 and not ramping them. My main worry with this deck is that we're a little too dependent on the GY, but Scour is just by far the best raw draw spell to be played that that concession has to be made. I wish Fact or Fiction was legal :/
If you're going to play Azcanta, UB is a much better shell than Esper imho. You get to play Field of Ruin/Tec Edge, better mana so your aggressive MU's are better (which negates some of the downside of Azcanta), and you can fill the GY faster (and white matters less if you're going to replace the "engine" card of the deck). (Plus, you still get to play Architects + Scour the Lab and Azcanta actually helps that plan as well)
UW is the tap-out shell and UB is the draw-go shell. I'm sleeving up UB this monday to see how it goes. Just on the off-chance has anyone tested Hostage Taker if you've tested UB shells out? (Answering artifact out of UB is quite nice (I was thinking 1 EE + 1 Hostage Taker))
Instant
Draw two cards then put a card from your hand on top of your library.
I think discard should have some counter-play to it and Brainstorm is the best effect. OG brainstorm is too good for Modern, but a "fixed" version would be nice. Might enable Terminus a little as well which would be nice.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Out of a UB control SB it should almost never die and it deals with pesky stuff that UB can usually never deal with. Gonna try it next week if I can.
I don't think they'll print FoF while Gearhulk is in standard, but come on WoTC. You keep trying to print "fixed" FoF's that never see play - just print the real thing.
You keep saying it, but it's just not true. Yes, to optimize him it means changing some cards around, but it doesn't change the draw-go nature of the deck. A card like Opt is imminently playable for the deck. Between Opt/Fetches a Thought Scour or two (which actually does synergize pretty well with the deck), etc. and voiola - it's actually not changing your disruption count (you can play a little less "disruption" and still find as many or more with increased selection - Miracles never had too much trouble finding answers, and the deck played A TON less than any Modern control deck for instance). You can shave some lands because of increased selection/cantrips. WSZ and Tas each have their pros and cons - it's not a sin to admit that Tas is better against combo decks, because he is. WSZ is better against attrition and other control decks (assuming you can ever get it to resolve).
I'd much rather have Tasigur in my deck than WSZ against combo decks. The deck all ready plays 1 win-condition. Playing another is actually going to add to your combo win %, not detract. If you're saying that because you play 2 Tas instead of 1 WSZ that you drawing that Tas is going to mean you lose because you don't have enough disruption in the deck, I don't have much more to say on the subject because statistical analysis is not even in the conversation and you're tied to presupposition.
With Opt, Fatal Push, Path, and cheap counters from the SB, I feel like any list not playing 4 Snaps is wrong, but generalizations tend to bite people in the ass. More often than not though, 4 Snaps will be the way to go.