Far//Away is a house. It is the type of card that I would want as a 3x or even 4x maindeck. It leads to blowouts, and even lets you manage ways to get rid of problem cards like Obdezat, etc.
With Ashiok, it seems like it wouldn't be a bad sideboard card vs. certain decks.
And for Doom Blade, I consider that a card that deals with Mistcutter Hydra (which I'm sure you will find will see more play, now that monoblue is a thing.)
All that said, I'm not sure I like a black splash in the aggressive blue devotion decks. Like I said, I would consider it in what people have labeled "Big Blue."
Far//Away is definitely one of the better options to MB. You have to remember there's very few slots to use on spells so we're talking 2 copies of Far//Away, 3 at the most. The trade off for that is a Mutavault or Nykthos and 2 life per game. That's why I'm leaning towards white, you get a creature out of it which justifies the splash a little more and Detention Sphere if you're willing to clog the 3 slot, Azorius Charm if you aren't. Plus Rootborn Defenses out of the board to deal with Verdict. That could be wrong but it seems like a better payoff than Far // Away. I like the idea of being able to Charm and lifelink an army in a racing situation against something like mono red.
i think ultimate price would be better to run right now than doomblade. i expect to see a ton more of Desecration Demons. the idea of relying on sacking a creature and lessen devotion doesnt sit well for the deck. i think a combination of ultimate price, cyclonic rifts and rapid hybridizations should be ok. i think UB is the best shell moving forward... that's if we want to splash a color. but Voltage does have a point... staying at mono blue still has all the tools to answer the probable hate coming in.
a probable UB shell would probably look like this...
i was thinking about Far/Away but somehow i think cyclonic is much more powerful especially in the mirror... which we all can expect to see a lot. gotta test that out to really figure it out.
i know we wanna draw thassa every game but i saw matches where drawing multiples of her was just BLEK. to each his own i guess. i'm comfy running 3. thinking of cutting that lone omenspeaker and upping to 25 lands or the 4th jace (in the 75) since the UB shell can run the scry land already but hey what's more permanents for devotion right?
again the ulitmate price is for mistcutters and desecation demons. it can't hit obzedat but we have 2 cyclonics and 1 rapid in the main and 1 more rapid in the sb for Big O. i think mistcutter and desecration is more dangerous for this monoblue deck in the future. somehow i was thinking of cutting the familiars as LSV said that's the card that always comes out during SB mirrors. but was thinking holding the opponent farther from an overload cyclonic is very beneficial.
25 lands is a lot, but I think of Mutavault as taking up a spell slot.
Voyage's End can't bounce planeswalkers, so I changed it to Cyclonic Rift. I also changed the sideboard Cancel to Negate, because it's a lot easier to cast a creature and hold up 1U than it is to hold up UU. Advice: against Esper Control, save the counterspells for planeswalkers and Sphinx's Revelation.
I'm not sure the Wall of Frost in the board is actually useful against much of anything. Maybe it should be Gainsay for an edge in the mirror match?
Wall of frost gave me some breathing room in RDW matchups. There's nothing quite like Frostburn Weird into Wall of Frost to stone-wall any sort of momentum they had.
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Esper is one of the harder MU's as is any deck that can pack Anger, Verdict or both.
Is it powerful? Sure, but like any new deck it will have to be seen how the format goes about combating it before jumping the gun on its 'invincability'.
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I've been interested in a MoW deck for awhile as I got my playset thru trades as soon as possible, wasnt that hard either since people thought he was bad.
I'm more interested in a U/W version with D-spheres and I have been wanting to use Deputy of Acquittals in a deck too. I think hes a great way of protecting and getting more use out of Master of Waves.
Using both the blue and white god weapons sounds awesome too.
Living the dream....MoW and spear of heliod both out, untap, swing, end of their turn play deputy getting MoW back, recast him on your turn; have a ton of elemental tokens
I've been interested in a MoW deck for awhile as I got my playset thru trades as soon as possible, wasnt that hard either since people thought he was bad.
I'm more interested in a U/W version with D-spheres and I have been wanting to use Deputy of Acquittals in a deck too. I think hes a great way of protecting and getting more use out of Master of Waves.
Using both the blue and white god weapons sounds awesome too.
Living the dream....MoW and spear of heliod both out, untap, swing, end of their turn play deputy getting MoW back, recast him on your turn; have a ton of elemental tokens
Yeh, one of the harder match-ups, but that doesn't make it hard! Just look to Wafo-Tapa being 3-1'ed by this deck at the Pro Tour, and he's probably one of the best control players ever.
As I said, if the meta focuses on hating it out, then it'll be hated out. No deck is immune to that. But then those decks are making themselves considerably weaker against everything else, and eventually something will prey on that and they'll shift away from hating this out to protect themselves again. This deck has an insane power-level, and only specifically targetting it in sideboard (and even mainboard) construction will stop it being the best deck in the format.
As someone said about this deck in this thread or another, it's a case of: "Do you have the specific card you need to deal with my threats right now, or can you draw it in a turn? If not, I win."
Haha, yeah, that was me. I believe my exact words were:
The reason the deck is so powerful is because the questions it asks are so powerful. It's the kind of deck that basically asks "Do you have the specific card you need right now? No? Can you find it in one turn? No? Okay, you die."
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"Well, well, if it isn't the most diabolical haters this side of the Mississippi." Alters and Commissions at [URL="noodlesndoodlesalters.tumblr.com/"]Noodles & Doodles Alters[/URL]!
Have a helicopter drop you off out front. Light your cigar with a small Indonesian boy holding a black lotus. Then bust out a craw wurm deck with no sleeves. Raw dog shuffle, loose terribly, flip the table, leave in a hovercraft.
Esper is one of the harder MU's as is any deck that can pack Anger, Verdict or both.
Is it powerful? Sure, but like any new deck it will have to be seen how the format goes about combating it before jumping the gun on its 'invincability'.
I don't think Esper is worse than 50-50 and I make us slight faves. I do think the mono black devotion deck is hard to beat though.
Swan song has helped me a little, but not as much as I first thought.
I jammed some games vs. GW and Naya Aggro and Midrange last night (both with the original Fish list and with this color splash) and it did what it was supposed to (crush them handily). It wins a little slower but it has a better match-up against Control-style decks due to cards like Elspeth and Detention Sphere.
Face it, Cloudfin Raptor and Judge's Familiar are decent-to-good in your opening hand and just awful on pretty much any other turn of the game in most cases. Scrying obviously reduces the risk of drawing them but it doesn't eliminate it. Tossing them out entirely only slightly reduces the critical mass of devotion capable while dramatically improving your topdecks in the mid-to-late game.
I also played almost this exact same list at a Win-A-Box on Sunday. I won't bore you with the minor details but it very handily won the mirror match against a mono-colored Fish list 2-0. Having credible answers for enemy Thassa's in the main (Detention Sphere) is quite clutch, and Azorius Charm's bounce effect allows you to effectively out-tempo the opponent's own tempo strategy when properly employed, and it's lifelink mode is just as game-swinging as you'd think when employed with an Elemental assault or unblockable Thassa. All this, and it cantrips! The only drawback is that it does nothing vs. Stormbreath and Mistcutter-- a weakness it shares with another card in the main, Detention Sphere.
I'm still tweaking the maindeck of course-- Spear of Heliod seems like a no-brainer but it doesn't add to the devotion count and ultimately may be somewhat of a win-more. In addition the absence of derpy 1-drops to make relevant after the opening turns actually awkwardly makes it considerably less synergistic in the 75 (same goes for Bident, hence it's reduction to a 1-of). A 1/1 split of Cyclonic Rift and Disperse seems like a comfortable compromise to the debate of which is better, allowing you bounce a Master of Waves or one of your own planeswalkers to save it from certain death or a Tidebinder Mage to give them back their Elvish Mystic and neutralize their Stormbreath Dragon late game.
All of this is, of course, likely to change, as I'm trying hard not to reinvent the wheel here and I'd prefer to stick to the original build as much as possible. The W splash isn't so much for cards in the main is it for a more versatile sideboard. I don't know exactly what I want to include (yet) so I'll just provide a wishlist and hopefully some of you can provide some feedback.
SIDEBOARD OPTIONS
Detention Sphere - Without an army of flying weenies to harass planeswalkers, an additional one in the board would be helpful to bring in vs. Control match-ups and the mirror.
Jace, Architect of Thought - Wouldn't mind having one more in the board. Good in a lot of match-ups. Would likely replace the Bident vs. aggro decks.
Jace, Memory Adept - Anti-Control card. Let them sweep us-- we'll just resolve some Memory Adepts afterwards and force a tapout response.
Lavinia of the Tenth - Great vs. not only red-based decks, but a lot of midrange-y match-ups. Also happens to blow the mirror wide open. Would make a good singleton.
Mizzium Skin - Very tech way to protect MoW from spot removal and your whole board from -1/-1 effects, all for a single U.
Negate - Invaluable vs. Control and stopping powerful cards like Rakdos Return. People will be trying to disrupt us a lot and this card says "No". Not sure if I prefer this over Swan Song, however (see below).
Rapid Hybridization - Only reliable way to kill Stormbreath Dragon, Obzedat and Blood Baron. The token can block Mistcutter Hydra. Great for responding to Monstrosity triggers. Also deals with opposing MoW in the mirror.
Ratchet Bomb - Sweeps tokens in the mirror, deals with Mistcutter Hydra quickly. 1-2 of, probably.
Rootborn Defenses - Sweeper defense. This is the main reason to splash White. Embarasses cards like Supreme Verdict, Anger of the Gods, and Ratchet Bomb.
Supreme Verdict - A catch-all answer. Due to this build's smaller creature count, it's not as counter-productive to our strategy as it seems at first.
Swan Song - I actually like this card, although ironically it's drawback is worse for my build since I've lost 8 flying blockers. This is an excellent way to stop ALL sweepers and ALL spot removal for a single U. Basically forces your opponent to have two answers.
As you can see there's still a lot of redundancy in terms of card choices but I've narrowed the field of possible inclusions down to the options above, just need some help selecting the cream of the crop.
"Well, well, if it isn't the most diabolical haters this side of the Mississippi." Alters and Commissions at [URL="noodlesndoodlesalters.tumblr.com/"]Noodles & Doodles Alters[/URL]!
Have a helicopter drop you off out front. Light your cigar with a small Indonesian boy holding a black lotus. Then bust out a craw wurm deck with no sleeves. Raw dog shuffle, loose terribly, flip the table, leave in a hovercraft.
Esper is one of the harder MU's as is any deck that can pack Anger, Verdict or both.
Is it powerful? Sure, but like any new deck it will have to be seen how the format goes about combating it before jumping the gun on its 'invincability'.
Yeah, my original list wasn't great against control game 1, but was heavily favored post board. My newest one is better against control game 1 and still favored post board. Just hold your counters for their walkers, Revelation, and Aetherling. Let them deal with your cheap creatures, without being able to rev or jace, they will run out of steam. Then slam an Aetherling and beat down. Bident is especially good in this match up. Judge's Familiar is really good against Anger of the Gods. The one time I had it played against me, he had to dreadbore my 1st Familiar and then wait until 4th turn to play around the 2nd, making it less effective than it would have otherwise been. Verdict is Verdict, but as long as you don't play into it, you'll be ok. You shouldn't need more than 3 creatures out to be able to put pressure on them. Frostburn weird can put significant pressure on it's own.
On the subject of UW, this is mine right now. I have 3 sideboard slots to fill and I'm debating going up to 26 lands to get a 19th blue source because it helps a lot with mulligans and still hitting the UU 2 drops. I'm also trying to figure out what the optimal number of blue pips is for MoW and Thassa.
On the subject of UW, this is mine right now. I have 3 sideboard slots to fill and I'm debating going up to 26 lands to get a 19th blue source because it helps a lot with mulligans and still hitting the UU 2 drops. I'm also trying to figure out what the optimal number of blue pips is for MoW and Thassa.
Only 7 white sources (all shocklands) scares me, personally, although I like that it helps feed Nightveil Specter.
I am not a big fan of Daxos of Meletis in here, I think you should cut a Bident for a Jace in the main, and I'd run 4 Cloudfin Raptors or none-- since it's only really good in your opening hand, you want to run as many as possible to maximize the chances that's where you'll see it. You just have to depend on Charm/Thassa to help nullify the weaker draws.
As for how devoted to devotion we should be (lol), I think the correct way to prepare for the bulls-eye we are now wearing is to move slightly away from "try to make Master as insane as possible", to "let's build a good blue deck that makes Master of Waves anywhere from decent to amazing, depending on the draw".
All just my 2 cents
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"Well, well, if it isn't the most diabolical haters this side of the Mississippi." Alters and Commissions at [URL="noodlesndoodlesalters.tumblr.com/"]Noodles & Doodles Alters[/URL]!
Have a helicopter drop you off out front. Light your cigar with a small Indonesian boy holding a black lotus. Then bust out a craw wurm deck with no sleeves. Raw dog shuffle, loose terribly, flip the table, leave in a hovercraft.
it seems pretty tough to hate this deck out. Been jamming this deck throughout the day just to get a feel for it and I played a few games against a GB deck jamming 4 mb skylasher and 4 mb mistcutter hydra along with md black removal and sb golgari charm. Still managed to win 2-0.
I think that the toughest matchups are red decks that pack a lot of burn and black-based midrange decks. This deck's biggest weakness is the fact that it has no life gain, so decks with a lot of reach are going to be problematic.
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Yeh, one of the harder match-ups, but that doesn't make it hard! Just look to Wafo-Tapa being 3-1'ed by this deck at the Pro Tour, and he's probably one of the best control players ever.
As I said, if the meta focuses on hating it out, then it'll be hated out. No deck is immune to that. But then those decks are making themselves considerably weaker against everything else, and eventually something will prey on that and they'll shift away from hating this out to protect themselves again. This deck has an insane power-level, and only specifically targetting it in sideboard (and even mainboard) construction will stop it being the best deck in the format.
As someone said about this deck in this thread or another, it's a case of: "Do you have the specific card you need to deal with my threats right now, or can you draw it in a turn? If not, I win."
Esper is a bad matchup. Yeah, Wafo-Tapa was beaten in one match, but that means hardly anything. Google "statistics".
Only 7 white sources (all shocklands) scares me, personally, although I like that it helps feed Nightveil Specter.
I originally had 8 white sources but I cut one for a Nykthos. 7 sources is enough to get 1 in 9 draws an acceptable amount of the time, though it's not totally ideal. I may go back to 8 white because that gives me the chance I actually want. The shocklands are a necessary evil though, as long as the deck wants to hit a 1 drop (and I see no reason why it doesn't), there's just no time for lands to come in tapped. This deck has some big swings though, I think the shockland in order to pay for a lifelinked Azorius Charm is worth it.
I've really liked Daxos though, it's like more Nightveil Specters and the lifegain has again helped out quite a bit. I could see an argument for cutting one due to legendary though, this deck is already playing high numbers of a lot of legendary cards. I don't want more to sit in my hand dead.
As for how devoted to devotion we should be (lol), I think the correct way to prepare for the bulls-eye we are now wearing is to move slightly away from "try to make Master as insane as possible", to "let's build a good blue deck that makes Master of Waves anywhere from decent to amazing, depending on the draw".
That's how a lot of people do things. I'm a bit more mathematically minded though so I tend to think of decks in terms of probability than playtesting results. So when I look at devotion I look at trying to maintain 5 devotion on say turn 6 through 2 removal spells and a combat trade and figuring out what's needed from there. In this case that would be 12 cards total with 5 lands, so 7 permanents with 3 removed. So I would need 5 devotion from 4 cards, one of which being Thassa so 4 from the other 3 (2 if holding a spell).
I jammed some games vs. GW and Naya Aggro and Midrange last night (both with the original Fish list and with this color splash) and it did what it was supposed to (crush them handily). It wins a little slower but it has a better match-up against Control-style decks due to cards like Elspeth and Detention Sphere.
Face it, Cloudfin Raptor and Judge's Familiar are decent-to-good in your opening hand and just awful on pretty much any other turn of the game in most cases. Scrying obviously reduces the risk of drawing them but it doesn't eliminate it. Tossing them out entirely only slightly reduces the critical mass of devotion capable while dramatically improving your topdecks in the mid-to-late game.
I also played almost this exact same list at a Win-A-Box on Sunday. I won't bore you with the minor details but it very handily won the mirror match against a mono-colored Fish list 2-0. Having credible answers for enemy Thassa's in the main (Detention Sphere) is quite clutch, and Azorius Charm's bounce effect allows you to effectively out-tempo the opponent's own tempo strategy when properly employed, and it's lifelink mode is just as game-swinging as you'd think when employed with an Elemental assault or unblockable Thassa. All this, and it cantrips! The only drawback is that it does nothing vs. Stormbreath and Mistcutter-- a weakness it shares with another card in the main, Detention Sphere.
I'm still tweaking the maindeck of course-- Spear of Heliod seems like a no-brainer but it doesn't add to the devotion count and ultimately may be somewhat of a win-more. In addition the absence of derpy 1-drops to make relevant after the opening turns actually awkwardly makes it considerably less synergistic in the 75 (same goes for Bident, hence it's reduction to a 1-of). A 1/1 split of Cyclonic Rift and Disperse seems like a comfortable compromise to the debate of which is better, allowing you bounce a Master of Waves or one of your own planeswalkers to save it from certain death or a Tidebinder Mage to give them back their Elvish Mystic and neutralize their Stormbreath Dragon late game.
All of this is, of course, likely to change, as I'm trying hard not to reinvent the wheel here and I'd prefer to stick to the original build as much as possible. The W splash isn't so much for cards in the main is it for a more versatile sideboard. I don't know exactly what I want to include (yet) so I'll just provide a wishlist and hopefully some of you can provide some feedback.
SIDEBOARD OPTIONS
Detention Sphere - Without an army of flying weenies to harass planeswalkers, an additional one in the board would be helpful to bring in vs. Control match-ups and the mirror.
Jace, Architect of Thought - Wouldn't mind having one more in the board. Good in a lot of match-ups. Would likely replace the Bident vs. aggro decks.
Jace, Memory Adept - Anti-Control card. Let them sweep us-- we'll just resolve some Memory Adepts afterwards and force a tapout response.
Lavinia of the Tenth - Great vs. not only red-based decks, but a lot of midrange-y match-ups. Also happens to blow the mirror wide open. Would make a good singleton.
Mizzium Skin - Very tech way to protect MoW from spot removal and your whole board from -1/-1 effects, all for a single U.
Negate - Invaluable vs. Control and stopping powerful cards like Rakdos Return. People will be trying to disrupt us a lot and this card says "No". Not sure if I prefer this over Swan Song, however (see below).
Rapid Hybridization - Only reliable way to kill Stormbreath Dragon, Obzedat and Blood Baron. The token can block Mistcutter Hydra. Great for responding to Monstrosity triggers. Also deals with opposing MoW in the mirror.
Ratchet Bomb - Sweeps tokens in the mirror, deals with Mistcutter Hydra quickly. 1-2 of, probably.
Rootborn Defenses - Sweeper defense. This is the main reason to splash White. Embarasses cards like Supreme Verdict, Anger of the Gods, and Ratchet Bomb.
Supreme Verdict - A catch-all answer. Due to this build's smaller creature count, it's not as counter-productive to our strategy as it seems at first.
Swan Song - I actually like this card, although ironically it's drawback is worse for my build since I've lost 8 flying blockers. This is an excellent way to stop ALL sweepers and ALL spot removal for a single U. Basically forces your opponent to have two answers.
As you can see there's still a lot of redundancy in terms of card choices but I've narrowed the field of possible inclusions down to the options above, just need some help selecting the cream of the crop.
i really like this version. its real close to Alexey Shashovs list but your list is much better. i kinda wanna try going up to 4 jace architect of thought. i saw how important jace's role is in the mirror while watching the games from the PT. maybe -1 spear and -1 thassa. yeah i might get some flak about running only 3 thassa's but i saw several games lost when multiple thassa's where drawn. running 4 jaces should make up for not running the full set of thassas. you sb ideas also are spot on. i'm also not feeling the swan song very much.
ill give this deck a go and see how it goes. i'll be running this sb.
oh and i tried out the mono blue version vs the mono black deck of yamamoto from the PT and it seems it has good game vs mono blue. i think yamamoto didnt draw well in the quarters. i initially wrote it off but after testing i think that mono black may become a problem.
What are people's thoughts on Hands of Binding in the sideboard as tech for the mirror and other decks where we might be racing?
Hands of Binding probably wouldn't make much of a difference... Your only truly evasive card in the mirror is Thassa, since they play so many flying blockers. A card like Domestication is probably better since it actively adds to your devotion while allowing you to simultaneously neutralize and utilize their Nightveil Specters and Master of Waves.
The mirror comes down to a variant of "battlecruisers" that I like to call "aircraft carriers".
Depends on your sideboard, my plan has been working well for me.
What's your plan, if I might ask?
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Have a helicopter drop you off out front. Light your cigar with a small Indonesian boy holding a black lotus. Then bust out a craw wurm deck with no sleeves. Raw dog shuffle, loose terribly, flip the table, leave in a hovercraft.
For example a (good) start may be: turn 1 raptor turn 2 frostburn weird turn 3 specter turn 4 aetherling with 1 island untap.
Double Nykthos with revelation is just absurd: I just did revelation for x=12 on turn 5!
I can't play any mutavault but I still think it is worth it.
I don't like the Aetherling in the main and you are D.O.A. to a resolved Mistcutter Hydra, Obzedat, or Stormbreath Dragon if they manage to disrupt your game plan :\
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"Well, well, if it isn't the most diabolical haters this side of the Mississippi." Alters and Commissions at [URL="noodlesndoodlesalters.tumblr.com/"]Noodles & Doodles Alters[/URL]!
Have a helicopter drop you off out front. Light your cigar with a small Indonesian boy holding a black lotus. Then bust out a craw wurm deck with no sleeves. Raw dog shuffle, loose terribly, flip the table, leave in a hovercraft.
and what's the point of drawing 12 cards at sorcery speed(double nykthos) then discarding 5 of 'em? if you were in a situation that you'd be doing that...you'd prolly be drawing 7 or 8, and leaving mana in the pool for a MoW. otherwise, your just playing an expensive lifegain card.
I've been playing around with this deck on mtgo and have faced a large amount of Black midrange and mono red. Mono red was very easy and mono black was a grind but easy as well. It largely depends on if you can stick a bident or not. Their plan largely involves them killing you're master of waves then trying to keep you off devotion so thasa does nothing. With a bident in play they actually have to kill everything which is a feat they cannot accomplish. I have not yet lost a match to mono black playing with this strategy in mind. I've posted a 13-2 record in matches being 1 daily(a 3-1) two 8 man wins, 4 2 man wins and a loss in the first round of an 8 man. Both of my losses were to the mirror.
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Far//Away is definitely one of the better options to MB. You have to remember there's very few slots to use on spells so we're talking 2 copies of Far//Away, 3 at the most. The trade off for that is a Mutavault or Nykthos and 2 life per game. That's why I'm leaning towards white, you get a creature out of it which justifies the splash a little more and Detention Sphere if you're willing to clog the 3 slot, Azorius Charm if you aren't. Plus Rootborn Defenses out of the board to deal with Verdict. That could be wrong but it seems like a better payoff than Far // Away. I like the idea of being able to Charm and lifelink an army in a racing situation against something like mono red.
a probable UB shell would probably look like this...
i was thinking about Far/Away but somehow i think cyclonic is much more powerful especially in the mirror... which we all can expect to see a lot. gotta test that out to really figure it out.
i know we wanna draw thassa every game but i saw matches where drawing multiples of her was just BLEK. to each his own i guess. i'm comfy running 3. thinking of cutting that lone omenspeaker and upping to 25 lands or the 4th jace (in the 75) since the UB shell can run the scry land already but hey what's more permanents for devotion right?
again the ulitmate price is for mistcutters and desecation demons. it can't hit obzedat but we have 2 cyclonics and 1 rapid in the main and 1 more rapid in the sb for Big O. i think mistcutter and desecration is more dangerous for this monoblue deck in the future. somehow i was thinking of cutting the familiars as LSV said that's the card that always comes out during SB mirrors. but was thinking holding the opponent farther from an overload cyclonic is very beneficial.
4 Tidebinder Mage
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Nightveil Specter
4 Thassa, God of the Sea
4 Master of Waves
4 Claustrophobia
3 Cyclonic Rift
21 Island
4 Mutavault
3 Wall of Frost
4 Negate
4 Sensory Deprivation
4 Ratchet Bomb
25 lands is a lot, but I think of Mutavault as taking up a spell slot.
Voyage's End can't bounce planeswalkers, so I changed it to Cyclonic Rift. I also changed the sideboard Cancel to Negate, because it's a lot easier to cast a creature and hold up 1U than it is to hold up UU. Advice: against Esper Control, save the counterspells for planeswalkers and Sphinx's Revelation.
I'm not sure the Wall of Frost in the board is actually useful against much of anything. Maybe it should be Gainsay for an edge in the mirror match?
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Esper is one of the harder MU's as is any deck that can pack Anger, Verdict or both.
Is it powerful? Sure, but like any new deck it will have to be seen how the format goes about combating it before jumping the gun on its 'invincability'.
I'm more interested in a U/W version with D-spheres and I have been wanting to use Deputy of Acquittals in a deck too. I think hes a great way of protecting and getting more use out of Master of Waves.
Using both the blue and white god weapons sounds awesome too.
Living the dream....MoW and spear of heliod both out, untap, swing, end of their turn play deputy getting MoW back, recast him on your turn; have a ton of elemental tokens
this should get you started in the right direction. http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27038_Mastering-Standard-UW-Master-Of-Waves.html
Haha, yeah, that was me. I believe my exact words were:
The reason the deck is so powerful is because the questions it asks are so powerful. It's the kind of deck that basically asks "Do you have the specific card you need right now? No? Can you find it in one turn? No? Okay, you die."
Sig by ChibiSwan~!
"Well, well, if it isn't the most diabolical haters this side of the Mississippi."
Alters and Commissions at [URL="noodlesndoodlesalters.tumblr.com/"]Noodles & Doodles Alters[/URL]!
I don't think Esper is worse than 50-50 and I make us slight faves. I do think the mono black devotion deck is hard to beat though.
Swan song has helped me a little, but not as much as I first thought.
Do you ever regret giving them the 2/2 flier?
EDIT: Here's a UW version I've been working on:
4x Azorius Guildgate
4x Hallowed Fountain
13x Island
2x Mutavault
1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Plains
1x Bident of Thassa
2x Detention Sphere
1x Spear of Heliod
Planeswalker (4)
2x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
2x Jace, Architect of Thought
Creature (20)
4x Frostburn Weird
4x Master of Waves
4x Nightveil Specter
4x Thassa, God of the Sea
4x Tidebinder Mage
3x Azorius Charm
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Disperse
2x Sphinx's Revelation
I jammed some games vs. GW and Naya Aggro and Midrange last night (both with the original Fish list and with this color splash) and it did what it was supposed to (crush them handily). It wins a little slower but it has a better match-up against Control-style decks due to cards like Elspeth and Detention Sphere.
Face it, Cloudfin Raptor and Judge's Familiar are decent-to-good in your opening hand and just awful on pretty much any other turn of the game in most cases. Scrying obviously reduces the risk of drawing them but it doesn't eliminate it. Tossing them out entirely only slightly reduces the critical mass of devotion capable while dramatically improving your topdecks in the mid-to-late game.
I also played almost this exact same list at a Win-A-Box on Sunday. I won't bore you with the minor details but it very handily won the mirror match against a mono-colored Fish list 2-0. Having credible answers for enemy Thassa's in the main (Detention Sphere) is quite clutch, and Azorius Charm's bounce effect allows you to effectively out-tempo the opponent's own tempo strategy when properly employed, and it's lifelink mode is just as game-swinging as you'd think when employed with an Elemental assault or unblockable Thassa. All this, and it cantrips! The only drawback is that it does nothing vs. Stormbreath and Mistcutter-- a weakness it shares with another card in the main, Detention Sphere.
I'm still tweaking the maindeck of course-- Spear of Heliod seems like a no-brainer but it doesn't add to the devotion count and ultimately may be somewhat of a win-more. In addition the absence of derpy 1-drops to make relevant after the opening turns actually awkwardly makes it considerably less synergistic in the 75 (same goes for Bident, hence it's reduction to a 1-of). A 1/1 split of Cyclonic Rift and Disperse seems like a comfortable compromise to the debate of which is better, allowing you bounce a Master of Waves or one of your own planeswalkers to save it from certain death or a Tidebinder Mage to give them back their Elvish Mystic and neutralize their Stormbreath Dragon late game.
All of this is, of course, likely to change, as I'm trying hard not to reinvent the wheel here and I'd prefer to stick to the original build as much as possible. The W splash isn't so much for cards in the main is it for a more versatile sideboard. I don't know exactly what I want to include (yet) so I'll just provide a wishlist and hopefully some of you can provide some feedback.
SIDEBOARD OPTIONS
As you can see there's still a lot of redundancy in terms of card choices but I've narrowed the field of possible inclusions down to the options above, just need some help selecting the cream of the crop.
Sig by ChibiSwan~!
"Well, well, if it isn't the most diabolical haters this side of the Mississippi."
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Yeah, my original list wasn't great against control game 1, but was heavily favored post board. My newest one is better against control game 1 and still favored post board. Just hold your counters for their walkers, Revelation, and Aetherling. Let them deal with your cheap creatures, without being able to rev or jace, they will run out of steam. Then slam an Aetherling and beat down. Bident is especially good in this match up. Judge's Familiar is really good against Anger of the Gods. The one time I had it played against me, he had to dreadbore my 1st Familiar and then wait until 4th turn to play around the 2nd, making it less effective than it would have otherwise been. Verdict is Verdict, but as long as you don't play into it, you'll be ok. You shouldn't need more than 3 creatures out to be able to put pressure on them. Frostburn weird can put significant pressure on it's own.
Modern: UW Spirits
3 Godless Shrine
4 Hallowed Fountain
14 Island
3 Mutavault
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Creatures 29
3 Cloudfin Raptor
3 Judge's Familiar
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Tidebinder Mage
4 Nightveil Specter
3 Daxos of Meletis
4 Thassa, God of the Sea
4 Master of Waves
3 Bident of Thassa
Spells 3
3 Azorius Charm
3 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Swan Song
2 Glare of Heresy
3 Rootborn Defenses
2 Mizzium Skin
Only 7 white sources (all shocklands) scares me, personally, although I like that it helps feed Nightveil Specter.
I am not a big fan of Daxos of Meletis in here, I think you should cut a Bident for a Jace in the main, and I'd run 4 Cloudfin Raptors or none-- since it's only really good in your opening hand, you want to run as many as possible to maximize the chances that's where you'll see it. You just have to depend on Charm/Thassa to help nullify the weaker draws.
As for how devoted to devotion we should be (lol), I think the correct way to prepare for the bulls-eye we are now wearing is to move slightly away from "try to make Master as insane as possible", to "let's build a good blue deck that makes Master of Waves anywhere from decent to amazing, depending on the draw".
All just my 2 cents
Sig by ChibiSwan~!
"Well, well, if it isn't the most diabolical haters this side of the Mississippi."
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Ashiok is terrible in this deck, it's far too aggressive for that plan. Your FNM is not a high level event.
Draft it on Cubetutor!
I think that the toughest matchups are red decks that pack a lot of burn and black-based midrange decks. This deck's biggest weakness is the fact that it has no life gain, so decks with a lot of reach are going to be problematic.
Modern:
Twinning End
Commander:
Mayael the Anema
Esper is a bad matchup. Yeah, Wafo-Tapa was beaten in one match, but that means hardly anything. Google "statistics".
Draft it on Cubetutor!
I originally had 8 white sources but I cut one for a Nykthos. 7 sources is enough to get 1 in 9 draws an acceptable amount of the time, though it's not totally ideal. I may go back to 8 white because that gives me the chance I actually want. The shocklands are a necessary evil though, as long as the deck wants to hit a 1 drop (and I see no reason why it doesn't), there's just no time for lands to come in tapped. This deck has some big swings though, I think the shockland in order to pay for a lifelinked Azorius Charm is worth it.
I've really liked Daxos though, it's like more Nightveil Specters and the lifegain has again helped out quite a bit. I could see an argument for cutting one due to legendary though, this deck is already playing high numbers of a lot of legendary cards. I don't want more to sit in my hand dead.
That's how a lot of people do things. I'm a bit more mathematically minded though so I tend to think of decks in terms of probability than playtesting results. So when I look at devotion I look at trying to maintain 5 devotion on say turn 6 through 2 removal spells and a combat trade and figuring out what's needed from there. In this case that would be 12 cards total with 5 lands, so 7 permanents with 3 removed. So I would need 5 devotion from 4 cards, one of which being Thassa so 4 from the other 3 (2 if holding a spell).
i really like this version. its real close to Alexey Shashovs list but your list is much better. i kinda wanna try going up to 4 jace architect of thought. i saw how important jace's role is in the mirror while watching the games from the PT. maybe -1 spear and -1 thassa. yeah i might get some flak about running only 3 thassa's but i saw several games lost when multiple thassa's where drawn. running 4 jaces should make up for not running the full set of thassas. you sb ideas also are spot on. i'm also not feeling the swan song very much.
ill give this deck a go and see how it goes. i'll be running this sb.
Sideboard
oh and i tried out the mono blue version vs the mono black deck of yamamoto from the PT and it seems it has good game vs mono blue. i think yamamoto didnt draw well in the quarters. i initially wrote it off but after testing i think that mono black may become a problem.
Depends on your sideboard, my plan has been working well for me.
Modern: UW Spirits
Hands of Binding probably wouldn't make much of a difference... Your only truly evasive card in the mirror is Thassa, since they play so many flying blockers. A card like Domestication is probably better since it actively adds to your devotion while allowing you to simultaneously neutralize and utilize their Nightveil Specters and Master of Waves.
The mirror comes down to a variant of "battlecruisers" that I like to call "aircraft carriers".
What's your plan, if I might ask?
Sig by ChibiSwan~!
"Well, well, if it isn't the most diabolical haters this side of the Mississippi."
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I don't like the Aetherling in the main and you are D.O.A. to a resolved Mistcutter Hydra, Obzedat, or Stormbreath Dragon if they manage to disrupt your game plan :\
Sig by ChibiSwan~!
"Well, well, if it isn't the most diabolical haters this side of the Mississippi."
Alters and Commissions at [URL="noodlesndoodlesalters.tumblr.com/"]Noodles & Doodles Alters[/URL]!